Supportive Beliefs Around Food

No newsletters for the last two weeks as I went all in on writing my next book. In 10 action packed days I managed to get the first draft done, so it is on course to be out for Christmas. Add it to your santa wish list!  A few weeks back I wrote about different ways to view exercise. I follow that up with some supportive beliefs around food:

Every Food Is OK – We love to make food out as being bad, something to fear, something to feel guilty about eating. It is much more helpful to just be truthful, and know, every food is ok. You will not die from having a pizza tonight, chocolate is not poison and your gut can come back from a bagel. The same applies to good foods, there is no one food that will magically give you everything you need. Everything is about the threshold of consumption. You should be ok with eating your “bad” foods, ironically it means you will usually eat less too*. 

Hunger Is a Wave – It is very beneficial to see the true nature of hunger. It comes and goes in waves, this means you will feel slightly hungry, but if you wait a few minutes, it will pass and often does not come back for quite a while. As a society, we are petrified of hunger. We grab for something the moment it arrives. This means we never give it a chance to leave of its own accord. If you know hunger is a wave, then you can wait to see if is a genuine request to eat, or it is totally made up for non-nutritional reasons. 

Cravings Are Just Suggestions – There is this feeling that a craving, hunger or desire for food is a demand you have to act upon. An order from the boss with urgent written all over it. This is not true. It is helpful to realise a craving is simply a suggestion from the body. It is a signal from inside saying it wants something. You do not have to act on this. Your child may ask for ice cream for breakfast, you do not have to give them it. These signals are often sent to you from your emotions. You do not have to act upon a mere suggestion. This concept is covered in books such as Brain Over Binge and Never Binge Again.

Emotions Aren’t Orders – It is also empowering to realise that emotions are not orders to eat food. Feelings do not force you to respond with eating or drinking. You can decide what to do. You can learn to just sit with an emotion. You can teach yourself to do something different from normal. 

Feeling stressed does not mean you have to eat chocolate. Wanting something comforting does not mean you need to use comfort food. When boredom strikes, it is not inevitable you must grab food. Being in a good mood can be magnified with music instead of food. There is nothing wrong with doing any of these things, but your emotions do not have to dictate what you eat. 

I Can Always Have It Later – The opposite of scarcity is abundance. Knowing you can have a food later is a plentiful way of thinking. Every bad food you will no doubt eat at some point in the future, if not, it will be because you genuinely don’t want it. You won’t resist it with willpower for the next few decades. So, if you will be having it later at some point, you don’t need to panic and rush to eat it now. Just knowing it is in your future is often enough to say no to it today.

I Don’t Have to Finish It – Linked to having it later is knowing you can leave food now in this moment. Food does not have control over you, it is important to know this. You can stop eating at any time. You can leave food, save it to have later, or throw the rest away knowing you will have it again in your future. There is no prize for forcing yourself to finish a plate, you are not taking food away from children in other countries if you leave some and you do not get more value for your money. The best thing for food waste, is stopping when you are content, then saving the rest for later. 

*Obviously if you have severe allergies to certain foods then not all foods are ok for your body.

What Does This Mean For You?

A lot of our problems with food are not actually about the food itself, but the meaning, emotions and rules we have attached to it. We label foods as bad, panic when we feel hungry, treat cravings as commands and believe we have to finish whatever is in front of us. 

Just finding one belief above that changes how you think about food could completely change how you respond the next time you want to eat something you probably don’t need.

Photo – After getting the book done I spent Monday at the Notting Hill Carnival helping out the London School of Samba – 

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