WHAT WE PUT IN, WE GET OUT – NOURISHMENT
Food and our diets are one of life’s biggest challenges, monopolized through diet programs which form a hugely lucrative industry. Everyone has a diet program that claims to be ‘the one’. If you talk to a vegan they’d tell you that the vegan diet is the healthiest, they’ll even back it up with science. However, if you speak to someone else about an alkaline diet, or another about a keto diet, they will all back up their programs with some kind of evidence.
But where does that evidence come from? Who were the scientists? From what corporation? What was the purpose of the study? How long was the study, and what were the varying factors?
Like many things in life, we are very quick to jump onboard the minute we hear that an authority of sorts endorsed something, whether we have actual proof that it works or not. This doesn’t just apply to food and our diets, but also applies to our mental health and personal choices as well.
The bottom line is there is no fix-all, heal-all program. And there is no fix-all diet. Food and diets are individual, as is everything else in our life. We are born into a collective, but most arguably are individuals within that collective. Our individuality is noted from the moment we are born. Our parents begin to see the differences in our appearances and as we grow the differences in our character.
I was too lazy so didn’t walk until after 12 months old, and my brother began to walk at nine months. I had blue eyes, he had brown. I was left-handed, he was right. I loved the arts and he loved sports. And so from inception we are aware that yes, we are part of the human family, but that we are individuals within it. And so we should know there is no ‘one-size fits all’.
It seems the more we know about food, or at least the more food-related research that we have access to, the more suffering we have around food. And the more food becomes a psychological circus versus a physical need. And that psychological circus becomes the distraction which creates the resistance to pay attention to our own authentic needs.
How can we possibly hear our own voices when in the age of information we are so overwhelmed? It’s kind of like a double-edged sword, because in many cases knowledge becomes power. However, when is the point when over-knowledge becomes our nemesis?
I love to read. Every morning when I get up I pick up my phone and click on an app where you put in your preferences and it feeds you articles according to those preferences. Obviously mine is stacked with personal development articles, travel and, until most recently, a lot about food and nutrition. So much so that I would have a headache after reading them all and come out completely confused. One article would state that fruit is good for you and the other would argue it’s full of sugar, and that sugar is the enemy.
Do you remember in the 80s and 90s, and even into the millennium, that fat was a bad word, and all the programs that were designed around eliminating fat from our diets? Everything was fat-free, and what was mostly used to compensate for the lack of fat was sugar. And now, a few decades later, sugar is the bad word. And researchers have come to the conclusion that eliminating the fat and increasing the sugar amongst other substitutes actually led to more problems. But we were told that fat was bad for us. The authorities had all the research to back it up. And now, that’s changed. But then what about the research that states that vegetarians live longer, healthier lives?
I’m confused, are you?
But what I’m not confused about – and I have learned from my own experience from being the worst eater that I knew, from being vegetarian to vegan, to eating a low-carb, high-fat diet – is that diets create rigidity, conformity and resistance to ourselves. We adopt the belief that if we choose the path that’s seemed to work for someone else, maybe a large group of people, that it will work for us. That we’ll have the happy, healthy life we see on the cover of the program: the white teeth, the six-pack, the perfect figure, and that we will live far beyond what’s expected of those that don’t adhere to the latest research or trends.
Is it all being sold to us by corporations? Conspiracy or truth? Who knows? But what I do know is that it’s time to step back from all the hype and check in with ourselves, and to ask ourselves what it is that we like. What is it that makes us feel most alive?
What we put in our bodies affects what we get out of our bodies, and it all relates to our resistance and to the amount of physical and emotional energy we have to give to our radically authentic paths. After all, if we’re on someone else’s diet, just like emulating someone else’s life, we’re not in alignment with our own.
Part of breaking through the resistance to being our radical selves is to eat what we love, and love what we eat. To break free from the collective conditioned food trap and start out on our own path. Whatever that looks like. But what’s most important is how you feel – because when we feel good we look good, and when we look good we feel better.
Grocery shopping used to be one of my favourite things to do. I loved to peruse the aisles picking things up that felt good to me, and then unpacking them and neatly putting them away in the fridge or the cupboard. I just loved holding fresh produce in my hand, or putting all the eggs away in my fancy container, pouring the milk into the glass pitcher while planning what I was going to make with it all.
However, grocery shopping has turned into a nightmare. I’ve somehow become a sort of militant food sergeant, and the grocery store, especially when I’m with my husband, is my war zone. What used to be a celebratory event has now turned into what feels more like an analytical science project.
Every item I or my husband go to pick up ends up with some deep discussion, and sometimes an argument, about how good or bad it is for us, whether it might lead to diabetes, heart disease or cancer. We can’t even pick up a vegetable without wondering where it came from, how it was processed and where it was grown. The list of questions that pop into my head over picking out a carrot is enough to give you an anxiety attack! And it all stems from reading and listening to everyone else’s perspective but our own.
Food has been a challenge for me, and many others, our entire lives. From my first memories of having to eat something or be sent to my room, or getting it shoved down my throat, to ‘that’s too expensive’ and ‘you can’t eat that right now because it’s for tomorrow night’s dinner’. As a child this all felt very restricting, later developing into what would be a life-long struggle with food, not as nourishment but as the psychological battle that would see me vary from 90 pounds to 250 pounds as a grown adult.
Food, and our relationship to it, can make or break us when it comes to living our authentic lives. It can become the resistance that holds us hostage, or the catalyst to our freedom. We choose.
My Story: ‘Two Cookies a Day’
From the time I can remember, food has been a challenge for me. As a child of a single mother it was an issue of lack, and as I matured and went out on my own I went overboard. When I entered college it was mostly fast food, and as I grew up it became somewhat of a health regime, especially as I spent a lot of my young adult years working in the health food industry.
But none the less, food usually took centre stage as it does in most of our lives. Food controlled me, and the effects of my diet on my health limited me; both with my self-image as I yo-yo’d in weight, and eventually developing acid reflux and irritable bowel syndrome.
Food can be so good, yet so bad. And it’s ended up being one of my biggest challenges in the resistance to being who I truly am. I wasn’t really the 90-pound almost-anorexic that ended up in the hospital, and I wasn’t the portly executive that couldn’t button up his jacket. I was somewhere in between. And until I learned to look at my relationship to food, I remained a hostage to chips, dips, doughnuts and my favourite: chocolate-chip and ginger cookies. I could eat an entire packet in one sitting, and they tasted good going in, but going out – well, I’ve got IBS so we’ll leave it there.
One of my first memories of food is, I believe, from just after my parents separated. I was about seven years old and my dad was taking care of me at my home. He had made my brother Chris and I dinner and had put something on my plate I didn’t remember ever eating before – beets. I remember eating all of my dinner but I left my beets as they were foreign to me, and then began to get up from the table. My father shouted, ‘Where do you think you’re going, you’ve not finished your dinner.’ I looked over at my brother and sat down. ‘You need to eat your beets,’ said my father firmly. And obviously it wasn’t something I had planned on doing. To cut a long story short, an argument broke out between my father and me, and if you had known my father then that was a recipe for destruction. I ended up, as many of us with baby boomer parents have, having to eat it whether I liked it or not.
Eat all your dinner or else – do you remember this?
I think it’s some sort of passed-down discipline left over from after the war when there wasn’t much to be had. But it seems to serve no purpose in a time when food is in abundance, or did it even then? But whatever the reason, that interaction with my father would shape my future relationship with food. From then on, unless I wanted it shoved down my throat, I would eat my beets and whatever else I was told to, beginning a life-long toxic relationship with food, and with anyone in authority.
I did what I was told. I surrendered to others dictating what was right for me versus listening to my own voice (taste and body). I feel that this day, amongst others, was the beginning of the challenge to have my own voice.
And not only was I to eat what I was told, but I was not allowed to eat what I wanted, both for reasons of discipline and finance. I remember going grocery shopping with my mother who would always do her best to buy us whatever kids’ cereal she could. My favourites were called Count Chocula and Captain Crunch (which left the top of your mouth rough). I liked treats for our lunch like Wagon Wheels, or my absolute favourite, Ah Caramel.
But since my mom was on a very small budget, they were strictly for our lunches and would be put away or eventually hidden from us. But from time to time I would find them and end up eating the entire pack in one go. I would also drink all the milk and eat all the cheese slices – partly through the desire to have what I was ‘forbidden’ and to ease my emotional distress. I was a growing boy and, as you can see, my relationship with food was becoming very toxic. To a young boy and even a teenager this was very confusing, especially when I would venture over to my much wealthier friends’ homes for dinner where everything seemed to be in abundance and they could have whatever they wanted.
And they had so many different kinds of cheese! Cheese would later – well, in all honesty, always – be my favourite thing. Just as I got older, the cheese got more diverse, as did my relationship to food. And I was always curious about other people’s food as well. I grew up in a predominantly white neighbourhood and when someone of a different culture moved in, the first thing I would do is ask them if I could come to dinner.
I’m surprised I didn’t become a chef (my brother did), as I would have had access to all the food I wanted, and probably have ended up over 200 pounds again. I remember the journey to me gaining the weight started when I got my first apartment. I went grocery shopping with my roommates, and I was like a kid in a candy store, and my cart looked like it too.
I was free. I was finally free to buy and eat what I wanted and there was no one to give me trouble. And so I ended up with a cart full of chips, dip, doughnuts, chocolate-chip cookies and meat. I seriously don’t think there was one vegetable in that cart – well, maybe a potato, but definitely not a beet. Week after week I got bigger and bigger, until the point when I began to be uncomfortable in my body.
But what I found was that the more toxic my relationship was with food, the more toxic was the relationship I had with myself – my self-esteem was low and I began to feel a resistance to everything. I didn’t even like shopping for clothes so I continued to wear the same thing over and over again. And the more I allowed food to control me, the further away I came from who I really was inside. Everything about me was covered in layers and layers of food that was stored as fat.
I felt ashamed of myself, and lacked the energy, motivation and drive that I once had. Food became the source of my resistance. Like a toxic relationship, it controlled every aspect of my being and kept me hostage to a life that wasn’t mine.
Until that one day my roommate came home and told me that a new health food store was opening up in the area. At the time, I didn’t have much education as to what that was, besides my grandmother taking me to the Christian health food store when I was a kid, and all I remember is that it smelled funny. But I knew it was healthy and I knew I wanted a drastic change.
Both she and I went and applied for jobs at the store, and I thought that because I was rather portly, they wouldn’t hire me. But they did, and that began another story in my relationship with food. It became extreme actually. I went from filling my body with the most toxic food you could imagine to the sergeant-at-arms of what was good for me, and oh, I let everyone else know as well. A full swing in the pendulum which I believed would be the key to my freedom from food, but ended up being yet another distraction from the awareness of the deeper challenge I must face.
I ended up so over-educated about food that everything about making a decision to buy groceries or eat became a major point of stress for me and I ended up so skinny I looked ill. As I sat and ate my small, almost tasteless dinner, containing mostly vitamins and supplements, I felt yet another shift and I would continue to swing back and forth from extreme to extreme until I met my husband.
My husband had also struggled with food his entire life, just in different ways. It also became a resistance for him and distracted him from who he really was. When your entire life is controlled by your diet it’s pretty hard to feel the truth of who you are. All of that is covered or smothered by food.
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But at the time I met my husband he had found a healthier relationship with food: that I refer to this day as ‘just a little bit’ or, as my doctor most recently said, ‘two cookies a day’. The philosophy is basically that you can have whatever you want, just in moderation. That you control the food instead of allowing it to control you. And that you give yourself the space, before you binge, to ask yourself what you’re really eating for.
In my case it was for control. From a small child that control had been taken away from me and when I was old enough I took that control back, but in a toxic way. I was so focused on the fact that no one ever told me what to eat, that I lost focus on myself, and my health.
And the key to the shift in our relationship to food, to each other, or to our environment, is our awareness. Once we become aware of the root of our challenge or suffering, we have the opportunity to shift our behaviour to release us as its hostage, and allow us to walk towards the path of freedom.
And no path, even the path to freedom, is without its obstacles and setbacks. Sometimes the resistance shows up like a thief in the night, temporarily steals our awareness and has us right back where we began. But what’s most important is that we get up in the morning and keep trying.
The Practice of Nourishment
Food Diary
Taking note of why, how, when and what we eat is so important when it comes to healing our relationship with food, and choosing what’s authentically best for our physical and mental health.
Something I remember quite vividly growing up as a kid, and now as an adult, is visiting my doctor when I had allergy or digestive concerns and my doctor would always ask me to take note of what I was eating and what my reaction to it was. And so I am mindful of that and practice it even today.
Of course there are setbacks, when I eat the food (chips and dip and cookies) that immediately cause an uncomfortable reaction and then steer me off course. But ‘fall down seven times, get up eight’, right? And this is something that I practice in my life, not just with food, but with everything. Tomorrow’s a new day and so I get back up and try it again. Mostly I do it mentally, but when our lives seem to be so full of mental chatter it’s best to write these things down.
So perhaps you can begin with a food journal. Picking out journals is a favourite thing of mine, and though journaling hasn’t been something I’ve done often, when I do it, especially with food, it’s been hugely beneficial. It gives me insightful feedback on what I’m feeling, why I’m feeling it and how that affects the choices I’m making, and essentially how I feel in my body and mind in reaction to those choices.
I would start with a 21-day journal. This seems to be a good length of time to gauge our patterns, not just around food but around many things that affect our physical and mental wellbeing. But, like anything, don’t get wrapped up in the length of time but focus on today – baby steps – and one day at a time.
Here is a good example of what you could include in a daily food journal:
What did you eat?
What time of day?
Why did you eat?
Where did it come from?
What were you feeling before eating?
Did you eat alone?
Did you enjoy it?
Were you hungry?
What were you feeling while eating?
Did you eat until you were full?
Were you satisfied?
Did you eat slowly, moderately or fast?
What did you feel after you ate?
Record your results in as much detail as you possibly can, and make sure you are consistent but most importantly radically authentic in your answers. Once you have 21 days filled out, give yourself the time and space to review and possibly, if you’re comfortable, give it to your most brutally honest friend to review as well. Those are my favourite people, the ones that tell you what you need to hear versus what you want to hear. They really have your back.
While you (and possibly your friend) are reviewing your journal, look out for habits that have either a negative or positive impact on your wellbeing; for the negative habits take some time to look at them deeper, ultimately doing your best to uncover their roots, and then reflecting on what you’ve learned, and what your actions to correct the behaviour could be. For the habits that have a positive effect on your wellbeing, find a way to emulate those experiences and incorporate more into your life.
Ultimately you will be able to write your own food story – what you’ve learned through your 21-day journal, which habits you want to change, which habits you wish to expand on, and then create an action plan going forward to focus on creating your most authentic food story.
Listen to Your Body
Listening, as has been repeated over and over again, both by myself and numerous experts from areas of popular science, psychology and personal development, is key to success in all areas of our lives. It is no different when it comes to our food, why we’re eating it, how we feel before, and how we feel after.
Paying attention to every nuance and heed their call. Is your stomach grumbling, are you low energy, or feeling light-headed? It’s probably time to eat, and you probably shouldn’t have let your body go that far before nourishing it. This is when we tend to make decisions we pay for later – kind of like pent-up emotions only becoming a challenge later, causing further suffering both physically and mentally.
Also pay attention to how you’re feeling emotionally. Are you upset, angry, bored? Probably it’s not the best time to eat then, as I know when I eat in this state I usually go for the carbs like chips, cookies, candy. These provide a temporary high and then a crash that lasts much longer and ends up training our bodies to crave, and create, addictions around food. The more we have the more we want.
So pay attention and bring your awareness to your body both before and after you eat. Our bodies are constantly communicating, giving us the cues we need in order to make the right decisions for our physical and mental wellbeing, long before they become chronic and life-threatening ailments. If your body and mind feel lethargic after eating you should probably eliminate whatever it was that caused that from your diet. If your body feels vibrant and alive you should probably add more.
But what’s most important is that we pay attention. That we listen to our body and do our best to nourish it. And as we change, grow and age so does our body and what it needs. What once gave us fuel can drain us, and vice versa. I remember my grandmother always saying to me that when I’m older my diet will completely change, and I used to laugh at her, saying, ‘I’ll never eat vegetables.’ And well, she was right. As we age, our bodies lose their ability to be able to process carbs in the same way and so they tend to slow us down rather than give us the energy we need to thrive. So listen to your grandmother and, most importantly, listen to your body.
Food as Self-Care
Eating begins with shopping. I suggest you don’t go hungry to the grocery store, because you’ll end up throwing the idea of food as self-care right out of the window. All you’ll be thinking of (well, not really thinking at all) is carbs, carbs, carbs. Your grocery cart will look more like a teenager grocery shopping for the first time rather than an action plan for your healthiest and most authentic self.
Eating with intention is the key to food as self-care. What’s your intention? How do you want to look and feel? That’s your first priority when it comes to pre-planning your grocery store visit for self-care. Think of it as visiting a spa for your body. You wouldn’t buy a skin cream that dried out your face, or a shampoo that knotted your hair. So take the same care when planning what you’ll put in your grocery cart. Make sure it is full with goodness that makes your body and mind feel ‘high vibe’. The higher vibe we’re feeling, the more in alignment with ourself we are.
One of the best and simplest of tips I’ve ever received when it comes to grocery shopping is to shop around the outside aisles and areas of the store – that’s usually where the goodness seems to live: fresh, local organic vegetables, fruit and other unprocessed nourishing foods. Once we wander into the middle of the store we run into soda, chips and processed foods that wear us down. So, as tempting as it might be, do your best to stay away from the middle of the store. Or if you live in a warmer climate you could eliminate grocery stores altogether by visiting local markets. In a colder climate, try shopping at your local whole foods or health shop, both tend to carry the foods your body loves. But remember, just because it’s trending, and just because it’s at the health food store, doesn’t mean it’s always good for your body. We’re individuals and so it’s our responsibility to check in with our bodies to make sure it’s right for us.
And remember once you get home from the store that the relationship between food and self-care doesn’t end there, it continues in the way we prepare our food, and how we spend our time eating. One of the most important factors in the process is our energy when we are consuming. And far too often we’re not in a good space. We’re distracted by working lunches, reading, watching YouTube, talking on the phone, standing up or driving. All things that contribute to mindless eating and affect our minds and bodies in a myriad of negative ways. Eating each meal at a scheduled time, with intention, without distractions, and chewing our food slowly and mindfully is the best thing we can do for our wellbeing. And the more optimal our bodies, the more optimal our mind, and the sharper we are at identifying when things are out of alignment.
Healthy Eating Environment
There is so much research that backs the fact that ‘the family (or friends) that eat together, stay together’. And even more research that suggests that eating together is not only good for our relationships, but our health and happiness as well.
We have a lot to learn from the Italians and Indians, who for centuries have made food the focus of connection and home. Cooking together and eating together provides an opportunity to deepen our relationships, increase our sense of belonging, bring about laughter (the best medicine) and pass down cultural traditions. It also lessens our chance of eating too much of the wrong things. Research shows that if we eat things that aren’t the best for us, it’s usually when we’re alone. And that when we eat together we most often have a sense of gratitude, as we know who’s prepared our meal and can directly show our appreciation. During family or group meals we are most often likely to cook local, healthier homemade food, and broaden our horizons by trying new things (with food as personal growth).
It’s much easier for our mind to find the point of gratitude if the meat came from the local butcher, the bread from a bakery, the vegetables from our garden and when the meal is prepared by someone we know. And gratitude is a pillar not only to our relationship with food, but our relationship with the entire universe.
Take a look around. Scan your food diary. Where are you when you eat? Who are you with? And perhaps, now that you know how important our environment is to nourishing our bodies, make more of an effort to get together with family and friends to make your meal an opportunity to create a deeper connection to your food, others and yourself.
Reflection: What’s Your Food Story?
Food takes centre stage in our lives. It’s what’s required to keep us alive. And how alive we feel is directly related to what we put in our bodies. High-quality, local organic food prepared at home with our family or friends is the optimal food story, but it’s not done frequently enough for most of us, who in the pursuit of a modern life of more have disconnected from the very practices that fill our cup. And without a full cup we really don’t have much to give.
Besides the fact that we seem to have less and less time for presence when it comes to food, perhaps we’ve also adopted negative patterns around it. Maybe we didn’t come from a family where we ate together at a dinner table, but all took our food and ate it in front of the TV. Or maybe we grew up poor and food was always a trigger. Or we learned that food was a quick fix for suppressing our emotions.
Whatever the case, food has an enormous impact on our lives and is absolutely related to our wellbeing. And our wellbeing directly relates to our level of motivation, inspiration and finding the courage to be ourselves.
As that portly executive who used food to suppress emotions, it limited my positive sense of self and held me back from going after what I wanted. And the healthier my relationship with food, the healthier became my relationship with myself and others. My energy levels, self-esteem, motivation and inspiration increased as I began to uncover the roots of my relationship with food, mindfully address them with conscious action and take control over writing my best food story. Bringing awareness to my patterns, listening to my body, utilizing it as a source of self-care, and making a conscious effort to eat with others more often are where I aim now. There have been setbacks, many really, but what’s been most helpful is being kind to myself, mindful of my triggers, and then taking positive action in creating the food story that works for me.