Listening to people talk about food can easily be misunderstood as listening to someone talk about a relationship with a significant other.
People use many of the same words when they describe how they deal with food and with people.
We talk about struggling with ‘balance’ and indulgence, and becoming anti social and letting other people influence us too much.
We talk about the emotional attachment becoming too much and dependency building to the point where we depend on the food (or the other person) for our source of happiness and fulfillment.
We expect food and a special diet or way of eating to do too much and are constantly let down when it doesn’t produce. This is no different than placing too much expectation on a relationship or another person close to you who simply cannot be your sole source of support and happiness.
I think part of the problem we have with food is a lack of self reliance and other forms of support.
If you listen to someone who is struggling with weight they will talk about food as if they are in an abusive relationship.
They’ll talk about struggling on a daily basis to do ‘what is right’ and feel guilty and terrible about themselves for each time they ‘cheat’ or make the ‘wrong choice’.
This is simply way to much pressure to put yourself under, and this is partly the fault of clever diet/nutrition/food/fitness marketers using scaremongering and marketing speak to create a culture of fear and ‘risk’ associated with the ‘wrong’ foods and the ‘wrong way to eat’
In short, you might be caught in an abusive relationship with food. Where it’s almost impossible for you to do anything right.
Are carbs good or bad? Is fat good or bad? What kind of fat? How much protein do you really need? What about Glycemic Index? Meal timing? Is breakfast really that important? Are you a terrible person for talking someone else into eating a few french fries with you on a night out? Are they a terrible person for getting you to eat some ice cream when you were trying to be ‘good’?
Can you imagine if this were the pressures that a relationship placed on you? It would be miserable and impossible.
To be faced with dozens of rules on a daily basis that defined if you were a ‘good person’ or not.
I think we all need to step back from food and see it for what it is. FOOD. Let’s stop giving food power over us that it doesn’t deserve.
Eat what you like, and try to eat a bit less of it if you want to lose weight.
Describe your relationship with food in the comment section (if you like)
I’ll start:
I freakin’ love food. All kinds of food. I haven’t yet met a food that I don’t get along with famously. I would be totally upset if I couldn’t appreciate and eat all the foods I love. Every now and then we party really hard while watching the game (chicken wings, pizza, beer, burgers and such on the weekends at the pub), but we get back to normal the next day and I never regret the parties. I also super appreciate it during holiday and family dinners (we party pretty hard at these events too)
I don’t miss it when it’s gone for a short while (fasting), and I appreciate it when its around in all of it’s tasty forms.
John
