Food: Energy or Enemy?

Spoiler alert:  Food is not the enemy.

But do you feel like it is?

Does it feel like food is holding you hostage, forcing you to do things you didn’t want to do, teasing you, and making you into a liar.

Then I’ve got news for you.

You’re giving food WAY too much power.

You are the user of food, not the other way around.

You’re the one with the hunger signals, the working muscles, the pumping heart, the circulating blood, the powerful body, and the thinking brain.

You are a warrior and food is just your power source.

Food is like electricity for your lamps,  or gas for your car.

Once you fill up, you go.

You don’t then hang around continuously filling up because you had a bad day, or because someone said something you didn’t like, or because you had an argument with your husband.

Doing this gives you the illusion that food is your best friend, your therapist, your lover, and your motivator, all rolled into one.

That’s too much power for anyone, let alone food!

Food was never meant to play this kind of starring role in your life.

YOU need to be on center stage, not what you’re having for dinner.

Eating is not what life is all about.

Life is what eating is about.

This is where the signals get crossed.

We make jokes about it, but food is consuming us.  Just look at all the food channels on tv and all the food sites on the web!

Food is consuming us.

I just read a book called “Women, Food, and God,” by Geneen Roth.

It brings food and eating into perspective for those of us who have lost perspective.

A central part of this book, and others that she’s written, are her Eating Guidelines.

She’s assembled seven guidelines for eating that we should all have posted in a central location in our kitchens.

These are Geneen Roth’s Eating Guidelines:

1. Eat when you are hungry
2. Eat sitting down in a calm environment. This does not include the car.
3. Eat without distractions. Distractions include radio, television, newspapers, books, intense or anxiety-producing conversations or music [and electronic devices].
4. Eat what your body wants.
5. Eat until you are satisfied.
6. Eat (with the intention of being) in full view of others.
7. Eat with enjoyment, gusto, and pleasure.

They actually sound too simple, don’t you think?

Well, let’s find out.

Let’s try practicing just the first one for a full day.

Go ahead, try it.

Try “Eat when you are hungry” for one day… I dare you.

If you do, you’ll find out that the very first thing you should know…

Most of us do not eat only when we’re hungry.

So why do we eat (or restrict our eating)?

Boredom, sadness, happiness, habit, avoidance, control…

Now, the second thing you should find out when practicing just this first guideline is what hunger feels like in your body.

Does hunger feel like hollowness, nausea, dizziness, or discomfort?

To know what hunger feels like, you need to get there first.

You need to sit with the feeling of being hungry to really know it.

Because if you’re telling me that you’re not sure what it feels like, then you’ve never really allowed yourself to be hungry.

So try it out, and let me know.

It’s a little self experiment that can go a long way into figuring out what makes you tick.

Now, we’ve just covered the first guideline.  Only one of seven.

Imagine the experience and self-insight you could gain by practicing them one by one, and then all together.

You’d probably never overeat again.

You’d probably appreciate and savour every bite of food that you have the good fortune of putting in  your mouth.

You’d probably see food for what it is.

Energy.

And when you get there, the enemy that was food will be gone for good.

---

I love self experiments.

They help you find out what makes you YOU.

And because of my live for them, I’ve put together 30 such simple experiments that I’ll be sharing with you over 30 days starting this Monday, September 18th.

I call it the 30-Day “I DO!” Health and Fitness Challenge and it’s designed to get you to get to know yourself a whole lot better.

And from this blog, I hope you can see that just a little self discovery can go a very long way.

So join me by signing up for challenge – it’s free – and you’ll get 30 days of opportunities to find YOU.

Have a fantastic weekend and keep moving forward,

Debbie