Sweat & Smiles: Why It's Time for You to "Undiet"
By Melissa Romano on December 26, 2020 from Sweat & Smiles
The fact that the two largest diet trends right now are Keto and Plant-Based is very telling about our culture and the damage being done to our psyche and relationship with food. Both diets stand in complete and utter contradiction to the other.
Even when we aren't actively dieting, we have disordered eating based off of well.... all the diets. It's time to UNDIET. Deeply ingrained beliefs cannot be dislodged simply by introducing an opposing idea. Being able to distinguish between beliefs and facts is an essential step in learning to change our beliefs and, therefore, our experience. Insert the journey to mindful eating.
“Combine the utter inefficiency of dieting with the lack of spiritual awareness and we have generations of mad, ravenous, self-loathing women.” - Women Food and God, Geneen Roth
The diet industry is a 70+ billion dollar PER YEAR industry. This system is designed to 1) not be sustainable long-term and 2) convince you that you failed because you did not try hard enough, follow all the rules, or have enough willpower.
It's okay to get mad at this system - in fact, I hope you are mad at this system. That may be the only way to cut it off!
The recurring problem that we will see over and over again is that we make decisions and judgements in black or white when in reality we exist in all the colors - all that beautiful space in between. Mindful Eating is the journey to discovering all of that beautiful space.
Brad Turnwald, PhD, a fellow in the department of psychology at Stanford University points this out in his research. “I think it’s really important to promote a greater sense of enjoying food in American culture, in other cultures that also have a lot less chronic disease than we do—France is kind of the canonical example—they eat for pleasure there, and they [generally] don’t have this labeling of certain foods as ‘good’ and certain ones as ‘bad.’ Food is meant to be enjoyed.”
That idea—of eating for enjoyment—is “a critical piece that health professionals [have unintentionally] screwed up on for the last couple decades,” says Christopher D. Gardner, PhD, director of nutrition studies at the Stanford Prevention Research Center and a professor of medicine at Stanford University. The healthcare system is focused on diabetes, cancer, and heart disease, he says. Because those illnesses are impacted by food and nutrition, society has come to think that “we’re enjoying ourselves way too much with sugary, fat, salty things. We should eat healthier things that have less of this and less of that, and deprivation, and don’t do that. Pretty negative, right?”
However, consider this mind-blowing idea: You can eat for pleasure and eat healthfully at the same time. The two concepts are not mutually exclusive. In fact, you’ll probably end up maintaining a healthier diet in the long run when you eat foods that make you happy.
The exact same way that eating for pleasure will vary from person to person so will eating healthfully. Every body has different needs and responds to food in different ways.
In 1965, Roger Williams, a famous biochemist, published Biochemical Individuality and revealed that there are variances in the size, shape, location and capacity of virtually all of our internal organs. He showed that there is a tremendous difference in metabolic rate from one person to the next. He found wide variations in water content and in oxygen carrying capacity of the blood from one person to the next. In short, just as we all look different on the outside, we also function differently on the inside and have different nutritional needs.
What accounts for these variations in how we absorb or use energy?
Here are a FEW:
- HUNDREDS of genes play a role. Nutrients from the foods you eat can turn genes on and off, and change the speed at which they work. Activity, stress, and other lifestyle factors can also stimulate the production of hormones and neurotransmitters that regulate how your genes are expressed.
- Certain medications.
- Disease processes: type 2 diabetes, autoimmune disorders, etc
- The bacterial makeup of your intestines.
- Environmental toxins like plastics disrupt your endocrine system
- How you feel about the food you’re about to eat, and stress-related gut troubles, can indirectly impact metabolism through altering absorption.
Considering the facts that every body is different, that thousands of factors play a role, and that personal preference/enjoyment is part of the process it would make sense that no one person/diet can tell you the “right way” for you to eat.
What you can do is this:
- Honor the food/meal with some sort of contemplation whether it’s a prayer, gratitude, or intention.
- Create a calm environment with little to no distractions while you’re eating.
- Engage all of your senses.
- Start with modest portions (and fill up as many times as you want, this is not about eating less).
- Savor and chew thoroughly.
- Do your best not to skip meals.
- Be patient and curious with yourself.
- ENJOY yourself, your food, and your life.
With love,
Melissa
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