Stop attaching morals to your eating habits!
You need to stop attaching morals to your eating habits, if you want to feel happy & in control of your eating. Let’s talk about why it’s time to take the morality out of eating.
You can watch the video I made about this below or keep scrolling if you prefer to read.
It’s time to stop attaching morals to food and the way you eat. This is the most unhelpful attitude you can have about food and eating, if you want to eat well and feel happy about your eating habits.
I hear you say things like “I’ve been so bad, I ate too much cake” or “I’ve been really good, because I followed my diet plan”. The reality is, it’s just food! I know we see it all the time in marketing; food is referred to as ‘sinful’, ‘wicked’ or ‘naughty’. Or on the other side you have the diet products, low fat or sugar-free food sold as ‘virtuous’ or ‘good for you’. Then some foods are called ‘superfoods’, which is simply a marketing term and nothing else. Of course they’re all more expensive as well!
Food is just food!
None of this is helpful and it’s all just food. Nutrition isn’t as simple as ‘some foods are good and some foods are bad’. A healthy diet is about the overall balance of everything that you eat and drink. It’s about what you do most of the time, it’s not about that one day where you spent all day eating doughnuts – that one day won’t make a big difference in the bigger picture.
Also it depends on what your current needs are. Back when I worked as a hospital Dietitian, I worked with a lot of patients who were malnourished, losing weight and struggling to eat. They were really poorly, which meant they needed more energy, but as they had poor appetites, they struggled to eat enough to meet their requirements. In that situation a salad isn’t going to help – you’d need to eat loads of salad or fruit & veg to get enough Calories. Likewise a big bowl of pasta would be no good either, if you don’t have the appetite to eat that much food. What they needed was the fat and protein-rich foods. Foods with a lot of energy in small amounts – like extra puddings, milky drinks between meals. That’s what would give them the energy and protein to help them recover from their illness.
How are you looking at food?
Do you label food as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and is that really helping you? This way of labelling food is more likely to lead to overeating from what I see with clients over and over again. When you see some food as ‘good’ you start to think of it as ‘unlimited’ – you can eat as much as you like. The problem here is you’re not learning to listen to your body to see whether or not you actually need to eat. You’re not learning to follow your hunger cues or your appetite, which will go up and down depending on what you’re doing.
Are you actually hungry?
You’re not exploring the reasons behind why you eat. You might want to eat because you’re actually thirsty. Or it might be because you want comfort or you’re not dealing with some kind of problem. You might be turning to food as a crutch, a way of distracting yourself. Instead what would be better would be learning to deal with your problems and manage comfort eating.
When you label food as ‘bad’, you think it’s banned – you’re not allowed, it’s naughty! Then you want it more! I know I’d definitely want something more if I told myself I wasn’t allowed to eat it! Coz it’s always the fun stuff like cake, chocolate, crisps or sweets that get banned isn’t it. Then you crave it more, which can lead to binges, because when you have the food you feel guilty about eating it. You think you’ve failed, may as well just give up trying to eat better and just carry on eating. Then you have way more than if you’d let yourself have a little of what you fancy. So forget dividing food into ‘good’ or ‘bad’ – nutrition isn’t that simple and this doesn’t help you.
What you eat doesn’t make you a good or bad person.
When you attach morals to food, you see yourself as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ depending on how you’ve eaten. Or whether you’ve exercised enough. This makes no sense! You’re a good or bad person depending on how you treat people and what you do and say. It’s nothing to do with your eating habits – remember food is just food; it’s fuel and nutrients.
This perspective about your eating habits leads to an unhealthy relationship with food. When you think your eating habits determine your worth, you’re more likely to punish yourself for not eating the way you think you should. You’re more likely to end up overeating to try and feel better about yourself or a situation. You’re more likely to turn to food for comfort. Food becomes a crutch, because you forget that food is just food. Instead it becomes a reward to make yourself feel better. Then it can take over your life in a negative way, because you’re always thinking about food – what you’re allowed to eat or not allowed to eat.
It’s time to stop letting food take up so much of your mental energy.
This erodes your self-esteem and your relationship with your body. You’re always thinking about whether you’ve been good or bad depending on a thing we just need to do, which is eat. It shouldn’t be taking up so much of your mental energy. It’s simply something we need to do everyday. Even if you’re eating a doughnut, it’s still just food. That doughnut would still give you some nutrients. Okay maybe just fat, sugar and a little bit of protein, but that’s still something. That would still stop you dying if there was a famine!
You’re not a bad person, because of the way you’ve been eating. If you want to move away from this way of thinking, start to notice where you attach morality to food. Then start to question your attitudes, ask yourself:
- How does it make me feel when I label food in that way?
- How does it make me feel when I label myself in that way?
- Does this help me with my goals & making the changes to reach those goals?
The first place to start is to notice what’s going on. Then start questioning those beliefs and thoughts.
As ever, if you need help I’m here – get in touch for more support to ditch all of this dieting nonsense. Let’s face it these attitudes are all part of the bullshit mentality you’ve learned from the dieting industry.
It’s time to ditch dieting forever, because you deserve better.
Need help to ditch dieting forever?
Want to eat normally again AND lose weight healthily? While still enjoying the cake & chocolate? Hell yes!
I will help you ditch dieting forever, either with my 1-2-1 support. Or if you prefer to work independently, you will learn all the skills I teach my 1-2-1 clients, on my ‘No More Diets’ online course.
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My Weekly Round-up! AKA; what I’ve been up to recently…
- Tea of the week has been the old faithful Earl Grey.
- This week has been half term for us, so we’ve had a few fun family days. On one of the days we checked out the crafts for kids at the Flaxmill which has recently opened up after extensive renovations. The building was technically the world’s first skyscraper. It doesn’t look like it as it’s not very tall, but the way it was built paved the way for the development of skyscrapers as we know them today.
- We also went bowling on Monday with a few of Genevieve’s friends. Before that we had some friends round at the weekend for food. It’s been quite a lot of socialising for me!
- We’ve ticked off another hill walk for our family challenge ’22 Hills In 2022′. Halford Hill in Craven Arms was hill number 20 – yay just 2 to go now! It was a lovely walk through a forest and the slope wasn’t too steep. Although that didn’t stop Genevieve having a good old whinge about being tired! She made it all the way without being carried though.
- I’ve also finished book number 19 for my reading challenge ’22 New Books In 2022′. It was a book I’ve had on the shelf for years, ‘Bluestockings. The Remarkable Story of the First Women to Fight for an Education’ by Jane Robinson. I started reading it years, but then got distracted and never finished for some reason.
- Bird Nerd Report: I’ve not been out for many walks along the brook this week, so not seen many interesting birds. Although there were loads of pheasants on our walk back to the car from Halford Hill and I also saw a bunch of chaffinches – haven’t seen any of them in ages.
