Day 7. Me + Food. A marriage of inconvenience.

Food.

Food is life and we might say that our life is a result of what we eat.

If we consider that food is fuel for the body, and that this fuel is turned into energy for movement, energy for healing, energy for growing, then to some extent what we eat creates how well we live. So we need to be on good terms with food.

Convenient and guilt-free.

I don’t have a very good relationship with food. We’re not really friends. For me, food is a source of stress, and guilt. Meals are a constant compromise between what I enjoy eating and what has the least calories. So I tend to avoid thinking about food until I’m super hungry and then I look for a quick satiation. It might stop the hunger but the act of eating is not enjoyable. Usually it’s a salad from a chiller cabinet in a coffee shop. I hate chilled food, the coldness seems to freeze the flavour out of it. It’s tasteless, dry, and lacking in any kind of comfort. I warm myself with the idea that I have eaten empty calories, but I also feel empty emotionally, so about an hour later I reach for the chocolate!

Sometimes I wish food came as a simple pill I could swallow. Hunger pains gone, energy levels back up, carry on with what I’m doing. Yes, I know that’s a sorry way to think, so I’m here to change that!

For the past 7 days I have been tracking what I eat, when I eat, how I eat, and how I feel before / after, plus my thoughts and my energy levels. I have only loosely started to ‘diet’, in so much as I have resisted making major wrong food choices, and I have resisted buying chocolate. The food and eating plan will come after a full investigation into what I’m currently doing and why I’m doing it – emotionally & mentally – so I can affectively choose to do something different in future.

The new food plan must be a sustainable life choice. It must contain foods that my body likes (so not wheat), that my mind likes (so not meat), that suit my body’s metabolic rate (I believe mine to be slow), all tossed into recipes and a meal plan that my taste buds will delight in and my mindbody will utilize well and not store in my middle or my thighs, or my arms come to that. In fact I think my ankles are fatter, so no storing food there either!! :D

In observing my personal relationship with food I have thus far noticed the following things:

1.        My current common daily calorie intake is 1600 – 2000kcals. My target calorie for losing weight is 1000, and I can immediately see that my daily mocha coffee is about 400 calories, so that needs to turn into an Americano, or a tea. I could get into teas, so perhaps I’ll explore that choice for a while.  😊 I can also see that a packet of crisps is 500 cal… so no picnic lunches. I will swap cheddar cheese for feta, and remove chickpeas for the time being (370kcal per 100g) Desserts are also an obvious no for the losing weight plan, but a large strawberry is only 8kcal and I love strawberries. I can choose to turn my attention towards individual flavours and eat mindfully, rather than pushing food into my mouth and swallowing without any appreciation for taste or the beauty of fresh produce.

2.        When I’m feeling weak I crave chocolate – my mind whispers that this is the best quick source of strength and energy. Yes, but it’s not the only choice, and it’s certainly not the best choice for me! The fact that I’m feeling weak, without energy, and probably hungry, means that my defences are also weak towards this persuasive voice. However, I see it now, I recognise its short-sighted logic and it’s not getting away with it in future!!

3.        When I think I’m hungry, I am often thirsty.  A large glass of water will give my belly time to physically absorb the energy from the water, and that gives me mentally time to make healthier meal choices. Let’s remember that the human body can live, even as much as a couple of months, without food, but without water we die in a few days, so water is our best source of energy and our primary source of ‘food’ for nourishing the body.

4.        Elevenses. I need a snack at 11am. So this means carrying an apple, banana (although bananas are twice the cals of apples) or carrots, or baby tomatoes in my bag. I have done this before, so I need to reactivate this habit.

5.        I love fruit in salads!  I had a feta cheese and watermelon salad the other day, and it was just so delicious and nutritious that my mind and my body rejoiced. So this excites me. I am starting to believe that I can devise a meal plan that will work for both happy weight and happy eating.