Steps on the journey to falling in love with the food you eat...
Here are some of the steps I have taken in my journey from absolute fear of food to the transformation into where I stand today... loving it all!!! I'd suggest, pick the step which feels the lightest to you first, the one which appeals to you the most, perhaps you feel a little spring of excitement inside at the thought... then after the raging success of applying that one... pick the one which is least appealing, try that... make a game of it... have fun... explore.
Don't put your happiness in your plate - food doesn't make you happy, no matter how much some part of you is telling you that you will 'feel better' if you just eat that massive bar of chocolate... you probably know that, but you'll do it anyway... Next time you hear yourself saying 'I need this because I feel bad, I need this to feel better', Write down 3 pages of how you are feeling... write free hand, don't think about what you write... whatever sense or nonsense resides in your head... write it down... keep writing until you fill the 3 pages. Then see how you feel after. This is magical.
Be kind to yourself - Life is precious, the most important thing is to be happy. Being kind to yourself really helps everything. Just because you ate 20 chocolate bars today doesn't make you a failure or a bad person. Drink more water, eat more greens, squeeze lemon juice on everything for the rest of that day... your wonderful body knows how to take care of the rest. Notice when you go into negative self talk, giving yourself a hard time for the choices you made... when you notice that thinking, replace the thought with something more positive. For example - 'You are so weak... you ate half a packet of digestive biscuits, you were supposed to start your diet again today, you are always going to be fat', can easily be changed to; 'Wow, how strong I am for not eating that whole packet, even though I was hoping to eat more healthily today, all is not lost, I really enjoyed what I just ate, I am going to drink more water and carry on' or even something funnier, something that feels nice to you and your body... feeling good is a really important step.
Stop I'll be happy when-ing - If you hear yourself saying, 'I'll be happy when I have lost 2 stone', STOP! Trust me, if you are not happy now, you wont be happy when you have lost weight. And even if you do get a temporary boost... it won't last. Happiness is not an event or a result of arriving at a certain destination. Happiness is a result of the habits you apply everyday of you life. Write down at least 10 things you love to do and do at least one of them everyday. keep adding to the list, keep doing this one forever! Trust me on this!
Experimentation - Try something new each week. We don't change until our habits change. Try at least one new ingredient or recipe every week. Even if it's something you have always disliked! Surprise yourself. Our palates change so much. This one step can create big shifts. Have fun with experimentation.
Stress less - Stress will kill you/ make you fat/ give you a disease way faster than eating any particular food will. Eat it and work on being less stressed in general. Try some meditation, get more fresh air, find a form of exercise you LOVE to do, there will be one I guarantee and exercise REALLY helps on the stress levels, natures anti-depressant... chill out!
Research - Do your own research. Stop reading or learn to be skeptical of the things you read in the media. There is no one absolute food truth, everybody is different. Take the information you receive with a pinch of salt. Only believe and use what is useful and empowering to you. There are plenty of movies about food to watch. take a look, become informed about the food you are eating, this led me towards WANTING to make changes rather than forcing change upon myself, a powerful position to be in.
Aim for 10 - this 5 a' day is a bit of a joke. Every other country in the world has completely different advice on what you should aim to eat per day in terms of fruit and vegetables. Some places in the world the figure is 10 portions per day. Aim for 10 without changing anything else. Burger and chips for lunch? fine... make sure you eat a huge salad with many different colours in there too. Full english breakfast? Eat spinach, mushrooms, avocado, grilled tomato, fresh herbs on the side. It's easy once you start... after a while doing this, the vegetables became my main ally. Easy! This is great ESPECIALLY if the first voice in your head says 'thats impossible'. Show yourself what you can do!
Give them a go and please let me know your experience! I will continue to add to this list myself as things come to me, it has and continues to be a many layered process. Following these steps you can begin to transform your relationship with food, drastically increasing your confidence and happiness levels... Watch out world!
No comments:
Post a Comment