“If you eat fat, you’ll get fat”.
“You can never be too thin or too rich”.
“If you don’t eat, you won’t gain weight”.
These are some of the messages that I heard growing up. My mother taught me the importance of eating well from a young age, and a strong positive message I received from her was “you are what you eat”, but over the years, she has also struggled with her weight, and I believe it has a lot to do with her food philosophy.
It’s not her fault.
As I have shared many times, the food industry keeps us confused by spending enormous amounts of money on creating highly addictive food-like products that make great claims on their boxes about being low in fat, high in fibre, and only containing a certain number of calories.
My mother was (and still is) highly focused on calories. She can’t help it! Years of brainwashing and marketing have led her to believe that low calorie=low weight. I am sure many of you reading this can relate.
The trouble is, on the surface at least, that is the truth!
The body doesn’t want to consume more calories than it can burn because when it does, it gains weight.
But when we are restricting calories, we are forgetting that our bodies need a certain amount of protein, fat and carbohydrates to function well. When we limit our calories, we end up hungry and so we find ourselves eating more later; and when we do, we often aren’t reaching for a healthy food choice…we binge on a junk food that we wouldn’t have craved had we nourished our bodies properly in the first place and offered them enough calories earlier in the day.
When we restrict calories, eventually, we give in to our cravings.
This is no way to live! This is no way to treat our amazing bodies.
Oftentimes, when we are trying to restrict calories, we will buy into the lie of “low-calorie” foods. These are nothing more than food-like products in packages and boxes that are most often a chemical nightmare.
Our bodies don’t want to be fed these products; they don’t recognize them as food, and they don’t want to be be treated this way.
THEY Work For US
Let’s separate ourselves from our bodies, which, by the way, is a step towards understanding the difference between self-image and body-image, but I digress.
Let’s look at our bodies like WE are the bosses, and THEY are our employees.
What do bosses do? They make decisions and send out directives. They inspire and they lead.
What do employees do? They carry out tasks based on the information they receive.
We tell them what to do by the decisions that we make.
So, as bosses, WE make decisions to eat healthy meals, stay hydrated, get 8 hours of sleep per night, enjoy daily exercise and we limit our stress.
Now, it’s their turn: We’ve given them this information and now it’s their turn to do the work.
THEY have energy, they remain alert, their system functions well, they eliminate properly, they feel good, they appear healthy (clear skin, muscular tone, very little fat stored around organs, bright eyes, strong hair and nails) and they remain free from pain and disease.
They are very good employees because we are very good bosses. We treat them with the dignity and respect they deserve, and in turn, they do a great job for us. They THRIVE in our company.
Our bodies work for US.
How They Look
Our bodies LOVE us. They want NOTHING more than to keep us alive! They WORK SO HARD for us every single moment of every single day for one purpose and one purpose only…SURVIVAL.
Most often, all we think about when we think about our bodies is what they LOOK like.
We don’t think about the millions (billions?…trillions?) of tiny functions going on under the surface of our skin. We ONLY care about the superficial layer that we can see in the mirror.
WE are being superficial when all we care about when we think about our body is its appearance.
How can we develop a deeper love for this being that houses our spirit and allows us to move through the world sharing ourselves with others, learning, loving, seeing, feeling, touching, smelling and tasting the world around us?
What can we do to understand how precious a gift this body is?
Mothers carry us in their wombs for 9 months. They absolutely love every single inch of our precious little bodies. They would be heartbroken if they heard us tell them how much we hated our bodies. But in fact, through the food philosophies our parents pass on to us, they write on the slate of who we are. So much of what they believe is passed down to us, and until we are able to make our own choices, we adopt these philosophies and live with the choices our parents make.
As parents, there is so much responsibility, and I personally believe (without being a parent myself, mind you), that these choices are among the most important.
It is what I am most passionate about in my life. Because, while I love helping people individually, I know that when a parent improves the way they live, the whole family gets healthier. I have seen it countless times in my work.
I KNOW it’s hard to separate how our bodies LOOK from the way we FEEL about them, but our survival and our happiness depends on it! We CAN NOT live fully while we continue to BLAME our bodies for not looking the way we want them to look when at the same time, we won’t nourish them with what they need to thrive.
Our body is simply doing what we tell it to do. Remember, WE are the BOSS.
The Right Fuel
When we treat our bodies poorly for an extended period of time, it finally gives up on us. It can’t keep going.
WE cause disease in our body.
WE cause pain and discomfort.
WE hurt our precious bodies and require them to take medication to feel better.
THAT’S US doing this.
WE ARE SLOWLY KILLING OURSELVES when we refuse to nourish our precious bodies.
Let’s look at it this way.
A car runs on gasoline, diesel, or electricity. Period. If you accidentally put diesel in a car that runs on gasoline, what happens? It doesn’t start. Trying to pump gasoline into an electric car won’t get you anywhere, either.
Until we can think of our bodies this way, we will continue to starve them or fill them with food-like substances that do nothing more than tax our systems…and then wonder why they aren’t performing the way we want them to.
Although our bodies will continue to run (because again, they are AWESOME and will do WHATEVER IT TAKES TO KEEP US ALIVE), they aren’t functioning at peak performance on restricted calories, junk food, no exercise, lack of sleep and high amounts of stress…but they will stay alive for as long as they possibly can and they will try their hardest to adapt to whatever situations we throw at them.
Because they love us. And they want nothing more than to stay alive. For US.
Survival is ALL THEY KNOW, so unlike an electric car that says “Uh, no. I need electricity, not gasoline thank you very much”, our bodies soldier on; adapting to whatever decisions we make for them.
But they can only take so much.
When things go wrong, all we want to do is blame them!
It’s CRAZY!!
Remember, we are NOT talking about loving or hating the way we look based on the size of our thighs, we are talking about the kind of love and respect for these precious bodies that allows us to continue to take breaths and live our lives here on earth.
Unless and until we can appreciate our incredible bodies for what they are, we will continue to mistreat them and blame them and wish they were different.
Unless and until we stop believing the messages that food marketers want us to believe, we will continue to be brainwashed and we will pass these messages onto our children.
It starts with love.
I want to help you get there.
If you are struggling with body issues or food issues or trying to figure out this crazy world of food, I want to help. I have helped many people already and I am on a mission to help many more to re-frame their relationship with food, their bodies and themselves.
If my message speaks to you, then I invite you to sign up for the next 28-Day Kick The Sugar Challenge by clicking here.
It doesn’t happen overnight, but it does happen. I have seen it countless times and I want you to experience it, too. It takes getting real. It helps you get happy. And it allows you to be free.
Because I want you to love your life one bite at a time.
P.S. Remember, if you’d like to sign up for the next round of the Kick The Sugar Challenge, click here and join the Wait List! The next round starts as soon as the book is finished and I am almost there!
P.P.S. Let’s be friends! Connect with me on Facebook , Twitter and Instagram. Plus, if you haven’t already subscribed to my blog, you should! That way, you won’t miss anything. For joining, you get my personal meal plan, shopping list, and a week’s worth of easy, tasty recipes! https://sarahtalksfood.com/
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