Food can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Some eat only wholesome, organic products, while others indulge themselves with fast food on a regular basis. Some are always dieting, trying to reach that ephemeral ideal of beauty, while others eat whatever they want without any visible consequences.
Everything is individual, but there are still sensible rules you can follow to build a healthy relationship with food. Everybody is aware of them, but not everyone actually follows them. Most people are too busy with jobs, college, family. So they end up compromising certain aspects of their lives, including health.
Even if your medical records are admirable despite being a McDonald’s connoisseur, do not ignore decades of research on healthy eating. Everything may be okay now, but your body remembers. As you get older, you may start getting health problems which could have been avoided if only you cared.
Choosing the right food every day for the rest of your life does sound like a burdensome task. However, you should remember that making the right food choices does not always involve dieting. It actually has nothing to do with losing calories, although being fit is definitely a nice side effect.
Having a healthy relationship with food is much more than that. It is about improving your daily well-being as well as the overall quality of life. It is about not wasting your time on the Earth, as this time is already so limited. It’s about living long after retirement and being there for your loved ones.
More Reasons to Care
I just want to shout out one more time: food is not just about weight. Most people associate food with certain beauty standards (see stereotypes). So, those who eat fruit and vegetables are all slim models, while those who reach out for an extra bagel are not. If only everything was that simple.
I know many people who eat far beyond their norm, don’t do any sports and have a perfect body shape. I also know many people who are dieting all the time to no avail. If everything is so random and unfair, why should anyone still care about the type of food they consume?
The thing is that the wrong food can trigger many diseases, ranging from simple inflammations all the way to diabetes, asthma, and heart issues. Even if your body does not mirror your lifestyle now, just give it a couple decades. Sooner or later you will have to face the consequences.
In addition, junk food prevents you from becoming the best version of yourself. It makes one feel fatigued, slow and apathetic. Some types of food are even linked to lesser cognitive ability. So, why experiment with yourself when there are solutions available?
Steps to Take
First of all, it is important to peer into the root of the problem. Very often the reason for overconsumption is not physiological but rather psychological. Perhaps, you eat much to drown pain, stress, and anxiety. Perhaps, you need to change not just this aspect of your life.
Second of all, you need to find a place where you can buy healthy food. Sometimes finding healthy food is almost as hard as finding a good essay writer cheap. However, you should not give up. Even if you don’t have a supermarket with healthy choices nearby, there might be other options for you.
The easiest one is, of course, to order food on the Internet. This is a perfect solution for those career-oriented individuals who can never find time to go to the store. You can also check if any locals in your area sell their produce, or you may even try your own hand at gardening.
Third of all, you should not cut down junk food completely. It will only make you feel miserable and your craving for it stronger. It’s just like with cigarettes: the process has got to be gradual, otherwise, you risk constant relapsing.
Finally, be careful even with healthy food. When you’ve got some unresolved psychological issues or more serious health problems, such as bulimia, you need to contact the doctor. In such cases it is possible to overeat even on healthy options.
Today’s Food
In order to stay healthy, you should consume the needed amount of micro- and macronutrients. They are used to repair your DNA, structure your body, protect your immune system, transport nutrients through blood vessels, and just keep you alive.
As you can see, food is the quintessential element of life. Therefore, it is simply a crime to take it lightly. Unfortunately, because food nowadays is so easy to procure, many people have lost the understanding of its importance. They have barely noticed how much it has changed – and not for the better.
Many still associate food with calories. However, calories are no big deal when you manage to consume all the right nutrients. Unfortunately, many today’s processed foods have no nutritional value, which leads to no satiety and compromising your health.
It Is Not Your Fault
Please do not blame yourself if you did not persevere with your plan once again and fell back on old habits. It is not your fault as there are much stronger evolutionary, psychological, and societal forces involved.
Let’s start with evolution. You’ve probably heard of Paleo diet. It’s a concept popularized by Robb Wolf in his bestselling book “The Paleo Solution”. The author argues that people need to go back to their Paleolithic food habits in order to be healthy.
Wolf explains that people simply did not have enough time to develop evolutionary adaptations to relatively new processed foods. Their bodies suffer having to deal with alien elements. So, as you see, part of the problem is that evolution takes forever to catch up.
In terms of psychology, overeating or eating junk food have long been linked to various disorders such as anxiety, depression, etc. In this case, you simply cannot put all blame on yourself as your bad habit is just the effect of your mental state. So it makes sense to tackle the mental state first before you can work on the problem of overeating.
And if you just take a quick glimpse at society, you will see how ingrained bad eating habits are. Junk food restaurants are everywhere, and they never seem to lose popularity. Companies have long figured out that by intensifying salty and sweet taste and adding fat, they can make their products more appealing to potential customers. Too bad, those products lack crucial nutrients, though they are extremely tasty.
So yes, even though you still should take responsibility for your decisions, your mistakes are not entirely your fault. You should not reprimand yourself for not knowing better when the whole world is there to trap you.
Hopefully, you will not let it happen. You will be strong enough to fight for your health. You are your future, so start caring for it now. Building a healthy relationship with your food is just one step, but it will make everything else fly better.