Food of Love

I recently visited Food Matters Live, a huge conference / exhibition bringing together people and organisations with an interest in building a sustainably healthy food landscape across the world. Hundreds of businesses showcased innovative food products and services, whilst the conferences and seminars offered copious food for thought on topics like the obesity management, clean label food, sports nutrition and sustainability. Given my interest in healthy lifestyles and keenness to discover new ways to bring good nutrition to my life, it was a no-brainer that this might be an enjoyable event for me, and I wasn’t disappointed.

Aside from being introduced to loads of amazing new nutrition products (and a few free samples!), I left the event feeling my appetite for deep thinking had been whet as well. Working as a health coach, I spend a fair bit of my time thinking about what makes people tick when it comes to achieving / maintaining a healthy weight, and, more importantly, how the heck we might go about getting people living well on a population-level scale. This was the focus of many of the discussions at Food Matters Live, with one panel session in particular getting the cogs whirring for me: a forum on the psychology of food choice.

Yes, somewhat counter-intuitively, the answers to these big questions about population-level change start with the individual, with the internal factors that influence what and how we choose to eat. Eloquently stated by Bee Wilson at this event, we humans have an ‘invariably complex relationship with food’ and are ‘prisoners of’ this when we make food choices. In other words, our choices are deeply intertwined with our emotions, memories and experiences, such that it’s often impossible to separate these. However, as Pierre Chardon notes, we often forget that our food choices are tied up with our emotions, instead rationalising that we ‘were hungry’ or ‘liked’ the food we chose.

In reality, the complex underlying processes that influence our food choices include our upbringing (with messages such as ‘you should always clear you plate’ being particularly problematic), the variety of foods we have been exposed to across the life-course, the effects of traumatic events, and our emotional states at any given time. Many of these things we have no control over, yet some of us are more health-conscious and seemingly in control of our diets than others. Bee Wilson commented on this, noting that she used to fall into the latter camp and now considers herself fortunate to be in the former. Why is this? What makes some of us more aware and able to control what we eat than others, and what gives us the ability (or not) to change this?

As one of those people who has made this transition, this got me thinking about my own passage to conscious living and healthy eating. How did this process begin? What triggered it? Which of my personal qualities and past experiences were instrumental in making this happen, and how? In what ways do all of these factors interact with each other? I certainly don’t purport to know all the answers to these questions, at least not fully, but I have some thoughts that I feel ultimately shed light not just on my own experience but on one of the keys to a widespread shift towards healthier living on a global scale.

My own quest to live more healthily began 5 or 6 years ago with a desperate attempt to feel better after a relationship breakup. I did some reading online about ways to boost my mood, and quickly started to learn of the impact nutrition has on our mental state. I began eating

Eating more raw vegan food is one of the steps I've taken to a healthier me

more of the foods that were said to improve mood, and this proved to be the start of an ongoing and unending search for the healthiest possible version of myself. I became interested more widely in the functions that different foods fulfil, and in the other ways in which my lifestyle would impact my mind and body. Bit by bit I built (what Derren Brown would describe in his fantastic book Happy as) a ‘considered life’ filled with meaningful pursuits and healthy choices.

This rings true of the experience of Bee Wilson who I mentioned earlier. She described her own transition from health unconscious to healthy eater as being a ‘meal by meal’ process - an incremental lifestyle change – ‘not just going on a diet’. This, I think, is the crux. On top of our individual psychology often being stacked against us, and an obesogenic environment tending to steer us towards less healthy choices, we are bombarded with messages that ‘dieting’ is the road to health. Cut out this food group; take that supplement; buy those meal replacement shakes. The result? Aside from those of us who have made a concerted effort or simply been lucky enough to enter the world of healthy lifestyle enlightenment, we are left with unrealistic expectations, unsustainable diet plans and no solid knowledge of what our bodies actually need.

Being plastered with unrealistic and inaccurate messages only serves to further embed the often unhealthy relationship with and thoughts/feelings about food. The losing battle we’re already fighting becomes tougher and tougher, and we fall deeper and deeper into habitually poor lifestyle choices. That is, until something clicks, snaps us out of it, puts us on the road to control over our own lives and health. That thing will be different for all of us; for me it was improving my mood, for other it’ll be looking better, some people will look to be alive for longer to see their kids grow up. The common denominator is that we will only ever change if something is intrinsically valuable to us.

Healthy choices come from within

So what’s the answer? It’ll be invariably complex; in fact there are likely to be infinite combinations of solutions to suit each individual. Each of us needs to find our own ways of connecting to what’s important to us, engaging with healthy lifestyles and doing what we can to work with our inner psychology and the outer environment. Culturally, unfortunately the odds will continue to be stacked against us if something doesn’t change. Instead of being told what plan we should be following, which foods we should be cutting out, how many meals we should be replacing with shakes, we needs to find these individual paths. As a health coach I love that I get the opportunity to work with people to help them to understand the healthy eating guidelines and work out individual action plans that work for them. To start bringing this holistic, person-centred approach to the masses is the challenge, and I’m not quite sure where we start with that in a world where capitalism and commercialism rules the roost. If you have any thoughts as to how we move forward with this, I’d love to hear from you.

Looking Back On Today

Hello readers and welcome to 2015!  I hope it’s going to be a happy and successful year, not just for me but for everyone else too.  2014 saw my blog readership grow a lot, and I’m hoping for even more this year, so please help by sharing if you like what you read!

So, it’s around now that everyone’s thinking about New Year’s Resolutions and the ‘New Year, New Me’ cliché.   Resolutions are great if they’re realistic and you can stick to them, especially if they’re going to enhance your health or enjoyment of life (with this in mind, I’ll be posting some tips on trying something new shortly!).  At the same time, a new year shouldn’t only be about making promises about what you’ll do better in the coming months, but also about taking stock of your achievements and what you’ve done well in the year gone by.

Some positive words to get you motivated!

I think it’s in human nature to be quite harsh on ourselves, pick fault and always notice the things we did badly or aren’t so good at, rather than the other way around.  And think about it, if you’re setting out on a new year full of thoughts of what you need to improve about yourself, you’re not likely to be filling yourself with confidence or motivation to make those changes!  So give yourself a positive start to the year by looking back on 2014 and thinking about what went well.  How can you ensure you continue to be successful with those things and build on them?  Once you’ve taken stock and given yourself the credit you deserve, you’ll be in a better position to start making the changes needed to make things even better!

With this in mind, how about a New Year’s Resolution to be kinder to yourself?  To regularly

take stock of your achievements?  To write a gratitude list on the odd occasion?  How about regularly listing all the things you’ve got done at the end of a busy day or week? (this is like the opposite of a To Do List and MUCH more rewarding and mood-boosting!). 

Also, if you have made or are going to make a New Year’s Resolution, make sure it’s achievable.  There’s no point in setting yourself up for failure!  And if you have a little wobble or blip, don’t put it down to being an utter failure; it’s human nature to make mistakes!  Plus being too strict is unsustainable anyway.  As an example, if you’ve resolved to eat more healthily, there are various reasons you should cut yourself some slack: Firstly, you’d be silly to think that eating one chocolate or slice or cake means you’ve completely failed in your endeavour; the odd treat here and there won’t do any harm.  Secondly, it’s actually healthy to have a ‘cheat day’ once a week; this is rewarding and motivating and can help boost metabolism.  Thirdly, becoming overly concerned about what you’re eating can actually lead to really unhealthy thought processes, like an absolute obsession with what and how much you eat (a condition called orthorexia).

So, ‘New Year, New You’ is all well and good, but it’s important to pick the right resolutions, balance this with reminding yourself what’s good about the old you, and generally be kind to yourself.  Put all this together and you’ve got a recipe for a happier, healthier version of yourself in 2015! 

Links:

Orthorexia information:

https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/orthorexia-nervosa