Practicing the art of Eating well
I was so afraid to gain weight and also so afraid to be skinny;
it was a constant battle with food and my body; I was ok with starving myself in other to avoid eating.
I would look in the mirror every time I had something to eat to know if I had gained any extra fat;
my story of how I started to unpack what nutrition meant to me
People would compliment me and talk about how great my body looked;
I struggled for a long time until I couldn’t take it anymore;
the anxiety and the effort to maintain the identity of being the fit and lean one robbed me of life;
I was exercising five days a week and eating as little as I could, and
When I finally had something to eat or told myself that it was time for a cheat meal,
I would end up eating till my stomach hurt.
guilt and shame of overeating would bring me back to this cycle of exercising and even more dieting
which went on for years until I decided that I wanted something different,
I tried to live my life in a different way from what I knew
, fitness can not be this; I would hear my mind says, but I wanted to appear lean
You see, I thought I was on a fitness journey; I thought it was discipline; I thought this was what fit people had to do to look the way they do.
I learned that being healthy is not just about how you look.
I used to think that working out and eating less was the only way to be healthy, but I was wrong.
The dilemma was I was terrified of gaining weight, and I was also scared of eating, but I was overeating anyways and over-exercising
And I know a lot of people feel this way, too, right now.
I have realized that being healthy is about feeling good, being strong, and having fun.
I used to think being fit meant always working out and eating less. But now I know that being fit is about feeling good and having fun while being strong.
I was wrong;
I was hurting myself.
The media and society (family, friends, peers)also contribute to this extreme, and sometimes they do these to help, so I get it.
They say you are beautiful; your hard work is paying off.
It is hard work, alright,
But along the line, it causes more harm than good.
With the level of diet programs out there,
you think we would be the healthiest generation, but not the reverse is the case.
We would instead appear to be the standard of fit that society has sold us than to be fit.
I didn’t realize this; I was even the go-to person for all fitness questions; with that ideology I had, I wonder who is hurting right now.
Who is starving themselves right now,
or who is somewhere overeating because they feel they are not disciplined enough to sustain a diet?
Diets work, I am not anti-diet, but approach matters.
Ps. diet is not restriction.
Who is giving up their health for body size?
It breaks my heart a lot.
Though these experiences were the driving force that led me down the road in search of more knowledge,
I was so obsessed with my body, exercise, and nutrition that I went down a rabbit hole searching for answers.
I enjoy reading about the body, movement, mindset, and love.
I wanted this body, a lean and muscular body.
But I couldnt live this way forever.
I was not ready to sacrifice health for body size.
It is important to remember that food is more than calories; it is a form of pleasure and self-care.
What I have discovered so far blows my mind.
Everything I struggled with had solutions.
Despite the wealth of knowledge in the world, I was struggling and looking at people who were struggling like me, hoping I would be like them.
It dropped the scales from your eyes.
It opened my eyes to another universe.
Where I didn’t have to train so hard, and I could enjoy exercise and, look as I wanted, eat whatever I wanted.
This must sound too good to be true to you.
But that is the life I live now.
I love to think I am here to explore my body and what my body can do.
Now I move/ exercise to feel good, and I eat the foods I love;
I might not love their taste right now, but I am willing to explore
I love how they make my body feel; this mindset has changed my life. I enjoy the experience of eating now more than before, I love my body now, and I want the same for you.
I want you reading this right now to let go of the idea that you must look certain for society.
Do that for yourself instead.
And the way to make that happen is to sit and ask yourself these questions.
- Want do I want
- What kind of life experience do I want with your body?
- What are my values?
- What stories have I been telling myself about food?
- What stories am I telling myself about your body?
- What does eating mean to me?
- What does fitness mean to me?
- What does health mean to me?
- What does happiness mean to you?
These questions were coined at different points of my journey over 2 years of exploring and finding what would works for me.
Every answer to these questions opened a new pathway to my healing; it is a process.
After you have done that, it is time to get a basic knowledge of nutrition; you don’t have to become a nutritionist or a dietician; having the basic knowledge about Macronutrients, calories, and vitamins will change your life.
It changed the way I see fitness.
I knew what to do and not do
It took some time to explore.
That’s why I like to call it an adventure, trying to see what works and what doesn’t,
eating a particular quantity of food for weeks, seeing if I would gain any weight, then adjusting.
Trying to see if I would finally enjoy a meal or not.
Listening to know if the meal felt right or not
It is an adventure.
After you have built your relationship with food, it’s time to decide if you want to lose or gain weight.
This is a necessary process; you can only get to your fitness goal if you have come to terms with what food means.
Healing that relationship with open a pathway that brings clarity;
It brings meaning to your why
you don’t manufacture a reason to lose or gain weight; it comes from your core,
it aligns with your value and what you want to identify with,
you are not on a journey because everyone says you have to be on one
Your new goal would be to follow a self-care approach to nutrition for weight loss or weight gain.
We need to restore some sensibility to the pursuit of health. Many of us increasingly view ourselves as fragile and vulnerable, ready to develop cancer, heart disease, or some other dreaded disease at the slightest provocation. In the name of health we give up many of our enjoyments. The important point is that worrying too much about anything-_-be it calories, salt, cancer, or cholesterol-is bad for you, and that living optimistically, with pleasure, zest, and commitment, is good.”
–-Robert Ornstein, PhD, David Sobel, MD, Healthy Pleasures
With this approach, if something doesnt feel healthy, you do not have to do it; no matter what a coach or anybody tells you,
people can give you all the advice, but it is your body; you have the right to take care of it regardless you want without guilt or shame
you know your body better than anyone.
Following a Self-care approach to nutrition can start to look like this.
- You begin to practice nourishment.
- You start to explore what feels good and what doesnt
- You begin to make fun lifestyle changes.
- You start to make sustainable lifestyle changes.
- You begin to exercise to move your body in a way that feels good.
- The focus would be on pleasurable self-care.
As easy as this sounds, I will not ignore the everyday experience and challenges we encounter.
I understand it is not easy sometimes;
I have been pressured into wanting to lose weight sometimes; even when I did want to,
I would wake up one morning and decide ok today; I want to lose weight. Then the next day, I would choose, well, my body is fine like this.
You see, sometimes you could be pressured by what you see and decide your body needs some adjustment.
If you could lose more fat, it would be perfect compared to another person’s body.
I love to call them the Objections.
And they look different sometimes.
Here are some examples of situations that build objections in your relationship with food and your body
- The messages in the media stop us from seeing our bodies the way they indeed are
- You have yet to try nourishing your body and taking care of your body long enough to know how different it feels.
- Your primary concern is to lose weight quickly and not necessarily to be healthy.
- People that sell you quick fix, and it sounds like the perfect idea
- You are scared of food because you don’t want to gain weight.
- How your body looks matters more to you than how it feels
These are objections to your self-care practice, and there are many more; it might not sound sexy enough but building this practice takes work, and it takes a long time,
And your memories do not go away, what you did in the past will not suddenly be forgotten, and your emotions will still be very present
That is why mindfulness is the core part of your journey.
So you see, it is a daily practice; your lifestyle changes as you go on this journey.
Here is a framework I like to call the unpacking
7 steps to reclaiming your Nourishment
- Start by taking my course on nutrition ( you need the knowledge to navigate this journey)
- Take an inventory of all your meals.
- Listen and know how each food you eat makes you feel.
- Take note of all that feels good to your tongue and body.
- Write out everything you tell yourself about food.
- Identify this story and notice how you could tell a different story.
- Sit still after every meal and listen to how your body feels.
The above looks easy, but it is a lot of work; it is hard work, not hard work in the sense that it makes you breathe hard and makes you sweaty,
Hard work in the sense that it forces you to feel
It sheds light on the emotions you are trying to avoid;
it sheds light on what you are distracting yourself from
It brings you to a more conscious part of your being; it wakes you up from mindlessness.
This is a summarized version of what I take my clients through; after you have journaled and built more self-awareness around food and your body,
Many people lose interest in losing weight or looking a certain way, they become more interested in what their bodies can do; instead, they begin to explore and live life in a way that makes them come alive.
Play becomes easier for them, you know, the kind of play where you can get down to the floor and stand so many times without feeling so burnt out.
I want that for you; I want you to live a strong and healthy life, not just to go with the motion and wonder why life is so dull because you can not eat the way you love; you have a meal plan that makes you want to cry, a personal trainer has designed a program that makes you scared when you remember its time to train.’
When you get to this point, there is so much life can be
Imagine being able to
- to lose weight feeling healthy
- to feel better in your body
- to function as your best and most adventurous self
- to digest food properly and get all the nutrients in your food
- to understand the power of the story, you tell yourself about food and tell a good story
- to have a choice in how you are and how you feel
- to have more fun
- to get better connected to your need and values and be less hooked and pushed around by other people’s ideas
- to feel fully alive and to feel fully human
And so much more, and yes, good nourishment does that for you and so much more.
I hope you take back your power today.
I hope you listen to your body long enough and get to know it better
I hope you stay in your beautiful body, secure and confident
I hope you explore and try new things
Love always
Chisom.