Every video on YouTube about weight loss or healthy living seems to start with a discussion about experiencing a negative relationship with food. The creator tells a story about disordered eating, dieting, and hitting an emotional and physical rock bottom. And then, they magically healed their relationship with food, began eating healthfully, and all was well. I always admired those people, with their relieved, easygoing smiles and their assurances that everything is going to be just fine. But for whatever reason, I could never quite cross that bridge into satiety and happiness. Until this summer.
Our relationship with food was damaged on purpose
I was having a conversation with a family member recently about the keto diet. I hold the title in my family as the resident health nut, so I’m often discussing the latest health trend or diet fad with intrigued friends and family alike. She asked me of keto, “can it help you lose 10 pounds?”, and I laughed and said, “Maybe, but you know what else can help you lose ten pounds? Eating whole plant foods”.
My issue with keto, and with diet culture in general, is how much it promotes restriction and “moderation”. It looks at food as something bad, that you must cut down and reduce rather than seeing it as something that can promote health.
When we vilify food and seek out this “everything in moderation lifestyle”, we are constantly limiting the natural drives, desires, and instincts of our highly evolved beings. The truth is, the food industry has hijacked our bodies’ natural cravings and signals. These processed foods are designed for us to constantly crave more, to constantly want to keep eating. Dieting in a restrictive nature while still eating these foods is simply a losing battle.
Moderation vs abundance as mindsets for health
I used to preach moderation. I filled journals with wishes for balance in my life, because I felt out of control. My life north star, a sentence-long goal I have at the top of my Notion homepage (my digital planner) was, for a long time, “Seek balance in health and happiness”. Moderation was my goal. There’s something counterintuitive about that statement, right? How can we strive for moderation? Working towards a goal is positive, but moderation inherently involves a degree of restriction. It doesn’t make sense to want to… not want. It’s pushing a positive and negative force together in a way that doesn’t work harmoniously. I didn’t realize the conflicting nature of my desires until this summer, when my entire mindset around food changed forever.
To start, I read How Not to Die by Dr. Michael Greger. If you’ve yet to read this book, I highly suggest you do. Otherwise, give his website a look: nutritionfacts.org.
But moving on, what changed in my outlook? I started looking at food as medicine, like something that has qualities beyond calories. When you realize how plants, nuts, seeds, and spices have been linked to incredible reversals of health and chronic disease, it becomes apparent just how much what we eat impacts our longterm physical and mental health.
I won’t advocate for a plant-based diet right now, because that’s not the focus of this post, but I do personally strive for plant-based eating in my life. Regardless, the important thing is that you look at food as a positive thing. What you eat in a day can be what fuels you with energy, vitamins, and minerals, promoting a long and healthful life, or it can be calories that fill the empty space in your stomach long enough for you to fall asleep and do it all over again.
More, more, more…!
The biggest thing that changed for me once I had this realization was that I started striving for an abundance of healthful foods rather than focusing on moderating the bad ones. If you make an abundance of health your goal, the absence of excess weight will follow suit. It’s so much easier to do more than to restrict. Seek more plants in your diet. Seek more whole grains, nuts, and seeds. Seek more water. Seek more green tea. Seek that energizing feeling of fresh, whole foods. Seek the healthful glow of nourishment– not the tired and depleted depression of restrictive dieting. Work towards something that can be achieved through doing more, because that’s the natural way we function.
Your body wants to exist in its healthiest state
Something I can promise from experience is that, once you’ve begun eating more whole foods, you stop experiencing the blood sugar spikes and crashes that result in junk food and sugar cravings. Processed foods are like drugs, and the world is hooked. But fortunately, like with a drug, you can quit.
Personally, I’ve found that, since going through this mindset change, I’ve had more energy and I’ve been a happier person overall. Satiety is never and issue, but at the same time, I’m not gaining weight. I feel that I’m eating in alignment with the way my body was meant to be fed, and that optimizes all my bodily functions. Our bodies want to exist in their healthiest state, but we have to give them the means to get there.
I hope this was insightful. I’ve been doing so much research into nutrition this summer, and it’s truly freed me from stress and anxiety about food. Are you aware of a common theme in your mindset about food and health? Tell me more!
