Do you enjoy your food?
Do you enjoy your food? I mean, actually REEEEALLY enjoy it? Allow yourself to think about that for a minute… it’s easy to say, “oh yeah I enjoy it too much, that’s the trouble!” or “I’ve got a sweet tooth, puddings are my weakness” or any other answer we might say to a friend because we feel embarrassed or ashamed to think too hard about it, but I’m not asking you to share your answer… only with yourself. Maybe you’re answering with a, “yeah it’s OK, fills a hole most of the time.” Maybe you restrict yourself to only eating ‘nice food’ at the weekends? Maybe it’s only OK if it’s between the hours of 10am and 6pm, or if you’ve been for a run that morning? Maybe you can’t remember the last time you truly enjoyed your food?
If it helps, my answer is an uninspiring “sometimes.” Not because I’m “meh” about food… quite the opposite, but because my reality is that I don’t obsess over food, so sometimes it fills a hole, and sometimes I devour every last mouthful but mostly it’s in the middle somewhere. AND THAT’S OK. I’ve been consciously trying to work on making it more of a “most of the time” answer but I live in the real world… and that means that sometimes I’ve got to get tea down all our necks so we can be out the door for Brownies.
If you’ve read this far, I’d hazard a guess that food is a bit of a thing for you. That could mean that you feel you eat too much, it could mean that you feel you are overweight, or even that someone has told you you are. It could mean that you’re fed up of yo-yo dieting or even promises of ‘lifestyle changes’ to end the yo-yo dieting (still diets). Or maybe like me, you just have an interest in food, health, cooking and like reading about it.
But if you answered with a “never” or you’re just keen to learn how to enjoy your food more, I’d urge you to watch your children eat. And if you don’t have children, or know any children, think back to when you used to eat a custard cream by biting off the top biscuit, licking the cream and then munching through the second biscuit with vigour. Or perhaps it was a Twix and you rolled up the caramel after biting off the biscuit and slurped your way through a very full mouthful? I’m not only talking about puddings or ‘treat’ foods either. What about when you ate strawberries straight off the plant because you couldn’t wait until they’d been washed (or even paid for?!) Or when you would tuck into a hearty beef stew on a winters day?
Eating what you really want, at the time when you are hungry is a privilege for many of us, and yet even when we are given that gift, we don’t embrace it because we feel we ‘shouldn’t’... shouldn’t have pudding because it’s ‘bad’ for us, shouldn’t eat now because it’s too late, shouldn’t because it’s not lunchtime, shouldn’t because I’m on a rest day and am not exercising, or should eat the broccoli because I know it’s good for me… etc etc. I like to question ‘shoulds’ and ‘shouldn’ts’ because a lot of the time they’re not helpful.
I often ask what my older self will be thinking when I come to look back on my life. Will she wish she had eaten less cake and been thinner? I don’t think so. I think she’s going to be glad she enjoyed cake, maybe even wish she ate a bit more of it. What will your older self think?