Tired of yo-yo dieting and not reaching your health goals? You are not alone. Over 80% of Americans who attempt a diet to achieve weight loss goals FAIL. They are on the diet treadmill and don’t know how to get off.
The reason diet culture isn’t helping us be healthy is because it focuses on the external: a number on the scale, a look in the mirror, a clothing size, a constant comparison game to when we used to weigh that number we are trying to get back to…and then we also start comparing ourselves to others, leading to even more negative self talk.
It is time for us to ditch the scale, ditch diet culture, and start focusing on nourish culture instead. Nourish culture is where we focus on how we actually feel in our own body, what makes us feel great, what makes us feel crummy, and maybe what just makes us feel neutral. If we lead with wanting to feel our best everyday, we start focusing on what makes us feel our best, and by improving feel good habits in our daily life, and eliminating lifestyle choices that result in feeling bad, we start to naturally achieve a healthy lifestyle effortlessly and with joy.
Why Dieting Opposes Nourishment:
Dieting inherently requires us to label food as good or bad. When we pick a diet, it’s a cookie cutter solution to our current food lifestyle, requires an overhaul of that lifestyle, and makes food a chore. What’s more, when we start labeling every single thing we are eating and drinking as good or bad (it’s ok if you’ve always done this, it’s pretty ingrained in American health culture at this point) we start creating a negative relationship with food. If we fail at the diet (80% of us do) this compounds into a negative relationship with our body and self talk. We usually aren’t picking a diet because we know those foods help us feel better, we are picking a diet to get the fastest result on the scale.
Numbers on a scale aren’t motivating, especially if we aren’t seeing success in achieving certain numbers on the scale. Being happy stepping on a scale only happens if we already did the mind body connection work with food, exercise, and other lifestyle choices that lead us to feeling good in our bodies.
Aren’t Some Foods Just Obviously Bad?
Some foods are not nourishing to your body, and can actually be harmful. They bring no value to you, and can even be detrimental to your gut and microbiome. You are what you eat is a worldwide health slogan for a reason. I still wouldn’t view it as “good or bad” though. It’s important we start viewing things as nourishing or not nourishing for our bodies. Every body is different, and someone’s bad could be someone else’s good. Or, if we look at other factors that lead to a healthy life, it could just be neutral. Let me explain.
If my body doesn’t react well to beans, they actually cause me pain, my body can’t process them correctly, and I don’t feel well eating them, it is not a food I should consume. However, beans aren’t “bad” for the human body. For some (a lot if you look at worldwide diets), they are an easy and healthy way to eat good fiber, protein and minerals. It’s similar when we look at gluten allergies. Gluten isn’t inherently bad, as someone who isn’t allergic to gluten, I enjoy gluten filled breads and the benefits of gluten. For someone allergic to gluten, they need to stay far away from foods that contain gluten, they are harming and inflaming their body. An inflamed body can’t fight off illness or disease as effectively (if at all), leading to an unhealthy lifestyle. This inflammation also leads to weight gain, and unnecessary weight overworks our organs and muscles. We are setting ourselves up to be sick and unwell for life.
The real question is, are there foods that are universally bad for the human body? Here is where it gets interesting. Plenty of studies have proven that processed foods, fried foods, sugar, GMOs, too much salt, certain oils, etc. are harmful to the human body, leading to poorer health. However, other studies show, if we completely give up these foods that are part of our culture, our childhood, our family, we also become unhealthy, because it turns out community and social eating is a huge part of our health. There is an interesting study of Roseto, PA that shows how in a 25 year window, the health of the community declined, not because of their food choices (mostly Italian cheesiness, sweets, and meatballs), but because their community dynamic changed leading to loss of human connection.
What can we conclude: yes, sugar is physically not nourishing to our bodies, especially the processed sugars in so much of the American food system today. Most people would start feeling a lot more energized and better if they lowered their daily sugar intake. However, eating a cake from a family recipe passed down for generations at a family reunion or holiday gathering, is nourishing, from a community health perspective.
So now what do we do? We listen to our bodies, and how we are nourishing them. Should we eat the family cake recipe daily…no. Your body will tell you that. Should we give up the family cake recipe for the rest of our lives… also no. We need that community nourishment. The path to a healthy lifestyle isn’t labeling food as good or bad, it’s understanding and acknowledging how that food affects us from a whole health perspective. If you grew up eating donuts on Sundays watching cartoons, cutting out donuts for the rest of your life is most likely not the answer to long term health. Maybe filling your days with foods that have a lot of positive feel good results for your body throughout the week, and having donut Sundays once a month, is the sweet spot of community and food nourishment for you. This is where it could be “neutral”. Way too much processed sugar = not nourishing for you. Completely giving up childhood traditions like donut Sundays because they contain processed sugars = not good for you. Finding the balance of a childhood tradition you’ve carried over into your adult life and not overdoing it on processed sugar = neutral in the grand scheme of your life. This is where diet culture is missing the mark. It requires we give up certain foods for good – which maybe we do need to give up some foods for good – but in a lot of cases, it’s finding the balance of not permanently saying goodbye to donuts, and not gorging on them weekly either.
How Nourishment Makes Food Choices Easy:
When we start focusing on our body, how it feels after eating certain foods, and giving it what it wants to be healthy and thriving, it becomes really easy to make healthy food choices, getting us out of diet culture and into nourish culture. If we eliminate our negative food relationship, food can be a pleasure again, not a chore, eating can be fun again, and cooking can become a favorite part of our day. We don’t need to be on a diet to feel our best, we need to listen to our bodies and what they need. Food becomes a lifestyle, not a diet bandwagon.
Ending our negative relationship with food and the yo-yo dieting can be extremely difficult, especially if, from a whole health perspective, other choices we are making are depriving our health more than our food choices, making it even harder to be successful in our food choices. This is where it becomes important to have a custom tailored health plan to reach your ultimate healthy and thriving lifestyle.
At Feliz 3 Health, this is exactly what we do. We learn all about you, and identify where your health journey should begin, curate a tailor made health plan just for you, and support you every step of the way. It’s time to step away from the noise of dieting and workout routines, and connect with your body, what it needs, and curate your lifestyle of vitality!
