After Easter long weekend, you might be feeling a little down, the holiday is over, you gorged on chocolate and you didn't train.
You may fall into one of these categories:
1) Feeling sorry for yourself after overindulging, sobbing into your lap thinking why the world is against you.
2) You overindulged over the weekend, but you're back at it today ready to have a great week.
3) If you're not in either of those categories you're a liar! shame on you.
Food seems to have so much power over us, it controls us so much we tend to think we are defined by our diet. Which is so so wrong.
You should never be controlled by food as I have said before. It is only food.
As humans, we do stuff for instant gratification. But then to later only live with regret. This is in all walks of life including food, relationships, work, drinking, sex. You have to remember our emotional brain is always stronger than our logical brain. It always will be, but we have to learn to live and work together for the greater good.
How many times have you had a little argument with a partner or friend to snap out on an impulse and say something you shouldn't have then minutes later when you have calmed down, totally regret what you said.
OR
You have been on a diet and you go out for coffee with a friend. They ask if you want a cake, you know you 'shouldn't because you're eating so well. You say "no" But you begin to talk to yourself "I am an adult, if I want a piece of cake with my friend, I can have some cake, you only live once (or as the kids say YOLO)" You order the cake.
Five minutes later after giving in to emotion, your guilt kicks in. You believe you shouldn't have had the cake, you've ruined your progress, you're in a slump but your emotional side of the brain is now fast asleep and very satisfied.
In both these scenarios now your logical side has to pick up the pieces.
But what if we didn't give into this? What about if we didn't give in to instant gratification? What about if our relationship with our emotional and logical side became stronger? What if our relationship with food became stronger?
There have been studies time and time again showing that flexible dieting compared to rigid dieting shows better results long term.
Some people find it strange when I allow my clients to eat chocolate or their trigger food when they're having a good day. Why? Because this plays into not being controlled by said food, it takes away the power of that food when a bad day arises.
You see from having your trigger foods on your good days when the days comes when you are stressed and life is the worst, the urge to reach for that trigger starts to fall away.
It might sound a little backwards but allowing yourself to eat the foods you enjoy when you are not riddled with emotions might actually be beneficial long term.
Don't give food the power it doesn't deserve. We are more than our diet.
We need to work on developing our understanding of food and the negative connotations that come with it. Never feel bad for eating a certain food or meal.
The way certain people react to situations is, of course, their human psychology but just think about this. Nothing that happens to us in life has any meaning other than the meaning we attach to it. Pain and suffering only come from self-judgment.
If we take the judgement away we stop labelling things good and bad or positive and negative, and we accept them as opportunities to evolve into a stronger us.
Let's remember something as we go forward into this week.
NO amount of guilt can change the past.
NO amount of worrying can change the future.
With all this said, if you are reading this and thinking, 'I literally can't stop eating once I start; not just a few foods, like uncontrollable eating and, bingeing' then you should stop dieting altogether and get some help off a psychologist as your issue could be deeper.
You are in control.
If you feel you need help in a nutritional capacity, get in touch with our team, email team@rebuildhealthandfitness.com.