My Relationship with Food

Joys, struggles, ups, downs, routines, frustrations and excitement – these are words that describe my relationship with my hubby but also with food!!  Just like we need to evaluate our human relationships from time to time (and maybe get some professional help) I think we need to do the same with how we treat our approach to eating.  The myriad of changes in my life in 2015 and the stress that accompanied those changes had me treating my food “partner” very badly.  I was not honoring the relationship and had fallen back into some ruts that were not good for me.  These unhealthy ruts and the impact they were having on my waist line prompted me, a few months ago, to post a plea on Facebook asking if anyone was willing to do the 21 day sugar detox with me as my accountability partner.  Something truly extraordinary happened – around 70 friends and family members said they were interested! So an amazing private group of folks from all different backgrounds and with lots of different goals began.  The group (which we have named “EAT TO LIVE”) created in me a feeling of responsibility to others because they were willing to be very transparent as it related to their food struggles and goals.  It prompted me to dig deeper than I had before into what makes me do the things I do when it comes to food.  Here are some realizations I have had.

1.  At some point in my life I started to view junky treat food as a reward.  I complete a big project at work and think that means I need a meal at a favorite restaurant; I have a tough day at the office and assume that means I don’t have to go home and cook; I get chores finished at home and that signals me to eat something sweet from the pantry or fridge.  I think this response is pretty normal but I am trying to retrain myself to look to healthy treats to thank my brain and body for working hard.  After all, when I eat the junky treats I end up with a stomach ache and feeling sluggish – and that’s not how I want to feel when celebrating a job well done at work or home.
2. I am a stress eater for sure.  I am not one of those folks who doesn’t eat when they are nervous or anxious, instead when I feel these things I find I turn to comfort food!!  It’s a vicious cycle though because the comfort foods make it harder to focus on the things I need to accomplish and make me crave more comfort foods.  At the times when I need to focus most, because the demands are the hardest, I need to make smart food choices!  Choices that will keep my brain engaged and that will keep me from feeling tired or a need to “re-fuel” every couple of hours to avoid a crash.
3. This one is hard to admit – but when I am very honest with myself I am afraid I am becoming a little bit of a food snob.  I don’t want to be this person and so this is something I am going to work hard on controlling.  Every person is making the choices they make at any given point in their day based on a whole host of factors.  I can’t possibly look in at a single food moment and know enough to make an informed judgment about someone else.  Not that I should ever be judging in the first place!  For the past 25 years I have taken food issues pretty seriously, ever since being misdiagnosed with Lupus that was actually a food allergy.  I need to remember that everyone’s journey is different and we all have things to learn from one another!

When I’m sitting and looking back on my life one day (a long time from now), I want to have confidence that all my relationships worked in concert with one another.  I don’t want to reflect and find that I isolated myself from others because I was so narrow-minded with my food choices, but I also want to believe I made a healthy impact on others when given the chance.  I want to take the reflections above and use them to create new habits and mindsets.  Life is too short not to have our favorite things on occasion, but I’m starting to find that my new favorite things are those “treats” that leave me feeling like myself and that leave me with energy for the relationships with the humans in my life!