Tag: junk-food

Here we go again

There comes a time when the diet no longer works
We then – at a given moment – if we are aware – look at ourselves and notice we are not holding onto any kind of diet.
We are not paying any attention at all to what we eat.
We also become annoyingly aware that we have not taken any real exercise for quite some time
and we notice we cannot quite pin down when and how this happened.

This happens to all of us – if we still care about ourselves we immediately pick up on it and start taking care of this again. It always starts with awareness and goes into action – we must act!
Things must change – the panic sets in – when you ask yourself – ‘what have I been eating’ and the answer is ‘I don’t really know’

I’ve been stuffing my face with all kinds of things, some of which I cannot really call ‘food’ I have been swallowing it in vast quantities and in continual snacks – which I cannot call ‘meals’ – and in such amounts the idea of ‘portions’ has escaped to another planet. The shame of it! How could I treat myself this way? What happened to my great resolve, my expert planning my brilliant research? I flounder around wondering what to do to gain control – again, to become aware – again. How do I take stock and manage my health better, like I used to – or like I think I used to.

We all hit this wall, and we never know what happened.
The thing is – we need these moments to bring us up short and help us align with our ‘preferred lifestyle’
The one containing healthy food and healthy exercise – as being unhealthy is not a price we want to pay.

Is it?

 

 

So lets go

Let’s take a good long look at how and what and when and especially why we eat.
Because we all know it’s not just about hunger and nutrition.

If you are or ever have been ‘serious’ about dieting you have this picture in your mind of what your preferred ‘thin’ is like. You have this idea that somewhere in the future you can be different. You want to change into that perfect person you think you are not.

You want to be this other person, this thin person.
You want to be this totally different being who is slim and energetic, beautiful and healthy and loved
Loved even by you yourself.
So who is this person you can see in the future? This person who is all these things you want to be and feel you are not right now?

We don’t really need to take a long look in the mirror to see what we really look like now, as we know what we look like now, and don’t like what we look like now, this is why we avoid looking at ourselves.
We carefully avoid the mirror, sometimes we won’t even have mirrors in the house and some of us wince when we catch sight of ourselves accidentally.

How bad is that as a body image? Is this how you really feel about yourself? I’ve noticed it about me, my body image is very negative. Do you never wear anything tight or fitted, do you also buy those roomy clothes that cover your body and hide all the lumps and bumps and fat bits? Are you afraid to be seen in public, in the gym? Will everyone who sees you notice all the fat bits wobbling on the fatter bits which you are so unhappy about? I never go to the beach in a bikini anymore because I’m afraid someone might see that I have fat bits.

It’s no way to live. I feel sad and I am angry and puzzled and by my own reactions to what my body looks like now. I do not have a good relationship with my body.
Instead I have a deep meaningful relationship with my fridge, my cookie jar, this bag of crisps and the bar of chocolate, specially the bar of chocolate.
And it is all funny, It’s hilarious, I laugh, we laugh we are all funny, because if it wasn’t funny we would be crying, so I’m snarky and sarky instead and that makes me angry too because it’s not really a joke, mainly because I have begun to worry about my health.
And still I eat
Specially the very things I know I should not be eating at all.

Let’s face it we are unhappy, have a terrible body image and don’t like who we are.

What we need to do is engage our brains, we need to think about this carefully, we need to use the mirror in a completely different way
We need to look at ourselves from the inside out, use our internal mirror
We need to look at our feelings instead of eating something

Avoiding  how we feel is what got us here in the first place, we need to look at ourselves inside out, honestly
It’s just us in here, so it’s safe here, as for everyone else – it’s none of their business, they can stop judging us right now – if they ever did.
We have to let the internal judge sail too and stop judging ourselves, look at ourselves dispassionately, calmly and kindly, without judgment.

Let’s get real inside our own heads, inside our own feelings first. Take look at what moves us to eat the way we eat, so we get to the point where we can do something about it for good, for the long term.
We need to take control.

It’s like finally quitting smoking, at first it’s impossible to do, we can’t even think about it so we don’t. Then it’s maybe something that might happen in the distant future, then it becomes possible to cut down, after that the idea of quitting becomes something that could happen someday, then one day it is possible and you find you can stop.
After that on the day you quit, not smoking is hard as it nails you down twenty times a day as you slog through the force of habit, but it is possible to continue quitting twenty times a day and not reach for that cigarette twenty times a day. Then you notice you can breathe deeply again, this is it’s own reward, your sense of smell returns, this has it’s own reward too. The smokers cough finally goes away and that feels really good, then movement, walking, running becomes easier, you’re not so knackered all the time and that is really great.

So bit by bit, not smoking becomes normal and easier till you cannot even imagine how you mindlessly smoked all those years.
But it was difficult to put that last one down, and it was very tricky to avoid the next one.
That takes control.
(if you never started smoking, really well done! That’s the best way, never start)

The point is that we can also do this with food. We can be in control of ourselves here too.
It becomes easier, and easier for us to do the right thing as we go along. In a years time, two years time – when you look back at yourself you will smile. You will have become the person you can only dream about now. The healthy active one.

The one you know you are.

So the exercise today is look at your body image clearly and kindly, notice the difference between the one you think you are and the one you think you want to be, that’s it, that’s all there is to it, get these images right in you mind. What are you now? What do you imagine yourself to be? How far apart are these two images, how different do they look to you? Remember though, neither of these images is real – neither of them.

Now, how do you feel?

Getting better

Why would ‘better’ be something we have to go out and get?

Surely it should be with us all the time, but the same wording is used for ‘getting’ ill – as if it is something we shop for at the supermarket

Well

Perhaps it is something we get.

Most of us spend most of our lives living with some kind of low grade inflammation all over
This is what we consider normal and it gets worse with age
We have gotten so used to it we think it’s normal

We eat junk, we know it’s junk, we eat rubbish, we know it’s rubbish, we turn our noses up at fruit, we refuse to eat vegetables and we have phobias about eating salads.

We are all addicted to sugar, fat and refined carbs, and wonder why we feel vaguely sick all the time.

Stop messing about, you know why you feel sick all the time. You eat crap! You pay no attention whatsoever to the quality of the food you put in your mouth, half the time you don’t even know what it is!
You just shove the fastest, easiest, nearest crap into your mouth and assume all will be well, just like everybody else, till, when you are fifty you find yourself on a gurney being rushed into surgery for a bypass.

Welcome to the western world where your diet will kill you.

Having just reached a similar point myself I know where that place is, being hospitalised is scary.

Going out and ‘getting’ better is where it’s at.

Get yourself a better diet, get yourself healthy, get yourself fit, get that feel good factor into your life now – start now by eating your veggies before you die.
Get your head round it, get rid of your junk addiction and start eating real food.

I thought I had a fairly healthy diet, mostly vegan mostly plant based, I loathe meats anyway so I don’t eat them. I hate milk, I’m not keen on greasy stuff or sweet things I don’t eat sweets as such, but I slip often enough to make my diet pretty damn useless anyway, so I need to clean up my act.
Recently I was eating bars of chocolate, white buns with jam and clotted cream, tiramisu, mayonnaise, prawns and fish slathered in oils and even some meats like roast beef. I was completely off the rails.
Then came the easter celebrations and plates full of filled eggs and devilled eggs and other dishes made with eggs, french cheeses, white bread, jams and clotted cream and serious overdoses of chocolate.

I ate everything. I overate.

No wonder I ended up in hospital with stabbing pains in my guts the day after, the DAY after!

I did it all to myself,

I know what to do now. You know what to do too, you do, you have always known, but you don’t listen to it, you only listen to your food addiction and every day you make the easy wrong choice, and you know you do. Even in the face of your own addictions, your own habits, your own routines, as well as advertising, the misinformation, propaganda and the immense social pressure we are all under, change anyway.
Start anyway.
Just like me you need to change your diet before it kills you.

get better
get healthy

 

 

 

Adventures in food

All of my life I have been very interested in food. From wondering what was really on my spoon as it dripped into my bowl with a splash, and asking myself if I could feed my dolls with it, as mummy said. My dolls never ate, it dripped down their plastic faces, and I suspected her of lying to me when she said they were alive and ate just what I did. My sister never ate at all, I’m surprised she didn’t disappear into thin air. My brother would eat everything, including all my food if I didn’t watch it carefully. When I was older I fed my youngest brother and sister the same foods I was fed, it still dripped off the spoon into the bowl with a splash and now I lied about their teddies eating it and I made up all sorts of stories to get them to open their mouths. I loathed school dinners, It is possibly the worst food I have ever eaten in my entire life and I hope never to see it again. Once I was asked to come to the dining hall by a fearsome dinner lady, to see there, my little brother sitting all alone, shoulders stooped, miserably looking at a plate of cold lumpy custard and sour rhubarb. I was expected to make him eat it all up. Whispering like criminals we made a deal, he would eat two spoonful’s and I would ditch the rest for him and take the rap; which I did. Junk food was next, as a teenager I explored the full gamut of utter rubbish masquerading as food from all the most well advertised multi million junk establishments. ( I still refuse to call them restaurants. ) The only thing I remember liking was the coleslaw which was just a side dish, not the main feature at all, which was greasy deep fried meat, possibly chicken, and definitely not rat, skilfully advertised as the best dish available to all. Please! Although I had my own wages from my own little jobs, and could buy anything I liked, this rogue eating soon stopped. It really wasn’t worth it, despite the ceaseless blanket bombardment of advertising I wasn’t going to fall for it anymore. I ate so much better at home. I had already become a good cook by the age of 10. We were all taught to cook as soon as we were big enough to hold a spoon without dropping it. My siblings were and are all exceptional cooks. The youngest famous for her cakes, my brother for his Roasts. We each had our own secret recipes and favourite dishes. We took turns to cook and vied to produce the best dishes ever. My mother cooked huge meals to feed a large family. Plenty of bright and colourful salads tossed in a huge African bowl which we ate every day as a starter. We ate green stuff of all descriptions, peas sprouts, beans, we always had to eat some, and we did, we loved them, mostly. There was never junk food, processed food or deep fried food on the table. Not only was it all delicious but we learned to eat well too. Of course we would sneak food to each other under the table, and help ourselves to what was on each others plates without mum obviously noticing. This way we would all end up with clean plates, and we still ate just what we wanted. Our food preferences were apparent early. I would eat sprouts, spinach and peas, specially from my younger brother’s plate, he hated peas. My older brother would have the skin of my chicken which I never wanted, I was seriously picky about meat of any kind. He would also take the bones for me and slide his well gnawed ones onto my plate so it looked like I had eaten them. We all helped my sister empty her plate as she ate so little she would never have been able to finish what was piled onto hers. We got good at sleight of hand at the dinner table. We also learned to eat what we didn’t really like and try new things as we couldn’t always get away with it. However, we all adored baked macaroni which we gorged ourselves on whenever mum cooked it. She stuffed it with healthy chopped vegetables, ham and cheese chunks, and baked it with a cheesy crunchy topping. We all piled in to eat that, there was never a scrap of it left. Eating what was served was not a problem as what was served was worth eating. We all grew up loving all kinds of food including salads, vegetables and fruit. When our mother passed away we fought over who would get our mother’s and grandmother’s treasured cook books. My big brother won and got most of those, but we were all allowed to copy out all the recipes we wanted before they disappeared into his kitchen forever.