WEIRD FASCINATION SERIES - Foodie Behaviours

I'll Start Tomorrow - Maybe!

 

 

 

Am I the only person on the planet that can find a million things to do when I actually have one thing I need to do? Writing my blog this week for instance…….

“I’ll just finish this, and send this, and design that, and I must get this done, oh look the shopping needs doing, I haven’t batch cooked this week….tra-la-la!” Why do we do that? Or is it really just me?!

 

When I’m working with my nutrition and wellbeing clients I see and hear this a lot. Maybe it’s that fear in us that drives this procrastination. What if I can’t do it? What if it doesn’t make sense? What if I try to change this, but then fall at the first hurdle? What if I don’t like what I’ve committed to doing? These are all understandable apprehensions. That’s why we need to look at small, achievable changes.

 

I had a great conversation with a friend over lunch last week about our funny food habits and behaviours. I say funny, but both of us have battled demons in the past – not always remaining in the past – so have quite a healthy awareness of our foodie ways. We both share an interest in why we behave in certain ways about certain foods and the conversations that go on in our heads to justify our weird and wonderful choices! It’s a favourite topic of conversation! You see, even if we work with food and have a good understanding of the science and nutrition around it, it doesn’t mean we live perfect lives or never fall off the waggon. We just try to get up, keep moving forwards and not let the waggon roll over us several times!!!

 

We don’t have all the answers to why we crave that chocolate, destroy that massive bag of crisps or get a terrible cramp when we eat white pasta but not white sourdough bread. We can make some educated guesses about it and note our responses to changing things around, but what we are, is pretty fascinated with why we want to eat what we do at any given time and the way our body responds to those choices.

 

 

So if you are eager to make some changes to your eating habits, but find yourself ‘just’ finishing off the chocolate pudding  and ice cream from the weekend first, or ‘just’ tidying up the half eaten tubes of Pringles and ‘just’ eating the rest of the Doritos and Dips so as not to waste them (before you look at eating some broccoli next week obviously), ask yourself why you might be thinking those things. If you eat it all up this week, it’s gone ready for your healthy regime to start next week, right?!

 

Are you scared of change? Do you think you’re setting yourself up for failure? Are you telling yourself that, in order to see success from change, you need to cut out all that you love and eat nothing but lettuce or celery for the rest of your life!? Oh please! No-one wants to live like that! Is it time to be a bit kinder and more patient with yourself?

 

Maybe you always have these thoughts when socially eating with friends, or at the same time of night when you are staring at a mind-numbing TV programme, not really watching it. Maybe it’s because “SAS - Who Dares Wins” looks very physically demanding and it’s making you hungry?! Ha! It’s amazing what we can tell ourselves to justify our foodie behaviour!

 

So, in my bid to help you #changeonething as you move forwards, just be interested in what you want to eat, when that is and why you think that might be. You don’t need to have all the answers – sometimes we are never quite sure about these things, and that’s ok.

 

‘Mindfulness’ has become a word accompanied by a groan as we are recall being encouraged to embrace it wherever we went by a stereotypical floaty, individual, looking in need of a good meal, dressed in natural fibres and smelling of incense sticks! If you don’t like the word – ditch it! I have learned about mindfulness - or self awareness as I prefer - through an awesome human being who I met in the playground, where our children go to school together. She’s not a floaty kaftan type – on the contrary – a rock chick come meditation and reiki master!

 

Greet your procrastination today with an “Oh…interesting…..”

 

 

Wonder, note, muse even, but don’t get caught up in it. The more we let ourselves get caught up, the more we go around and around in that eddy, paralysed and actually changing nothing at all! What I have learned from Sarah is to be interested in myself, my behaviours, the behaviours of others around me and to let go of all the reasons, meanings, excuses or justifications for it.

 

“It just is what it is.”

 

What a great piece of advice and the perfect mantra as you note any resistance when you begin to work towards change in the week ahead.