The other night, as I sweat my brains out, and pushed myself to my limit in my favorite spin class, my teacher (whom I adore), yelled out little tidbits to motivate us. Normally I love this part of class, but that night, it really got me thinking. She shouted things like, “Push harder, so you can have that extra helping of mashed potatoes,” and “Ride faster, so you don’t have to feel guilty after that pecan pie!” Statements like these have become the norm in our society, so my guess is most people weren’t phased, but it actually made me sad. Why can’t you have an extra helping of mashed potatoes or eat pecan pie without feeling guilty, or without having any thoughts about it at all?? Why does food have to be labeled good or bad, ok or a guilty pleasure?
In this diet obsessed, calorie counting, carb watching, gluten, sugar and dairy free world we are living in, we are made to believe eating is bad, and something we should feel shame around. We’ve turned it into this big deal that people think and talk about constantly, indulge and deprive regularly, and use as a weapon towards themselves.
Why is eating pecan pie, worthy of guilt? If we didn’t make it so taboo in our heads, then eating some dessert, would just be that…enjoying a little something yummy. That doesn’t sound so horrible to me. There doesn’t have to be so much drama around food!!
It’s messages like these that lead to overindulgence, emotional eating, hiding what we eat, and worst of all, finding another reason to beat ourselves up. There was a time in my life when food terrified me. I felt out of control around it, loved it and hated it simultaneously. I spent soooo much time thinking about it, because of the stories I told myself in my head. They were based on everything I was told and read. If only someone had informed me, the information I gathered did nothing but cause me pain.
Nothing I could read about could teach me what my body already knew. Your body knows too, you just need to retrain yourself to listen to it instead of your head. Feeling guilty about food just perpetuates a completely unnecessary cycle. Instead, if you want to eat something when your body is not actually hungry, ask yourself why? If it’s just to numb your feelings, or you just want it from an angry place, try and sit with those feelings and see what happens. In most cases the desire will pass. If you simply feel like a little indulgence, then enjoy it. Feeling guilty doesn’t change the fact that you indulged, and almost never prevents people from indulging in the future. People who don’t think about food much are naturally thin because they eat when they are hungry, and don’t when they’re not. There’s not much more to it.
Let me share a little secret…transformations in life, begin when you start loving yourself more. When you love yourself more, your desire to overeat fades away. When you love yourself more, it becomes easy to take better care of yourself. When you love yourself more, there is less anxiety, anger, sadness, guilt and regret.
What I wish for you on this Thanksgiving is more love, acceptance, and gratitude, and less shame, guilt and self-hatred.
Now, go eat those mashed potatoes and pecan pie…but, only if you are going to thoroughly enjoy every savory bite, and feel really good about it after because they tasted delicious. That’s it; end of story!! If you can’t enjoy without guilt, then don’t eat it. It’s not the fat and calories that are the problem, it’s your thinking.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I am grateful for each and every one of you! Gobble, gobble 🙂
