Hello there and happy April! I hope this week finds you thinking about inviting more pleasure into your life. I'm sipping Buckingham Palace tea this morning (it's my current favourite!) and thinking about finding pleasure in food.
Food, glorious freaking food! What a joy you are. Whether it's going to a new restaurant, baking at length for a sense of comfort and calm over the past two years, learning new recipes, or running out for an ice cream cone (which I did yesterday), I love food.
This wasn't always the case.
Well, I always loved it but that is considered a problem when you are fat. Food becomes the enemy and you are considered weak and unhealthy if you can't control yourself around it. But let's be honest, if controlling yourself around food means eating way less than your body actually needs in a day (which is generally what dieting is based on), then health has gone out the window. We're purely focused on aesthetic at that point and don't let anyone trick you into believing otherwise.
I only became "out of control" around food when people told me to stop eating it. Before that, I was an active, happy kid who loved her food and didn't think too much about it.
At one point in my life, I pretty much ate nothing but steamed (steamed!!!!) chicken and vegetables. I was smaller than I've ever been as an adult but I still had some curve on me so, when I would go for my weekly weigh-ins it became clear that to lose any more, I would have to switch tactics. Hello liquid diet! I was miserable, but also weirdly elated that I seemed to have finally been able to wrestle my food cravings to the ground. Now all I had to do was hold on for dear life and hope they didn't come back.
They did. My body was taking control back and she wanted me to eat. Thank goodness for that. :)
If you can relate to anything I've said so far, then you know that this is far more complex than I could ever write in one post. This consumed decades of my life and it went back and forth on repeat until I broke the cycle. I decided to break up with diets and diet culture. This is hard for many reasons but one of the interesting ones for me is that: in some ways it was less exciting than the promise of a new weird diet that made an insane promise of how happy I would be! Stopping the cycle was more like a whisper. There was no plan to follow, no before picture to snap, no clearing out the cupboards and promising myself I would only eat kale for the foreseeable future. It wasn't manic. It was like quietly ending a relationship that had gone on too long and like any classic breakup, I went back a few times because it was familiar. Until one day, going back was no longer comfortable. I had drifted too far out and it was time to keep moving forward. Not flashy but definitely substantial and over time has been more life changing than any diet I have ever been on.
For me, reclaiming my passion for food was slow and cautious. I, like so many people, was afraid that if I was no longer on an extremely strict diet then I would go absolutely insane and eat everything in sight. I often think of this scene in the movie Chocolat as what I thought would happen. And while it was never quite like that, there was a time where I was a little bonkers for food. This is what happens when you unleash yourself. You go a little wild with the freedom of it and when you finally realize it's for good, you settle down. So be kind to yourself in the process.
Once the strangeness of it all had passed, I settled into a new relationship with food. One where I eat what I like and let go of what I don't. It's an ongoing journey where I'm learning to listen to my body and go with what it's asking for rather than fighting it every step of the way. I've learned how to cook! I used to be terrified of cooking, especially since most of the diets I went on were so much easier to follow if you had pre packaged foods where you could see the nutritional info on the package. Now I'm playing with my food, trying recipes, and freeing up so much space in my head for other things. I'm reconnecting to foods I loved in the past, and exploring new ones too. Food is emotional. It connects us to our past, our senses, our heritage, it offers comfort when we need it and pleasure when we want it. It's wonderful to share with the people we love and something that not everyone has easy access to, so it's also something not to take for granted. I'm so happy to have found ease with it after all these years.
Will this way of eating make me thin? Probably not. Is that the secret goal? Absolutely not. My mental health is so much better since I let that shit go.
I'm allowed to enjoy my food and you are too. It doesn't make you weak or bad. It makes you human. You need to eat to live and you're allowed to enjoy it as well. Don't be afraid to swim out to more interesting and uncharted waters.
Next week, I'll be talking about finding pleasure in creativity!
As you move through all of your feelings around food and pleasure and what that means to you, remember to treat yourself and your body with love, respect and kindness.
Much love,
Helen xo