Call out to the ‘Cheat Day’
Language is so important when it comes to healing with food. Just like the language we speak to ourselves, the language we speak out loud, affects us. The words we use have a certain meaning to us and as we fill our world with them, they influence us in a positive or negative way. Therefore, it’s is so important to be aware of the words we use.
Beliefs we hold around food
When we are healing our relationship we food, it’s important to dive into the beliefs we have around them. What are we believing to be healthy and unhealthy, right and wrong? Influenced by things which others told us, we have read or saw somewhere, we slowly created how we view the world. We judge everything and put it through this filter we have, so we can understand it and know how to deal with it. As a human being, this is our way to handle this world.
Very often, when dealing with an eating disorder, we find ourselves having very strong beliefs around food. Believing some things we shouldn’t eat if we want to be healthy and some things we definitely SHOULD have. These beliefs often restrict us in the choices we make around food and may cause us to think about food a lot and perhaps stress over it.
When we dive into these beliefs and we ask ourselves if they are truly serving us, we want to get clear on the things which are helpful for our healing journey. The words we use to explain our world, have this weight of meaning to them, therefore making us feel a certain way.
When we use certain words, which are quite often used in the dietary industry, we give a negative meaning to something. Words like: cheat day, clean eating or ‘good’ and ‘bad’ foods etc.
Cheat Day
A cheat day gives for most of us the feeling like we are doing something we are not supposed to do. We are in some way failing the rules we have set up for ourselves. This term tends to be used in case of dieting, when we go off our diet for a day. Very often, we find ourselves eating way more than we need on days like this, because we experience this thing we call ‘last supper mindset’. Now we are able to allow ourselves fully and on Monday we have to go back to the diet, so we might as well just enjoy FULLY today.
We want to make sure we use words in ur vocabulary which are actually lifting us up. Words like: celebrating, food for the soul or a very tasty meal. Using these terms when it comes to moments where we decide to have something which is more palatable than other foods or more processed, gives us a way better feeling. Whenever we make the decision to have anything, we should stand byhind our choice and ENJOY the experience. Food is to be enjoyed after all.
Clean Eating
This word assumes that there is a dirty way to eat and again makes us feel like, whenever we don’t eat foods which are in alignment with this clean eating, we are doing something wrong. We are eating dirty food, which is unhealthy. I truly believe there is a time and place for everything food-wise and sometimes ‘good for the soul’ might be EXACTLY what we need.
‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ foods
When we are trying to come to a more intuitive way of eating, it is so important to led to of these strong judgement towards food. Anything in life can be good or bad, depending on the intention and the situation. Depending first of all on the meaning WE put in to it. We can have a pizza and focus on its taste, the people we are with, the nourishment it gives us. This way it can feel like the best thing we could do for ourselves. It’s our perspective which decide how we feel around foods. And whenever we are stressed and feeling guilty, it affects our digestion. If we don’t truly want to accept the food into our body, our body will respond that way.
Let us be aware of words we use and the meaning we put on to things related to our dietary lifestyle. Let us find the beliefs which are actually serving us in our healing journey and which make us feeel GOOD. Food is to be enjoyed and we are fully in charge of that by deciding where we put our focus.
