LET’S TALK ABOUT FOOD
In our modern Western culture, I find we often have difficult and confused relationships with food. There’s a wide range of struggles; many eat too much, others not enough. Many have too much sugar, caffeine, sodium, fat and/or [insert latest vice of choice] and not enough vegetables and whole grains. There are many diets out there designed for weight loss– many make some kind of sense, but on the whole I’d say I’m not a fan of dieting. Dieting teaches us that food is bad, food is the enemy! You have to fight it at every step! No. Good food is good for you and everything in moderation. If you’re eating the right amount to maintain your weight, it’ll feel better than having too much or too little. Good food does not need to taste bad.

These are the few food guidelines I find the most useful (nothing to do with a “diet”, but a lifestyle – much more sustainable!):
• Pay attention to portion sizes – don’t eat too much or too little for your body and activity level.
• Eat regularly – more smaller meals or snacks between meals is much better than only 2 or 3 large meals a day.
• Cut refined sugar wherever you can. Fruit and yogurt are tasty alternatives. Try honey or maple syrup instead of white sugar.
• Cut salt wherever you can. Learn to season food with other spices and herbs, citrus juice and vegetable broth are also good alternatives for adding flavour.
• Be on the lookout for ways to add vegetables to your diet.
• Pay attention to what you drink – pop contains a lot of sugar! Juice is better, but also contains high amounts of natural sugar, so the majority of your liquid consumption should be water. Improve the taste with a Brita filter or flavour it with citrus.
• Hide unhealthy treats on yourself so they don’t tempt you. Out of sight, out of mind.

The easiest way to do all the above is to avoid restaurants – learn to cook! There are cookbooks for fast meals, for novices, for men (not the same thing as novices!), ethnic cooking, vegetarian, cooking for one, comfort food, health food, and so much more! Cooking your food yourself allows you to control how much sugar, salt, fat, etc. you add (don’t be afraid to alter recipes!), gives you the opportunity to add more healthy alternatives to your meals (e.g. more veggies and grains), and allows you to control portion size more easily.

My own guilty pleasure with food is sweets. The biggest problem with this (beside my waistline) is that I’m also sugar sensitive. That means that I get strong sugar rushes and crashes. Characteristics of a crash include: extreme fatigue, mood swings, irritability, anxiety, blurry vision, dizziness, nausea, headaches, shaking, trouble concentrating, and extreme cravings for more sugar (each crash is a different combination of the above). When having a crash, it’s extremely difficult to not give into that craving to have more, and thus continue the vicious addiction cycle. Amazingly, it’s easy to not notice the connection. I heard once that 70% of women have some degree of sugar sensitivity. I don’t really know if that’s accurate, but it’s something to think about. If you do notice the connection, the major crashes should be enough of an incentive to kick the habit though, right? Not so much. Addiction, including food addiction, is hard to overcome.

Cutting back on sugar consumption has been a slow process for me. But you know what? I have discovered that tastes can be changed gradually. Years ago, I used to look forward to having a McDonalds Shamrock Shake (a mint milkshake) to honour St. Patrick’s Day every year. They stopped making it for a while, but 3 or 4 years ago, I saw a sign that they were bringing it back! I couldn’t help but get one, for old times’ sake. In the end, I threw 3/4 of it into the garbage. I couldn’t drink it - it was just too sickening sweet! I doubt they changed the recipe, what changed was me.

The trick here I’ve found is to make changes gradually. Give yourself small goals. For example, if you’re used to having dessert with every meal, a handful of days in the week cut it back to only 1 or 2 desserts a day. Celebrate (with something that isn’t food) when you reach your goals. If you are really, really craving something, don’t beat yourself up, just control the portion size. Do you really need to eat two full scoops of ice cream to handle the craving? I don’t think so. Try a spoonful or two and see if that’s enough. If you end up eating many other snacks in place of what you’re really craving, there’s a good chance you’ll end up eating more calories or sugar than if you had just given in to a *small* portion of the craving.

You really can’t be your best when you’re suffering from sugar highs and lows – or any food addiction. It is worth the struggle to kick the habit.

My second food struggle is that I’ve developed a gift at ignoring hunger. It’s not because of body image, it’s a habit formed from growing up in an environment where it was sometimes better to go hungry than get sick by eating what was offered. I still sometimes don’t notice I’m hungry until I’m so starving, I’ll eat whatever is closest and fastest. Or even worse, I’ll be incredibly prickly and have trouble concentrating for a while until it passes. I know it’ll pass if I wait long enough, it always does. But that’s no way to live! You also can’t be your best on an empty stomach.

My goals to overcome this are:

• Set times for myself to eat and stick to it so that I eat regularly.
• Have healthy snacks throughout the day & good food readily available to tide myself over if I do slip and forget to eat.
• The biggest goal: learn to cook fast, healthy meals. For one thing, it’s cheaper. Much, much cheaper if you learn what you’re doing. For another, it’s empowering. I don’t have to rely on others quite as much to have a good meal (still relying on farmers and a distribution system of course, but not on restaurants, processed food companies or someone else making my meals). A third reason: Smell is crucial to taste (that’s why you can’t taste your food when you have a stuffed nose). If I smell food and know that I will be eating it when it is ready, it not only gives me something to focus on, the smell actually satisfies a bit of that hunger so I don’t fill up on junk food in the meantime.

I’m not one to count calories, but every now and again, I do recommend keeping a food diary. Record everything you eat and drink, how much and when. At the end of a week, take a look at the whole picture. Think of the food groups, if you’re getting too much or too little of each, and if you’re spreading your consumption out throughout the day. This doesn’t have to be an in depth exercise, but it can be an eye-opener of what your unique food struggles may be!

Margaret Bailey lives in Ottawa with her husband and two cats. She believes strongly that knowledge is only useful if applied and shared. She strives to be a light to all who cross her path or walk with her awhile.