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Modern culture tells us "the way to health" is to set rules and restrictions and use sheer "willpower" to overcome the obstacles in our way.
And how's that working for us??
What if we shift our approach to something that MOST people are not considering;
Putting our energy into our environment / surroundings to set ourselves up for healthier living in a natural, less stressful way. Combine that with re-learning how to trust our own physiology as your regular practice and you will see how your deep health is positively impacted.
Here's how a client is doing just that...
My client and I have been discussing her nutrition habits and her efforts to balance work shifts and family time. (She completed my "Nutrition Harmony" program in our app, which discusses intuitive eating, and also has read and continues to practice intuitive eating). This client wants to get her walks in after work (which means she gets out about 7:30ish in the evening after getting home) but also wants to spend time with her family, which sometimes means reaching for snacks, as a means of staying awake so to have more of that family time.
We discussed the reality that we can only do so much in a day, so we need to assess what is truly important for this client. In this case, family time is very important. But her movement (in this case walks) is in place to off-set her seated work she does during the days. Another important point for her. Through our discussion we chatted about how she CAN do both, but perhaps shift some timing a bit to allow both things to happen with less "force". For example: After work, rather than going for a 60-90min walk, make it a 30-45min walk and then come home to be with the family.
Following this discussion, it lead into a discussion surrounding her love for chips. And this back and forth was a WONDERFUL example of how food is SO MUCH MORE than "good or bad", "right or wrong", "do or don't". Like us humans, food/nutrition/eating is complex:
-Chips are a favourite snack of hers. Much of it she realizes stems back to her youth in a comfort and nostalgia sense, as her family would sit down for TGIF (who didn't back in the day!?) and have their snacks while watching great shows.
-A family friend when she was younger worked for a chip company, so they could buy newly expired chips from him by the garbage bag full for just $10. This allowed chips to become an easy, go to snack at various times throughout the days in her youth.
-This led to (throughout her weight loss journey in the past) to extreme guilt and shame eating.
-Into adulthood (when she does the grocery shopping) she buys 4 bags of chips with Friday groceries. Sometimes she'll pick up a couple more on Sunday. Her husband and sons will have some, but mostly she is the chip eater in the house.
What has she already done?
My client has recognized how eating these things makes HER FEEL. It's not labelling chips (or chocolate if she reaches for that) as "good" or "bad", but rather noticing how SHE feels before, during and after eating these foods.
(This is part of what intuitive eating allows us to practice - listening to our physiology to help us make informed decisions based on internal factors rather than external)
This recognition is a wonderful progression to cultivate change.
A few days after this conversation began, her schedule was a bit different than normal on the weekend. She worked an odd 5pm-1am shift on the Friday (therefore Netflix and chips naturally didn't happen). Saturday she had a late appointment in the afternoon, and therefore their normal Saturday supper was pushed later than usual. They had a reasonably quick meal and she chose to have a handful of chips with her meal as a side. She mentioned that it seemed to satisfy her just fine. This is a wonderful, small change that also opened up the opportunity for her to listen to her body.
Come Monday, with still some treats (chips and chocolate) left in the house, she realized how good she felt! She said, "I felt great! No waking up to overconsumption hangovers!"
Small Change
There's a couple things I pointed out to her in our conversations back and forth that worked in favour of the change she wants:
1) SHE buys the groceries and therefore has more control over what does or does not come into the home
2) SHE is the main chip eater in the house. Meaning less factors when change is happening that will come into play for her.
I gave her two ideas of how she can begin to create change with this habit. These two ideas also are a nice reminder that small doesn't mean we aren't challenging ourselves in some way. Change is different. Change takes time. Change also requires, ACTION.
Option 1) This week - buy 3 bags of chips instead of 4 bags.
Option 2) This week - Still buy her 4 bags of chips. But if she feels the urge to buy more, come up with some alternative ideas. For example: The cost of a few bags of chips worth could be used to purchase a new journal or book (she loves both those things).
*Remember - this client is a great example of what many of us are working with. The reality here is that she is not working to change a "bad habit". She's working to change a decades long habit. That takes time, patience and action. This is NOT something that we can "force" on ourselves and think the change will last. If we want SUSTAINABLE change, we have to recognize the time this habit was in play first and foremost. In my opinion, that can also take some of the pressure off as well.
Mid-Week Update from my Client
My clients mid-week update was piled full of "ah-ha" moments and small changes in a direction that SHE wants, to help create positive deep health change in her daily lifestyle. Here is her message she sent to me:
"Midweek update! Middle of the week. No trips to the store to replenish my chip and candy stash. It impresses me that thereare still some left. It impresses me that I've not even been tempted to reach for them.
I'm still having supper after my evening walk. A small portion to satisfy. Eating between 8:30 -9p is not
ideal. But for now it's serving a purpose which is not over consuming chips and chocolate mindlessly in
front of the TV. And it's actually supper. Lol Eventually I will play with times. But this is a step. And of
course I feel better, physically and mentally! Lighter, which I know isn't a feeling but descriptive of how
I've been feeling so far this week"
THAT is POWERFUL STUFF people!!!! Awesome!
My response to this, in addition to reminding her how AWESOME this is was to take the opportunity to remind her that we're not searching for "ideal". "Ideal" isn't what we're searching for in the general sense, but rather WHAT IS IDEAL FOR HER, NOW, in her daily life and routines. I took the opportunity to remind her to stick with this for a while. Let it play out. Let those recognitions of how she feels flow more. Maybe this IS HER "ideal" for a while. Enjoy it. Keep rolling with it. Good things are happening.
This wonderful story, I hope, may inspire some of you to begin to practice changing HOW you approach your nutrition practices. If we can re-learn how to cultivate trust in nature, our own physiology, we will alleviate much of the stress, rules and restrictions we put in play when it comes to the foods we eat.
And we will begin to see positive change in our overall deep health.
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