What kind of relationship should I have with food? This is a huge question a lot of people have, especially people who are trying to reduce their weight.
First let’s discuss what it should not be: first and foremost food absolutely should not be a source of shame, guilt, deprivation or torture. Unfortunately, a lot of people believe the process of slimming down has to include those feelings.
So what happens, a person maybe starts their New Year’s resolutions, and they set out to drop 30 pounds, and they say, “OK, I’m going to eat totally clean, totally healthy. I’m going to only eat raw vegan for the rest of my life! I’m going to wake up an hour early every single morning, even though I’m already sleep-deprived, and I’m going to just grind my way through it.” I’m getting exhausted just thinking about all that!
I don’t know about you, but that was the mentality that I had for a long time, and that was why I was fat for so many years. It’s because a lot of people think they have to jump into this crazy, dramatically different lifestyle all at once. So if they back-track a little or have a reward day, they feel bad. If they have a “cheat day” (P.S. don’t ever call it a cheat day, that in and of itself just creates feelings of guilt and shame). Instead, call it a reward day, a reward meal, a reset meal, a re-feed day, whatever terminology works for you in a positive way.
Again, first and foremost, that is what it should not be. If you are experiencing feelings of shame, let’s say again you give yourself a reward day, and you have a chocolate chip cookie, you are feeling low and your body begins to get super tense and you feel negative, that is not what you want to be feeling. Those feelings will not serve you or get you your desired results.
In fact, for a long time a big source of my back pain, I didn’t know this at the time, but it was shame. I remember going on a cruise with my wife, and feeling intensely shameful for all the food I was eating. (Before I started my business, I waited tables and saved up for over a year to surprise my wife and take her on a birthday cruise.) If you have ever been on a cruise before, you know that you eat, and you can eat a lot. If you want to, you could literally be eating 24/hours a day 7 days a week on a cruise ship.
And this was only our third cruise, so the novelty of it hadn’t quite worn off, and so of course we would go and eat these great big meals, and then my mid-low back would absolutely tense up and inflame. And if you’ve studied body language or gone through any of my courses you know that that is where shame is stored (in mid and low back, below heart level). I felt shameful for over-eating and for gaining that weight.
Again, if that is what your relationship with food is, then please release that shame. Come in and see me in one of our clinics and release that shame. Go and see a practitioner or whatever it is that works for you. Again, that is where it should not be.
Ideally, you want your relationship with food to be wonderful, and for you to look forward to your meals. If you are like me and you do intermittent fasting, I love dinnertime because I have calorically fasted for most of the day, and I’m quite hungry by that time. I do things to block my appetite, I use supplements and things that will help me to fast up until my first meal of the day, but then that first meal comes and I enjoy every single bite.
I savor all the tastes, all the flavors. I really love grilled food, especially because of that nice smoky flavor of the meat. I love really nice crisp, tender vegetables. And yes, occasionally I enjoy a treat. Absolutely!
You’ve probably heard me say, “any weight reduction plan that doesn’t include chocolate every day of the week, in my opinion, isn’t worth following” because I really enjoy chocolate.
That’s the type of relationship you can have with food. When you see food as something that is beautiful and wonderful… I’m gonna go there, I’m going to use an adult reference because I feel like it’s applicable. If you’re super-easily offended, skip over this part, that’s fine.
As a lot of you know, I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I’ve been a member my whole life and a big part of our culture and what we teach is sexual purity. I grew up in Southern California where that isn’t exactly a mainstream thing. I remember when I got engaged to my wife, I actually had well-meaning friends and coworkers try to convince me to sleep with my wife before we got married, and in our faith we believe in being sexually abstinent until marriage.
Now unfortunately, a lot of people are taught this principle the wrong way; they are taught that sex is dirty and evil and yucky, and there’s a lot of shame with that. So there are people that are virgins by the time they are married, but then they do get married and suddenly they get this green light, and they experience what’s known as the “good-girl” or the “good-boy” syndrome. Even though there’s that green light, they are married now, and even though marital physical intimacy is wonderful and beautiful, to them it is still a source of shame – not guilt because they aren’t doing anything wrong – but it is very much shame.
I’ve worked with a lot of couples in the clinic, personal mentoring clients, and members of our Magical Marriage program that have had this issue, and so it is really hard for them to open up and to have a very positive sex life because there is so much shame around sex itself, when sex is not shameful. Sex at the right place and time, sex between a husband and wife is beautiful and wonderful and it bonds the two together, and it can create a wonderful family.
The same concept applies when it comes to food. You don’t need to feel like food is something to be avoided at all costs. If you enjoy a reward meal each week, or if you mess up like we all do, just keep moving forward.
I mess up, even though I’ve dropped a lot of weight, I still have those moments where I mess up and I go, “ugh, ok”. It can be really really easy to fall into that shame, again, and then backtrack. Once you fall into shame, it’s really easy to start back-tracking and say, “What’s the use in trying?”
One of my mentors gave the acronym of CRR which stands for Confess, Reassess, and Recommit. Let’s say you do mess up, you totally backtrack because something crazy happens and you binge eat for two days. OK, confess that to yourself, your accountability partner, your mentor or trainer, whoever it is, and get it off your chest. Confess that, reassess the situation, and recommit to what it is you know you need to do.
Recommit to going through the modules of Falling In Love With Yourself program, recommit to drinking your green smoothie every single day. Recommit to yourself and jump right back on track. When you allow yourself that space to forgive yourself quickly, and to view food as something beautiful and something to be enjoyed, that’s when your relationship with food can begin to grow, and that’s when that long-term transformation takes place. Does that make sense?
One more time, a relationship with food absolutely should not be a source of shame, deprivation, or starvation, and it absolutely can be this beautiful relationship where it’s like, “Ooh, I get to enjoy this really nice, very healthy dinner tonight.”
Today, for me, is actually what I call a high-carb day, I’m doing something called Carb-Cycling, if you’re not familiar with that I’ll share more on that soon, but I alternate between low-carb days and high-carb days. Today, I actually get to enjoy over 200 grams of carbs, so I’m gonna be making Pollo-Saltado (Peruvian stir-fry) with chicken, onions, tomatoes and spices, and served with french fries.
We have a really great air-fryer, and it makes the most amazing french fries, and you need very little oil, if any at all. To get enough carbs in tonight, I’m actually going to be something like 2 ½ or 3 full cups of rice, and I’m really looking forward to it because, again, it’s that beautiful relationship.
See food as something that’s really, really nice. Maybe that for you entails taking a cooking class, doing one of those masterclasses, or maybe going on YouTube and seeing how you can prepare your favorite foods in maybe a little healthier way.
You absolutely can form a beautiful relationship with food. I hope that helps all of you who are reading this that are beginning your process of enjoying yourself thin. If you haven’t already, join our Enjoy Yourself Thin Facebook group, it’s totally free to join, we post content like this on a regular basis.
If you have questions, please reach out to us. Make sure that you are asking those questions so that we can get you those answers, we would love that. Get that support that you need to enjoy beginning the process of slimming down. Love you!
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