Last Thursday I blogged about stress and the fight-or-flight response (here). I added some words from Marc David’s book, Nourishing Wisdom. I want to give you a little more from this book today, because he does a wonderful job of pinpointing the struggles and truths of peoples’ relationship with food. He talks about children and eating, and how their instincts develop and change into adulthood. I think we can all relate, in some way, to David’s eloquent description of how strongly our emotions are tied to the way we approach food and eating.
A crying baby is transformed into a calm and satisfied one with a little mother’s milk. And a miserable child can change into a creative, playful force with a helping of the right food. Children eat naturally and spontaneously, without fear and without concepts of what should or should not be eaten. They certainly have their preferences, but unlike adults they experience little guilt and make no judgments about the eating habits of others. Children eat because they enjoy eating.
As we grow older we lose some of the child within…
On change of seasons…
Metabolism decreases in the wintertime as body temperature mechanisms are challenged by the cold. Appetite naturally increases at this time as the body years for greater caloric intake to help keep its temperature within a normal range. Most people recognize this as a desire for hot foods and soups in the wintertime and an attraction to high-fat and high-protein foods such as meats, cheeses, casseroles, and fried foods… Researchers have discovered that body weight is generally greatest when the mean January temperature is lowest. This extra body fat is an evolutionary adaptation to insulate us from the cold and provide an emergency source of caloric energy.
On changing a bad habit…
Occasionally we can overcome a habit by fighting it with negative willpower. Yet the victory is short-lived, and the habit returns because it was only temporarily overwhelmed by strength, or the habit is re-formed into another, equally damaging habit… A habit is re-formed when we use negative willpower to suppress the habit… The key to changing a habit is positive willpower. Positive willpower accepts a habit and transforms it with a force that is directed by intelligence… This intelligence directs our efforts and helps us achieve our goals…
And the last one is my favorite, because it is the something I truly believe in.
On awareness…
Eating with awareness is the most important and powerful tool to transform your relationship to food and the body… There is no goal or ideal to strive for. All there is to do is eat, observe, and accept. No matter what kind of food you eat or nutritional system you follow, eating with awareness is the key to diet.
That is the essence of this blog and the goal I have for my future nutrition career. I want to help people become more aware of what they are eating, and specifically how it affects their health in both the short and long-term. I truly believe we can all be happier, healthier people if we give some attention to this.
(I did not cook the above meal. But I did catch that fish! And thanks to an amazing chef, it tasted fresh and delicious!)
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