Diet and Nutrition
Do you cringe if you hear the word "Diet" ?
Interestingly enough, that may have nothing to do with you having to go on some kind of strange eating behaviour, which in your mind, sucks all the fun out of life.
Actually, Diet has not much to do with Nutrition at all!
Diet has something to do with Awareness and Attitudes.
Let me explain.....
Right from the word go, when you are born, you have been conditioned to eat what's "on the table", with other words, to eat what your family, your close surrounding social group, friends and relatives eat.
Not only that, you as a baby may have also learnt - ( conditioned), that when you cry, your mum gives you food.
On other occasions, when you were a little bit sick, you may have been "rewarded" with something nice to eat, to make you feel better.
Is this a habit of yours today, to reward yourself with food?
Don't get me wrong, I am not accusing anyone, it's just the way most of us grow up.
Anyhow, sooner or later you will grow up, accumulate knowledge, the brain starts working properly, with logic, reasoning and self-preservation, we usually will adapt a responsible way to eat with awareness, knowledge and balance .... hopefully.
That's the point when we may realise, that we are already on a diet.
Yes, we are all on a Diet.
It could be a good diet, whatever that means, or a junk food diet, maybe a soft drink and chips diet.
The most important point to be aware of; >>>> "You are on a Diet already".
Whatever you eat now, for whatever reason, that's your Diet.
If you are aware of that, and acknowledge it too, you may be willing to change or improve your diet.
Question yourself, why do I eat what I eat?
Is it because of your nationality, your up-bringing, peer group pressure, TV commercials, what's cool, what's healthy, taste conditioning, emotional feeding frenzy :-) -- or ....
... have you actually sat down and worked out, why you eat what you eat.
We all know what is good and bad for us ... you can find that basic knowledge everywhere. It's not a secret, that food loaded with artificial everything, fat, too much sugar, salt and numbers is not really good for your health.
If you do eat a lot of that, why do you actually eat it?
Don't kid yourself, it's not the taste, you got conditioned to that taste, and it's not really that hard to change your taste either, it only takes about a week.
On the other hand if you think you can't live without your .... chips .. or .... what ever it is .....
... please realise ... " You are Addicted", that's what over-processed food does to you ...
Who is in control here? You or the food companies ?
All this and much more, is the reason that diet has nothing to do with nutrition, it's all awareness and attitude.
If you have an attitude of self-preservation, you will recognize those facts, and start working on a more sustainable food intake regime.
To demonstrate the case of diet and attitude further, here is a shopping centre example.
I am standing with my trolley behind a guy with a trolley full of bottles with a certain soft drink ( I don't want to mention brand names) and heaps of bags of chips, and lots of other processed food items.
He looked at my trolley, which had a few items marked with "Organic", and said jokingly .... don't buy that cr.... it's a rip off.
He may be right, I can't see why organic products should be more expensive, but the funny part was that he must have thought he didn't get ripped off with his choice of food.
By the way, more nutritional and less detrimental food is not more expensive, it cost actually less.
To come back to the point, "you are on a diet already".
What practical meaning does that have?
There is no need for you to go on a diet, you simply start changing or improving your present diet.
The difference is in the attitude about your diet, it should become less threatening and cringing.
Improve one step at a time. Here are some simple tips on how to start:
