I have said many times that 90% of people on a diet 12 months apart have more pounds than before.
An industry that has 90% failures would have disappeared decades ago were it not for the fact that it continues to sell us dreams and that we continue to fail.
In fact we like to think that the rampant problem of overweight is a food issue, but sooner or later we should resign ourselves to the idea that it is entirely a mental issue .
Sure, we eat too much, we abuse sweets and carbohydrates of all kinds and we are sedentary but we all know this. Just as we all know that a plate of salad is better than a plate of french fries.
So why is it so difficult for us to act correctly if we have the knowledge to do it? Why do we follow a diet for a while but then go back to eating as before if not worse to compensate for the months of suffering?
The answer is precisely that the problem is not food but mental .
What has happened since the industrial revolution and in particular from the sixties to today is that tons of industrial foods rich in sugars, fats, salt and other substances have arrived on our tables capable of giving new and unexpected pleasure to the consumer compared to traditional and more natural foods.
But these new foods are also capable of slowly subverting our health and even before our behavior.
Use irresistible foods in moderation
Put simply the consumer cannot be asked to resist and use in moderation foods that are produced to be completely irresistible .
Of course, suggesting a kid to eat one French fries a week is going to sound crazy! When he opens the package he is induced by the food itself to devour it.
These foods work on our neuro-psychological weaknesses, take advantage of natural tendencies to look for calorie and good foods, but exasperate them to the nth degree making us completely lose control of the mechanism.
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In an ecosystem so rich in food traps, the entire relationship with food is compromised. So you go from eating to live to living to eat, that is, looking for compensation in food for stress, sorrow, tiredness, loneliness, desire for fun, to name just a few.
This is why following a healthy diet seems so difficult if not impossible to many.
Not because it is metabolic, but because it is behaviorally .
The minds of these people constantly take them elsewhere, in territories far from diet and health, to emotional areas where food represents an intense form of comfort without which life appears completely gray and empty .
Until you work on these aspects, a diet, as it is generally understood, will never produce the expected long-term result .
Where does a healthy diet begin?
We need to start over with the mind and emotions, because once you’ve put that level in order, following a correct lifestyle will seem like a task for elementary school children.
Here’s why what seems so impossible for some is generally very easy for others.
They are not heroes .
They just fixed a few fundamental pieces of their emotional life, which is not an easy task but not an impossible one.
We like to think that the rampant problem of overweight is a food issue, but sooner or later we should resign ourselves to the idea that it is entirely a mental issue. So it can be said that healthy eating starts from the mind.
If this article concerns you personally, try asking yourself a few questions:
1. What does food represent for me? Safety, compensation for loneliness, a soothing, a cuddle, compensation for boredom, an anti-stress element, are possible answers.
2. How can I get what I look for in food with other more suitable sources? If you are stressed you could learn a relaxation technique instead of eating, if you feel lonely it means that you have to change something in yours relationships, if it is boredom that leads you to overdo it you can find other sources of fun.
3. What personal relationships hinder my life change? Are there people around me who fuel my desire to eat? If so, you must try to turn them into allies at all costs or, at worst, try to avoid them.
Our relationship with food has never been as complex as it is today.
We have to simplify it if we want to find a new balance and to do this we need to stop putting too much value on eating.
Relationship with food
An exaggerated rhetoric has been created around food, experts of all kinds, bloggers, television broadcasts, a sort of cult towards cooks or chefs as they like to be called, hundreds of books on the subject (yes, some even mine ), a constant pilgrimage to renowned restaurants.
All beautiful and appreciable things that however have little to do with a normal, calm and sober relationship with food and with the pleasure of chewing what is really useful for our body.
