It's Not Bread

Before we get started I can assure you it's not chocolate either.

At least once every day I get asked about whether someone should be eating or avoiding a specific type of food. This is usually in the context of weight loss and the question usually sounds something a bit like…

“What about *insert food item*?”

I’ll be the first to admit that this can be a pretty frustrating question and it usually comes with what most people find a pretty frustrating answer. This answer generally involves a few more questions to figure out how much you’re having, how often, what else have you been eating and ultimately what is your goal.

This question comes from a very human desire to have rules and step by step actions to help us get where we want to be. Historically we have been taught through the help (or not) of commercial diets that pin ‘success’ or ‘failure’ on the exclusion or presence of individual food items.

Cabbage soup, Keto, Atkins I’m looking at you!

We have been led to believe that if we eat a slice of bread, a cube of cheese or a bar of chocolate we will somehow gain 7lbs or reverse any weight loss we may have achieved.  The reality, however, is that no single food item can make or break your health or weight loss. It simply cannot!!

In order to make long term success I urge everyone to explore why they demonise certain foods? What have you been told that makes you feel this way and do you really believe that to be true?

It’s so important to see the bigger picture.

My suggestions

If you currently scrutinise every food you consume then try to zoom out and look at your day, if 80% seems healthy and sensible and 20% is less nutritionally dense then you’re probably doing great.

If you get stuck on “good days” and “bad days” zoom out and look at the week. Same applies, if 80% is looking healthy then you’re winning.

If you panic that a weeks holiday will “ruin” everything then zoom out and look at the month.

If the school holidays through the summer make you feel like you’ll never achieve your goals then zoom out and look at the year.

You get the idea. Its what we do the most of that counts so please please cut yourself some slack as no one food item can make or break any goal.

Hannah