FOOD FOR THOUGHT
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☀️“Welcome! May I take your order?”
“Yes. I’d like a Guilt Burger with a side of Fear Fries. Hold the Worry Sauce. Extra dash of Stress and Panic. And a large Shame Shake to go please.”
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We expend a tremendous amount of energy obsessing over food. Our preoccupation and fixation on diets, low calorie this and perfect macros that, is so mentally taxing that it often negates the potential health benefits we seek.
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During my eating disorder struggles, it used to take me a couple hours to grocery shop because I would need to go to multiple markets. I had to buy what my eating disorder considered to be the “healthiest,” and that meant I’d waste a lot of time searching for odd, expensive, and fad foods.
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Of course, in my mind, this was time well spent because I was eating only the best, perfectly balanced, mostly organic foods. I didn’t view what I ate as a choice, but rather a necessary requirement. I was a slave to calories, nutrition labels, serving sizes, and ingredients, but at least I knew my diet was the epitome of health. Sure, I was depressed, anxious, delusional and irritable —but making sure my food was healthy was more important.
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It wasn’t long before my physical body began breaking down just as my mind already had. I failed to link the two together, and I suffered the consequences. I overlooked the most important nutrient group —the diet of my mind. And my mental health was atrocious. I consumed large quantities of stress, anxiety, guilt, shame, anger, and self-deprecation.
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What we feed our mind matters —more so than what we feed our bodies, in my opinion. This isn’t to say it’s a good idea to eat pizza and chocolate for every meal. What I am implying is that a well-rounded imperfect diet is healthier than eating a perfect diet with a poor mental state. Food is just fuel, and your body is smart enough to know how to utilize it. The mind, on the other hand, is what determines quality of life.
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Your mind can hurt you; food cannot. And you can begin healing and strengthening it by letting go of the pressure to eat perfectly. ~Britt💜