Weekly Challenge: Stop Holding Your Breath

I used to think dieting was a lot like holding my breath.

I could do it for a little bit, with great effort, but eventually, with a great gasp, I would give up what seemed impossible, and inhale air and food again as if my life depended on it.

Then, I read this:

A diet based on quantity rather than quality 
has ushered in a new creature on to the world stage: 

the human being who manages
to be both overfed and undernourished 

(Pollan, In Defense of Food, p 122)

Overfed and undernourished.

Oh my goodness, this is me.

My body received plenty of calories throughout the day, and yet was hungry, so hungry, all the time. Craving and eating and craving some more. And occasionally I tried to get it under control, to resist those cravings out of sheer willpower, but I just could not seem to last long this way. And that hunger, that constant hunger, was the enemy. I saw it in myself, and I hated it. 

It is selfish, it is my flesh, it is temptation. Isn't it?

But what if Pollan and others are right?

Overfed and undernourished.

Perhaps the hunger is not the enemy (or, not the only enemy).

Perhaps the hunger is just my body, working the way it is supposed to work, telling me it needs, needs things I am not giving it. Perhaps the processed foods and refined carbs I had been living on are not helping things, but making matters progressively worse.

Am I overfed but undernourished?

How would I know?

Well, I could try nourishing my body for once, and see if that helps.

So I did it. For one week, I went without sugar and refined grains. I ate tons of fruits and veggies (which was easy because my husband bought me a juicer.)

And my body thanked me.

Not a diet

Dieting, the kind that is like breath-holding, is all about what a person can’t have. This new way of living and eating is much more about what I can have. I can have things that are good for my body.  

Giving my body plenty of what it needs is nothing like breath-holding. It’s more like finally breathing in fresh air, after I had been living life suffocating under a pillow. I breathe deeply, drink deeply, and I find myself satisfied, not gasping and craving but satisfied.

Are you overfed and/or undernourished?

This week, try giving your body something it needs, and cutting out something it doesn’t.

Pay attention to how you feel, whether or not your cravings change.

Not sure what changes to make?

Read up on Real Food Basics
Learn more about Basic Nutrition
Learn more about being Overfed and Undernourished