Your relationship with food

Have you always had a challenge treating food as simply your body's fuel? Even back in your childhood?
I can remember being a kid, having to finish everything on my plate, especially if I wanted dessert. And of course I always wanted dessert, it automatically followed a meal. Snacks weren't healthy either, never just veggies or fruit but junk food all the way. I loved my mom's cooking, she was the best! But I never could stop myself. :( Eat til I was so uncomfortably stuffed.
I've had an unhealthy relationship with food all my life.
Until now. :) Better late than never, right??
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Replies

  • ElizabethKalmbach
    ElizabethKalmbach Posts: 1,416 Member
    My mother was a *terrible cook* so I learned to cook in self defense. My Dad is a research chemist, so kitchen McGuyvering is a way of life.

    I love food! Because I cook and have a reasonably good general grasp of nutrition, I have often cooked for friends and family with a variety of food-related challenges. I like making things delicious within the constraint of allergies, ethical choices, and medical conditions if I can. Everyone should be able to love what they're eating, even if it's good for them!

    Cooking from scratch has given me a wonderful skill set for accommodating what I *want* with what I can afford, whether that's literal economics or a calorie goals.

    Most of my periods of "food problems" are tied into medical conditions that caused me to either gain a lot of weight or lose it, so I've had to learn to feed myself back to "normal" whether that required eating less or more or just "different emphasis from before."
  • NovusDies
    NovusDies Posts: 8,940 Member
    I think it comes back to moderation. If you are expecting to have a foodgasm with every bite you do not have a healthy relationship with food. If you think that you need to eat for sustenance only and your choices are completely joyless that is also a sign you do not have a healthy relationship with food.

    I see it as a scale of 1 to 10. 1 is food you may be trying force for some reason. A popular example is people trying to wean themselves off of high calorie coffee additions. They may try to force themselves to drink coffee in a different way for a short period of time in hopes they learn to like it. 10 is the high calorie treat food you need to moderate.

    I have plenty of treats but I am not always eating at a 10. I would characterize my eating habits as around 6 for a fair amount of the food I eat. I like it but I could like it more with more calories added. For instance I really like eating salad but I would like it even more with real blue cheese dressing on it. Now I could eat a much smaller salad and either include some crumbles or even a small amount of the dressing but I prefer a huge salad so I don't bother with either most of the time.
  • strongwouldbenice
    strongwouldbenice Posts: 153 Member
    I have always had a hearty appetite and was complimented as a kid for clearing my plate. I love to eat.

    Yes, one of the most common things I hear from my mother is "you've always loved your food".
  • paperpudding
    paperpudding Posts: 8,926 Member
    to OP - no, I dont think I ever had an unhealthy relationship with food.

    I wasnt overweight as a child, teenager or young adult.

    But over time I gradually ate too much and excersised too little and my weight crept up - the so called middle age spread.

    as mentioned above, I don't want to treat food as just my body's fuel - I want to enjoy it and have social occasions involving it.
    I just have to not eat too much of it - voila!, enter calorie counting to ensure that.