So a funny thing happens the other day. I’m lying in bed and I’m thinking to myself, “why did I eat two pieces of nasty bread yesterday when I haven’t eaten bread for weeks”. Now, please note, I’m not quizzing myself on this because it matters that I ate this bread – I’m not one of those people who beat themselves up when they eat something they know isn’t necessarily good for them (bread fucks with my skin), but I am curious.
It seemed peculiar given that for weeks I’d paraded bread through this boat, for skipper, who is partial to an egg on toast, without touching it, yet, somehow, on this particular day I’m lusting after it as though it were a flaky, freshly made croissant from a French bakery and not, in fact, cheap, supermarket sliced white. You know the stuff that’s small and has a slight sweetness to it? I didn’t want porridge for breakfast, I wanted peanut butter slathered on two slices of this horrible stuff. And a third slice after that. Which for me, trust me, is weird.
So, I’m pondering away on this, having a little early morning navel-gaze, you know how it goes, and suddenly this thought jumps into my head. “I am one of those people who can turn down food”. In this moment, it’s like I suddenly remember a truth about myself that I’ve temporarily forgotten. My whole being kind of goes, “oh yeah, so I am”, and my normal reality – the one where I don’t choose to eat cheap fake bread, ever, and I do choose to turn down food when I’m not hungry (and feel good about it), clunks back into place.
It’s like I had temporary amnesia for a day or two and forgotten something imperative about myself, and so this unhelpful self-concept – one in which I see myself as a person who struggles to say no to food (especially bread) popped in, dragging along behind it a reality where I’m now turning down oats and seeds in favour of fake supermarket bread that’s only going to give me pustules on my face and bloat around my belly. Madness.
Self-concept isn’t a useless new-agey phrase, actually. I stumble into it all the time on Instagram and I expect you do too. How you see yourself does exactly determine what you get to experience as your “truth”. So, I’d like to ask you. How do you see yourself? Do you see yourself as someone who can turn down food? Or do you see yourself as someone who’s all like, “food’s there, so I’m eating it, get the fuck outta my way.” The answer can be sussed by the behaviour you end up going with, of course. If the struggle is intense, you can be certain you really do not see yourself as someone who can turn down food, like, at all.
So how do you change this? How do you exchange an unhelpful self-concept – one where you see yourself as someone who cannot resist food, and stuffs it in with her fists accordingly – for a helpful one, in which you see yourself as a fully conscious, healthy, mindful, intuitive, non-crazy eater and therefore doesn’t do anything involving cake and her fists, ever? Put it another way, how do you start seeing yourself as someone who can turn down food, effortlessly, so you can actually engage in this behaviour and start turning down food, effortlessly?
This is how:
You start turning down food while feeling good about the decision.
The thing is, the act of behaving like this person is the proof you already are this person and the tool to become this person, together, as one.
Next question, how do you feel good about your decision to turn down food when this is not really your normal and feels, frankly, ungodly? By deciding to feel good about it, that’s how. By realising that how you feel from one moment to the next is fairly flexible given that feelings are created by thought and you are nothing more than a hollow vessel through which thought, and therefore feelings, continuously flow.
You want to feel good about having just turned down a piece of sourdough dipped in guacamole rather than all resentful and pissed off about the unfairness that you “can’t” have it because you’re not hungry and therefore eating it would be just out of compulsion? Slink into the feeling of OK-ness that is there underneath your grumpiness. Feel your inner body, take slow mindful breaths. Feel the feeling of OK start to turn on inside you.
This is the full solution, laid bare. If you practice this, you will feel good as a food turner-downer and a new self-concept – one where you do actually see yourself as a food turner-downer – will rise up to meet you, dragging along a new reality for you to enjoy. One where you aren’t obsessed and crazy around food.
You will officially be a food turner-downer AKA indifferent towards food AKA effortlessly thin (no struggle or diets here, thank you very much). And I will have done my job.
Stay salty, bitches XX