Eat the Cake And Live Well

Many people are confused about what healthy eating means.

A lot of people associate “healthy eating” with losing weight, cutting out all carbs or gluten or dairy or another restriction, and ultimately depriving themselves of any food they enjoy.

🥘🍲🍹🍹🥂But the truth is, healthy eating is about enjoying the special moments in life so that you can celebrate with others. The goal of healthy eating is to give your body the variety of nutrients it needs to feel good, have energy, and maintain its proper functioning.

🌿🌿🌿In this episode we'll explore why restrictive eating is not good for us and you will learn tips I apply myself and give to my clients when it comes to eating healthy without feeling deprived.

 #nutrition#wellbeing #wellnesscoach #dietculture #intuitiveeating #antidiet #edrecovery#foodfreedom #bodyimage #bodypositive#dietsdontwork #eatingdisorderrecovery #nondiet#disorderedeating #scarcitymindset #food #nutrition#wellbeing

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Aesha Tahir is an award-winning author, keynote speaker, c

🌟 🌟 🌟 If you liked this episode and would like to learn more about wellness training and workshops offered by 9 to 5 Wellness, email us at info@aeshathair.com. You can learn more about our programs at: https://toneandstrengthen.com/workshops-trainings/. 🌟 🌟 🌟

My passion is helping organizations create a culture of wellness, and I do this by setting up health programs that prioritize the most important asset they've got – their employees. Cheers to a healthier and happier journey ahead!

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Transcript

Welcome to the nine to five wellness podcast,  a show about corporate wellness solutions with innovators and forward thinking leaders who are at the forefront of the workplace wellness movement.  I'm your host Ayesha Tahir.  

Hello, and welcome to a bonus episode of nine to five wellness  today's episode is super exciting. I talk about this topic with my weight loss and nutrition clients all the time.  And it was just so funny that it came to my attention at my son's grad party last weekend. So this past weekend, I had my oldest son's graduation party.

He graduated from high school and he's going to Cal Poly in fall where he's going to pursue data science program.   I'm so  super excited for him to start this new chapter in his life.  I wanted to celebrate his achievement with his friends and with my friends. So we threw him a big party at our home. 

One of my friends at the party, she saw me eating cake and having a beer. And she's known me for a while now, and she has seen me deprive myself of food before.  She goes like, Oh my gosh, Aisha, you are eating cake and I need to capture this. So she took a couple of photos of me which I've shared on my Instagram page.

Don't. underscore and underscore strengthen. You can follow me on Instagram. So my friend wanted to have these as a proof that I eat cake and I drink. And I mean, yeah, I enjoy my weekends and I wanted to celebrate my son's graduation with my friends.  Why wouldn't I do that? I told my friend that I eat every food group now. 

And I never feel deprived. I don't restrict myself, especially when it comes to social situations. I enjoy food according to my body's needs.  As a matter of fact, since I've started eating every food group and stopped restricting,  I feel better now than I ever have.

I've been adding food groups to my diet rather than subtracting them, which I used to do in the past.  I know how that feels. And I used to feel awful.   Her comment made me realize how often we equate healthy eating with never eating anything other than protein and veggies. And that's why I wanted to record this episode.

I've titled it. Eat. the cake and live well for that reason.  And I can't wait to dive into  what nutrition actually means, what good nutrition actually means with you in this episode. So I'm going to start first with,  there's a lot of confusion. about nutrition. Everyone agrees that eating healthy is good for your body, but so many people are confused about what healthy eating even means. 

Healthy eating, for many people, has become all about saying no to foods and yes to just apples and maybe a sad salad. I call it a sad salad because, you know, normally when you look at a salad, it looks really sad. You're like, ah, it's not appetizing. I don't want to eat it.  And there are so many different ways to make your salads appetizing too.

Another episode, another day on that topic. But that's what we perceive healthy food to be.  There is so much conflicting information out there that weight loss and eating healthily has become a game.  It's not your fault. It really isn't your fault. There's so much coming at you from so many different sources.

You, you have no idea now what to do. And a lot of my clients, like my friend,  associate  healthy eating with  Losing weight,  cutting out all the carbs, or gluten, or dairy, or maybe another food group, or another kind of restriction, I don't know. There are so many restrictions now that we can place on our food and our diet.

And ultimately depriving themselves of foods they enjoy and their body needs for physical and mental health.  And you hear me  say this phrase often.  That your body needs food, not just for physical, but also for mental health. Food is not just for your physical health.  It's meant to be for your mental health as well. 

And the truth is, healthy eating is about enjoying the special moments in life so that you can celebrate with others. The goal of healthy eating is to give your body the variety of nutrients it needs to feel good, have energy, and maintain optimal functioning.  If you're an athlete, then we also take into account the performance aspect of nutrition.

With healthy and  so closely intertwined in our society, I have seen clients  completely give up on the idea of eating healthy all together, or they constantly deprive themselves of food, skipping meals to cut calories, and restricting themselves from eating anything they love in their quest to health. 

And that's not all.  There are other reasons why restricting food is not good for our physical and mental health. Not only because , you would probably end up giving up on the health quest altogether if you are so strict about what you eat and if you are eliminating food groups from your diet. 

So what are the other reasons? The first one that I'm going to mention, and I'm a big proponent of it because honestly, every single thing you do, or every single goal that you want to achieve starts there.  And that is your mindset,  because everything begins and ends with your mindset.  If you have a positive mindset, and you believe in achieving a goal,  even if it's a  goal for healthy eating and nutrition,  having a better body composition,  well, then there's no way you won't achieve it.

You have to believe that this goal is within your reach and you can achieve it. 

The second reason why restricting food is not good for your physical and mental health is because restriction is based on scarcity mindset. Scarcity mindset is a belief system that you can't have enough. That you have to limit your options, you have to limit yourself. If you look at the ways of eating or diets, which are essentially forms of voluntary restriction, that's exactly what you're doing.

You're telling yourself to limit and deprive.  When you do that, you will feel heightened anxiety around food because scarcity mindset sparks survival or protective mode in your body, which leads to food obsession,  low mood, binge eating.  Irritability, poor body image, rigid food behaviors,  totally depriving yourself of foods you might enjoy socially just to lose weight mostly backfires  the moment you banish a restrictive food.

you'll start to crave it.  The longer you deprive yourself, the stronger the cravings or urges grow. And the less able you are to enjoy a polite serving of the food, if you're in a social setting, or if you were to allow  yourself to have it and you had a mindset that No food was off limits. That's because you get stuck in a binge restrict cycle,

 That's not what you want for yourself.  Even scientific evidence shows that when we restrict foods, The first chance we get to be around them, we overeat or binge.  There is a study conducted by physicians at Boston University on this very phenomenon and I have linked it in the show notes for you to take a look at.

I highly recommend looking at it. 

Third thing that I don't like about food restrictions is because it  leads to a pattern of negative reinforcement. And that's why  Since you  most probably won't be able to avoid the food forever because it's around you in your environment,  when you fail, you'll beat yourself up  and we don't want that. If you want to be healthy, physically and mentally, and you want to change your lifestyle for good and be well. 

You don't  want to have that negative reinforcement. You don't want to be beating yourself up.  So why restrict in the first place?  I say knowledge is power. So educate yourself about the impact of different foods on your health.  But be open to all the foods. Yes, there are certain foods that you would want to have more of.

If you want to live healthily, if you want to avoid chronic diseases,   occasional treats are, are part of your  food. They should be part of your food.  One of the reasons I host this podcast.  is to provide you with knowledge so that you can be empowered. You can make your own decisions.  You own your health this way. 

So how  can you eat healthily and adopt a nutritious way of eating? Because we all want to feel the best we can.  We want to have a lot of energy. We want to live a long, healthy life, right?  Here are  tips I apply myself, and I give to my clients when it comes to eating healthy without feeling deprived. 

First, avoid labeling foods as good or bad.  A food is just a food. It might have more or fewer health properties or nutritious value  and your body might function better or worse on certain foods. But it doesn't give them the moral high ground.  So  hopefully after listening to this episode, you would stop calling foods as good or bad.

Oh, this is bad for you. This is good for you. I hear this all the time.  So let's stop that.  Second, a healthy, sustainable way of eating is not based on deprivation. If you're counting down the seconds until you can eat a slice of cake or have a drink, you are on an unsustainable fad. That's it. Period. The healthy eating should satisfy not only your hunger, but it should also be able to fulfill your soul without any feelings of, of deprivation or mental health issues. 

Third one is, which is pretty simple rule.  It's not about saying no, but rather saying yes to more foods that nourish your body, mind, and soul. So, Let me repeat that. It's not about saying no, rather saying yes to more foods that nourish your body, mind, and soul. A healthy, nutritious way of eating stays with you 7 days a week and 365 days a year and includes the treats and celebrations.

And the last tip, which is the most important one, is to shift your mindset.  If you are operating. out of scarcity mindset as a result of dieting for a very long time or diet culture around you. Working towards an abundant mindset is key.  And an abundant mindset can be fostered through  eating healthy, which is a non diet approach to nutrition, being more intuitive about what you eat, and the process means reflecting on your food resources and food access,  being grateful for these resources.

Gratitude plays a huge role.  Allowing yourself to enjoy these resources and utilize them. Redefining what healthy eating means.  Rather than thinking of  it in terms of thin and small, think of it in terms of strength, energy, and wellness. 

Work through any food rules you have set for yourself,  and give yourself true unconditional permission to eat and enjoy.

You won't have to undo your hard work with binging. Think about how you can maintain a sustainable, healthy diet to ensure that you never feel the need to diet again. I mean, I, I'm not a big fan of the word diet. I always say way of eating, healthy eating, how you eat.  because it's part of our life.  So, above are just some of the ways in which you can change your attitude and approach to becoming fit and healthy for life. 

If you are stuck in a rut and don't know what to do, I am here to help. You can reach out to me  via email. My email is info at my full name, aisha here.com.  Let me say that again. You can email me at  info@aishahere.com.  Thank you so much for listening to this bonus episode of Nine to Five Wellness Show Friends, it was so nice chatting with you,  talk to you guys soon. Bye.  

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