Rules of Food: Restrictions Need Not Apply!

What is the last miracle nutrion or weight loss cure you’ve seen? Have you been told that detoxing will shed light on your weight issues? Do you wonder what my outlook on all this garbage is?  

What I eat as a nutritionist

I honestly eat all sorts of different things but easily revert to very similar simple meals when nothing else is planned. There are no “food rules” that I follow. I don’t want to shock you but you won’t hear me say “I don’t eat X” “I would never, that’s super unhealthy” “We don’t have X in our house.” I know this is hard to believe because a lot of us inherited these behaviours from our loving mothers, what you might call your “community” or simply absorbed from society. Not to mention how pretentious people can be about natural or organic foods, it’s NOT a badge of honour, ok?

What to question in pop-nutrion culture

I challenge you to listen for these in your environment, I’m sure you’ll hear it because I do every day (especially in work environments!) Acknowledge someone else’s food rules and be empowered as a rule breaker to IGNORE those comments. I do it ALL the time! So far, there haven’t been any major repercussions. SO the next time someone says something like “Oh, I can’t even look at chips! They go straight to my hips.” First of all, WTF. Second, you have a choice to ignore the comment or say something to break their belief of this food rule. Both will have an impact, one is more subtle than the other and you may feel more comfortable starting with the first option. It’s extremely hard to break someone else’s food beliefs, could even be impossible but we need to start by no longer supporting these comments. Do it for yourself, for your sister, but most importantly for the future generations. This is honestly why I became a nutritionist, my utopia looks like a world without food rules and women putting themselves down over something as essential to life as food. There are many worse things in the world than eating chips or having “big” hips. Get it together society! I was recently told that 50% of women in the US don’t have ONE positive thing to say about their bodies, and I’m sure the Canadian statistic would not be much different. You know what else I heard, on average women will spend 31 years dieting! 31 years! That’s more than my entire lifetime and probably includes some really great years when we could be doing much more productive things than losing and gaining the same 10 lbs over and over again. Take a minute to soak that in.

 Dieting is fruitless

I don’t know how this turned from a simple question about dietary intake to sharing my ”why” and bashing one of the biggest industries in North America. Yup, dieting, that’s an industry and they’re huge! They make buckets of money out of those “last 10 lbs” and making you feel crappy about not being successful. But really, it’s those businesses who should feel crappy for taking your money and not fighting tooth and nail for you to succeed. I guess that’s the difference between small businesses and the big ones or honest nutritionists and business people. If anyone is trying to sell you a product for your nutrition, they’re doing it for themselves and their bank accounts, NOT you. Everything your body needs it can create itself, yup your body is freaking amazing, or you can get it from food, the regular stuff is fine, no need to search high and low for some obscure product or brand.

I realize now that I’ve probably left you with more questions than answers, and that’s ok. For real change to happen, we have to start challenging the way things are going and get back to being curious creatures. The problems I’ve ranted about aren’t going to be changed over night and I definitely can’t do it myself. If you’ve got questions or ideas please share them in the comments. One step at a time we will change the food landscape for future generations, change starts with each and every one of us. Please share this article with all who need it.

Until next time,

Much love

Megan

Eating a Rainbow Bagel with Cannoli Cream Cheese in Brooklyn, because why not?