Our relationship with food draws similarity to dating an ex-girlfriend or boyfriend. We know it didn’t work the first time, that it’s not good for us, and yet the comfort ropes us back in until we find a better alternative. How can we apply this analogy to our diet?
Understanding this analogy is helpful when we go to look at changes to our diet.
We can’t, and truly aren’t making a change unless we experience a bit of discomfort. Until we break ties completely for a while, we are blind to the issues. Too often we convince ourselves it’s getting better and put up with bad habits until they present another glaring defect.
It is usually at this time that we rediscover our internal motivations and make a swift and aggressive change.
Eventually, though, trial and error (and even self-punishment), we say “enough is enough” and break free from the ball and chain holding us back from being a better version of ourselves.
With any relationship, even with food, we have to realize it’s not easy to break ties.
More importantly, we must believe there is something better and refuse to settle.
It’s only when we experience what good feels like that we truly get motivated.
Might it then be helpful then for us to practice playing the field with our food selections?
We simply can’t outwork our diets no matter what we do. It’s not going to work out unless we break ties completely with something once loved but is no longer good for us.
Play the field like this and you will likely see there are better fish in the pond. Yes, you might get drunk one night and pick up the phone (I mean bag of chips.)
However, if we experience something better, even if just for a short time, we learn something new about ourselves. We get better over time with breaking off toxic relationships.
In much the same way we improve changing our diet through the routine practice of uncomfortable change. It’s a messy process, and one full of emotional rollercoasters, but it’s always worth it in the end.