You’ve heard the question time and again: “Do you eat to live, or live to eat”? For many of us, our initial response would be to say “I eat to live”. Precisely we do- we eat food to fuel our bodies so that it is functional, and we “live”. But that is “living” in a mechanical sense. “Living” is actually more than moving around robotically. “Living” is feeling and reflecting, having the will to choose. How is it to eat to “live” in this sense? People eat food, but food has become the enemy for many of these people. They regard it as something which will make them look displeasing by gaining weight.
So they struggle every now and then with food- limiting it, avoiding it to the point of hating it. With such a tendency, many have wondered where their will power has gone. It seemed that they are resigned to the idea that dieting is a struggle and eventually they will just have to give in. In the area of
, they have failed, and for them, this is an issue of will power. But the truth about weight loss motivation does not concern will power. The issue is about the inherent skills a person has lost while having gone on a diet.
The problem lies not with food, but with a person’s attitude towards it. Going on a diet means labeling food as either “good” or “bad”. But even more so, dieting will make a person give up two very important skills- that of conscious eating and personal choice. When going on a diet, we listen to what others tell us about which foods are good and those we should eat. In the process, we give away our personal power of choice. Focus is significantly given to our bodies or how we look that we close down our instinctive ability to eat as required by our bodies.
When dieting to lose weight, don’t we become preoccupied with foods we should have or not have? Don’t we have the tendency to obsess on our outer appearance? With these preoccupation and obsession we lose our ability to reflect inwardly. We lose touch of our skill to look internally and find peace and happiness. We project our focus and energy on keeping up with external factors and expectations. So what is conscious eating. Is it a diet plan or a weight loss motivation course? Conscious eating is more than paying attention to foods. Conscious eating is about
and your instinctive skills.
With conscious eating, you are able to reflect on your thoughts about yourself and not just food. On how different foods affect you and your body. How you feel when you are eating and after you have done so. It is in being aware that food is fuel, not a comforter. Most of all, conscious eating has to do with how you love yourself. These are among the skills of conscious eating which might have been lost while going on a diet plan. How do you regain these skills? The first step is to shed off the fear of food and instead learn to love it.
Fear and
are often those which hold people trapped in old and unhelpful eating habits. Many of the people who engage in conscious eating often do not have to bother with weight or size issues. It is not so much that they look svelte or trim, but rather they revel in themselves, accepting their beauty regardless of which body size it is in. Instead of being preoccupied with what others or the society portray as the “perfect” body, they let themselves be. They are free and happy, and that is to live.
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