Abolishing Food Rules pt1

I think a lot of times when people hear me talk about being freely nourished, they may imagine a life without rules or boundaries. And truly, it’s understandable that your brain would go there. I push against some common food rules that have been long held and believed for generations

Don’t eat after Xpm.

Clean your plate.

Dessert only if you eat your vegetables.

And on.

And on.

And for a lot of people, this idea of no rules is terrifying and fraught with failure.

How can I know what to eat unless I have rules?

If I let myself eat whatever I wanted, I’d never stop.

So today I want to address these fears and misconceptions about abolishing most of the food rules that you've grown up following. I want to turn your opinion of food and nutrition on its head.

Many of these rules have been taught, followed, and handed down to generations for so long that the fact that these aren’t founded in truth sounds ridiculous. But as with many things- just because they’re common or popular, doesn’t make them right. Many of these types of rules that I mention are based on the idea that you are not able to be trusted to nourish yourself. The rebuttal I hear most often “If I let myself eat what I wanted, I’d never stop” is entirely rooted in self doubt and fear and represents a power struggle.

And reader, this is not the role that food was intended to play in our lives. We were not given food as a ruler, we were given food to fill our needs.

In my next post I’m going to talk about helpful boundaries we can use in our eating habits but for today I leave you to reflect on how much power you allow food to hold over you and what would it take to change that?