I just ate a very large piece of chocolate orange cake. For breakfast. I regularly eat chocolately things (though not usually for breakfast- we're out of soy milk for cereal), because I like to, and because I'm in the middle of writing a chocolate-themed cook book, and have to test a lot of recipes. But also because I like to.
I don't feel guilty, not even a jot. Somehow, I managed not to end up with much food guilt. This is probably because I can't remember even once seeing my mother forgo dessert, or talk about "making up for it" with exercise later. It was called 'naughty' or treated as an indulgence, but a fun thing, that we might collude in with each other and my sister, as a family, or with a friend.
Don't get me wrong, this has lead to some other negative behaviours for myself and my siblings - a lack of accountability for adult food choices, ignoring health aspects, a serious sugar addiction, and expensive dentist visits - but it has also saved me from what seems to be a very widespread phenomena among other women: Food Guilt.
I recall one day when a very good friend said to me that she was hungry most of them time, and that white bread made her feel guilty. Now I'm all for whole grains and other fibrous alternatives to the white stuff, but in a world of glazed donuts, bacon, hot chips with gravy, and vegan chocolate mousse cake (pictured below, thank you brown eyed baker), if we must categorize our food, surely white bread is a minor sin?
Categories aside though, my friend was serious. She felt guilty and weak if she made a poor food choice. And she isn't alone.
A quick browse of the internets sees a lot of discussions and admissions on this topic. PaulF at Chowhound tries to work out some confusing feelings, Debra Mazer shares her story, the Diet Doc at Health24 wants to help, and of course many evil marketeers are willing to help you eschew food guilt by selling you something silly like special juice, magic berries, super tea, amazing pills, or the-most-supreme-fat-melting-carb-burning-workout-of-all-time(!).
While its true that healthy eating is good for you, and will lead to body that works a bit better, guilt, if serious and recurring, isn't great for your health either. It is stress, and stress can lead to all manner of physical and emotional yuckiness that can make the piece of cake seem like, well a piece of cake in comparison.
Excepting the few instances in which guilt can be good (a subject for a later guilt week post) guilt is bad because it makes you feel bad. And, other than hanging knee raises, which make my abs feel bad, I don't like things that make me feel bad. And I certainly don't like things that make my friends feel bad. And I especially don't like things that make women feel bad enough that they spend time and energy thinking about them, that they could be spending on becoming stronger and happier and furthering feminist agendas!
So what do we do?
Our feelings about the food we eat are very complex, and based on our experience of food and our bodies as children, media and public perception of food and weight, ideas about health and beauty, and of course, our general feelings of self-worth and not-good-enoughness.
The cycle most often goes: Create a list of bad.naughty/forbidden foods - manage for a while, and then give in - feel bad about your body/weight/self-discipline/all of these - promise not to eat crap - go back to stage 1.
Unfortunately I don't have a solid answer on this.
Suggestions I've read include planning for your favourite foods so you don't go overboard, filling up on some 'healthy' foods (lots of veg, fruit, grains) so when you do want the sweet stuff you'll only have a little, using affirmations and positive thinking to get back into a body-loving state of mind, and getting involved (alone or with a group or counselor) in dealing with the basis of your guilt.
When the guilts do strike me, my way of dealing is to try to focus on the truth: That no matter what my last choice was, I have plenty of others to make, that I can deal with the reality of my health situation (whatever it is at the time) and work on making changes if i need to, and that ultimately, I'm human, and I will enjoy a piece of cake when I want, damnit.
Vegan Chocolate Mousse cake - I refuse to be ashamed of our love.
Categories aside though, my friend was serious. She felt guilty and weak if she made a poor food choice. And she isn't alone.
A quick browse of the internets sees a lot of discussions and admissions on this topic. PaulF at Chowhound tries to work out some confusing feelings, Debra Mazer shares her story, the Diet Doc at Health24 wants to help, and of course many evil marketeers are willing to help you eschew food guilt by selling you something silly like special juice, magic berries, super tea, amazing pills, or the-most-supreme-fat-melting-carb-burning-workout-of-all-time(!).
While its true that healthy eating is good for you, and will lead to body that works a bit better, guilt, if serious and recurring, isn't great for your health either. It is stress, and stress can lead to all manner of physical and emotional yuckiness that can make the piece of cake seem like, well a piece of cake in comparison.
Excepting the few instances in which guilt can be good (a subject for a later guilt week post) guilt is bad because it makes you feel bad. And, other than hanging knee raises, which make my abs feel bad, I don't like things that make me feel bad. And I certainly don't like things that make my friends feel bad. And I especially don't like things that make women feel bad enough that they spend time and energy thinking about them, that they could be spending on becoming stronger and happier and furthering feminist agendas!
So what do we do?
Our feelings about the food we eat are very complex, and based on our experience of food and our bodies as children, media and public perception of food and weight, ideas about health and beauty, and of course, our general feelings of self-worth and not-good-enoughness.
The cycle most often goes: Create a list of bad.naughty/forbidden foods - manage for a while, and then give in - feel bad about your body/weight/self-discipline/all of these - promise not to eat crap - go back to stage 1.
Unfortunately I don't have a solid answer on this.
Suggestions I've read include planning for your favourite foods so you don't go overboard, filling up on some 'healthy' foods (lots of veg, fruit, grains) so when you do want the sweet stuff you'll only have a little, using affirmations and positive thinking to get back into a body-loving state of mind, and getting involved (alone or with a group or counselor) in dealing with the basis of your guilt.
When the guilts do strike me, my way of dealing is to try to focus on the truth: That no matter what my last choice was, I have plenty of others to make, that I can deal with the reality of my health situation (whatever it is at the time) and work on making changes if i need to, and that ultimately, I'm human, and I will enjoy a piece of cake when I want, damnit.
Vegan Chocolate Mousse cake - I refuse to be ashamed of our love.
What about you? Do you experience food guilt? How do you toe the line between healthful, self-nourishing choices, and your favourite inner-child-noursihing foods?
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