A Personal Food Survey;Excerpt From “You're Not Fat, You're Just Doing it Wrong"

A Personal Food Survey

Let’s begin with the term “food” itself. What does it mean to you? What do you consider food? Why do you eat food? Do you eat food based purely on taste? Do you eat food based on what it can do foryou? Or do to you? Why do I like certain foods more than others? Do I prefer sweet or savory? Which foods give me the most satisfaction? Do I prefer to munch or savor? Do I like treats or snacks? Do I like a hearty lunch or something on the go?

Have you ever asked yourself any of these questions? If not, start immediately, as if your life depended on it. Because it does! We’re going to uncover the true meaning of food, what it currently means to you and why that meaning is not working. Then we canreconsider the effect you want food to have on your body and as an integral part of your life.

First let’s tackle this question: Why do you eat food in the first place? Have you ever asked yourself that question? Have you ever figured out the reason behind every food choice you’ve ever made, and why? Have you done that even once in your life? Well, you have to, because then––and only then––can you begin to change your pattern of making choices. In order for you to ever change the way you choose what foods to eat, your reasoning has to change.

You can examine––as we began to do in Chapter 2––yourcurrent reasons for eating food. Your next step is to admit that they are probably wrong! Did you choose “to sustain life” as your primary reason for eating? In order to live, we have to eat, right? No matter what, this is always true. Taste always comes second. It has to! But you’d be surprised how many people pick taste first. The point is, you’ve been eating for all the wrong reasons. I can almost guarantee that you’ve been eating based on impulse, what tastes better and what is easy at the moment.

One day, you will realize why everything used to taste so good. It’s because it contained highly addictive flavoring made from sugar, sodium, and/or fat. It’s that simple, the same cocktail over andover. But once you learn to eat healthy, fresh food, you will realize that there are so many more flavors out there than just those products that rely on large doses of sugar, salt and fat. Eventually, all the food that used to taste so good to you will seem boring and predictable, because it doesn’t matter if it’s beef, chicken or pork-fried rice––its all fried with salt and oil! Those are the ingredients you are actually tasting when you eat those foods! The same goes for all kinds of food high in sugar content. Choose one fruit smoothie over another? It’s all sugar, man!