Hi and welcome back!
Do you have a good relationship with your food?
FAT-SCRAP has been designed to help you get in touch with the foods that will make you feel good in the long term but to do this your relationship with these foods has to be a positive experience right from the start. So at what point can you begin having a relationship with your food?
One of the first stages of digestion is called the cephalic phase which occurs even before the food enters the stomach. It results from the thought, sight, smell, or taste of food. So if digestion starts with the thought, surely thinking about what you are going to eat is the first place to begin.
You plan a meal, for example a roast dinner. Now straight away you have something to look forward to, perhaps you can even visualize your meal and imagine the smell and taste. You are already sending positive messages from your brain your body is receiving them. Just think if you miss out this crucial part of the digestive process you are missing out on increasing your metabolic power!
The next part of the relationship is choosing the food. Using your senses you can look, smell, feel, touch, imagine the taste of these foods and hear yourself confirming your choices as you put them in your basket. Go to food markets in other countries and you will be reminded of how passionate food shopping can be– you can probably picture it now…the vibrant colours, the busy noise, the varied smells, the excited energy…. Now think about what it is like for you when you go shopping. Could you anticipate and relish the experience, spend time carefully savouring, digesting and assimilating your choices engaging your digestive system in the whole process? Even the checkout can become a positive experience as you touch and connect with each item.
You can connect again with your food as you lovingly prepare it. Once again, your senses can be fully aware of what is going on as you peel, chop, rinse, and cook. As you see the food coming together the smells become stronger, your taste buds become excited, your saliva starts to flow in anticipation, your thoughts become more tuned into the pleasure and enjoyment..
And then you sit with your meal in front of you, you can absorb the appealing colours and aromas and be thankful for what you are about to receive……
As you eat the food all of your senses are on fire - Let the passion (and metabolism) burn!! You can become even more aware of all of the flavours, aromas, textures, depth, weight, temperature, colours as they result in responses from your body from the moment they enter your mouth and continue on their journey of nourishing and satisfying you.
And this is where the brain and the food must be in unison for if we feel pleasured, nourished and satisfied we won’t want to eat more! It’s when we don’t pay attention to our food that our brain misses the experience and interprets it as hunger!!!
So now can you see the benefit of having a fantastic relationship with your food?
Another important factor to add to the process of digestion is relaxation. If you are feeling stressed, anxious, rushed, forced, or negative when eating, the body goes into the fight or flight response and in this state important vitamins and minerals are likely to be excreted, blood flow to the digestive organs decreases, hormone levels change and can encourage weight gain, and fewer calories are burned.
And what about the consequences of our food choices? Again, if you have enjoyed, savoured and felt positive about them, then that is going to have a positive response from your body. So what happens when you feel guilty, bad or naughty?...STRESS!!!! And negative responses from your body.
So to sum it up...
If you treat your food with the love and respect it deserves, in turn it will love and respect you.
Bon appetite!!
Sue x
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