Well, I’ve just eaten my second meal since last Friday morning.
I’ve spent the last week suffering with some (probably a) virus that has had me vomiting and diarrhoea since Friday afternoon. Hence my absence from the gym for a few days and the lack of posting here.
During the week I’ve eaten very little, mostly bits of fruit and the occasional bowl of porridge. As I felt better I started eating more porridge and last night I actually sat and ate a proper meal of chicken and rice. That’s 5 days without a proper meal, just small snacks and lots of fluids.
The whole process brought the whole eating thing to mind. In particular our relationship with food and the emotional bonds we have it.
I’m not much of a TV watcher but this week I’ve been laid up on the sofa more than the norm so I did spend some time with the goggle box. I watched Supersize vs Superskinny (which I find fascinating), Secret Eaters (again, fascinating), The Men Who Made us Fat, a whole load of comedy panel shows and endless repeats of Power Rangers Wild Force with my boy.
Something for the Dads
The food / eating shows I watch are pretty much the same week in week out, but I am always amazed at peoples relationships with food. The emotional attachment people have in their eating habits is simply astonishing.
I’ve worked with many clients looking for fat loss and while this isn’t my speciality, I’ve had pretty good success. The biggest stepping stone for these guys has always been their eating habits, nearly all the clients had no problem coming in and having me sergeant-major them through a workout, but left to their own devices they slip back into their old habits of eating crap.
I have two young boys, the oldest is coming up to 4 and the youngest just turned 1. I watch these two with interest.
When they get sick, they refuse food.
When they’re not hungry, they refuse food (unless it’s a biscuit, but even then they’ve been known to take a bite and give the rest to the dog)
The two lads have no medical knowledge, they’ve no experience to draw on. Yet without anyone telling them, when they’re not right they generally don’t eat, or at least reduce what they do eat. And they don’t seem to worry about being hungry.
What then happens as we get older?
Why do we supposedly educated adults feel the need to be constantly stuffing our faces?
I’m an advocate of intermittent fasting, and have always viewed food as fuel (except on special occasions), so being hungry and choosing good food over crap is nothing to me. Yet I’m considered odd by the majority.
When I talk about fasting people look at me like I’ve got two heads. They seem to think that fasting = starving.
When I tell people that the body can go up to a week on nothing but water with no damage occurring I usually get a “Yeah, right, pull the other one!” kind of response.
I’ve no answers in this post, just questions. Maybe you have some answers of your own to offer. Perhaps you’re relationship with food is as potentially harmful as those on the TV shows I listed.
I don’t know, I’m merely thinking out loud today on a topic that has been on mind.
Feel free to chime in either in the comments section below or on Facebook.
Till then.
Regards
