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5 simple ways to get out of food ruts

5 simple ways to get out of food ruts

For this blog post I wanted to write a more practical type of post about a topic, being stuck in food ruts, that I often see people struggle with in my clinical practice and it is definitely not something I am immune to struggle with myself.

Maybe it is a completely human thing, to get stuck in ruts. With what we are eating, and how we are thinking and even behaving? Often we say thing like “You can’t teach an old dog new trix” and “He/she is so set in their ways, they’ll never change”. However this is actually not true. It’s a myth that we keep perpetuating by strengthening those neuropathways, telling ourselves that it is true…

Have you ever heard of the term Neuroplasticity?

The definition of neuroplasticity is: the ability of the brain to form and reorganize synaptic connections, especially in response to learning or experience or following injury.

This short video explains it really well. In short, it means that we do have the ability to change and adapt to circumstances and life events. Probably a good thing!

 

We also create change through intention. What I mean by that is that we need, using awareness, to work on intentionally creating new thought patterns, new behaviours which we want to engage in and of course new ways with food, if we want to get out of those ruts and make some new neuronal pathways.

So there, it definitely is possible to get un-stuck, but it may require a little intentionallity.

 

I think that because eating is a necessity, and when our attention and energy is focused elsewhere, the most natural thing is to default to our ingrained habits. Eating something, anything, is better than going hungry and of the irritability, mind fog and lack of energy that goes with that. Never anything wrong with honouring our hunger.

Don’t forget that we live in a culture and society where it completely possible to take care of your physical hunger needs without ever putting a foot in your own kitchen (or anybody else’s for that matter). So if this is how you are feeding yourself at times, no need to feel shameful about that. But maybe you’d like to change some of it as it could give you more choice and a sense of empowerment.

straightforward nutrition

 

Here are my five tips on how to get out of food ruts. Whether it is wanting to cook more food in general, eating a wider variety of foods or just starting to think about learning some new recipes, I hope you find something useful from this list that will widen your lens a little and spark some new ideas.

 

  1. Focus on colour

If you’ve been following my work for some time, you may have noticed that I am drawn to creating meals that are colourful. Eat a Rainbow, has to be one of the easiest nutritional advice to adhere to. By trying to incorporate something from each colour of the rainbow every day, you are naturally getting a more varied intake of fruits and vegetables. If you can vary the types of foods from each colour category, even better! Maybe you find some orange peppers and a yellow courgette to pair with some green spinach. Have fun trying out some different colours of your usual favourites. Variety and diversity seems to have many health benefits.

 

  1. Have a think about Meal Planning

Sometimes I see people within Intuitive Eating groups shun the idea of meal planning and meal prepping. I do understand where they are coming from, since such a strong premise of eating intuitively is to “eat when you are hungry as well as what you are truly hungry for”. But life is rarely that black and white (plus that definitive way of thinking belongs to diet mentality anyway. Flexibility is the name of the game here!)

Just note that you making a plan for what you’d like to eat is not the same as slavishly following meal plan set by someone else.  It can be incredibly useful to have some kind of structure, to take the stress out of making meals, especially if you are already ravenous when you start cooking…

One thing I encourage my clients to look at is to look at how their schedule for the week ahead looks like. Which days to you have time to cook something from scratch? Which days may you be eating out? Which days would you prefer to just heat some leftovers or put together a few bits and pieces for a simple meal?  If you start here you may take some of the stress out of feeding yourself. It is totally cool to re heat some soup for dinner or a quick lunch, as well as having a smoothie, sandwich or salad (I actually have porridge in the evening too at times… Shhs, don’t tell anyone…) especially if you’ve eaten a larger meal during the day.

 

  1. Meal Prepping

Ok, so I am not talking about those typical food prep pictures you see on social media where there are seven same type of meals in containers… And I’ve always wondered what that chicken, broccoli and sweet potato looks like on day seven… Never mind what it would smell like!

This blog post from Green Kitchen Stories have a nice take on Meal Prepping in my opinion.  Their philosophy is more about having staples ready that can be made into different meal combinations throughout the week. This is often how I eat. It works well for a single person and it must work reasonably well for a family too as they have three kids!

 

  1. Try a new food every week

Trying something new is an easy way of getting out of ruts. And luckily the variety of fresh fruits and veg that are available these days in our everyday supermarkets are so much better than what it used to be. So next time you are shopping and see a food you haven’t tried before, be brave and have a go!

 

  1. Learn a new recipe once a week / month

This is something I did a few years ago. Where I intentionally picked up one of my cookbooks, and I have added many more to my collection since, to pick a recipe that I wanted to try out. Maybe it was a new combination of foods to try, or a recipe that offered a new skill. Or maybe a recipe to suit a new ingredient.

Even if you only own one cook book or if you rather use Google, this is a really good way to add new meal favourites to your weekly repertoire. Cooking is a skill that takes practice to master. Not all of us are gifted with it intuitively or got given the skills passed on from our parents when growing up. I also get that it is challenging if you actually have no interest in cooking meals from scratch.

Sometimes though what it takes is a change in attitude to the whole thing. That cooking for ourselves and spending time in the kitchen is a form of self care. You deserve to eat foods that are tasty and nourishing. I have seen these kinds of mindset shifts take place in clients and it has been revolutionary! Your kitchen can be your sanctuary. (Perhaps that’s a topic for another blog post?)

 

I hope you have found some of these ideas useful. Here is another article that I came across on my search, that speaks into this topic.

 

You can also get my Useful Kitchen Tool List + My Pantry Staples List <<— Click links & Download.

And sign up below for the Rainbow Bowl Ebook below, if that’s your thing.

When judgement gets in the way of change

When judgement gets in the way of change

I’ve been pondering all week, what to write about next. As I wass doing some research into the relationship between stress and digestion for our 1 day retreat this past weekend, I thought perhaps I should share some of those findings with you.

But then I thought, what about the stress around making the “right” food choices?

What about the “being-a-good-girl inner voice”, which in my experience can have a pretty nasty condescending tone? And the judgement that often follow when we don’t make that “right” choice…

 

judgment in the way of change

For some reason, I’ve struggled emotionally in the past week or so with “being good enough”. I think it may be related to a recent opportunity that presented itself and that I’ve been wanting to be part of for a very long time. So when I finally got the chance, of course I was ecstatic, which then followed by self-doubt. Can I actually deliver on what I say that I can? What if I can’t?

Oh the beauty of the turbulence of emotions! I even caught myself thinking that, perhaps I should just throw in the towel and quit and say that I’m no longer interested. If you quit you can’t technically fail, right? This “quitting” pattern is one of my old protective mechanisms for when things get stretched a little toooo far outside that famous comfort zone. So I’m totally aware of the lure of taking the “easy” option out.

Thing is, there’s a distinct difference about quitting without even trying, or to pivot and try something different because what you are currently doing isn’t working.

The fear of the unknown is what’s playing out here, together with some self-judgment, which can all to easily lead to self-sabotage.

Each and everytime we try something new, we can never be certain of the outcome. Well come to think of it, each and every morning we open our eyes we cannot even be certain of what the day will bring… We can have hopes and expectations, but we can never be sure. Hindsight is as they say “a wonderful thing”.

Whether you’re embarking on a journey of self-discovery and spiritual growth, a new way of eating or even something as simple (yet sometimes challenging) as trying a new recipe, embracing the uncertainty of it actually means that anything is possible!

 

But it is scary. There’s certainly many times in my life I’ve wished for a crystal ball…

 

And then we decide to take the leap anyway, and before we know it, this voice of self-doubt and  judgement creeps in.

Self-reflection can be a wonderful gift to gift yourself. I’ve seen both for myself and with clients the leaps and bounds that happens in a transformational way when we start looking in the mirror and begin to question what we believe, think and do. But… And this is a BIG but, if we bring judgement into the picture, it becomes a big hindrance in the process of change.

 

when judgment gets in the way of change

 

Why? Because when I am busy lambasting my own actions with my own self-righteousness, THIS is where my focus is at. If I’m so busy getting down on myself and my actions, I can’t actually see the reality for what it is.

Maybe the decision I made seemed to be the right one at that particular time, with the information that was available to me. And if it turned out afterwards that it actually wasn’t the wisest move, I am missing a valuable opportunity to learn why it turned out it wasn’t the wisest one, if I’m caught going around in a mental circle of self-ridicule.

Take for example the common thing of having a “bad” food. Perhaps something that’s not the most nutritious thing you could ever ingest. But eating any kind of food doesn’t indicate that we ourselves are “bad” in any way.

Now, if I start judging myself for this one particular food choice and place some of my self worth based on these choices, I completely miss out on the information of how this food actually makes me feel.

Does it make me feel satisfied, or more hungry, or perhaps it may even cause me physical discomfort. Or maybe it turns out I didn’t enjoy the taste as much as I initially thought I would? All vital clues and cues for how I might choose next time I am presented with a choice of having this food or not. But if I’m caught in a spiral of judgement, all I’ll hear is how “bad” I am, and that I should know better, etc. Which will just leave me with guilt, shame and a stress response that my body now also have to digest…

Judgement simply gets in my way of learning from my experiences, experiencing life as it is as well as preventing me from perhaps making a different choice that may serve me better next time.

 

mindful living

 

I love this great poem by Portia Nelson, which I first was introduces to by a client last year, but that we also shared at our recent retreat. It pretty much sums it up.

Autobiography in Five Chapters

I

I walk down the street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk

I fall in.

I am lost…

I am hopeless.

It isn’t my fault.

It takes forever to find a way out.

II

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I pretend I don’t see it.

I fall in again.

I can’t believe I’m in the same place.

But it isn’t my fault.

It still takes a long time to get out.

III

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I see it is there.

I still fall in…it’s a habit

My eyes are open; I know where I am;

It is my fault.

I get out immediately.

IV

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I walk around it.

V

I walk down another street.

 

So open your mind, get curious and look at any and all of your experiences as valuable learning opportunities.

And most of all, be kind to yourself.