The Nourished Life: Loving What You Eat and How You Think

For as long as I can remember, I have been passionate about food. When I was a kid, I was often called the garbage can or asked if I had a hollow leg because I never seemed to get full. Those messages wormed their way into my brain, and sometimes, I still have feelings that rise up when my appetite seems out of alignment with others. But I've done a lot of work on my mindset and I've worked hard to break up with diet culture (I even bought a t-shirt a decade or so ago that says Riots not Diets).
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For a many years, I used the 80/20 guideline to help keep me mindful of what I eat. Where 80% of the time I ate and drank things that felt well-balanced, and nourishing, and 20% of the time I ate and drank things that brought me joy, even if they had no nutritional value. Through perimenopause and post-menopause, this has shifted closer to a 90/10 split. I have a major sweet tooth that I indulge but my focus is still centred on positive nutrition. And my thoughts on positive nutrition are inspired by the work of Amelia Freer, who is a nutritional therapist and author based in the UK.

Positive nutrition can profoundly impact overall wellness, not just body aesthetics or weight management. The core concept of positive nutrition is to encourage healthy, nutritious food choices rather than demonize less nutrient-dense alternatives. It represents a shift from exclusion to inclusion and a move toward habits that are sustainable, positive, and long-term (Martini et al., 2023).
 
Positive nutrition recognizes the interdependencies of diet, lifestyle, and environment. It emphasizes choosing food that allows you to meet nutrition requirements, maintaining a weight that is healthy for you, and enjoying the pleasures of eating. Positive nutrition is about peace and connection to your body rather than having a hostile, combative relationship with it.
 
In a nutshell, positive nutrition is an approach to eating that focuses on getting the ‘good’ stuff into our bodies (like jam packed veggie bowls), rather than worrying too much about excluding or cutting out the so-called ‘treats’. It is a shift in thinking from deprivation to abundance and a stepping away from the cycle of on-off dieting culture.

Fundamentally, our bodies need a wide range of essential nutrients every day to function optimally. Yet our whole conversation around food for the past few decades has often been about minimization – somehow ‘less’ has become synonymous with ‘better’. But eating less food (usually to consume fewer calories) often means fewer nutrients. So, by restricting our diets, we are also reducing our body’s ability to digest and absorb the essential nourishment we need to function. We do need to be conscious of maintaining energy by choosing foods that meet our body’s requirements for nutrition. And we should be cautious of all-or-nothing, prescriptive approaches to eating that create anxiety, fear, and confusion around food.

Amelia Freer uses the term relaxed nutritional balance. To her, this means eating mindfully, or consciously, with overall health and vitality in mind while remembering that food can and should be a source of pleasure and joy (like the vegan gelato below that I ate on vacation). Figuring out your own balance is the key to finding contentment around food.

If we want lasting change in how we think about food, nutrition, and our bodies, we need to work on our mindset.
 
As Dr. Phil once said, we can’t change what we don’t acknowledge.  In the workshops that I lead on nutrition, I encourage participants to think about the following:
 
How would you describe your current relationship with food? What do you enjoy about your current relationship with food? What do you dislike about your current relationship with food?
 
Are there food rules that you live by? Where did these rules come from? Are these rules rooted in balance and nutritional needs? If not, how can you make them more balanced?
 
Are there certain foods you consider to be good or bad? If so, what are they? Why do you assign this morality to these foods?
 
What would you like to change about your relationship with food or your mindset around food? What is the first step to making this change?

Emerson said, “We are what we think about all day long.” Our mindset matters and if you have been on a yo-yo diet for most of your adult life, your thoughts have likely been influenced, and maybe at times consumed by food and your thoughts around food. We must remember that we have a choice in this. We can choose to embrace each day, to look at diet culture and societal messages with our eyes wide open (for example, a smaller body does not mean a healthier body), and consistently work toward a mindset and cultivate habits around food so that food is working for us, not against us.
 
Positive nutrition is not about a free for all where we abandon our knowledge of what foods feel good in our bodies, energize us, and keep us satiated.

Wanting to make healthy, balanced changes to the way you eat to support your body and mind is great, and it’s part of positive nutrition, but we need to be mindful about how we do it. The research is clear: a prerequisite for effective dietary change that supports our body and mind is that sticking to dietary changes must be feasible on a sustained basis.

​We need to abandon the approach that has us indulging in a food if we are going to work out later. Food is not a punishment and reward system, and it is not something that we have to earn. This mindset holds us back from living our best life, finding peace in our bodies, and being present to enjoy special moments.

When we look at nourishing our bodies with food choices that make us feel good, give us energy, support our mental health, and experience joy in special moments where food is central to the experience, it becomes easier to lean into the positive changes that you’ve made and stick with the new habits you’ve developed.
 
Here are three practical strategies for incorporating positive nutrition habits into daily life

• Be inspired by good food! – Think about nourishing your body as a way to care for it rather than as a way to control or manage it. It’s said that we eat with our eyes first. When you can, take the time to make dishes from scratch that make you feel good from the outside in. Try to enjoy the process of food preparation, make a beautiful plate, and take the time to savor the food. Keep it simple so it doesn’t feel like a task that you dread. Think about the flavours that you love most or a type of dish that you know you always enjoy.
• Add variety to your diet – Add in colourful food (like my beet smoothie pictured above), fibre rich, offers vitamins and minerals and satisfies you. Variety contributes to greater diversity of microorganisms that live in the gut. Remember that positive nutrition is about focusing on foods to add in, rather than foods to avoid.
• All foods fit - Labeling foods as “good,” “bad” or “junk” can create a poor relationship with food. Our language matters. Use neutral language about foods and remember that there are no foods that are off-limits. Eating is not an all-or-nothing experience. We can incorporate any food into a healthy way of eating and living. Some foods are more nutrient-dense than others and should be eaten more often, but no foods need to be completely avoided unless you’re allergic to them, they don’t make you feel good, or you don’t like them. Focus on how food can benefit your body in different ways, not just as a source of fuel.

If you’re looking for inspiration, some great accounts to follow on Instagram are
@desireenielsenrd (Desiree Neilsen is a registered dietician and cookbook author), @soheefit (Sohee Carpenter, she is a trainer, nutrition coach with PhD who uses an evidence-based approach and @thenutritiontea (Shana Minei Spence, she is registered dietician that takes a non-diet, weight inclusive approach to food and nutrition).

Until next time. Stay grounded and stay bright, 
Kelly