How I Changed My Diet For Good

Here’s what I discovered in the process of making food conscious.

Photo by Jimmy Dean on Unsplash

Changing what you eat is hard, but don’t let that discourage you. It’s only hard because we, humans, are social creatures, and creatures of habit.

For these reasons, making changes is difficult with food especially because it is so much more than just nutrition. We consume it as a form of socializing, as comfort, even as a form of identity — or because it’s what we were taught. Thus, when you make changes to what you eat, all these aspects of your life are affected, not to mention bodily changes.

Looking back at my journey through food, I didn’t have a single moment of inspiration to change, nor did I find the final diet choice immediately. If you are resisting the change, that is a good sign because you are starting to take it seriously and are beating yourself up for not taking action. Understand this as a positive first step. If you are indifferent, then nothing will happen.

What made the difference in my case was curiosity. Other than wanting to feel good, I didn’t have a specific goal to lose weight but rather a desire to make my food conscious. If you are reading this, then you are already at the curiosity stage. So…

Photo by Dawn Armfield on Unsplash

1. Be curious. Be interested in how food affects your mind and body. I won’t speak to a climate or animal welfare motivation to make a shift in your eating choices, because these are personal, identity-based motivations that will vary widely between people.

Health and self-awareness are what made me curious about this topic. For others it might be a health scare or if you are just sick and tired of being sick and tired. It is good if you can name what is driving you to change. However, in my experience the source of motivation isn’t as important as following through on the intention to change, so your reason is good enough if it is sufficient to make you act. This will be much easier if you get massively curious.

“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”

― Friedrich Nietzsche

On the back of therapy, and tackling other beliefs, I realized I wasn’t conscious of what I was putting into my mouth and I wanted to make it conscious. I started by experimenting with intermittent fasting, watching videos by Dr. Mindy Perez on YouTube. I found rebound eating to be an issue and I didn’t like the way I felt. That said, the odd fast appears to have many benefits and there are many ways to do it. I then tried a ketogenic eating program. In the end, I settled on a whole-food, plant-based diet, both because of what I had read, and how I felt after adopting it.

An Insight on Curiosity:
It is value-neutral, so there is no judgement. By making curiosity a motivator, and self-awareness a purpose, much of the negative self-talk and harsh self-judgment associated with failure is removed. Reflect. You are doing this to learn, so... learn.

2. It’s a habit. You have to give it some time. Expect there to be a period of adjustment. Making your food choices conscious is one big step on the journey of better self-awareness and at times it will be challenging because you are adjusting to new habits, both mentally and emotionally as well as physically and you will have to contend with each of these aspects.

Once I started to realize just how much food affects your mentality and emotions, I sought to understand how food affected my mood, to know how much was about comfort eating versus nutrition.

Short answer: a lot. After some learning moments, I realized that:

• Sugar was a mood tonic that made me racy and superficial. Instead of calmly sustaining an activity, it made me preference quick, feel-good pursuits like falling into a YouTube black hole accompanied by more sugar.
• Artificial sweeteners would backfire. I got the sweet, but not the calories, meaning I would overeat, or seek out too much real sugar later.
• Packaged cereals made me feel like crap, not to mention very hungry very quickly.
• Dense full. When you are ‘fatted out’ because your body dials back your brain to preference digestion. It’s a way to switch off and so I had gotten used to that feeling as being full. I had to readjust to fibre full: the feeling that ‘I could eat more, and it’s delicious, but I’m full, so I won’t’.
• Boring blood sugar. Many of the blood sugar highs (coffee and cereal) and lows (an hour later) were gone. I experienced a more stable, consistent release of energy that had a calming effect.

The change was challenging because I didn’t know what to expect next, or how my old eating habits would be replaced. I sometimes felt dissatisfied and anxious, wondering if what I was feeling was ‘normal.’ When you think that the trillions of bacteria in your gut have an effect on your mood and how you feel¹, then changing what you eat means changing the balance of bacteria, and for some, that spells doom. They have a vested interest in making you feel uncomfortable!

Being curious can help combat the negative effects of making dietary changes. While it doesn’t eliminate the feelings, it changes your reaction to them from one of suffering and will power to one of curiosity, and only some will power. When mood or emotional ‘side-effects’ come up, notice them, journal them. You are now an observer of yourself, rather than being a slave to your impulses.

3. Expect some movement between different schools of thought. Nutrition is a minefield with experts at opposite ends of the spectrum claiming their school of thought is correct. For this reason, I won’t attempt to say what is better other than to mirror the consensus that reducing highly processed foods from your diet is beneficial.

Something I Learned:
High-fibre foods can replace the feeling of fullness often given by calorie-dense foods like meat and fried food. This is one of the reasons whole foods are promoted because they naturally tend to have a high soluble or insoluble fibre content together with natural vitamin and mineral content. This makes them nutrient-dense, but calorie-poor relative to processed foods, which strip out fibre and many nutrients.

So, I can confidently say that the best diet is:

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I am not a doctor and this article is not nutrition advice. It’s mindset advice based on my own slow, yet successful experience. It also is not an endorsement of doctors as specialists in nutrition. Indeed studies indicate the topic of nutrition is barely covered in medical school.

“Nutrition education in medical school is rudimentary, at best, and limited for the duration of graduate medical education for many specialties. Requirements for meaningful nutrition education in all phases of medical training are long overdue,” ²

Doctors themselves admit to feeling under-equipped to counsel people on the topic of nutrition.

“Most doctors coming out of American medical schools say they lack the training and confidence to counsel patients about nutrition.” ³

Not knowing isn’t a problem. If you are curious, then it’s a temporary issue. The real issues here are:

• That many people ‘know’ and yet their knowledge conflicts wildly with other people who ‘know’ and this makes it hard to know where to start. My intention isn’t to push you in a certain direction, but if you’re curious, then ask in the comments section below.
• To be cautious of advice from those who don’t embody the result you are looking for.
• That finding generally good advice is easy; implementing it is harder because of the emotional toll and general difficulty in changing habits.

4. It’s addition, not subtraction. In my experience, I had more success thinking about what I would add to my diet, rather than what I would take away. This is something I learned after struggling with intermittent fasting while not changing anything else about my diet.

The desire to fill a void lends itself to reward behaviour for ‘being good’ as well as fostering a sense of lacking. This then requires willpower, which is a high-energy, temporary solution that cannot be sustained. Trust me, I’ve already failed at that. Engineering a way around it as much as possible will make your journey easier. In contrast to stoically going without, adding new foods to your diet will necessarily displace other foods and also lends itself to curiosity.

A Mental Hack:
Rather than starting off with the mindset "I must stop snacking on donuts," instead start by committing to eat more fruit during the day. This will give you a sweet tasting dose of fibre and diminish the desire for a sugar fix. You might not even notice.

5. Your body doesn’t care about your identity, and it isn’t idealistic. Any movement towards healthier eating will provide health benefits in accordance with the changes.

Better the positive movement that is sustained than the ideal abandoned.

In my case, I settled on a plant-based diet. ‘Based’ gives one wiggle room. Just like a film ‘based on a true story’ implies that some creative license was taken, so too my interpretation of ‘plant based’ provides the latitude to eat some salmon and some fetta cheese while predominantly eating large amounts of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, and legumes. I see it more as a description than a prescription.

Even since changing my diet, I sometimes still notice myself slipping into eating too many comfort foods. I often won’t notice until I start to crave it again at which point I realise I’m craving it and take a moment to think why. If you stay honest with yourself you can be kind and seek to understand rather than reprimand.

You will settle on what feels right for you and don’t feel pressured to conform totally to some doctrine. Better the positive movement that is sustained than the ideal abandoned. If you understand what effect different foods are having on you then your decision to deviate is an informed one. You know the effects and have accepted them. This way you won’t feel guilty or begin a negative mindset telling yourself how you can’t ever stick at something.

I would sometimes remind myself that my body was always on my side and wanted to do the best by me if I would just let it. By eating better, I was helping my body help me. Feeling uncomfortable after a while can be helpful in telling you something isn’t working. Conversely, short-term discomfort can tell you something is working and you’re breaking an unhealthy habit.

Observation:
If you think about your body as being on your side, then it changes the idea of a 'reward.' Rather than being something indulgent which you think you deserve but will take it's toll on your body, why not something that rewards all of you?

6. Experiment. Just as you experiment with different diet options, you can also experiment with cooking and buying the right food for that diet. New recipes are in order. Again, be curious about this.

Where I was initially fascinated by cooked millet most mornings, the taste and texture eventually got old and wasn’t the most balanced breakfast. One day on the train I remembered how my uncle used to mix mashed banana into oatmeal to pleasing effect. As it was late autumn at the time, the idea of warm banana oatmeal appealed to me and so the next morning I did just that. Boring oats inertia had been banished! Sometime later, loosely guided by Dr. Gregor’s Daily Dozen app and a random surge of inspired enthusiasm; I found my own super breakfast mix that I have had most mornings for the last three years. Either I’m boring, or it is that good.

7. You feel better. Hopefully, this is for two reasons: Firstly, because your dietary changes are having a positive effect on your health and wellbeing, and also because when you realize you can make meaningful change in one important area of your life. You give yourself proof that you can change. And if you can change one major thing about your life for the better, doesn’t that make you…curious?

References:

1. Dr. Siri Carpenter (September 2012) That gut feeling https://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/09/gut-feeling
2. Liz Meszaros (April 26, 2019) Most US physicians aren’t properly trained on this important health topic https://www.mdlinx.com/article/most-us-physicians-aren-t-properly-trained-on-this-important-health-topic/lfc-3676
3. Vogel L. (2018). Most doctors lack adequate training to give informed diet advice. CMAJ : Canadian Medical Association journal = journal de l’Association medicale canadienne, 190(31), E945. https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.109-5639