Guilt Sucks!

I don’t know if it was my upbringing, but I learned from a very young age that if you don’t have anything nice to say, then you don’t say anything at all.

Well, in my opinion, that only works half the time.

And this is not one of those times.

If I kept my mouth shut on this topic, then I’d be doing all of us a great disservice.

I’m talking about guilt.

We all know guilt.

Intimately.

It may take a different form for each of us, but I’ve seen guilt run rampant with my clients and I’m sure you’ve seen it too.

Food & guilt seem to go hand in hand for a lot of people.

And its not a pretty sight.

Making excuses for our food habits, for why we eat what we eat, for when we eat what we eat & even excuses for how much we eat.

What a freaking mess!

Well, I’ve got some good news for you.

I’ve learned a secret weapon to fight against feeling guilt around food and eating & I’m ready to share it with you.

Are you ready for it?

Do you have a pen, paper or some other way of keeping track of this secret?

Here goes.

Guilt sucks & we need to give it up.

Just like that.

Give guilt up cold turkey.

Right now.

Why is this my secret weapon?

Because its the only thing that truly works when it comes to food & eating.

Guilt accomplishes absolutely nothing for our mindset when we’re looking to eat for health, for weight-loss, for pleasure, for life.

It actually does the complete opposite.

Holy crap! What?

There are some schools of thought that have done studies that when we eat food in feelings of guilt that we actually get less nutritional value out of those foods. We actually tend to store those guilt-filled foods as fat instead of burning them for fuel in the short run.

Conversely, when we eat food in feelings of love, gratitude, health or happiness, we tend to get more nutritional value out of them- regardless of our preconceived notions about good versus bad foods.

Its like my theory on chocolate or birthday cake. Happy foods like these have far fewer calories & bad “stuff” in them than most people would like to believe. They are actually health foods.

Okay, that’s my theory- or my justification- but I do believe that there is some validity in it.

Whatever & however we choose to nourish ourselves should be taken in with feelings of love, gratitude, pleasure, health & happiness.

This way we are paving the way for real nourishment, for real nutritional benefit, for positive bodily reactions.

But “should” is a funny word.

We “should” do a lot of things.

We “should” eat more vegetables, exercise more, drink more water, be nicer to people, volunteer our time to help the less fortunate…

“Should” is tied in directly to guilt & as I’ve said before, guilt sucks.

So how do we drop the guilt & drop the “shoulds”?

Can we even drop guilt & “should”?

Better question would be, do we really want to drop the guilt?

(That’s a question I’ll answer in another post, so hold your horses for that.)

Where does this leave us?

It leaves us losing the guilt.

It leaves us with a new perspective on guilt & on all those magazine articles on “eating guilt free!” & “eat all you want- without guilt- and without gaining weight!”.

What a crock!

Guilt doesn’t mean that you trade out your favorite foods for franken-foods that have less fat, fewer calories & no taste.

Guilt doesn’t mean that you’ll make excuses every single time you eat your favorite, but forbidden food.

Guilt doesn’t mean anything when it comes down to food & eating- at least it shouldn’t.

My opinion is, if you’re going to feel guilty, then you should have at least done something really good to feel guilty about.

Seriously, something really good & really juicy.

Then you can let me know : )

I’ll be here eating my chocolate, eating some birthday cake, & not feeling one single ounce of guilt.

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