Feeling guilty while eating

Attention seeking

“I have eaten an X! Should I feel guilty?” I have seen this recently in one of the forums I am following. It left me wondering what this post is really about.

What does this person want? Feeling guilty. What does this even mean? Are they looking for condemnation from others? Do they want to read the backlash from others, making him/her feel like a horrible person? Does he/she seek approval? I am not sure. Maybe a bit of both.

If they want to hear something negative, they will surely get it. There will be a lot of people who will tell them that they are complete failures, that they are not sticking 100% to the prescribed diet, that they will fail in the long term, and that they are bad people when they can eat that… you know best what I mean, you must have seen that online too.

On the other hand, if they were looking for approval or compassion, they might find it as well. There will be people who would say something like, “I eat everything in moderation, and nothing happens. You can do that too, it is perfectly fine.” Some would even encourage eating more X food and adding some Y. Why, that is another thing.

Where is the truth?

I don’t know but I think somewhere in the middle. It depends on what you are doing. If you eat “forbidden” food once a week, and it is one meal, it means absolutely nothing. One piece of cake a week, if you are following the diet for the rest of the time, if you do your exercise, it is absolutely fine. It means nothing. It won’t do anything to you. Well, unless it goes down funny and you end up dumping. But it is another story.

But if you eat it every other day and you are slacking on your diet all the time, you have a problem, and you will gain weight. It is unavoidable. You are not doing things right, and your intake is bigger than it should be. I am sorry to tell you, but you are doomed if you start on this journey. Still, it is time to rectify things and go back to square one. You can get things in order and lose weight.

The sooner you realize what is going on, the earlier you will be able to stop it and start doing things right. It is never too late. Obviously, the earlier you start, the shorter the journey backward to the correct nutrition and consequently weight will be. So start as soon as possible if you must.

You know the answer

People sometimes ask questions they know the answer to. They only seek approval. Or condemnation. They want to hear it from others. Easy as that. If they think they are doing right, they will focus on this type of answer. And otherwise. If they know they messed up, they want to hear also from others that they are not going the right way.

So what?

From the other point of view, you did it. And what? Even if it was not the best thing to do or eat, it is already inside. No need to beat yourself bloody. No kitty will die. Let’s hope you enjoyed it and let’s go on. Even if it were a whole pizza (lucky you that you could do that 😀). Most likely you are feeling physically pretty bad, that is almost sure. So sleep it off and go for a walk. What else you can do? If you eat tomorrow the way you should and you adjust your calories in and out, it means nothing.

Nobody is perfect and each of us sometimes eats things that we wouldn’t put on the first page of our journal. Everybody does that. None of us is perfect. As long as the things we eat are planned or at least compensated for, it is all great. No need to fight your cravings and prohibit yourself from eating something. You wouldn’t resist much time anyway.

Do it right

If you want to eat something that is not strictly from the things we should be eating, how about finding some bari-friendly way of doing it? Maybe some lower-calorie version? Less mayo, sweetener instead of sugar? Maybe a smaller portion? Something like this. You will eat what you want but it won’t make you feel sick. No need to end up with dumping. That would be straight away stupid. You know best what triggers it in your case.

If a lower-calorie version doesn’t exist, or it would completely ruin the taste, let’s do this! Have it! Why not? Eat some, enjoy, and then go back to what you are supposed to eat. One meal means nothing. And even better if you can plan for it. If you know that you will go out on Saturday evening, you can adjust your meals during the day and then have a “fiest” in the evening. As long as you wong completely overdo it and you end up sick as a dog, all is fine. Maybe go for a walk on Sunday or some extra gym a few days later.

Plan for it

If you can plan for things, it is much easier to have them under control. You can enjoy guilt-free. To tell the truth, guilt is a very ugly feeling. And no one wants to feel bad. How can you have a healthy relationship with food, something we strive for, if you relate eating X with bad feelings? This is completely counterproductive. What we are trying to do is to rectify our relationship with food.

We used to love it too much and it caused us a lot of health problems, not only excess weight. We don’t want to go back to this. And we don’t want to end to the other end of the spectrum. Hating food and being scared of, it is also not the way to go. We would love to be somewhere in the middle. Eat food do live, not live to eat. Those times are over. So feeling guilty around food is a pretty silly thing to do.

Awareness

Being aware of food is a good way to go. How does it make me feel? Does it satisfy me? Am I hungry soon? Do I even like this? Does it taste right? Is the texture off? Don’t chew things mindlessly. There is nothing bad about enjoying the food we eat. We eat little, so enjoying the little we can eat seems like a good idea.

Explore

We can explore new meals, new recipes, and new cuisines. There are so many new, healthy, and tasty options. How about trying a new thing once a week? It doesn’t have to be from a restaurant. You can cook it yourself. It will be fun, trust me. I learned a lot of new things by trying. I took a recipe somewhere online, the internet is full of them, and I tried. Sometimes it was a hit, sometimes it went directly to the garbage. Miss or hit 😀 still, it was worth it.

Feeling bad around food is not a good starting position. It won’t lead to anything good. No food is prohibited, and at the same time, there is no superfood. It all depends on quantity, quality, and combination. Yes, some things are more recommendable, some less. But nothing is strictly prohibited. If you have something not so perfect sometimes, it means nothing. Remember that.

Do the right thing

Just do 90% of what you should be doing, add some exercise and you will see that the bariatric surgery was the best thing that you could have done. You will lose weight and you will maintain a healthy weight long-term without much hustle. It is all about being aware, consistent, and keeping going. There is no magic in it.