I'll Have the Happy Meal

Enjoying food doesn’t mean giving up on health or weight loss. Counting every calorie, crunching numbers instead of nutrients, and living in deprivation; all these can take all the joy out of eating.

Rather than constantly stressing about what not to eat, shift your focus onto what you should be eating that you are not.

This will take away some of the confusion around diet. If your focus is, for example, on avoiding fat, you might be unknowingly consuming quantities of extra low quality calories through added sugars, or even worse: artificial ingredients. The continuous rise in obesity suggests that diet foods, sugar-free soft drinks and low-fat snacks are not helping people manage their weight.

Fortunately, these days people are rediscovering seasonal vegetables, nuts, berries, organics, whole grains, fresh, home-cooked meals and other healthful foods.

By adding nutrient rich foods, we can meet our hunger while eliminating unhealthy cravings and curve binge eating. No matter how much we eat, if our body does not get the nutrients it needs, it will continue to hunger for more. This is one of the reasons why caffeine, sugar and other processed carbohydrates can be so addictive. Providing an immediate but false sense of energy, the body is thrown into a cycle of a constant search for sustainability. Teasing the body into feeling it now has the fuel to charge forward, we continue to run on empty while wearing and tearing ourselves down in the process. Adding more plant-based and whole/ unprocessed foods to our diet can help keep us satiated, naturally regain portion control, regulate our hunger, and enhance our energy, vitality, and health.

The more energy we put into preparing our food, the more energy our body puts into assimilating it. Food is not our enemy. The 'enemy' is the “food-like” packaged products that has made it to feel that way.

Don’t skip out on the pleasure of home cooking. Keep it simple enough for you to handle and enjoy. Enjoying a home cooked meal creates feelings about food that makes you feel cared for. What are we telling ourselves if we mostly eat meals that were mass produced with no thought of our individual selves? Eating a home cooked meal is a vital key in creating a positive relationship with what is on the plate. These days it’s a miracle if a plate is even involved with your meal at all.