Why is the individual who eats whole wheat bread better than the one who eats white bread? As a Registered Dietician, I am not crazy about hydrogenated peanut butter on white bread, but I know plenty of successful, bright, healthy people who hate natural peanut butter and love mushy white bread. And you know what? They are perfectly capable of making other healthy food choices, as well as good decisions in the other parts of their lives.
These "good" and "bad" assumptions on food choices are a total waste of our energy. When you eat the yummy Haagen Daz ice cream on a hot summer afternoon and suddenly feel like a bad person for doing so, you feel guilty. You doubt your food choices and these misguided judgments spill over into the rest of your life. After all, if you can't trust yourself to make good food choices, can you trust yourself at all?
Let's stop this craziness! What about thinking of food choices as simply "healthier" or "not as healthy"? "Essential" or "nonessential"? It is a fact that it's healthier to choose whole wheat bread over white bread, since there are more nutrients in the whole grains than in the refined flours. But the truth is that this has nothing to do with the type of person you are, your "goodness" factor or, (if there is such a word), "badness." I believe that if we allow ourselves to relax, we will ultimately create a balance and most of our choices will be ones that fall into the healthy column. And, more importantly, we will also learn to trust ourselves in making good decisions in the other areas of our lives.
Becoming "at peace with food" involves a journey resulting in a new relationship with food. Instead of being marked by frustration and disappointment, by fear and competition between you and the food you eat, food will take its place as one of the many activities in your life, along with family, friends, working and being active. And, like these other activities, it should be pleasurable.
In order to become truly at peace with food, you need to learn about yourself and why you have the relationship you do with the food you eat. Like all relationships, your relationship with food took time to develop, and it will take time to change.
