Hi there! I hope you are going strong with your resolutions and are trying your best to not overcommit. Today I want to focus on our relationship with food and my personal struggle with it. But first...

Weekly Inventory Check:

Reflect on the last 2 weeks and ask yourself, ‘Is this what I want to be doing for the next 52 weeks?’ Be honest to yourself and focus on the things that you believe are important for 2023. 

Is Food Really Just Fuel?

Mid December, last year, to lose the holiday-weight gain I started 24 Hour fasts. In which, I drank only water and ate only once a day before starting the next fast. Initially, my goal was to reach my target weight and go back to “normal” in a short period of time. That is what got me thinking, what really is normal?   

My unstable and unhealthy relationship with food dates back to middle school. Back then we would go to Saudi Arabia for winter vacations every year and I would return home “fluffy”, because of all the shawarmas and Al-Baik sandwiches I had devoured. Then right after coming back, I’d start playing a lot of guilt football, to lose the “fluff”. In university, I found yet another way of losing weight ‘fast’ and reached my lowest weight. And now this. 

This tedious and vicious circle of a weight loss journey, stumbled me upon an epiphany. I noticed how I didn’t feel hungry all day and there was no more binge eating or late-night snacking either. I kept reminding myself that I didn’t need more than one meal because, “Food is just Fuel”. I had started to believe this and thought of it as possibly the “new normal”. Until yesterday, when while shopping my wife wanted to share a Gozleme – a savory Turkish snack – with me. It didn’t take me long to get excited about bonding over a Gozleme on this wet, cold afternoon with my wife after months. Shortly after, it struck me, “Food is just Fuel”. I reminded myself I wasn’t hungry, and I could wait till 6 pm. This was the moment I snapped out of that thought and realized that maybe I had it all wrong, maybe food is more than just fuel and I needed to revisit my relationship with food.  

Due to these 24-hour fasts, I even stopped doing something I love – cooking. In the constant struggle to ‘maintain my weight’, I forgot the importance food has held in my life. And that my friends, is the crux of the problem – we do things we think we want at the expense of what we really want. 

Do you agree or disagree?  Shoot me an email. Would love to hear your thoughts! 

Further Reading

Read on about how to develop a better relationship with food backed by scientific evidence.

Rhiannon Lambert's talk on the TED Stage about food is the nutrition we never knew we needed.

Listen to Christy as she helps us tackle all the new fas diets that will pop up around this time of the year.

Read of the Week

How to Be an Animal - talks about humans being the only animal in the world who refuse to call themselves an animal. Food is also an animalistic trait yet we somehow changed its meaning. Is this why we think we aren’t as animalistic as we previously believed? This book might argue otherwise. 

Thoughts to Leave you With

I cannot promise that I will stop with the 24-hour fasts due to my newfound meaning attached to food, but I will try more to cook at home and make the only meal I have a meaningful one. What I would like you to think about over the weekend is whether there is some aspect of your life you would like to delve deeper into? Take time out this weekend and hone on why you do the things that you do or vice versa.