wellness
Mind Your Food Habits
Here is how the mind can be tricked and how treating the stomach plays a role, along with the deeper implications of both nutrition and psychological factors in creating a balanced, healthy lifestyle.
Kavita Sardana
Dieting fads often lead to restrictive diets that provide short-term weight loss but can cause metabolic suppression. Food is deeply tied to memories and culture, so it’s vital to embrace a healthy lifestyle without dieting or self-judgment. Many mistakenly view food as a reward, forgetting that nutrition accounts for 70% of weight loss, with exercise, sleep, and stress making up the rest. Treating yourself with sugary foods, like cupcakes, can counteract the benefits of workouts. To maintain a healthy lifestyle, focus on both mental strategies and nutrition, exploring how they work together for a balanced approach.
The Vicious Cycle of Diet Fads and Metabolic Suppression
Dieting fads often promise rapid results with extreme restrictions. These diets are often marketed as miracle solutions that promise quick weight loss, but they’re unsustainable and even harmful in the long term. This is because many of these diets push the body into a state of calorie deprivation, leading to metabolic suppression.
When we drastically reduce calories, our metabolism slows down as a survival mechanism. This slowing of metabolism is the body’s way of conserving energy, making it harder to maintain weight loss in the long run. Once we return to normal eating habits, the body, now operating at a slower metabolic rate, struggles to process food efficiently, which often leads to weight regain.
Food as a Source of Culture, Comfort and Joy
Food plays a much larger role in our lives than simply providing sustenance. It is closely linked to emotional experiences, cultural identity, and social connections. From family traditions and holiday meals, food creates memories. When we view food solely as a source of weight control or as "good" or "bad", we lose sight of its broader significance. This can lead to guilt around eating, which can trigger disordered eating habits, where food becomes a source of stress, rather than enjoyment. Learning to enjoy food without guilt or judgment is crucial. Instead of demonising certain foods, we should focus on making health-conscious choices in the context of a balanced lifestyle.
A healthful approach doesn’t require you to give up the joys of food, but rather to find ways to integrate it into a larger wellness plan.
Shifting the Focus from Reward to Nourishment
Many people view food as a reward for exercise, hard work, or emotional distress. This creates a dangerous association where food is seen as a coping mechanism rather than nourishment. For example, after a workout, someone might reward themselves with a high-calorie, sugary treat. While this might provide temporary pleasure, it’s not a strategy that supports long-term health.
Processed sugars, artificial ingredients, and refined carbohydrates found in many "reward foods" disrupt our metabolism, trigger inflammation, and cause blood sugar spikes. These spikes in blood sugar are followed by crashes, which can leave you feeling sluggish, irritable, and craving more unhealthy foods. The key is to reframe how we view food. Instead of using food as a reward or a means to fill emotional voids, we should focus on eating for nourishment. Healthy foods like fresh vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, and healthy fats support the body’s needs, aid recovery after exercise, and promote overall well-being.
Understanding the 70/30 Rule: Nutrition vs. Exercise
While physical activity is essential for health, nutrition plays a far more significant role in determining our weight and overall health. The 70/30 rule emphasises that nutrition accounts for 70% of the results when it comes to achieving a healthy body, while exercise contributes to about 30%.
Why is nutrition so crucial?
- Caloric intake: While exercise burns calories, the type and quantity of calories you consume play a larger role in weight loss or gain.
- Nutrient density: Food quality matters. You could be eating the same number of calories but still feel sluggish or unwell if your diet lacks essential vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients. Processed foods lack these essential nutrients and often lead to imbalances in the body, which can affect energy levels, mood, and overall health.
- Hormonal balance: Nutrition plays a critical role in hormone regulation. Foods high in sugar or refined carbs, for example, can cause insulin resistance and disrupt hormones that regulate appetite and fat storage. This imbalance makes weight management and metabolic health much more difficult.
Exercise is important for cardiovascular health, building muscle, improving mood, and promoting overall wellness, but it is not a magic solution to poor eating habits. Both exercise and nutrition work together to create a healthier body, but the foundation is laid through what we eat.
Tricking the Mind for Long-Term Health
"Tricking the mind" involves cultivating a mindset of self-love and understanding about the role of food in our lives. Rather than viewing food as a reward or punishment, we can learn to appreciate it for its ability to nourish and support our body. Here are some strategies to "trick the mind":
- Mindful Eating: It means being present during meals, focusing on the flavors, textures, and satisfaction that food brings. Mindful eating helps prevent overeating because it allows us to truly listen to our body’s signals of hunger and fullness.
- Visual Cues: Studies show that portion sizes can affect how much we eat. Smaller plates, mindful portion control, and choosing healthier snacks can trick the brain into feeling satisfied with less.
- Emotional Awareness: Often, we eat out of habit or emotion. Recognising when you’re eating because you’re bored, stressed, or anxious can help break the cycle of emotional eating. Finding alternative coping strategies like walking, journaling, or meditation can help address the root causes of emotional eating.
Making Healthy Eating the Easy Choice
Making health-conscious choices doesn’t have to be a constant battle. By setting up an environment, such as having healthy meals prepared in advance or keeping nutritious snacks within reach, you can make better decisions without thinking twice. It’s crucial to recognise that while exercise boosts metabolism and strengthens the body, it can’t reverse the damage caused by poor food choices. Small, consistent changes—like increasing vegetable intake, reducing processed sugar, or choosing whole grains over refined carbs—add up over time and lead to lasting results without the stress of dieting.
Final Thought: Balance and Sustainability Over Quick Fixes
Ultimately, the idea of “tricking the mind” rather than focusing solely on treating the stomach is about creating a healthy, balanced approach to eating. Rather than relying on fad diets, we should aim to make healthy habits a permanent part of our lives. Food is about more than calories; it’s about nourishing the body, enjoying life and embracing the fullness of our cultural and emotional connections with food. When we treat food as a tool for wellness rather than a source of guilt or reward, we unlock a healthier, more sustainable way of living.
The writer is Health & Nutrition Advisor at the Adani Foundation.
To maintain a healthy lifestyle, focus on both mental strategies and nutrition, exploring how they work together for a balanced approach.”
