Food is edible substance consisting of essential nutrients like carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, minerals and proteins that we use to sustain growth and meet our energy requirements.
Food is something everyone loves. Most people have enough food on their plates, while others can’t get enough.
People who overeat often have the need to lose weight and restrict their food intake. There are various ways in which a person would cut down their calories through different diets.
Diet
Most people have a wrong perception of the term diet. They often use it to refer to eating in a specific manner. However, diet refers to the food or drinks that a person or an animal consumes.
People follow a diet for several reasons. Dieting is a practice that requires eating a variety of food and consuming less sugar and saturated fat to gain benefits from the process.
Why do people go on a diet?
Healthy eating can offer a person various benefit that include:
- Keeping skin healthy
- Keeping the bones healthy
- Supports muscular growth
- Enhances the immune system
- It keeps the teeth and eyes healthy
- Optimal weight management
- Lower the risk of cardiovascular diseases and type two diabetes
- Supports brain development in children
- It helps the digestive system function smoothly.
Even though dieting can offer all the above-mentioned benefits, it is good to teach the diet culture and learn to trust our body’s instincts.
How to escape the diet culture?
Before we know how to escape the diet culture, it is important to understand what food freedom is.
Food freedom is a term with numerous definitions that defines various ways a person can ditch the diet culture and the concept of restrictive diets to attain good health through growing their food.
Food freedom is a term that is marketed as an approach to rectifying eating disorders and promoting intentional weight loss.
In the healthcare and wellness industry, food freedom is an emerging revolutionary concept that emphasises the social challenges of dieting.
In other words, food freedom refers to ditching the diet, culture, or other restrictive forms of diet and allowing oneself to enjoy all food in moderation.
What is the origin of food freedom?
Food freedom is a therapeutic approach for most people that cures various eating disorders.
Food freedom relies largely on the behavioural changes that compel a person to develop a positive body image and healthy eating habits instead of restricting food groups.
The diet industry may promote a thin ideal body image that sets unrealistic and unhealthy weight management behaviours that can contribute to developing eating disorders.
There is little evidence that supports dieting who seek long-term weight loss.
There are various studies that correlate diet restriction and eating disorders.
Food freedom is a method to handle such problems.
Freedom and mindful eating.
Usually, the term mindfulness and food freedom are used, thinking that they are the same.
However, there are small distinctions between these principles. Mindful eating is a deep-rooted Buddhist practice that relies on awareness and intention.
Mindful eating is a practice built on the mind and body connection philosophy that engages all our senses during meals.
In short, mindful eating is the practice of being mentally present when we eat.
Improving eating nurtures, the body and mind connection, including a weight loss approach by rejecting the diet culture and making peace with food.
Food freedom is not a well-defined concept that represents these forms of intuitive or mindful eating that can be a therapeutic approach for intentional weight loss and calorie restrictions.
Despite all these differences in the approaches, all of them aim to reduce unnecessary dietary restrictions and improve the relationship between the food and the consumer.
Under the concept of food freedom, people do not label any food as forbidden that is bad for health, and they remove any guilt or shame surrounding them.
How to ditch the diet and pursue food freedom?
To pursue food freedom. It is important for us to understand that a non-diet approach to health can liberate a person from thinking of the mainstream thin ideal culture prevalent in the diet industry.
Some of how a person can adopt the practice of food freedom are as follows.
- Before you begin to follow any food practices, it is recommended to consult a dietician for personal advice.
- It is good for a person to unlearn the idea of good or bad food and focus on the food that serves pleasure and nourishment.
- Take away the mindset of becoming a bad guy when you enjoy pleasurable food regularly and understand that moderation is the key.
- Allow to consume foods that you enjoy regularly.
- Improve health by practising habits and lifestyle changes like staying hydrated and performing exercises to remain healthy.
- Eat slowly without distractions to enjoy your food.
- Focus on how consuming food makes you feel and choose enough food that makes you feel happy.
How to use food freedom for intentional weight loss?
Weight loss is an active attempt to change the composition of the overall body weight with the goal of lowering the number to remain within a healthy BMI range.
Various studies reveal that eating mindlessly is associated with increased weight and causes various diseases.
Intuitive eating is an approach to helping a person. Find their happy weight and maintain them with minimal effort.
The core principle of mindful eating is not weight loss, yet it encourages a person to have a healthy weight.
Despite having a different principle, mindful eating or food, freedom can help a person with weight management and emphasis on allowing the body to reach its happy natural weight.
To sum up
Food freedom has various definitions that encourage a person to eat mindfully without defining foods as good or bad.
It is a revolutionary concept that challenges the concept of dieting and is marketed as a great way to address eating disorders to promote intentional weight loss.
