Food provides us with emotional connection and psychological networks of communication between our palate and our perspective.
Food is with us from the day that we are born to the day that we die, in fact you can start to anticipate someone’s death by the time they stop eating late in life as they grow older.
And throughout our lives in the many years and many histories that we experience as living breathing humans on this planet food surrounds many of our most energizing, abundant, audacious occasions
And yes, Food is here to nourish us and to give us energy to be able to do the great work that we were meant to do on this planet… but it inevitably tends to play much deeper roles along the way.
And especially whenever you consider how manufacturing practices of food industry companies target your taste buds in a way to cause addictive behaviors and a psychological emotional connection that leaves you longing for more and more and more and more… it can be tough to rewire the networks that created us to be the thriving adults that we would strive to be if we were taking advantage of a very early age is in our lives through these networks of communication and brain plasticity that are developed without our understanding.
My hope for you – me – we is that all of us together can contribute to the growing and thriving contributions of one another’s journeys in life, health, wellness over the course of our entirety together.
And this week I found myself contemplating these connections of mental health and mindfulness and mindful eating and psychology and emotional eating and comfort and pleasure and a giant whirlwind of thoughts and feelings after talking with a handful of people at one of my recent clinical days meeting with patients for health support – primarily focused on weight loss, obesity and diabetes.
Let me tell you what, it is still so invigorating to my soul and my passions to improve this world whenever I get into the trenches with people again and again and remember the crazy environment in which I really live, where people are being taken advantage of from their youth to their elder years.
I met with a 77-year-old male who complained to me that the fast food restaurants near his community lacked healthy options and therefore he was unable to choose healthy food for him to live.
I was joined by a 30-year-old hard-working, wood-cutting lumberjack of a man who told me that it wasn’t up to him what he ate for dinner… “it’s just whatever the wife cooks, and she ain’t too fond of vegetables ma’ guy.”
But one of the more profound experiences I had was with a woman in her 40s, struggling with a new diagnosis of diabetes and it doesn’t run in any person of her family. She was clearly overweight and morbidly obese but that’s beside the point, it was clear to me even if I were to engage with the session blindly by the tone of her voice and the resonance in which she spoke, that food was much more than just “food to eat” for this woman. Everything was internalized in a comfort paradigm such as her shocking quibbles about her diet and lifestyle.. using the language of
“MY coffee..”
“MY cheese..”
“MY soda…”
“MY snacks…”
“MY pasta..”
“MY bread..”
Ladies and gentlemen let me tell you the truth, it broke my heart with an a moment. Like I said it was clear to me that they were so much more behind the scenes and was able to be discussed in this one meeting. It was clear to me the food had been something much more than just energy for this young woman to live her life.
Food had been there to comfort her in times of need. Food had been there for her when no one else had. Food had been there to give her pleasure… when no one else had. Food had been there to give her control… when no one else had. Food had been there to give her a pick me up after a hard day of work… when no one else had.
Maybe you can relate?
Food can become an internal structure in a relationship with this young woman beyond what many people ever experience in Third World countries never they have less food than what is available to us here and most first world countries.
Furthermore, this relationship with food becomes increasingly complicated when it is there to fill our void within our hearts that have been shoveled out as craters during difficult times in our lives and moments of pain and struggle.
I remember whenever I was less than 10 years old and I had no idea who I was or where I was going in this world, but I shared with you last week and this was one of the more critical stages of my life where I undoubtedly how to take a change of direction if I wanted to go anywhere in life. I remember the diabolical misunderstanding and questioning inside my own soul whenever I began to cry as I found myself forced to measure out my portions whenever I was eating my cereal now as a young child going through my first experience with the word “diet.”
And so when this woman in front of me was carrying so much baggage in so much weight in so much pain on her shoulders and in her heart when it came to food, I didn’t point finger and I didn’t scrunch my nose. I told you, my heart broke for this woman. I knew her pain, I knew her feelings, I knew what she was going through right there in my office.
Thankfully, I believe God created us to learn from one another, to live life together and be open to discussing ideas and embracing change – from no matter who it might be we learn from in life. I was able to share with this woman my own journey, only some brief snippets in order to help her understand that I saw her in that moment and then I was not this young skinny kid who “had a high metabolism and had no idea what he was talking about.”
In that moment I knew the best thing I could do for that human was to tell her and show her she wasn’t alone and that it will all be okay – because it will, and I’ve been there before too.
For the next hour of our time together we made jokes and we shared laughs as we discussed the many roles and relationships and experiences around food that we may have. We talk on the issues of eating only pasta bread chips and candy and sugar throughout the day. We also connected the dots between someone’s chronic issues of migraine headaches and the lack of magnesium and the diet at all. We also addressed the issues of systemic inflammation, blood sugar dysregulation, triglycerdies being above 500 (yes, for all you health nuts, I said above 500!), and what happens when we drink 12 cups of caffeinated coffee and soda every single day for decades.
But what really lit a spark for her was when I was able to show her the full picture about how her eating only carbs, sugar, and caffeine was connected to her chronic headaches and migraines, her chronic yeast infections and progressive arthritis, her symptoms and positive screenings for candida overgrowth, and several other comorbidities she was dealing with, such as diabetes, peripheral neuropathy, numb toes, etc.
“You see, the beautiful thing about all this is that we can do something really powerful here with diet and lifestyle. We can kill like 19 birds with one freaking stone!” I told her.
Because it’s true. It’s freaking true. It’s the truth we deserve to know, it’s the truth this woman deserved to know decades ago before she started having trouble walking because she was losing feeling in her feet and toes. It’s the truth we deserve to know before we have to hurriedly (and horridly) gather our assets and hire someone to put together a will – “just in case” – after we are given a new scary diagnosis that feels so overwhelming that “we might just have a heart attack right now just thinking about it.”
My friends, food is so much more than just food we get to eat, shove in our pie holes and cake crevices. Food is much more than a list of ingredients and macronutrients. Food can be the actual scaffolding of which we build our coping mechanisms and mental health vices to help us get us through. Food can be our friend and only friend when we feel lonely. Sometimes, food can even bite us in our big o’l butts when it’s been designed against us for overconsumption and leads to promoting disease with much of our modern American diet.
But, as my role as a dietitian, holistic health coach and striving leader in this space…. I primarily care about the EDUCATION. This woman deserves to know the truth and my thoughts and prayers go out to her as she continues her journey and we continue to work together to promote healthy weight loss and hopeful diabetes reversal if we still can before it’s too late.
Some personal notes on this newsletter
In my life and career over the last year, I’ve been through a lot of change – as I’m sure you have as well.
I’ve failed more this year than I can ever remember failing EVER before. I’ve taken tons of turns and pivot points and sometimes it still feels like I’m spinning out of control. I’m thinking about a lot as the year comes to a close. I’m thinking about this Newsletter too. Up to now, this newsletter has been my wonderful experiment through 2021 to connect to readers and to have some much needed conversations I think deserved some space for discussion.
I’ve written this newsletter via a site that uuuuuusually is built for writers to monetize their newsletters, in such a way where readers pay for monthly or yearly memberships to gain access to the writer’s newsletter. The company takes roughly 60% while the writer keeps about 40% at the end of the revenue cycle. Personally, I’m still thinking everything through as much as I can, but as I continue chewing on all these things to contemplate, feel free to let me know if you think this weekly newsletter has been valuable to you, what you’ve liked, what you’ve enjoyed, and if you’d like to see it become a paid newsletter (and if so, how much would my weekly writing be worth to you) or should I find some ways to make sure it is still offered free.
Regardless of all the crazy things I’m always thinking about, I need you to know that I appreciate you so so much for being here. The absolute number one thing you can do right now to support my work in writing is to commit to sharing my work, pulling quotes and posting on social media, sending to a friend, forwarding the message near and far in hopes to reach more and more people.
Personal notes as we leave this week
As we approach the winter holidays, the Christmas and Hannukah season for so many of us, I want to implore us to think about the lives we lead, the people we meet, and the stories we tell to one another and ourselves.
I want us to be open to meeting each other where we are at and be able to celebrate each other no matter our pasts, present, or futures. And as it relates to food, nutrition, and health… let’s be mindful about our decisions, the meals we eat, the hands we depend on for preparing most of the food we consume from seed to plate, and when we can to choose foods that nourish our mind, body, and soul in a way that teaches us to cherish ourselves and maybe we can even share it with a friend to help them along their journey towards health and wellness too.
Maybe you can support their lives by handing them a few rocks to kill a few dozen birds together (metaphorically speaking of course). Instead of shoving pie, cake, pastries and desserts, chugging sugar water, and powdered milk down our esophagus chimneys… maybe we can hand one another some support, connection, and collaboration to lend an actual hand instead of just a selfish ploy to see someone smile and get your own respective hit of dopamine after feeding them pie.
(Elaboration on pie - nothing against pie per se, but so often we force sweets into our relationships with others out of these weird cracks of our own heart’s longing to make a difference in someone’s life and if we think we can make them smile with pleasure from pie, then maybe we did help them afterall… anyway, everything has it’s day for discussion I suppose, I’ll leave this one for now. Hopefully you understand the points I’m trying to make without feeling like I’m crazy. Or am I crazy, feel free to lend a hand and let me know in the comments below).
Ps. No birds were hurt in the writing of this post.
Thank you.
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If you missed last week’s edition you can check it out here: