With Guest Blogger Dr. Craig Slaunwhite
Last week, we looked at macros and how changing the way you eat can significantly affect your performance. If food is medicine, the way we eat can increase or decrease our overall sense of well-being. In today’s post, we lean on Dr. Slaunwhite to discuss the mechanics of how we eat.
Food with Dr. Slaunwhite
If asked, “Why do you eat?” your first response might be, “I eat because you need to eat to stay alive.” And you’ve got me there. That’s a perfectly good answer and also a fact. But if we look beyond the basic necessity of sustenance for existence, why do we eat and why do we make the food choices that we do?
The psychology behind why we select any given food comes down to one of two root motives:
A) You either select a food because you want to enjoy the taste.
B) You want to enjoy the nutritional benefits.
Ideally, your food selection will satisfy both of these criteria, although most people heavily favour one side of the spectrum more than the other. Unfortunately, for most people the way a food tastes dictates if they choose to eat it or not. This behavioral pattern often leads to an unhealthy result.
I’m here to persuade you to look at food as more of a fuel source or building block, instead of just a fleeting flavor. Ultimately, our goal should be to select foods that taste good and are also good for your body. I personally use a ‘health first, taste second’ approach.
Instead of looking at all the available food options, selecting the one with the best flavor and hoping that it’s also healthy, I do the opposite. I survey the different options in front of me (restaurant, grocery store, fridge etc.) and narrow down the list to just those foods that I consider to have the most nutritional benefits. From this shortened list of options, I pick whichever looks the most tasty.
By initially screening foods to weed out the unhealthy ones, I am then free to make selections based on taste alone and still reap all the nutritional benefits.
Give this approach a try and be good to your body.
