There's a lot to think about and consider when it comes to health, fitness and well-being. Everyday we're faced with a hundred choices, guidelines, 'rules' etc and we're left to just sift through it and try and make sense of it!

A lot of these choices we can use our own common sense for and filter through the BS to find the truth but sometimes we can be poorly led by influencers and creators down a long and winding round to an unhealthy mindset.

A little story about something which actually inspired this post; yesterday I purchased a bundle of eBooks online which was being touted by a few health and fitness influencers, you could get 90 books for the price of 2 or 3 - what a deal! The content of these books which were written by influencers (most of whom are no different to you and I and no more qualified to make claims about food/diets) and were based on subjects such as food and recipes, a vegan/plant-based diet, sustainable fashion and minimal living to name a few.

As soon as I began to flick through the eBooks I slowly became disappointed with the content. As the books are written by creators and individuals there was a lof of personal information, views and opinions rather than science or facts to back up any claims made about fitness, food and a healthy lifestyle. 

That's why i wanted to highlight some of these concerns in the hope that together we can begin to decipher the many, many messages and posts that we come across on a daily basis and how we can all make small changes in the way we talk about food to benefit ourselves and those around us. 

Food can be an emotional trigger for a lot of people, in particular those who have experienced eating disorders and disordered eating patterns or habits and with words flying around like 'clean', 'detox', 'good', 'bad' and 'cheat' it can be very confusing and misleading to know what we should and shouldn't be putting in our bodies. 

The end goal for all of us - regardless of how we get there - is to have a healthy relationship with food but I appreciate that's easier said than done and for a lot of people that's a long journey which can take a lot of hard work. One small way we can begin this healthier relationship with food is to see it for what it is; nourishment for our bodies and yes, that means all food, not just a salad or a celery juice drink in the morning. 

What about cheat meals and good vs bad foods?

So you get up each morning, you have maybe a bowl of porridge oats with some honey and fruit for breakfast, you have chicken and couscous and some roasted veg for lunch and then hey, it's Friday night so you order a takeaway pizza for dinner. Some would call this a 'cheat meal' but erm...who or what are you cheating on exactly and what makes the pizza you had 'bad' versus the chicken and couscous for lunch that you might label as 'good'? Nothing makes it good or bad except us and our language, not doctors, not nutritionists and not dieticians (not the good ones anyway!)

Ditch the 'detox diet' ASAP!

Another gem that the internet has created and one which cropped up in the eBook bundle I purchased yesterday was 'detox' your body with food and drink. Firstly, let's get our science hats on, we have two A* organs that do this for us, they're called our kidneys and liver. They don't work part time and they certainly don't accept bribes in the form of celery juice or lemon water to wake them up in the morning or make them work any faster. They work consistently 24/7 and eating a healthy, balanced diet can of course keep them in tip top shape but you definitely don't need to have a lemon slice in hot water every morning to wake up your system, just enjoy it if you think it tastes yummy and makes you feel good!

Clean eating is just eating unless your food needs washing first...

Another term that 'diet culture' has created is 'clean eating'. I have been 100% guilty of using this term (along with a lot of the others at some point in time too) but what does it even mean? It translates loosely to eating more whole foods and fewer processed foods but that's just what we should be aiming for anyway. It doesn't need to be labelled as 'clean' eating as that would suggest anytime we have a slice of cake or pizza it's 'dirty' eating? Unless our vegetables and leaves need a quick spritz under the tap before we use them or you drop your sandwich on the floor then there's no such thing as clean or dirty food. 

The Final Takeaway...

One way we can start to steer away from using these 'diet culture' buzzwords is to look at food in a slightly different way and then just put our blinkers on to block out all of the bull that the internet and television can throw at us. Educate yourself a little, it's invaluable to know more about the science behind food and it suddenly becomes less scary. 
There's no clean, good or bad when you realise what our food is made of. Every item of food includes a nutrient for us that we need in one way, shape or form. Whether that be a donut that contains sugar and fat or an apple which contains essential fibre and vitamins; our bodies need sugar, fat, fibre and vitamins in addition to many other nutrients and vitamins to thrive and work at it's best. The truth is we just need a little more of some things than others so a healthy, balanced diet is the way forward. 

Ditch 'Diet Culture' For Good

Changing your mindset when it comes to eating and your relationship with food can seem really daunting and difficult at first. There's so much flying around world wide web that tells us what we should and shouldn't do when it comes to diet and fitness and it can all get overwhelming and very confusing.

I'd like to add that I'm not a health professional in anyway, I'm not qualified to offer health or nutrition advice but I've spent a lot of time researching the benefits of ditching so-called 'diet culture' and would love to share my findings with you!

What is 'diet-culture'?

Christy Harrison, MPH, RD, CDN is an outspoken leader in the non-diet, weight-inclusive movement is and her definition of ‘diet culture’ has been widely quoted and referenced. She says:

“Diet culture is a system of beliefs that:

• Worships thinness and equates it to health and moral virtue, which means you can spend your whole life thinking you’re irreparably broken just because you don’t look like the impossibly thin “ideal.”

• Promotes weight loss as a means of attaining higher status, which means you feel compelled to spend a massive amount of time, energy, and money trying to shrink your body, even though the research is very clear that almost no one can sustain intentional weight loss for more than a few years.

• Demonizes certain ways of eating while elevating others, which means you’re forced to be hyper-vigilant about your eating, ashamed of making certain food choices, and distracted from your pleasure, your purpose, and your power.

• Oppresses people who don’t match up with its supposed picture of “health,” which disproportionately harms women, femmes, trans folks, people in larger bodies, people of color, and people with disabilities, damaging both their mental and physical health.”

Diet culture can make the idea of just nourishing and looking after your body by eating ALL kinds of foods seem kind of crazy, out-there and impossible. That's because diet culture has convinced us we can't possibly be healthy in body and mind without SOME kind of restrictive diet or special tea that will do the trick for us.

That's where Diet Culture does us dirty. 

Where might you find 'Diet Culture'?

Below are some good examples of diet culture around the web that you might come across on a regular, even a daily basis and not even really assosicate or label as diet culture. Well, you will now!

• Celebrities flogging ANYTHING that they claim helped them lose 2 stones in as many months
• I've recently seen an ex Love-Island contestant sharing her weight loss results all over Instagram, dropping to a size 6 and what came hand-in-hand with it? The weight-loss programme she created in order to do it! It's SO important to remember there's not one size that fits all when it comes to what you eat and how you exercise so there's no way that they can guarantee you'll have the exact same results and there's no reason why you should have to either! 
• Foods that claim to be 'guilt free' or perfect for 'cheat days'. 
• Guilt isn't an ingredient in any food. All food is guilt-free and labelling food as such simply leads to us making connections with food and creating unhealthy relationships with certain foods. The other end of the spectrum is 'cheat days'. If you start to feel like you're cheating on yourself then you'll be overwhelmed with negative feelings towards certain foods which can easily lead to more disordered types of eating.

How to Recognise Diet Culture & Ditch It For Good

Luckily, there are plenty of ways we can tailor our lives to ensure we're not plagued by diet culture and to help us live our best and healthiest lives! 

• Be Kind To Yourself
• Only use words to yourself that you'd say to someone else. Would you outwardly punish a friend for having a slice of cake at work when it's someone's birthday? Or grabbing a cheeky McDonalds on your way home from an evening out? No, so don't do it to yourself. Be kind. 
• De-Clutter Social Media
• Something huge that's helped me is keeping on top of my social media feeds. Even I follow someone at 3pm and by 3:15pm I've seen something from their feed which doesn't make me feel positive or inspired then I'll unfollow them straight away again. Go through accounts and people you follow and unfollow any that make you feel like you're not doing enough or ones who share diet culture (some celebs can be huge culprits of this as it makes them a few bob!).
• Educate Yourself
• Last week I shared four Health & Wellness podcasts which i'm currently listening to and loving at the moment and I love them so much because they're full of interesting, educational facts from registered professionals across the health industry. When you begin to learn more about health, nutrition and a healthy diet you'll start to easily see through the amount of bullsh*t there is on the internet. 

As I've mentioned previously, I'm not a professional and can't advise on what you should be eating and how you should be exercising but Diet Culture affects all of us negatively, there's no two ways about that so if we can all learn to ditch it and start loving ourselves despite what the internet might want us to think then that's a win!

HOW TO GET BACK ON THE WORKOUT WAGON

Now this is a story all about how...I fell off the wagon and stopped eating healthy or going to the gym. You know that classic tale? Well it happened, the last few months were stressful as heck, I went to America and ate my body-weight in mac and cheese for fourteen days straight (no regrets though my friends, no regrets) and now it is nearly December and I am not yet ready to let myself go entirely for the festive season.

It's time to get back on the wagon and get my arse into gear (and a size or two smaller hopefully) and there are a few ways I've discovered - because yes I've fallen off the wagon before, it happens because life gets in the way ands ometimes when you're not feeling too good dragging yourself to the gym or slicing up an avocado does not appeal and the thought alone drives you into the arms of a bargain bucket .Speaking from experience here.

MAKE YOUR WORKOUTS/GYM TIME ENJOYABLE

So recently I moved out of home, into my own flat in a nearby town and had to quit the gym I loved (yes I just put gym and love in the same sentence, i know, who am i) and join a gym down the road from my new flat. Now the gym I joined was tiny, there were hardly any staff around and to put it plainly, I despised it so obviously ultimately I stopped going. Now I am moving back home (because rent sucks, rent sucks oh and rent sucks) and I am rejoining my fave gym again. 

Long story short, you won't work out if you don't enjoy the space you're working out in or the workouts you're doing. I am obsessed right now with the instagram account for the New York gym DOGPOUND - it's where Taylor Swift and the Victoria Secret girls work out and it's full of inspiration as far as workouts are concerned. I've made a note of them all and I'll be adding them into my workout routine for sure. 

INSPIRE YOURSELF WHEN IT COMES TO FOOD

I have Pinterested (hello Oxford Dictionary, please make that a verb) the crappola out of recipes and meal ideas lately, it's been the holy grail for making me excited to eat better. After pinning a thousand and one recipes to my board I'll make a shopping list & meal plan for a week with breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack ideas. I did even not realise until I looked into it how many exciting things could be done with a sweet potato and of course it instantly dispelled the myth about eating healthy meaning all you could do was knaw on salads day in day out. 

DITCH THE 'DIET'

I used to be a sucker for this one, even recently I tried out Slimming World which did help me lose some weight but after I fell off the wagon and was ready to hop back on I decided that SW wasn't the path I was going to take. I understand how it works for a lot of people but personally for me it was limiting in the sense that it stopped me from having food that I knew wasn't bad for me like avocado (sorry, this post is not sponsored by the great gods of avocado it's just cropped up a lot) and I didn't want to feel like I couldn't eat something, I never want to feel like that. 

Diets like Slimming World do provide you with tools and keys to help when it comes to ditching their plan and going it on your own though which I will give them full credit for. However, diets that include cutting our carbs and such are just not great in the long-term, you need to think of the way you eat as a lifestyle choice and not a diet. 

Getting back on the wagon can be hard, especially if you've been off a while but there's never a bad time to get back on. What are your tips for getting back on track after a break?