Why is it so Hard to Eat Healthy?

Short answer?

Because "healthy eating" as we understand it today is a giant scam.

It's a massive lie designed to keep you failing so that you continue to spend money.

Before you write me off as one of the crunchy cult conspiracy theorist who thinks the FDA is trying to give all of us cancer so we keep funneling money into the medical system, let me explain what I am talking about.

First of all, there is no universal "healthy eating." You can't swing a dead cat without coming across multiple contradicting programs that tell you to cut out carbs, whole grains are life, sugar is worse than cocaine, xylitol will kill you, only eat raw food, eat whatever you like as long as it's not too many points, avoid dairy because cows milk is for baby cows, load up on cheese because our bodies are great at burning fat, blah blah blah blah BLAH!

There are thousands (maybe millions) of different ways that someone can define "healthy eating." That fact alone should tell you that some ultimate form of "healthy eating" doesn't fucking exist.

Companies, influencers, trainers, and nutritionists love to throw around the word "healthy" to create a hierarchy of food. From "unhealthy" to "healthy", foods are assigned some sort of value, whether it's about being (anti)inflammatory, over processed, nutrient dense, whatever. The only thing this hierarchy does well is create food anxiety.

We start to demonize certain foods because we've been told they are "unhealthy," but guess what? Those are usually some of the most delicious foods. So when we crave them, we start to beat ourselves up for wanting to eat something "unhealthy." And it doesn't feel good to be mean to ourselves, right? That's where the anxiety comes in.

"I would LOVE to have [insert "unhealthy" food here] but its SOO bad for me. Why do I want something that isn't good for me? Am I broken? Why can't I just say no?? I am so annoyed that I can't just want "healthy" food. etc. etc. etc."

These anxious thoughts start accompanying any encounter with these "unhealthy" foods and we start dreading meal time. Our food routines start to become obsessive in the drive to be "healthy."

I am sure you can understand how the situation described above DOESN'T FEEL GOOD! We are put into a state of near constant misery thinking about "healthy" vs. "unhealthy" foods.

After days, weeks, or months of this misery vortex, we rebelliously throw our hands up and say "Fuck it! Life's short and I am going to eat a goddamn cupcake, I don't care what anyone thinks!"

Immediately followed by the thought: "Why is it SO hard to eat healthy??"

The problem was never that you wanted a cupcake. The problem was always that we labelled the cupcake "unhealthy" and therefore made it a "bad food."

Now I want to pause here for a moment to recognize my own privilege in what I am about to talk about. I have spent years surrounding myself with anti-diet culture information and reconnecting to my own body signals when it comes to eating. I have the resources (time and money) to do that, and not everyone is afforded that privilege. Even still sometimes I disregard my body and gorge on food that ultimately makes me feel bloated, gross, or crampy. But I fully recognize that I am leagues away from where I started on this journey, so if you are reading this and thinking "cupcakes HAVE to be labelled "bad" otherwise I will eat a dozen every day." I get it. Believe me, in my teens and 20s I was in that exact same spot.

So if we are going to remove the "unhealthy" label from food, how do we know what to eat in order to feel nourished?

We listen to our bodies.

Here is a very exaggerated example:

Let's say you do decide to eat a dozen cupcakes every day. Do you really believe you will keep consuming cupcakes at that rate, for the remainder of your life?

You know just as well as I do that eventually cupcakes are going to start grossing you out. That is your body's very LOUD way of telling you "We have enough of this, eat something different!"

What most of us don't realize is that our body quietly tells us this stuff all the time. But we've trained ourselves to disconnect and ignore our bodies. We believe that we are out of control around food and therefore have to adhere to some sort of food hierarchy in order to keep us in check.

So we ignore when are bodies are asking for carbs, and send spinach instead. We ignore when they are asking for more fat and send beans instead. We fight against our cravings and then wonder why we can never stick to "healthy eating" habits.

Because we aren't eating healthy. We are depriving our bodies of so much.

There is another element to "healthy eating" that I want to quickly touch on, and that's the idea that our bodies can be boiled down to mathematics. That each meal should have Xg of protein, Xg of fat, and Xg or veggies (or whatever formula you want to insert in there.)

We are not machines. The seasons change, we get sick, older, didn't sleep well, are more stressed out today, etc. Our bodies will always need a slightly adjusted formula for whatever the current circumstances are.

But when we are strictly "eating healthy" we don't account for the nuances that come along with being a biological creature.

That's where listening to your body comes in. Some days you might need extra fatty food and that's why that plate of onion rings looks so appetizing.

Some days your nutritional needs may be pretty well met, so a green smoothie might perfectly hit the spot for lunch.

So, back to my original point. "Healthy eating' is a scam. It's marketed to us as if we're robots, who simply need to follow this formula to fuel our bodies, and once we "detox all the gunk" out of our system it will become easy peasy to always reach for "healthy" options.

But the "detox" never happens and once again we wake up in a buffalo sauce haze licking cheeto dust off our fingers.

I cannot stress this enough. "Healthy eating" is utter BullShit. Capital B capital S. I don't care what system it is, if a "healthy" lifestyle is telling you to listen to anything other than what your body is asking for, it is a scam.

Even if you trust the person selling it and you are confident they want the best for you. They've been scammed too and they are trying to hawk that scam onto you.

So how do we move forward from here? The first step is giving a giant middle finger to diet culture, and the second step is recognizing that all the "healthy eating" advice, programs, and lifestyles out there are ABSOLUTELY part of diet culture.