Would you believe it, I’m sitting in the Lindt chocolate cafe in Sydney eating a chocolate brownie. I’m one very lucky girl. I’m on holidays for a few days in Sydney. Actually it’s my first trip here so it’s been great so far, so much to see.
I made a conscious decision before I arrived in Sydney to allow myself a few more food treats while I was here on holidays than I normally would. It would be silly of me, for example, to not go to the Lindt chocolate cafe just because I’ve already had my sugar quota for the day. There’s no Lindt cafe in Brisbane so it may be a long time before I get this opportunity again!
If you’ve been reading my blog then you know that I like to live by a 90/10 rule, which means 90% of the food I eat is healthy food for my body, and 10% is for the soul. Food for the soul includes junk and comfort foods. My 10% foods are chocolate, cake and greasy takeaway.
The guilt game
The hardest part of eating healthy is to know when to treat yourself. Before I discovered the 90/10 rule I used to feel really guilty whenever I ate sugar or drank too much alcohol or didn’t eat my quota of fruit and veges for the day. For example, it may have started by eating a little bit of chocolate because I hadn’t had any in a few days, then thinking I might as well eat the whole block of chocolate because then it was all gone and it would no longer be around for me to eat it. Then the guilt would start and I would feel terrible for having binged on all that junk food.
This action and thought pattern which I term ‘the guilt game’ can be the beginning of an eating disorder. The guilt game is very unhealthy for both the body and the mind. Please make sure if you do binge on junk food, that you feel okay with it afterwards. Become aware that you’ve just treated yourself and that’s is okay every now and again. I can’t stress enough how important it is to not feel any sense of negative thoughts or feelings about what you put into your body.
Learn that it’s okay
The guilt game is exactly why I love the 90/10 rule so much. It allows me to feel okay about treating myself. It’s really important to occasionally have foods that make you happy. One of my favourite things to do is to share a giant piece of chocolate mud cake in a cafe with a friend. How great is it also to share a jug of beer and chips with your mates after work or a class at Uni. It’s important to ‘eat to live’ not ‘live to eat’, but it’s also important to enjoy and to feel great about one of the greatest gifts we have, yummy food!
Frances Kerr
Fran Kerr is the founding editor of High on Health. To cure your acne, sign up to Fran's FREE acne cure mini-course or download her latest how to guide, Eat Away Your Acne.
1 response so far ↓
I came across you from youtube, I must say I am so glad I stumbled across this! I think the 90/10 rule is probably the greatest thing I ever come across. I used to be guilty for eating a little bit of junkfood, so in return I would just finish it all and feel like I got it out of my system (which was absolutely horrible ,because then I felt worst) Thank you so much for having this web-site and the helpful videos, I believe because of your help my minor acne did clear up and I feel much better with my skin !
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