Healthy relationship with food: Talking about Lisa

I have a pretty healthy relationship with food. I do not do any fasting, I don't really avoid particular foods, but I do have some sort of system in my madness such as not over-indulging in things that I know are loaded with a ton of extra calories and that is the reason why they taste so good.

I never drink full-flavored soda-pops and have gotten to the point where I don't even like them if I end up with one by accident. To me, Coca-Cola tastes like I am drinking pancake syrup. Oh, I also nearly never have pancake syrup... or pancakes.

The people that I know that have been successful in losing weight and keeping it off tend to live healthy lifestyles and this helps a lot. When you have an active life you don't really need to worry so much about what it is that you put in the stomach fuel-tank. It is the people that do both regulate their intake as well as their output that look the best. But for me, I am not necessarily trying to look the best anymore, I just want to look decent as well as be healthy.

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You hear the statement a "healthy relationship with food" on a regular basis. That became some buzzwords in the latest parts of my life and I say it a bit myself now even though I know it is pretty cliche.

I have a group of friends and there's a couple of them, one woman and one man, that I feel have a very unhealthy relationship with food.

The other day a group of us went and did some activity together, and afterwards we went to a cafe that had fruit shakes, coffees, and the usual pastries. Everyone in our group ordered what they wanted at the cafe except for Lisa, the late 40's woman in our group that has rather severe body image issues.

I can tell by talking to Lisa that she used to be a "pretty girl" and by that I mean someone that was effortlessly very good looking and had a very nice figure and now she is struggling with the fact that she is older.

I think this is a very tough time for most women. Hell, it's no picnic for me or other men either!

Well when we were in line I could see Lisa eyeing up this chocolate pastry and she ordered some sort of fruit smoothie with no sugar (smart) but then I could tell by the look on her face, as could her husband, that she really wanted that pastry. I don't know if he did it on purpose but he ordered after her and he ordered the pastry for himself and then asked her if she wants some of it... She responded in an almost aggressive way "no, but yes" and she had a little nibble of it and commented about how great it is and how she wished she could have some more.

I don't think this is a healthy way to live at all. I don't think you should be denying yourself things that you truly want (unless you really want crystal meth) and there should be other ways that you can have those things. When you are out with friends at a cafe it's kind of an event, right? Why not have a cookie or a pastry? You can always just not have those things when you are at home.

Temptation is a tough thing. I don't struggle with sweets but I do struggle with beer. In order to combat this I will just stay away from social outings that involve beer. I might be missing out on some good times sure, but the flip side of me partaking isn't just that I may end up with a hangover, it is that I am going to feel really guilty because nobody should ever have 8 beers but that is my normal intake on a party night.

With Lisa, I can tell that she goes through ups and down and here's the real kicker: I don't really notice her ever doing any fitness things. She talks about walking a bunch and getting her steps in but not that I am prying, but her husband says she doesn't want to go to the gym. She claims to go on long walks which is good but literally nobody has ever seen her doing these things.

She denies herself nice things to eat whenever we are all around one another and I think that as a result of this, that she is actually achieving some sort of negative impact on her overall happiness. Her body issues combined with her not allowing herself nice rewards every now and then is putting her in a bad state.

Her husband on the other hand is extremely active even though he is nearly 20 years older than she is. He has magnificent muscle definition for a man his age and he hangs out, he has the pastry, he has the occasional beer and he orders what he wants when they are eating out. But he also puts in the work at the gym for maintenance.

Here is the problem for Lisa. She is going to make herself continually depressed if she is going to only use her intake as a method of controlling her weight. This is a very very very time-consuming procedure and while it does work, I don't think that putting ones self into a state of misery in the process is the way to go.

Physical activity, no matter what that is, can be very rewarding and one of the best things about it, if you are someone like Lisa, is that you actually do have a goal to work towards. Let's say you have been dreaming of a chocolate pastry and really want one. Well you can look up how many calories there is in something like that and now you can work towards that.

Never eating things that you like is taking away a relatively huge part of joy in life and when I am around Lisa I have to say, some of the only times that I see her truly happy is when she is drunk. From what her husband reveals, these drinking sessions of hers lead to rather dark times the day after and sometimes for many days following where she will almost starve herself in an attempt to make up for the excess calories that took place during the binge-drinking session.

I think that Lisa's life, and anyone else's life could seriously find some balance if they just had more physical activity in their lives. No longer would she have to worry all the time about having a treat here and there and perhaps the drinking sessions would be lessor because of the days physical activities that came before. It's kind of crazy because her husband will be yawning and genuinely tired in a relatively early part of the evening because he worked out earlier that day. She sat on her ass all day long and therefore once the alcohol hits it energizes her. many times he has left the bar early and she would stick around for hours after he was gone.

They actually have a really good relationship so don't think I am trying to play therapist here.

I don't think that this has a happy ending for Lisa unless she finds some sort of balance in her life. There are very few stories out there of people starving themselves into a body positivism sort of thing.

It wouldn't surprise me if she is already looking for an Ozempic sort of way out.

Maybe it is just difficult for me to understand why it is that people can't see that losing and maintaining weight really isn't that difficult and yes, you can have things to eat that you really like even if they are bad for you. You just need balance.

It's not my place to help Lisa and I am sure her husband has tried to help her in every way that he knows how. I just think her approach is going to be very self-defeating.

You have to find a way to have a "healthy relationship" with food. It's one of the greatest enjoyments in life.