1. relationship with food
Still ranked in the Top 5 resolutions: lose weight and/or have a balanced diet. This is an opportunity to remember that health is not necessarily synonymous with thinness, and vice versa! You can have a healthy and balanced diet without fitting into a size 36-38 (and vice versa). The “healthy weight” is not the same for everyone, nor throughout life, and that’s 100% ok! Differences in metabolism, hormonal variations, age… some women are naturally very thin, others less so, without this representing a criterion of good or bad health.
2: There is no universal “healthy eating”
The definition of a balanced diet varies from person to person, and that’s at least partly justified… If your neighbor swears by the ketogenic diet or your brother-in-law can’t stop saying how transformed he’s been since he started intermittent fasting, good for them! Just because a specific diet works for one person at a given time doesn’t mean it will work for everyone else. Most restrictive diets have little to do with a balanced diet, and while some may provide positive results in the short term, they don’t constitute a balanced diet and are not recommended for the long term… Vegan, flexitarian, pescitain, gluten-free… it’s up to you to decide what type of diet you prefer and what does you feel most good about.
PS: Nothing forces you to follow the same diet forever either, balance is also about food freedom above all!
3: It takes all sorts to make a world (and a balanced diet)
We tend to divide food into two categories (just like many other things, for that matter): “good” and “bad.” It’s obviously not that simple! Excess sugar is certainly harmful to your health, but carbohydrates are not inherently bad: like everything else, they have a specific function, namely to provide energy to the muscles and brain to enable them to function (and that, in fact, is rather essential).
Rather than food being “bad in itself,” it’s primarily a question of quality and manufacturing processes (industrial cheese vs. producer cheese, fast-food fries vs. homemade fries, supermarket baguette vs. artisan baker’s baguette)…
No. 4: In balance, there is equi –
No, not like horse riding, more like fair. Having a bit of extremes on both sides is also part of balance, and a balanced and healthy diet doesn’t mean salad and raw vegetables every day, but rather vegetables, fruits, fish, nuts, cereals, but also pizzas, croissants, chips, and beer from time to time (and thankfully)!
5 tips for a balanced diet
If healthy eating has a bad reputation for some people, it’s because they imagine themselves snacking on salad and celery sticks 24/7 (that’s certainly not exactly a dream). Enjoying yourself on a food level plays a huge role in mental (and hormonal) well-being, while frustration generates stress. Some foods aren’t “perfect” in terms of nutrition, but sometimes, it’s the nutrition of emotions that is more important 😉