5 ways to add joy into your meals

By Andrea Kane | CNN

On this season of the Chasing Life With Dr. Sanjay Gupta podcast, CNN’s chief medical correspondent explored the topic of weight: what it really tells you about your health, why it’s so hard to lose, how the new Dietary medicines and its links. at menopause (you can listen to the episodes here).

Whether or not you’re happy with your size, follow a special diet, or eat what you want when you want, the basic fact of life—inevitable, unavoidable, non-negotiable—is that we all have to eat. If we’re lucky, it’s usually up to five times a day, every day.

How you choose to eat can make a big difference in how you feel, not only in your body, but also in your skin and in the world around you.

“I had this babysitter who was chronically dieting,” Dr. Linda Shiue, an internal medicine physician and chef by training, recently told Gupta on the podcast. “She was eating this colorless, flavorless food and she was sad all the time.”

That’s not Shiue’s style. She is the first director of culinary medicine at Kaiser Permanente San Francisco. It was there that she founded Thrive Kitchen, a teaching kitchen for patients, so they could do more than just hand out prescriptions for chronic illnesses.

She wanted to create a place where she could teach her patients how to make healthy foods taste good. “They think it’s deprivation and, you know, a loss of joy and even a kind of penance,” said Shiue, who is also the author of “Spicebox Kitchen: Eat Well and Be Healthy with Globally Inspired , Vegeta-Forward Recipe”. “It’s colorless, it’s bland, it has no texture, it has no flavor and we’re not supposed to enjoy it.”

Similar to her cookbook, Shiue’s classes show patients how to use spices and herbs to flavor seasonal cuisine while following a health-promoting diet.

“As a food lover since birth and a doctor who has seen the negative effects of chronic dieting, I encourage people to reframe their relationship with food as a source of pleasure, cultural connection and well-being, whatever whatever their weight. This can be a difficult task given the pro-diet messages surrounding us,” Shiue said in an email.

What can you do to get out of the diet mindset and truly enjoy your food? Shiue has five tips.

Stop judging food as good or bad

Food isn’t inherently good or bad, so there’s no need to feel bad about food choices.

“Many of us have experienced shame or guilt around food, and much of that is a product of our culture and what the food industry has taught us and what the industry of fashion and dieting as a whole has created,” Shiue said.

“Even though we, as individuals, don’t even think that this message matters much to us, it has reached all of us – it’s all over our subconscious,” she said. “I think most people at some point say, ‘Oh, I shouldn’t eat that.’ It’s bad for me. This could affect my weight.

Shiue wants to help people stop thinking this way. “There is no room for shame on the plate,” she said, carefully choosing her language around food.

“In diet culture, people talk about ‘cheat days’ (but) I prefer to celebrate ‘treat’ days. All in moderation, which means there is room for occasional indulgences,” she said.

Don’t go on “diets”

Restrictive diets are counterproductive because most of us won’t be able to stick to them perfectly forever.

“(S)tudy after study has proven that the best diet is one that a given individual can stick to – a sustainable lifestyle change,” Shiue said.

“Rather than restrict, add more foods (that) science shows are better for our health: lots of plants, legumes and whole grains. It will improve your health even if you don’t eat ‘perfectly’ all the time and even if you don’t lose weight,” she said.

Shiue admitted to not eating perfectly all the time and having a sweet tooth; she said she allows herself to enjoy her favorite treats — but not all the time.

Listen to your body

Eat intuitively.

“It means several things,” Shiue said. “First, are you actually hungry or are you feeding an emotional need, like anxiety, sadness, or fatigue?

“How does food make you feel after you eat?” Do you feel comfortably full or do you feel full? What is your energy level after eating? ” she says. “When you pay attention to these feelings, your body will guide you to make the healthiest food choices for you.”

Also, eat mindfully, which Shiue says doesn’t mean meditating on your food.

“That means when you eat your food, just focus on the pleasure of it,” she said. “Eat slowly. Chew your food. … Also pay attention to when you have had enough.

Recover your food heritage