Joy: a nutrition philosophy.
“Eat what makes you happy.”
This is my grandmother on her 80th birthday last year. Funny enough, similarly to how my name, Felicia, means happiness, her middle name is Joyce! She taught me not only a love for food, but had a major influence on the development of my nutrition philosophy and understanding that food is not only nutrition, but something to bring people together.
That suggestion doesn’t sound like it could be real, or good for you. Maybe it sounds hippy dippy-ish. Maybe it sounds like mountains of cake and rivers of chocolate that you float down on donuts. But, would that make you truly happy? Would you feel healthful and free eating that way? I would guess that after a couple of days of eating indulgent foods for every meal, you might be tired of it and aching for some veg.
This one-line version of my philosophy is hinting at concepts, like intuitive eating or mindful eating, that are supposed to liberate people from worrying about everything they put in their mouths. It is my hope that everyone I reach can find a pattern that comes naturally to themselves and leaves them feeling tip-top. The reason I use this phrase is because I want people to find true joy in what they’re eating. I want individuals to explore inward, listen, and find that balance between traditionally “healthy” foods and everyday comforts.
The Tricycle
The longer way that I describe my perspective on nutrition and its role in an individual’s life is the tricycle analogy. Let’s imagine the front wheel, the biggest one, driving the whole operation represents mental health. Driving our every day is the relationships we have with others, ourselves, and the inner dialogue that is us. It is arguably the most important in my opinion, because if we don’t have our heads straight, the rest is of little use to us. I also recognize that this is outside my scope of practice, and as I become a full-fledged dietitian, it is my goal to build strong relationships with he counselors and other mental health professionals in my community.
The two other wheels that we balance on to make our rides through life smooth are movement and nutrition. I prefer to use the word movement over exercise because I feel that as long as we are active people, finding ways to move more throughout the day, daily organized activity or exercise isn’t always necessary. As for nutrition, eating is something we do every day, often three times a day or more. If we aren’t carefully listening to our own body’s needs, we will end up feeling not so hot.
Joy
When all the tricycle’s components are working in harmony, we don’t have to think about it as much. We can just hum through life, moving right along and not just setting ourselves up for happiness, but for true inner joy.
“By referring to joy as a state of being instead of a feeling, it transforms the word... and it becomes a mindset we can hold onto during the swing of feelings we will experience throughout our lives. From this perspective, one can have any number of feelings - happy or sad, engaged or bored, in love or in pain - and still be living joyously.”