How to Enjoy a Trip When Your Relationship With Food Is Not the Best

You might not know this yet, but there's actually a pretty simple solution to this problem: You stop overthinking it and just eat whatever the hell you want. Easy.

(Disclaimer alert: I'm gonna get emotional - and probably bossy - so just bear with me here.)

I know how it feels. You are looking at that buffet and your brain is just going "You should try to balance this out, you know? Won’t you feel miserable if you eat dessert for every meal every single day You can have it again tomorrow, anyway”

Well, what if the world ends that night?

Unlikely, yes, but it can happen.

2020 has proven to us that there is not a proper time for things to happen.

They just do.

Not asking for our opinion. Not caring if we didn't have any dessert that day. And then we find ourselves feeling guilty for not properly enjoying everything we had while we had it.

The same happens with food.

Then we vanish dreaming about that chocolate cake that we let escape.

After all, we had already had a burger and fries for lunch and croissants for breakfast that same morning. We couldn't afford to eat the chocolate cake too.

That would have been an atrocity!

Just imagine being on holiday and actually allowing yourself to try all the different foods.

But you are not alone!

I wish this struggle was something exclusive to people who have or are recovering from eating disorders. If so, then it would be a lot easier, as as soon as we were recovered, the problem would be over.

Unfortunately, experience has assured me that this sort of thing happens even to people whose relationship with food is not messed up.

Unfortunately, this happens to everyone. Because it’s not actually something we created ourselves. It’s the ideal society’s founded on: the smaller and cleaner our food portions are, the better we are.

The closer we are to achieve eternal happiness and success. Apparently, for some reason - that I am yet to understand - we are happier and better as a person if we eat fruit instead of cheesecake.

It tells us we are terrible if we eat the things we enjoy. There’s real people out there cultivating this idea.

And we let them get away with it.

WHY DO WE DO IT?

The reason might be because we think we too strong-minded to ever let ourselves get influenced.

Until we are about to eat dessert on a bloody amazing restaurant and five minutes into the menu we decide we don't want anything: turns out we are already full dinner itself.

Then a meteor falls on top of the hotel that same night and we die empty stomach.

GIVE US THE MAGICAL RECIPE, PLEASE!

Well, I’m afraid there isn’t one: it really is something that is up to us. People promoting diets and apetite suppressants will most likely exist indefinitely (we can’t just simply obliviate 60% of the humankind) so getting rid of this dieting reality won’t probably ever be possible.

But we do have the power, on the other hand, of making our own choices.

Whether it is during vacation or off of it.

So what happens when we return?

You, quite simply, comtinue doing so.

And the next time you think twice before eating anything that you really want, you remember that we truly only live once (I promise it's not a scheme created by fast-food chains in order to raise their incomes).

That's genuiely all we have. One life. Possibly one single opportunity to have those foods that you really crave during vacation.

Let’s be real, what's the worst that can happen if you do end up eating them all? Gaining weight?

Who the hell even decided that putting on fat was a synonym of giving up on life?

What’s the point in living one in which you are continuously haunted by how much you have eaten, how much you should eat, how many times you have hit the gym that week?

No one - and I can't stress this enough - will remember that.

Because it doesn't freaking matter.

It won't make you better or worse than anyone else.

AMAZING MACHINES

Our bodies are purely a means for us to be in this world.

It's something we use to do the things that actually matter: to love, to laugh, to travel, to create, to eat, to cook, to do, to feel.

Of course, we should look after them but doing so doesn't necessarily mean not ever putting sugar in our mouths or exercise our way into exhaustion.

LONG STORY SHORT

To be clear, I'm not by any means telling you to go out on vacation and devour every single edible you spot - a lot of people won’t enjoy you stealing their ice-cream.

I’m not, either, promoting that you go out there and have three bars of chocolate and a dozen donuts in a row - unless you feel like you really need that experience right now, if so then you go, sweetie.

What I am asking you here, though, is for you to be gentle with yourself always.

Our bodies can do amazing things when we actually trust them.

And we can trust them: we will crave chocolate and chips and donuts and cake at some point in our life but we will also want fruit and soups and salads.

Maybe even more than you do now.

Allow food to be an interesting, adventurous, delicious but, mostly, a natural part of your life.

Not an enemy.

Note: I have added a link to Amazon in case you wish to take a look or even buy this one particular book that not only has helped me healing my relationship with food but has changed my entire view over life in general. You will love it, I promise.