My Girlfriend Doesn't Care About her Health

[Mada_]

I started dating this girl recently, I'm attracted to her, she is genuinely open minded, stage Green and I enjoy being around her, I can fully emotionally relax with her. 

She holds this very liberal view of food and has this story that people shouldn't get into dieting because viewing foods as anything but "just food" is an eating disorder. As far as I can tell she has not moral obligation to adhere to any sort of system regarding her diet and lifestyle - however based on my own research I would consider this wise....

 

Basically I think her view is unwise, I think she is ruining her chances at being happy and to self-actualize. She sees coaches and has an interest in Self-Actualization work, but as far as I can tell if she wanted to deepen such work she would stay at step 0 by neglecting her biology.

David Deida advises that criticism will not fare well and she will interpret it as an insult, and that it is a better approach to just love and praise her and that the ''behaviour will correct''. I've got to be careful here because if I am praising her so that she "corrects a behaviour", that's manipulation. 

If everyone "had" to eat "healthy", they probably would, but they evidently don't, so there probably isn't some divine rule about it.

Honestly I think I can accept her fully, if it becomes a deal breaker I'm happy to cross that bridge when I get to it, if we break up I'll just go back to game. 

 

[Emerald]

Consider that there is also a wisdom to viewing food this way.

Of course, it’s good to eat healthily.

But if she’s struggled with things like body image and hating her body, restricting food choices could be a very unloving choice for her to make for herself.

Many people (most commonly women) who struggle with body image, go through cycles of food guilt where they over-eat and then restrict.

And what often works for people in the cycles of food guilt is to get into the mindset that there is no bad food and to allow themselves to eat intuitively.

Sometimes it’s wise to focus on self- improvement. But other times, self-improvement can get in the way of self-love.

[aurum]

@Mada_ what does her actual diet look like? Beliefs about food aside. What does she actually regularly eat?

1 hour ago, Mada_ said:

Honestly I think I can accept her fully, if it becomes a deal breaker I'm happy to cross that bridge when I get to it, if we break up I'll just go back to game. 

 

A lot of women I’ve dated have had challenges with eating healthy and / or body image issues. And they were unhappy with it and wanted something different, but never made a change.

Your girlfriend may be the same. So I’d support her where you can, but otherwise let it go. This can be really challenging for women, who have a lot of extra societal pressure on their physical appearance.

[mr_engineer]

Knowledge about health and healing is fundamental to feminine power. If she's not disciplined with her diet, you're looking at bigger relationship-issues that you need to fix. 

You should look at what trauma she's coping with and help her heal that first. Then, if she sees something about healing-work that appeals to her, she will make that her priority. Cuz that's where her power lies. 

It's fine to know that you should 'support her'. I think that this is what it will practically look like to 'support her'! 

[Leo Gura]

She's just uneducated about nutriton. What would fix her situtation is to just read a few books about what junk food does to the body.

People with good health take it totally for granted.

You can sit her down and tell her that you highly value healthy eating and that regardless of what she eats, you will only buy and eat healthy food.

Edited March 20, 2023 by Leo Gura

[something_else]

It's also possible that the stress and misery you enact upon yourself by being so uptight about food has its own fair share of negative effects.

I notice you don't mention what kind of food it is she's eating that you think is unhealthy. If it's like oily, greasy takeaway every night, tons of sugar, and no veggies or anything with nutrients you might have a point.

But if it's a somewhat reasonably balanced diet with some junk food thrown in here and there, that's not going to kill her, and if she's focusing on other areas of her life right now it's probably a worthwhile trade-off.

[integral]

Messing around with your diet is one of the most dangerous things someone can do. So regardless of how bad she eats, the other side is a not a simple game to play. 

[Leo Gura]

30 minutes ago, integral said:

Messing around with your diet is one of the most dangerous things someone can do.

What??

You don't need to "mess around", you just need to stop eating processed junk. This isn't rocket science.

Edited March 20, 2023 by Leo Gura

[integral]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

What??

You don't need to "mess around", you just need to stop eating processed junk. This isn't rocket science.

How will she figure out this one rule, the misinformation hell we live in makes it very easy to screw this up.

What I mean by mess around is anything that deviates from the base foods we grew up eating and that the organism adapted to for the first 20 years, the organism shape (not sure what to call it) and mind is based on that food source. Its like how famine in the early years of life causes the body to adapt to a smaller body shape. The body has adapted to that source, that specific microbiome and neurotransmitter production.

So its very unclear if people are healthier if they make major deviations from the original diet and that deviation is going to be misdirected 99% of the time, not only from misinformation but by genetic and mental preferences that they will never figure out.

Just to figure out basic things about what feels good to eat for the person takes a lot of experimentation. This journey is not easy and requires prerequisites like a self-development mindset to hope to succeed. 

Edited March 20, 2023 by integral

[Leo Gura]

2 hours ago, Squeekytoy said:

I think it's interesting that health nuts tend to end up with unusual health issues. Including yourself.

You got the causality backwards: people who struggle with health problems become health nuts because they need solutions.

If you got great genetics you can eat shit and feel good and take health for granted. Just look at Trump.

Edited March 20, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Leo Gura]

@Squeekytoy How many people actually do things that are less healthy than eating junk?

All we're really taking about is cleaning up your diet. It's not like we're using leeches, swimming in liquid mercury, or injecting ourselves with bleach.

Edited March 20, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Miguel1]

Show her this video, should get her started in changing her view.
 

 

[StarStruck]

People like that are too much invested into their eating habits. It is hard to change. 

Edited March 20, 2023 by StarStruck

[Emerald]

18 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

She's just uneducated about nutriton. What would fix her situtation is to just read a few books about what junk food does to the body.

Not necessarily so.

The OP never specified what his partner was eating or how much of it. Perhaps she even does eat a relatively healthy diet.

Some people (especially women) have dealt with eating disorders where they over-restrict.

And restricting food choices could re-trigger those issues. So, it could be quite important for these people to allow themselves to eat any kind of food they want in moderation.

Also, many people who have been sexually assaulted tend to feel safer with more weight on their bodies. And so, they’ll unconsciously end up in dynamics of craving and over-eating high calorie foods that willpower alone isn’t going to fix.

Or they could just be dealing with body image issues more generally where part of them tries to lose weight because they feel unlovable with weight on their body and another part of them rebels because the desire to lose weight is coming from self-hate.

There can be many dynamics as to why someone’s diet is the way it is that has nothing to do with lack of education.

It’s fairly common for people to have psychological barriers to eating healthily that have to be worked through before that education can be applied.

[Arcangelo]

11 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

You got the causality backwards: people who struggle with health problems become health nuts because they need solutions.

Exactly, just like spirituality.

Replace health with spiritual.

[Mada_]

1 hour ago, Emerald said:

Not necessarily so.

The OP never specified what his partner was eating or how much of it. Perhaps she even does eat a relatively healthy diet.

Some people (especially women) have dealt with eating disorders where they over-restrict.

And restricting food choices could re-trigger those issues. So, it could be quite important for these people to allow themselves to eat any kind of food they want in moderation.

Also, many people who have been sexually assaulted tend to feel safer with more weight on their bodies. And so, they’ll unconsciously end up in dynamics of craving and over-eating high calorie foods that willpower alone isn’t going to fix.

Or they could just be dealing with body image issues more generally where part of them tries to lose weight because they feel unlovable with weight on their body and another part of them rebels because the desire to lose weight is coming from self-hate.

There can be many dynamics as to why someone’s diet is the way it is that has nothing to do with lack of education.

It’s fairly common for people to have psychological barriers to eating healthily that have to be worked through before that education can be applied.

From my perspective none of this permanently justifies eating inflammatory food. Inflammation is an immune reaction, meaning you're either making yourself sick with what you're eating or allowing your body to heal. 

If someone is recovering from literal starvation restricting calories wouldn't be wise advice. As for people healing from trauma, how will they fully integrate their trauma if their food choices killing their gut flora and therefore making them depressed, or exposing them to heavy metals so they have adhd, its hard to do inner work with adhd. 

 

I have never tracked calories or successfully limited my quantities of food. I eat as much as I feel like, am in love with preparing whole foods and enjoy everything I eat. I used to skip classes at school to stuff myself until I ached. 

Edited March 21, 2023 by Mada_
Typo, some thing unclear

[Leo Gura]

8 hours ago, Emerald said:

Not necessarily so.

I'm just gonna take a wild guess here and say that this girl eats trash.

If you don't take health seriously, the default is eating trash.

Edited March 21, 2023 by Leo Gura

[StarStruck]

18 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

I'm just gonna take a wild guess here and say that this girl eats trash.

If you don't take health seriously, the default is eating trash.

I never had trouble with that. My parents always bought healthy food and later in life I just carried that along. I'm too lazy to eat shit tons of food, so I only eat the essential stuff which is healthy, nutritious, dense and fresh. It is all about habits. Humans are habit machines.

Edited March 21, 2023 by StarStruck

[supremeyingyang]

58 minutes ago, StarStruck said:

I never had trouble with that. My parents always bought healthy food and later in life I just carried that along. I'm too lazy to eat shit tons of food, so I only eat the essential stuff which is healthy, nutritious, dense and fresh. It is all about habits. Humans are habit machines.

Would you dare to explicitely share some of these meals which you define as healthy and from what it's made?

PS. If your parents make your meals, you are relatively young. Of course you have no problems.

PPS.

If your parents are that healthy your are priviledged:))

[Mada_]

On 20/03/2023 at 11:09 PM, something_else said:

It's also possible that the stress and misery you enact upon yourself by being so uptight about food has its own fair share of negative effects.

I notice you don't mention what kind of food it is she's eating that you think is unhealthy. If it's like oily, greasy takeaway every night, tons of sugar, and no veggies or anything with nutrients you might have a point.

But if it's a somewhat reasonably balanced diet with some junk food thrown in here and there, that's not going to kill her, and if she's focusing on other areas of her life right now it's probably a worthwhile trade-off.

Stress and misery? Stress and misery was when I had a binge eating disorder, was completely ungrounded and couldn't get a straight answer out of any doctor. 

There is too many differing opinions on health and nutrition, but most of them point to eating real food and not processed food. It's not necessary to my question about what precisely my partner eats, health is a lifelong study, I'm more concerned that she isn't interested in it as a study. 

 

How can you be on a Self Actualization forum promoting junk food? It is such a hard addiction to break, it's not going to kill her but it will keep her from her full potential.