I have a really poor relationship with food. Growing up, my parents never enforced the idea of ‘eat your greens,’ and my mom was mostly focused on body shaming. I’m trying not to slip back into an ED spiral, as I’ve just gotten out of it, and I’m working on disciplining myself—something I was never really taught. I’ve read countless articles, but I’m still struggling to grasp what a balanced diet actually looks like. For example, if I have mostly fats and carbs for lunch, fruit as a midday snack, and protein for dinner, is that balanced? Or should I have a little bit of everything in each meal? And those percentages they mention in articles—how do you even figure those out? I naturally have a small appetite, and I find it really hard to eat as much as I’m ‘supposed’ to. Honestly, I’m clueless when it comes to balanced meals and would love some clarity.
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I’d say that you don’t need to think of it on a meal to meal basis, but probably want to consider on a day to day basis. Or at most, a week to week. But honestly, this is all somewhat based on preference to what works for you to feel satisfied in life generally, while keeping a sense of some cadence to get proper nutrition. Ie – I tend to have 1 healthier diet for M-F, and then a less healthy S-S (much more carb heavy, less vegetables generally).
One amazing book I’d recommend is ‘Food Rules’ by Michael Pollen. It’s very brief and focuses on a ton of small rules. You don’t need to follow all of them, but you’ll get a sense of best practices to help have a healthier balance.
Generally, I would be careful about the carb portion of your comment. Ideally you want to lean into –
1) Vegetables (fresh ideally, eat literally as much as you can fill yourself up on)
2) Protein (again, ideally fresh and not very processed, and you can eat generally till you’re full assuming it’s not hyper fatty meat)
3) Healthy Fats (lesser processed.. ie cook with olive oil, stay clear of microwaveable stuff with high fat content…)
4) Fruits / Nuts (these are fine but due have higher sugar or fat content so snacking is fine but don’t binge)
5) Starch/Carbs (aim for lesser processed or home made stuff, ie rice, pasta isn’t the end of the world if used to supplement other stuff in small quantities, but you don’t want to be pounding 4 cans of soda a day…)
You could attempt to mix the above for every meal but that’s probably not too realistic/easy. Daily is more achievable, and as mentioned I do mine kind of on a weekly cadence where I may satisfy my carb cravings more agressively on Saturday/Sunday, but then be better in sticking to 1-4 for the rest of the week.
IE I’ll do something like –
Weekday Breakfast: Eggs with sauteed veggies in olive oil (onion, peppers, mushroom) on arugala with a little cheese
Weekday Lunch: Greek Salad with healthy amount of feta, olives, oil, but then other veggies
Weekday Dinner: Salad with oil/vinegar dressing (not store bought heavily sugared), and then sauteed or baked veggies in oil + a protein (Fish, Chicken, Pork, occassionally a steak or lamb)
Snack on a piece of fruit
Weekend Breakfast: Effectively the same
Weekend Lunch: Bread with Cheese/Salami and maybe some canned peppers
Weekend Dinner: My fun time – may be some larger pasta dinner I make from scratch, maybe some other big family style thing – bottom line, I don’t care if this is carb heavy, but I do tend to make it or the majority of it from scratch which in and of itself means I’m using fresher or lesser processed ingridients
A big thing that Pollen recommends that stuck with me is –
Shop primarily around the perimeter of the grocery store, this is the inventory that will spoil and therefore is turned over more frequently (hence they keep it to the perimeter where it’s easier to restock) – produce, milk/cheeses, meats, fresh breads or pastas, etc..
Don’t buy things that your grandparents wouldn’t recognize as food (ie weird chemicals, other weird/extreme pre-packaged stuff)
Attempt to not buy things with >5 ingriedients in them, or ingriedients you don’t understand what they are or can’t pronouce
The book is a string of these little guides and the net take away is – try to use fresher and less processed ingridients.
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