A reminder: Having a good relationship with food — one in which you use food to “take care” of yourself in all senses (physically, emotionally, etc.) is much harder in the world that we live in.
Someone who was living 500 years ago didn’t have large quantities of delicious food available constantly. A female farmer in 1517 didn’t have free donuts available at her 10 a.m. meeting, sixteen delicious lunch places near her work, and free candy sitting on her co-worker's desk in the afternoon.
Also, powerful companies want you to eat as much as possible. In 2012, fast food companies alone spent $4.6 billion on advertising. The number is likely much higher today, and doesn’t even include advertising of chips, cookies, sugary cereals, or soda.
None of this is to say that you can’t or shouldn’t eat indulgent food. I love indulgent food!
But you are under a lot of pressure to eat indulgent food, thanks to the reality of larger portions, the ubiquitous availability of free food, and the messaging of powerful companies.
Given this pressure, it may be hard at times to figure out what you truly want. Do you want that entire enormous burrito because you are actually hungry and craving that particular food? Or because it’s there?
If you want to use food in a way that serves all parts of you (your body, your spirit, your taste buds), you might need to pay a bit more attention than if you were that random farmer woman 500 years ago. Random Farmer Woman could eat anything that was available, because there just wasn’t that much food available.
Bottom line: The world in which we live makes this “eating stuff” harder. But you don’t need to obsess or make draconian food rules; you just need to gently stay in touch with yourself.