By Dina Aldabbagh

We’ve all been there, shoving food down our throats because it’s just so good! Or getting seconds or thirds because we just crave more. What if I told you there was a healthier way to enjoy your food that actually results in more joy? In short, it’s called indulgence. It’s slowing down and actually enjoying every single bite of your food. That’s why we overeat right? We like what we’re eating and we want to enjoy more. But actually, more enjoyment doesn’t come from more food, it comes from enjoying what is in front of us to its fullest extent. I love lattes, for example, so if I get a 6 oz latte (standard size in Madrid), I could drink that very fast. “There’s nothing like that first sip feeling,” a famous coffee brand had on their cups — I could get a 24 oz cup of coffee, but I still only get that first sip one time. Unless…I make every sip have that first sip feeling. How do I do that? I wait. I take one sip, let the taste sit in my mouth, and when my palette has completely reset, I take another sip. Voila! There’s my new sip feeling all over again. The same applies to food. If you wait between bites, and really sit in the bite you just took, when you take another bite, it’s just as good as the first. Doubtful? Try it. It will take you a lot longer to eat, which is a good thing for your digestion, and may even result in you eating less, by realizing earlier on that you’re satiated. 

Here’s the formula:

More Food ≠ More Enjoyment
More Indulgence = More Enjoyment

Human beings don’t need to eat food for enjoyment, but if you want to enjoy your food, enjoy it properly. Do it in a way that’s still beneficial to you, and actually allows you to enjoy what’s in front of you without feeling bad about it after. Reminder: it’s not beneficial for you to overeat, to put more food in your body than it calls you to, or to feel sluggish on a daily basis. 

Well, why do we eat food? Despite how many of us find great enjoyment in food, and that we are hardwired to prefer certain tastes, we weren’t biologically developed to eat food solely for enjoyment; we eat for sustenance, for nourishment. The highest respect one can pay themself is to take care of themself – that comes from nourishing our bodies correctly. Part of nourishing yourself with love is knowing how to eat and what to eat. To ignore both how and what you eat, you disrespect yourself. You disrespect the one vessel that you were irrevocably charged with taking care of for your entire life. You dishonor the one physical being on earth whose success your success depends on. Your body influences how well you do in this world more than almost anything. And I’m not just talking about looks – although it’d be ignorant to pretend looks don’t play a substantial role – I’m talking about the way you feel in your day to day and about yourself. Your confidence, your laziness, your sluggishness, your energy, your self-image, it all depends on your body. And now let me write the words I left out there: how you treat your body influences how well you do. It’s not all just food, it’s also sleep, exercise, your environment, but food is arguably the most important (I’ll let someone else wrestle over if it’s sleep or nutrition). Once you can make it clear in your mind why you eat, you can take your first step toward a healthy body.

Just because we don’t eat for enjoyment doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy it. It just means we eat for strength and not excess. Nothing is enjoyable in excess, not honey, not sweet words, not attention, not even love. We need balance in life, otherwise things start to lose their worth to us. And even more, they start to stifle us. All human beings need attention to feel valued and appreciated, but let’s look at the extreme: celebrities. Depending on how famous someone is, their life can’t even allow them to function normally in society. Imagine not even being able to go grab a coffee without people watching you, taking secret videos, already preparing the stories they’re going to tell their friends or the internet about how you acted. That’s an impossible standard, and for those who try to meet it, they’ll drive themselves crazy. Or imagine you can’t even go inside a coffee shop, your bodyguard has to go and get it for you. Does that sound like a life? We all have needs, but at some point it’s just way too much. Food is no different. In moderation, food is one of life’s greatest joys, but in excess, food ruins your life. The further the extreme, in either direction of gluttony or starvation, the less you are able to live a peaceful life. 

Yet a trend in the US in particular has taken place — food controls us. Nowadays, if you eat a recommended, normal portion size, you’re actually in the minority. Our environment has definitely influenced us there, so the result is that we are trained to have a lack of intuitive connection between the body and the brain. We are given a bowl and assume that that’s the proper amount of food, so we don’t question much further. Our mind rules over our bodies, and thus a habit of ignoring your body cues and allowing your mind to do the deciding is created, and reinforced many times. Dr. David J Linden Ph.D. inquired in his article ‘Food, Pleasure, and Evolution’ about how food corporations exploit our pleasure center of the brain, and he put it best , “How do we create foods that activate the pleasure circuit so strongly that they override the satiety and body weight signals that would normally prevent overeating?” Certainly that’s largely due to what is in our foods, but that’s why we must arm ourselves with the proper habits and mindset around food. Once you see the proper perspective around food, you’ll heal this hedonistic, animalistic manner of eating. 

That perspective starts with recognition of what food actually does for us. 95% of the time, if your meals don’t satiate you and energize you for the short-term future, roughly at least three hours, you’re not eating the right things. (I give the extra 5% there for enjoyment/experience-based meals.) And if you really eat what’s good for your body, you’ll often be satiated for longer than that. Satiation leads to no hunger, which further means no strong urges that scream at you, “Eat this right NOW!” Food that you should be eating is meant to make your body feel good — not starved, not sluggish, not angry. It brings you to equilibrium. While there’s no shortage of discourse on the internet on what is healthy and not healthy for you to eat, let me just put it as simply as possible: whole foods. If it comes from the earth, it’s good for you — in moderation of course. At the end of the day, food is just energy; you want to eat things that give you energy so that you can go through your day feeling good.

With that being said, it’s okay to enjoy food. It absolutely is. I only lay it all out because if you understand that framework, your perspective on food will naturally change. But that doesn’t mean you’re obsessive just because you do find joy in food; we all do, food tastes good. What changes for people who don’t prioritize food for joy is our hierarchy. First, comes feeling good in our body by nourishing ourselves properly. Second, comes joy. I want to make sure I respect my body and fuel it in the best way possible, but after that, I want to enjoy what I eat. I’m not going to eat things I hate every single day just because they’re healthy. Nor will I refuse myself things I love. And the secret is, most of the time, those do intersect; they are by no means mutually exclusive. Matter of fact, because I enjoy food so much, I choose to take it slow. 

I learned this trick of taking it slow and making every bite taste like the first when I changed my priority of why I’m eating. Then my problem-solving brain said, how can I enjoy this proper portion to its fullest? Ah, I can prolong the enjoyment. That’s all we ever want to do with overeating: prolong our enjoyment. There’s a healthy way to do it. What you’re chasing is the first-bite dopamine hit, and you don’t need to overeat when the proper portion already gives you the dopamine you’re searching for. Make every bite taste like the first bite; food tastes better this way.