My family is Italian. When I was growing up food was very important; if we weren’t eating good food we were talking about it.
So I grew up eating fresh, homemade and tasty food a lot.
And I am very appreciative of it.
What I know now is that I grew up eating food that was both nutritious AND delicious!
In the last video I talked about how there are
3 Concepts that Helped me overcome my 15 year-long compulsive eating at night habit.
These practices can also help you to optimize your nutrition, improve your health, have more energy, and improve your body composition.
The first is to EAT NUTRITIOUS, which means eating whole foods right? If you didn’t watch the first video yet, please do.
The second is to ENJOY DELICIOUS.
We need both.
There was a time when I was eating highly nutritious foods but I wasn’t concerned about the taste. I had moved from Haagen Dazs ice cream now to bland “treats”. I still was eating it at 10 PM when I wasn’t hungry but it was “healthy”.
In general I didn’t really care if I enjoyed my food or not.
I was kind of in a rut with this. We were in Chicago at the time so it was easy because I wasn’t around my family. But things started to change when we moved back to New York where I’m from.
After we moved back home I was still in the mode of eating gluten free, dairy free, sugar free, taste free…blah, blah, blah
So my family teased me to no end.
One time we were at my brother’s house.
And my brother makes this delicious bolognese sauce with good pasta from Italy.
So we were there eating and there was the Italian pasta with bolognese, salad, broccoli rabe and homemade garlic bread (he makes the best garlic bread).
And so we’re all sitting around the table and of course I’m just eating the bolognese and the veggies.
My uncle looks over at me and says, “hey, are you having fun?” And I said, “Yes of course I”m having fun.” And he just looked at me and said, “no you’re not.”
And in that moment I realized, he was right, I wasn’t having fun. All I thought about was, how nutritious is this, is this bad for me? I didn’t care about how it tasted.
I realized how far I had come from my background.
Soon I came to the conclusion that I had to combine the two: nutritious and delicious together.
How wonderful it is that there are a lot of foods that are both nutritious and delicious.
And so I started incorporating more flavorful foods. I added more onions, garlic, sea salt, and olive oil. And I began to use lots of fresh herbs (like basil, parsley, and cilantro), a variety of spices, hot pepper, pickled peppers and onions, toasted pine nuts, slivered almonds, olives, capers, and all kinds of things that are both delicious and nutritious. (If you do Food Boss we spend one workshop discussing how to add more flavor and deliciousness to your meals).
So my food became much more appealing. I was still eating nutritious foods in the form of whole foods, but they were (and still are) also delicious.
And this is where everyone should be!!
As far as my nighttime eating habit, I had been eating super nutritious stuff, as much as I could, but I wasn’t necessarily concerned with taste. So I started making more gourmet type snacks at home.
I was evolving, however I still was stuck with this habit that I had come to learn was bad for me.
My problem was that I couldn’t figure out how to stop.
I felt trapped.
I began to realize that I didn’t like the feeling of being beholden to an eating habit.
If you are interested in learning how to eat nutritious and enjoy delicious, and about overcoming bad habits, taking control of your health, and being the best you can be, please check out my course, Food Boss, which is starting on September 18, 2019.
Space is limited so check it out soon!
In Food Boss I will walk you through how to transform your relationship with food using the 3 steps I used to overcome my 15-year long compulsive nighttime eating habit, starting with EAT NUTRITIOUS and ENJOY DELICIOUS!