Knowing Me Knowing Me

No, it’s not the name of an Abba song that we’ve got wrong, it’s a theme that underpins the whole ELF philosophy  - without truly knowing yourself and being honest with yourself, a healthy relationship with food and some sort of balance in life is much harder to achieve.

In a perfect demonstration of ‘Knowing Me, Knowing me’ even though I’ve had absolutely ages, I didn’t write this blog until the very lastminute and there was much internal debate with myself as to when the ‘very lastminute’ actually was – I always knew that would be the case (as did my e.l.f partner in crime) and actually, there wasn’t really any point in trying to do it any earlier as it wouldn’t have affected the outcome. How this behaviour is perceived is interesting as of course, I would suggest that I perform brilliantly under pressure, however others may see me purely as an expert in leaving things until the 11th hour.  

The point here is that this particular behavioural trait is one that I fully recognise and acknowledge and to a certain extent I’m able to fit my working patterns around it to enable me to be the very best I can and have a positive experience. Being honest about my personality in this instance has also forced me to consider that it isn’t always the best course of action for other people around me (or indeed sometimes myself) Actions as a result of personality traits can influence positively and negatively.

So what’s all this got to do with food?

OK answer this. When was the last time you ate purely because you were truly hungry?

Or put it a different way, when was the last time you told yourself you were hungry and ate but really you were actually bored/angry/upset/stressed etc….(I should also mention dehydrated on this list, there’s another blog coming on that subject!) We read so much about mindful eating and stopping before we eat to think about why we’re actually doing it but it does actually work! Be honest with yourself. Are you eating because you’re hungry, because ofa variety of different emotional issues or just because you want to? We would suggest that hunger and want (it really is fine to have a doughnut if you fancyit) are less problematic than 2 but just being aware of our motivation behind eating and how our individual personality reacts to different emotions is a good place to start achieving some balance. It only works though if you’re honest with yourself! How many times have you ‘just gone to see what’s in the fridge’ knowing full well what’s in there as you bought it!!