From the ‘inside’ ….

There are no limitations for anything…you know? This is why the information on the Internet could be so wrong sometimes. It is mostly based on myths and false facts. This is the culture we live in. A culture, completely influenced by the media and the diet industries in particular. We get obsessed by so many things. And we strive for a non-existing perfection – we gaze upon beauty ideals, toned bodies, the new perfect eat-but-loose-weight-diet. At the end of the day those are just billions and billions of dollars, invested in these industries – products and services are only sold for commercial purposes.

And this is harmful. The influence is very strong. Rather manipulation. Brain washing. We ask the certified eating disorders specialist in mental health Elisaveta Pavlova. She says this is why people should learn how to change those messages and how to believe again. The problem according to her is that you find proof for everything you are looking for. In the past, we were uninformed and now we are over informed. This is why orthorexia – the obsession with healthy eating is such a curse nowadays. You can find proof that a certain food is the healthiest or the unhealthiest. Whatever you want to get obsessed with, you can do it.

If you follow trends such as veganism, vegetarianism, paleo, LCHF etc and you look for salvation at a certain type of eating, you get obsessed waaaaaay too easily.

The solution might be in intuitive eating according to Pavlova. This is the way of eating people used to have before the whole ‘this is healthy and this is unhealthy, therefore it is wrong to eat it’ and this is the method she is trained at. This is our body. We eat, when we are hungry, we get satisfied…this is what we lost on the way and what we need to go back to. But without fear.

We have to return back to this connection with the body, to find peace with it and with food. Then the guilt goes aways, the fear goes away. When we get back the normal way of eating…then we get back everything.

Then there comes the social media and all its influence. What is bad for people is following others with similar interests and getting obsessed with those groups. Pavlova states that young girls, an not only, definitely search for salvation online.

The environment is important, of course…when you are alone it is very different. Different and hard because you are altering your behaviour and then you do not know how to fit in the society. For example you get so obsessed by eating clean, by cutting certain foods that this becomes a part of you and you start associating yourself with that. So when you start going out with people…then you only think about what you should eat, what are the ingredients, whether the foods you are not eating are in the certain dish (lets take gluten, dairy, sugar or whatever as an example). So what happens then? You practically forget to actually enjoy. To enjoy the moment. To enjoy the company. To get the best from this social experience as possible. You do not longer communicate with people and use food as a pleasant addition to the gathering but it rather takes a central position. Food is all you think about. This is how you start loosing your social life. This is how you start loosing yourself.

Your mind is constantly roaming around deciding whether it is worth it to take that piece of cake even though it is not gluten-free or sugar-free. You want to fit in the moment. But there is no escape. It is already too late. You either get the cake and then you start regretting it, feeling unworthy and as you do not have will to resist it or as you have betrayed ‘yourself’ and your ‘principles’ or you decide not to take the cake but then you still think about it and regret it .. as it just seems so delicious. Basically this is a vicious cycle.

This should be worked upon. And it is not easy. Getting obsessed is easy. Yet getting rid of the obsession is not. But lets start the journey. Lets listen to Pavlova and start searching for this utopian piece with the body and the mind…it sounds hard but it might be easy, we should just get back the connection with ourselves.

We bet it is possible. Utopia is real after all, right?

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Based on the interview with Elisaveta Pavlova, conducted on 19 January 2018 in Varna, Bulgaria