A food story about numbers, shame and pleasure.

“I've had so much shame around food and nutrition.” A woman I’ve known for thirty years asked for my help feeling comfortable and strong in her body—her main health goal. Her other dream: to find peace with her meals.

Specifically, she wanted help optimizing her diet to help with mental focus, strength and agility while also hoping to lose weight and reduce amplified symptoms of perimenopause. She was also concerned about recently elevated lipid, blood sugar and blood pressure labs. She thought she was eating “all the right foods” (most of the time), yet was feeling excessively guilty and shameful for indulging—ever. She no longer enjoyed lunch out with friends, a glass or two of wine at book club, any occasion with celebratory food. She was being mindful, yet everything felt wrong.

Finally ready for help with her health, her life took a turn. The day before a much-anticipated trip she tore her Achilles tendon, resulting in a very different type of rest: bed rest. She was forced to take a leave of absence from her beloved work, couldn’t drive and was forced into sedentary days with her leg elevated and in a boot for twelve weeks. She went from self-reliance to requiring constant help from her family, co-workers and friends. She struggled through the mental chatter of “why me?” to “this is happening for me,” with as much humility as possible.

Now what to do about her health goals? With pain medications, inflammation and not understanding what her body was going through before her injury (all the hormone changes), her fear of eating escalated. She was ready to feel good in her body, and now she was immobile. She was gaining weight before her injury and now became concerned that lack of movement would tip the scale more. The internal, emotional anxiety gnawed at her heart and intellect, furthering self- criticism, frustration, stress.

There is no ideal time to ask for guidance, yet I considered this an opportune time for a busy, working mom to focus on herself. In doing so, she became super clear about her needs: anti-inflammatory, easily digestible, nutrient-dense healing foods and botanicals. Her husband, kids and friends happily complied. She began feeling better, more capable, and progressing well.

Then, she had a “bad week” with food—homemade birthday cake on Monday; homemade cookies Tuesday through Thursday; Indian take-out on Friday followed by another homemade cake to celebrate another birthday.

I inquired about her other meals. They were well-balanced, nourishing, focused on protein (for healing), ferments (for microbiome diversity and mental health) and easily absorbable foods (to ease digestion and support the liver and immune system). Lentil soup. Chili. Stir fry. Greek yogurt with fresh berries. Organic, local microgreens. Eggs from a neighbor.

“Amazing!” I exclaimed. “Homemade everything—including the celebratory treats!” She began to soften.

More guilt ensued as she described “overindulging” in the organic bread from the local bakery. My client ate two pieces of toast—peanut butter on one piece and the bakery’s homemade preserves on the other. Her continuous glucose monitor, which she’d just started wearing (per her doctor’s suggestion), indicated a blood sugar spike after eating that meal. “No jam for me anymore,” she sighed.

“What if…” I replied, “You eat one piece of local bakery toast with nut butter and preserves?” I explained that the jam itself likely wasn’t the culprit. For knowledge and peace of mind, I suggested asking the bakery for an ingredient list, as not all preserves contain added sugars. Likely, the combination of preserves and a second piece of toast elevated her blood sugar above her target range. “Ensure the nut butter also doesn’t contain added sugar,” I suggested, as she evaluated meal and blood sugar changes. “On another day, eat an egg or a scoop of plain Greek yogurt on the side, to further experiment.”

She teared up a bit. “I love that you give me ideas that feel human. I've spent most of my life with such a restrictive mindset that I believed I should never have a pancake again—or that I shouldn't have had birthday cake. You give me permission to have these foods, enjoy them—and feel good about what I can eat—rather than shaming.”

We analyzed other meals, making subtle changes that offered flexibility, increased nutrients and supported pleasure. We did not reduce every ingredient to the sum of its parts. Rather, we revered whole foods as beneficial to our human bodies—our bodies sense just that. A store-bought cake consisting of bleached flour, partially hydrogenated palm kernel oil, nonfat milk powder, whey protein concentrate, fructose, soy lecithin, rice dextrin and bakery enzymes is very different than a homemade cake with organic whole grain flours, eggs from pasture-raised hens, whole milk and coconut sugar.

Eating cake or jam is not the problem. We must consider what our foods are made from and in what combination we eat them, how often, how much, with whom and in what state of mind. Otherwise, the internal, emotional anxiety and shame about what to eat becomes destructive, confusing, contributes to self-loathing and utterly lacks joy. That’s no way to live.

Elevated glucose is not necessarily a problem, either. A person eating a plant-based diet will see very different glucose responses on a ketogenic diet—and either diet can consist of ultra-processed or whole foods. A glucose monitor, labs, numbers on a scale and data showing sugar spikes can contribute to shame, restrictive eating and prejudice of certain foods and our bodies. Alternatively, this information can help us learn about our bio-individuality, understand how subtle tweaks in a meal change the body’s response, and provide a platform for curiosity and experimentation.

We cannot measure a person’s health based on diet or numbers. We cannot support a person’s wellbeing by fixating on data and nutrition. Yet we can use these tools along with changing our relationship with food and our mind-bodies to become powerfully aware of how we feel upon consuming something that makes sense, without judging that thing—or ourselves.

Originally written for and published by 5BGazette.com