You are what you eat.

As a perpetual participant of diet culture, I have voluntarily conceded to a lot of diets: cabbage soup, south beach, whole 30, weight watchers, low calorie, low carb, low fat, high fat, high carb, carb cycling, fasting, intermittent fasting, elimination diet, low sugar, no sugar, gluten free, fat free, dairy free, meat free, and a total free fall of “eat it all” and then some. And though I have established some “diet” techniques are more sustainable and suitable for myself, and others have various degrees of dieting “success” rates in comparison to mine, diet is much more than what we do or do not eat and drink.

Diet includes anything that we ingest, most of which we do not realize we are taking in. On top of eating, we are constantly watching, reading, following, and listening. From that, we are writing, developing, believing, and adapting to discourses that our lives are constructed around. This includes the accounts we follow on social media, the games we play, the people we spend our time with, and the places we go with them. Food and drink are not the only sustenance that our physical, emotional, and mental bodies rely on. We are constantly swallowing information with each interaction to fill our bottomless vessels with ideas about all things, not just what we need to eat to achieve our optimal health.

Our personal quest for “health” is a subjective journey, and is evaluated by countless real and/or imaginary measuring sticks based on literal numbers or varying preferences. What are you measuring your health with? Is it strictly physical or is their room for mental? What does your ideal health look like? What if nothing was in your way from your healthiest existence?

One of the first steps of any stereotypical diet is cutting out junk food. If we are willing to ingest less “healthy” foods to have a more “ideal” shape, then it is a simple bridge to consider letting go of the less “healthy” digestions that comprise our mentality. If your daily diet consisted of fast food combos and candy bars, we would be less than surprised at a decline in physical health, yet we are shocked to learn that conversation, media, and activities inviting comparison, depression, and anxiety would have a decline on our mental health.

Food is simply an aspect of diet. If the goal is optimum health, including a healthy mind, we have got to cut out the crap. I invite you to examine what you are inviting in and what it may serve to you to let go of. Create space for what satiates both the body and mind, for you are what you eat.