The world is bigger than your food preoccupation.

It feels a little redundant,
Doesn’t it?

I’ve just hopped back into bed with my coffee,
Ready to start my to-do list,
But my mum had radio 4 on in the kitchen,
And the talks of Ukraine are still lingering in my ears.

Side note.
I walked into radio 2 playing yesterday and heard the familiar tones of Scott Mills,
Scott Mills,
My 20s radio 1 DJ,
He’s aged to radio 2.

I’ve reached the milestone into midlife,
Goodbye youth loved you.

As always,
I digress.

With the world at war ,
It can be difficult to find the relevance in protein intakes and a stupid war between anti-diet and diet culture,
Two made up groups that bitch about each other like it’s the school playground,
With cancel culture popping in occasionally to rough things up.

But on the flip side of that,
It’s a great time to check in and ask yourself,
Has this even changed the way I’m overthinking
Has this given me any sort of reality check?

This horrifying situation is giving us a big dose of perspective,
A giant ‘this is what your life could have been’,
And as much as there is nothing to gain from such terror,
Nor should we be looking for it,
We can certainly learn from it.

I spoke recently about some things going on in my life,
Which to be frank,
Hey Frank,
Has given me more perspective that I’d ever willingly accept,
The world is the cherry on top of a very well iced cake.

So I’ve spent 2022 biting my tongue a little,
So many times I’ve wanted to scream,
It doesn’t even matter,
When of course,
All of this truly, truly does to us,
It’s why I’m here.

These horrendous times don’t take away your challenges with food,
Don’t immediately remove your struggles,
But they do offer us one thing,
The chance to take a step back and say,
Let’s take a minute and gather some perspective.

This is the one time you’re here on this planet,
Do you really want to spend it so preoccupied by food that you miss out on life?
Not having the best sex of your life,
Possibly the worst if you’re single let’s be honest,
By overthinking your body?
Or even missing out on years of the best sex and connection with someone you love,
Because your lack of period killed your libido?

Does the extra piece of cake matter that you ate with your family?
Does it matter that you were 200 calories over?
That you took a week out the gym because you were on holiday,
Will any of that matter in a month,
Let alone when your entire life changes and the real stuff hits?

The world could change tomorrow,
Your world could change entirely,
And when that does happen,
And it will happen,
And you look back at your life,
What do you want to remember?

How hungry you were all day only to overeat at night,
Consumed with guilt until you start again tomorrow?
Every. Single. Day?
How you ruined the party you attended,
Because you were so obsessed with the buffet that you got out an app to track the damn sandwich?
How you resigned yourself to an identity of someone who always struggled with food,
That it was just the way your life was?

Your challenges are real.
Your challenges matter.
I’ve had them all myself,
They take infinite work to break free from and I’m sorry that you feel so stuck there.

But you’re not stuck there,
You always have a choice.
A choice to let go of the safety it brings,
To do something different,
To step back and ask yourself,
Will this matter in 5 minutes, 5 months, 5 years?

You hold the power,
You can wake up today and say ‘this is the day’,
The day you decide to let the little things go,
The day you decide to own your life again,
To focus on what truly matters to you,
And ultimately,
To gain a little perspective.