Stop Dieting. Start Nourishing: A Better Way to Eat After 35

It is surprising how early most of us start thinking about dieting. Somewhere along the way, we begin believing that eating healthy means eating less. We learn to feel guilty about enjoying our favourite foods, celebrate skipping meals and convince ourselves that hunger is a sign of discipline. These ideas become so deeply rooted in our minds that we rarely stop to question them. We simply accept them as the price we have to pay for staying fit.

If I look around today, I realise that this way of thinking hasn't changed much. Women still spend an incredible amount of time worrying about what they should avoid. Rice becomes the enemy one month, rotis the next. Someone is giving up sugar, someone is afraid of fruits because they contain natural sugar, while someone else is surviving on salads hoping the weighing scale will finally reward all the sacrifice. We are constantly trying to remove things from our plate, but very few of us ask what our body is actually missing.

I don't say this with judgment because I have been there myself. There was a phase in my life when I also believed that eating less was the answer. If I skipped a meal, I felt I had been disciplined. If I managed to ignore my hunger, I thought I was making progress. Looking back, I realise that I wasn't really listening to my body. I was listening to the endless noise around dieting, and like many women, I confused restriction with good health.

The biggest change in my relationship with food didn't happen when I discovered a new diet or learnt about a particular nutrient. It happened when I stopped looking at food as something that needed to be controlled and started looking at it as something that was meant to nourish me. It sounds like a small shift in perspective, but it changed the way I approached every meal.

Today, when I prepare food, my first thought is no longer, "How can I reduce the calories?" Instead, I find myself asking very different questions. Does this meal have enough protein? Have I included vegetables? Is there enough fibre? Will this keep me energised through my classes and workouts? Will I feel satisfied after eating it, or will I be looking for biscuits and snacks an hour later? These questions have helped me make far better choices than counting calories ever did.

One thing I have realised over the years is that our body after thirty-five deserves a different kind of attention. We are no longer eating only to satisfy our hunger. We are eating to support our hormones, preserve our muscle mass, maintain healthy bones, recover from exercise and give ourselves enough energy to manage the many roles we play every single day. Once I started looking at food from that perspective, it became much easier to understand why nourishment matters so much more than restriction.

This doesn't mean I eat perfectly every day, and honestly, I don't think that should be anyone's goal. I enjoy festivals, birthdays, family dinners and holidays just as much as anyone else. Food has always been a beautiful part of our celebrations, and I don't think it should become something we fear. What has changed is what I do most of the time. Most of my meals are simple, home-cooked and balanced, and because that has become my normal way of eating, I no longer feel guilty about enjoying a special meal once in a while.

Perhaps this is what I wish more women understood. Healthy eating is not built on occasional perfection. It is built on everyday habits. The meal you cook on a regular Tuesday afternoon has a much bigger influence on your health than the dessert you enjoy at a family celebration. Unfortunately, we often worry about the occasional indulgence while paying very little attention to our everyday routine.

Another change that happened almost without me noticing was that I stopped seeing food as a reward or a punishment. There was a time when I felt I had to "earn" a meal by exercising or "compensate" for eating something sweet by working out a little longer the next day. It took me a long time to realise that movement and food are not meant to compete with each other. They are both ways of taking care of the same body. One doesn't have to cancel out the other.

The more I studied nutrition and the more I worked with women, the more convinced I became that most of us don't need another complicated diet. We already have enough rules. What we need is a better understanding of what our body is asking for. We need to stop feeling proud of surviving on tea and biscuits until lunch. We need to stop believing that eating well is selfish. We need to stop thinking that nourishing ourselves somehow means we have become careless about our weight.

In fact, I have found the opposite to be true. When we nourish our body consistently, it becomes much easier to make balanced choices. We don't feel constantly deprived, we don't swing between extreme dieting and overeating, and food slowly stops occupying so much mental space. Instead of controlling every bite, we begin trusting ourselves to eat with awareness, and that is a much more peaceful way to live.

There is another reason I feel strongly about this, especially for women. We spend a large part of our lives taking care of other people. We remember everyone's meal preferences, remind our children to eat on time and make sure our families are well nourished, yet it is surprisingly easy to neglect ourselves. We finish leftovers instead of preparing a proper meal. We delay lunch because there is too much work to finish. We convince ourselves that we will eat later, and later often becomes much later. Over time, these habits become so normal that we stop recognising them as neglect.

I don't think nourishing ourselves is an act of indulgence. I think it is an act of responsibility. The healthier and stronger we are, the more energy we have for the people and the life we care about. Looking after ourselves doesn't take anything away from our family. If anything, it allows us to show up for them with more patience, more energy and better health.

When I look back today, I don't feel grateful for the days when I managed to eat the least. I feel grateful that I eventually learnt to understand my body a little better. I learnt that food is not something to fear, nor is it something to constantly negotiate with. It is one of the simplest ways in which we care for ourselves every single day.

Perhaps that is why I no longer ask whether a meal will help me lose weight. I ask whether it will help me live well. It is a quieter question, but over the years I have realised that it leads to much wiser choices. The older I get, the more convinced I become that good health is not built by eating less. It is built by nourishing ourselves well enough that our body has everything it needs to support us through every stage of life, and I think that is a much kinder and far more sustainable way to eat.