A large part of your health depends on your diet and eating habits. This means that you have a direct influence on your personal well-being. How responsible you are towards your body is shown by how healthy you are. Sometimes the effects of your behavior are not immediately apparent, because there are often years between the (unhealthy) habit and the physical symptom.

There are a few basic things I can recommend you do, but the most important message on this page will be that you start listening to your own body. In order for this to work, you should forget everything you've learned about 'healthy eating' so far.

Through this 'learning' you create mental guidelines that are certainly correct to a certain extent, but too general. Your body is unique and that's how you should treat it! Imagine you choose a diet that makes sense for you (rationally). Your body will feel as if you are overriding its natural needs with a program. As if you were only cutting out star-shaped cookies (food) from cookie dough (your body/needs). It is possible that this concept suits you - or not. If it didn't fit, you will only find out years later that you have not supplied your body with sufficient or incorrect nutrients.

The reason for the time delay is that your body can adapt very flexibly to new situations. So it compensates for your (deliberately induced) dieting behavior. The fact that you mentally choose a better (healthier, more moral or more ecological) form of nutrition is not fundamentally wrong and gives you a direction in which you can move. But if you force yourself into a new eating habit, although you may not be that far physically, emotionally or mentally, you create an (artificial) deficiency in yourself. You then often feel ravenous hunger or cravings, etc.

Any form of coercion or control can never be sustainable. Your body defends itself against the deficiency, but you overwrite its needs and declare them unjustified because the nutritional concept does not provide for it.

For example: I mainly eat vegan and have often been asked why. Whether it's the animals or the yoga lifestyle or health (medication in the meat)... and I say: none of that. The last time I ate meat was on the day I chewed it up and everything about it felt wrong. At that moment I knew immediately that I would never eat meat again. That was over 10 years ago. All other reasons (see above) came later (quasi as an additional explanation).

I know many vegans who have made a conscious decision to follow this lifestyle, but take in huge amounts of dietary supplements. Consciously or unconsciously, they seem to fear that fruit and vegetables alone won't be enough. Perhaps they perceive the deficiency described above and fix it in the only (for them) permissible way. Personally, I have never and will never use supplements because my body doesn't need them. The impulse to go vegan was my body's decision.

So how can you learn to listen to your body? Just see what is really good for you and tastes good. Much of what we eat is habit. If you liked or had to eat different foods as a child, you will probably continue to do so. So do a self-experiment for a period of time and check your habitual foods to see if the taste feels right and satisfying, or if you're just consuming them mindlessly. In the next step, when buying and eating, consciously choose those foods that are less processed (ie contain chemical additives). Organic fruit and vegetables from the region are best. (But don't force yourself to do it if you can't really enjoy it).

Your body will slowly react to it. He'll send you even more signals, like when he's tired and needs sleep (even though you really have to do something) or if he wants to exercise (even though you don't have time). If you pick up on these impulses and don't override/suppress them mentally (see above), then team behavior will set in and you will not only be physically, but also emotionally and mentally much healthier.

I'm just trying to reconnect you with your own body and bring your attention to what makes you feel good. If you want, you can then move in a desired (eating) direction, WITH your body. As soon as you and your body are in harmony, physical complaints will recede and holistic health can develop.

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