Lifestyle
The Abundance versus Scarcity Mindset
How to stop viewing nourishment from a scarcity mindset, and learn to fill your plate to fuel your body and soul with the 'Crowd Out Method'.
Raj Barker
Nutrition & Movement Expert
0 minute read
Published: October 2022
Origin: Australia
When it comes to nourishing ourselves, unfortunately diet culture sees many of us operating from a place of scarcity.
If you pause for a moment and contemplate the narrative you have around the food you eat, I dare say for most of us (especially for those of us who identify as female) focus on restriction and lack, rather than shining a light on the vast variety of nutrient dense food we are lucky to have available to us.
Now, I don’t mean to be putting words into your mouth with this analogy, but when we review the last 20-30 years of nutrition modelling, for the most part it has been led by the likes of Weight Watches, Jenny Craig, Lemon-Detox diet, Atkins and the list truly does go on (and on and on and on).
That modelling has a ripple effect and even if we aren’t consciously aware of it, this diet-culture has left a lasting and frankly damaging impact.
As a nutritionist, I have worked with hundreds of women over the years. Prior to taking on a new patient, I have people fill out an intake form including their wellbeing focus(es), health history, etc.
It is rare that I receive an intake form that doesn’t state that the person at hand has not listed ‘weight loss’ as one of their focus points. By no means are most of my clientele overweight either.
Often, it’s not even a drastic amount of weight that they hope to lose, instead around the 5kg mark.
But the desire to be thin(ner) occupies a big part of their focus and the internal dialogue around body weight is usually fairly negative.
Skip to how they are eating and it is primarily geared towards “cutting out” or applying labels such as keto, vegan, sugar-free to their dietary approach, which further amplifies what you “can’t do” or “should do” in order to be “healthy”.
All this to say, there are an abundance of foods out there that really serve our ability to achieve optimum health and if I could influence you to take one thing from this article, it would be to begin to switch up your focus towards these foods and practice implementing a more abundant mindset with how you consume your nourishment.
All food is essentially either a fat, protein or carbohydrate and this dynamic trio can be categorised as your macro nutrients.
There are nutritious variations of all of the above as well as a variety of each category that is lacking in nutrients.
Refraining from giving food an energetic charge such as labelling it as either “good” or “bad” is a key step in propelling ourselves to an abundant mindset.
Consider your meals as a game of gathering nutrients.
Opt for food in its most natural state to avoid a diet that is predominantly processed (eg. A whole fresh mango trumps packaged dried mango and raw nuts provide more nutrients compared to roasted nuts).
We start to increase our micro nutrients (aka the vitamins and minerals provided from the likes of fresh fruit and vegetables) when we include a variety of colour (for example, purple cabbage, leafy greens, cucumber, tomato, sweet potato and cauliflower), texture (miso soup, rice, avocado) and flavour (salt, ginger, nutritional yeast) and this is how we can bring excitement to our food while crossing off our macro and micro nutritional needs.
When we go about nourishing ourselves each day, I recommend a hack I refer to as ‘The Crowd Out Method’.
It guides you to fill your plate with 70% unrefined carbohydrates such as fresh fruit and vegetables (you can include unrefined grains alongside your fruits and vegetables), 15% quality fats such as avocado, olive oil, olives, raw nuts and seeds and 15% quality protein such as eggs, fish, tempeh, chicken, turkey.
If you are able to build your plate in this way for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and if you ensure you are eating until you feel satisfied (this is a practice in itself), you will start to find that your cravings and energy lulls begin to taper off and from there you’ll feel the ripple effect into your sleep, mood, and focus.
This is how you start to efficiently fuel yourself. A shift towards focusing on what you can eat as opposed to what you think you shouldn’t eat can be the beginning of a much healthier and more fulfilling relationship with food and nutrition.
It generally doesn’t happen with the flick of a switch but with long-term discipline and commitment.
The results are so worth it. Cheers to abundance in all areas of your precious life!
Raj Barker
Nutrition & Movement Expert
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