The Mind Body Project
The Mind Body Project
Healthy Huddle: Your Food Identity
We unpack four food identities—Grazer, Gatherer, Tracker, Builder—and show how to make meals match your wiring, not someone else’s plan. Simple fixes turn strengths into momentum and remove guilt from daily choices.
• defining food identity and why it matters
• grazer habits, energy dips, and protein-first snack strategies
• gatherer creativity, choice overload, and three-ingredient rules
• tracker structure, all-or-nothing traps, and flexible ranges
• builder fuel mindset, under-eating risks, and rotation for micronutrients
• turning identity into meal planning that sticks
• weekly challenge to identify your primary and secondary styles
Thank you for joining us on today's Healthy Huddle. Look forward to seeing you right here next time
Welcome to Healthy Huddle. Thank you for taking a little time to join us today. If this is your first time to Healthy Huddle, each week we have a different topic related to food and nutrition that we discuss in our live call each week with our other participants on the call. So we're excited to have you here and let's join the live call. All right. So we're going to talk about food identity. Probably didn't think about being having a food identity. Probably think about the different ways you as just something you do. But we're going to kind of talk about four different identities that most of us probably fall under. Normally kind of how you eat. Which, if you think about it, maybe you grew into this identity. Maybe you've kind of been this identity your whole life. And it may change from time to time. So we're going to talk about the four different food identities, which is the grazer, the gatherer, the tracker, and the builder. So we're going to talk about those four. The second one was the get gatherer and the tracker. I didn't hear it. So so if anybody is on the road, maybe mute your microphone that way we don't hear a road noise. Maybe. All right. So the four uh the four again are the grazer, the gatherer, the tracker, and the builder. Um are the four. Um and and kind of everybody you'll kind of find that one is more dominating, and then one is more secondary. So you might be kind of in both, but one's going to be more prominent than the other. So what would just by the name of it, what would a grazer be? Someone that eats all day. Exactly. They eat all day, these small amounts all day. So they rarely feel starved, but they nibble all day. They really much rather have a snack over a full meal. They get bored with the same foods, because if you think a grazer, if you're nibbling all day, you like a bunch of different things. And usually a grazer will reach for quick bites, whether it's newt, newt, nuts, fruits, bars, leftovers. I mean, even leftovers might just be something you could get out of the refrigerator and take a little bite of, not something that you put out on your plate and put in the mic away. And then sometimes you can overeat as a grazer just because you never really let that hunger build up. So there is that possibility. So that's kind of what a grazer is. Some of their strengths of a grazer is they're great at listening to early hunger cues. So, what does that mean? How how often do you wait and then you're starving? You're like, oh, well, I'm kind of hungry, but I'll get something to eat later. I'll get something to eat later. And you kind of put it off until you're really hungry. And typically, do we make the best choices when we're really hungry? No. No. Overeat. We overeat. Because we're eating before our brain catches up or our stomach catches up and says, Oh, you're way full already. It's already too late. And they also, the the another strength of the grazer is they love uh healthy snack options. Because if you can have a healthy snack option, and so really not saying any of these are right or wrong, just for now, just saying this is what what the different ones are. Some of the struggles sometimes a grazer has is it's hard to hit a protein goal. Why would that be? Because what they're eating is not full of protein. Right, it's not like little little bass. Yeah, they're not going in there grabbing a few bites of steak or a few bites of chicken or beef jerky. It you know, they're not get getting those things. It's typically those things that maybe are a little higher in fat, have more carbs and protein, so it's harder for them to hit the protein goal. And and it's easy to mindly eat. One of our favorite spreads, kind of like what we have here for Christmas party and all the things we the parties here is finger foods. Those are my favorite. But what happens with finger foods though, sometimes you can you overeat them, don't sustain sustain you. Yeah, they don't sustain you. You overeat them because you get, oh, I'm gonna get this, and then then if they're out, then you'll walk by and grab one. Walk by and grab one. And so before you know it, you've had all these calories in a day and never really felt like you ate anything of substance. And also constant grazing, another struggle with this, the grazer, is that it can cause energy dips. You have low energy because you're not really getting the things you need, and you're just picking here and there because it's quick and easy. So typically the the grazer has to work on building protein-based snacks. So, what are, you know, what are small snacks that can be easily grabbed and taken out of the refrigerator, taken out of the pantry, whatever it is, and still have higher protein. And again, that's gonna be based on whatever you like. And whatever, because chances are if you don't like it, you're not gonna go grab it, you're gonna go get something else that you like better. Have you ever meal prepp food and got tired of it and then started getting something else? Even though you have the food prepped, you'll go ahead and make something totally different just because you don't want the meal prep food. So you definitely want to make something that you like. And then maybe it's even a grazer plate. So instead of just getting a bunch of little things, still you still get a bunch of little things, but you can get a small plate, because we've talked about our plate sizes, but get a small plate and put it all on there, and that can help prevent the mindless eating because then it'll make you feel like you had a meal, versus a snack here, a snack there, and you think, well, I really haven't eaten much today. And and sometimes I think the grazer could have the well, I don't eat much, but yet I'm still gaining weight. And the that's true, there's not a lot eaten at one time. But if we take the whole day, it's eaten a lot. So that's the grazer. And so as we go through these, think about am I a grazer, my gatherer, a builder, a tracker. And so the second one is the gatherer. The gather kind of made me made me smile a little bit because I could see my dad in the in the gatherer. He doesn't do this, but the gatherer screenshots recipes constantly. Like, oh, that's a good recipe. I might make that someday. The gatherer loves to grocery shop. If you go over to my dad's, my mom and dad's, they have tons of food everywhere. They have it in cabinets, the pantry, they have it everywhere. Like you open, and it's not like just one box of granola bars. They have a grocery store at their house. Yeah, you're that's what you're trying to say. Yes, they'll have like five boxes of granola bars, and and it, and if you tell them you like something and you had it one time when you went over, the next time they go over, they'll have 20 of those things because you liked it. I mean, even though you're only gonna eat one while you're there, they'll have plenty. And so always grocery shopping. The gatherer also enjoys cooking when you have time. It's something that you enjoy doing. Sometimes you have a fridge full of food and no plan. You like to be prepared, you like to have all the food, but no plan. And sometimes meal prep overwhelms because you want it to be perfect. How many times do you want meal prep to be perfect? When sometimes, instead of perfect, we just need to get it done. Because sometimes perfect, we want to look a certain way, we want to be the perfect macros, the perfect calories, everything just has to be perfect. So if we don't get it perfect, then we just don't do it. And so the that is some of the issues the gatherer has. This I always just think you know, want to go out and and bring in as much as you can, just so you have it, just in case. And then you're always screenshotting recipes because you have all that stuff, so you can make it in any any moment. But then the question is when you screenshot those recipes, do you later go back and use them? Or do you just go, well, that looked good at the time because I was hungry? I actually do screenshot recipes like for breakfast and stuff because I like breakfast. Sometimes I'll cook them at Christmas, but but if if we're not gatherers at our house, because if you go into our our our refrigerator, it looks like a college kid lives there, uh, especially towards the end of the week. By the end of the week, it's all gone. So their strength of a gatherer is they like to be creative and they like variety. They love discovering healthy alternatives, screenshotting recipes. You know, it's so easy now to be able to find tons of recipes. Back in back in the day, you used to have to look what in good housekeeping or a cooking magazine. Um, you'd have to look in the magazine to find a recipe or buy a cookbook. And too, the gatherers also, if they're inspired to make something or do something, that's kind of how they're motivated. They're motivated by inspiration to to cook, to for recipes for all those things. Some of the struggles that the the the gatherer has is overthinking meals. Because it's kind of like when you have too much, then you can't decide on one thing to make. Over shopping, of course, because like to buy stuff. How many of you buy stuff like uh what is it? Brookshires has a penny like penny sale. How many times do you buy stuff just to have it because it's cheap? I've never done that. Never done that. Do other people do it, buy it just because it's cheap? I do sometimes. I do not. I don't depends on what it is. Like blocks of cheese. If they have those buy one for a penny, I always stock up. Yeah, that we love blocks of cheese at our house. Um yeah. But but sometimes the gather will that I mean if if you're buying it just because it's on sale, not because you need it, you could be a gatherer. If it looks really cheap and you go, I'm gonna use that sometime in the next month, especially if it's non-perishable, you're like, oh, I'm gonna buy that. If I can get 10 cans of corn for a dollar, I only have corn twice a year, but I'm gonna go ahead and buy it now. You could be a gather. And then sometimes the gatherer has analysis paralysis. In other words, I have so much to do, I have so much food, whether it's in the cabinet, in the pantry, in the refrigerator, I don't know what to do. I don't know what I'm gonna make. I can't decide. So I'm just gonna order out. So that can be a struggle for the gatherer. So the gather to make it simpler, maybe it's three ingredient rule for your meals. So those those recipes you're screenshotting, maybe it's all those that are three ingredients or less. Super simple. And then maybe it's keeping one or two sure thing meals per week. There's always, you know, I always can make this. Um, if I can't decide, I'll make this. And then also theme nights. Theme nights are good for the gatherer because the gather has everything. So at any moment, they can have any theme they want. But if they plan ahead, then it's easier, you don't get overwhelmed. Does anybody plan a weekly menu? Like write it out, or or have an idea of what you're gonna eat all week long if you don't meal prep. I usually have some sort of a plan. I try to anyway. Used to? Yes. When I was a kid, my mom would put a menu up on the refrigerator of what we're gonna eat for supper so we'd know. That seems kind of weird now, but but but it does help. Um, especially if you, you know, even it's as simple as this is the theme or this is what we're gonna have. Even now, my dad has a menu on his, and it's just the two of them. He has a menu on uh the refrigerator, what they're gonna eat for lunch, um, because they only want meal, but it's kind of funny again. He's definitely a gatherer. So this next one is probably where I fit in. It's the tracker. What would the tracker be? Track everything you eat, yes, and track all the calories or macros. Like to know the rules. I like to know the rules. Why do I eat the same things? Because I don't have to track it because I already know what it is. So a tracker dislikes guessing proportions. I don't want to have to guess if this is right, if this is too much, too little. I feel safer with structure. Why do we eat the exact same breakfast, the exact same lunch, for the most part, the exact same supper because it's structured. I know what I'm gonna eat without thinking about for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I've tracked it a gazillion times. I mean, it's not changing, so I know exactly what is involved in it. And again, this last one is me. You you do well during the week and slip on the weekends, and that is probably one of my things as a tracker is do good during the week and then slip on the weekend. Because again, pretty much my Monday through Friday is the same every day, schedule-wise. On the weekend, it's different. We do different things, different times, all those things. So I'm so I'm definitely a tracker. The strengths, they're amazing at consistency, always doing the same thing, being consistent with that. Meet goals when following a plan. I've been probably well, I've been following a plan since I was 12 at from Weight Watchers, and those plans have looked different from Weight Watchers to keto to South Beach to Macros, high carb, low carb days, all those things. But all of them fall under a tracker. And then the the strength of a tracker also is love measurable progress. Again, you get to see, like if you log your food, you get to see, oh, I hit my goals, I'm short over. Where am I at? Some of the struggles with a tracker is all or nothing thinking. But if I if I can't get it all tracked, then I might as well not even bother. So if I can track my breakfast and lunch and something comes up for the evening and gets messed up, then I just blew the whole day. I I can't do it. Then there's also the struggle is guilt when not being perfect. Because when we track and it looks, if our graph looks a little off or something looks a little different, then we think it's not perfect. So have guilt over that. I didn't eat what I was supposed to eat. And then again, there can be burnout from over tracking when we track food over and over and over. I hear so many times that about about tracking from people is I just get so tired of tracking food. For me, if if you eat the same food, you track it for a while and then you don't have to because you already know what it is. So for those that are like the gatherer, they're a gatherer and a secondary tracker, that can be that can be really tiring when you're eating all these different foods and cooking all these different things, and having to track it and always having to search for the thing closest to it. Because there's not gonna, you're not gonna be able to put the recipe, you're not gonna find the recipe exactly in the whatever app you're using to track, just like it is. So you can get that burnout from over tracking. So with the tracker, it the person that is a tracker, it's good to teach uh flexible. Don't be so rigid with numbers. Are you do you have a 10 to 15% variance? Are you within this range? Then that's good. Because the interesting thing, I don't know if anybody knows about this, but or know that high school lunches, or not high school lunches, just school lunches in general, they can call them healthy. And you can look at it one day's meal and go, well, that is unhealthy. And so I found out that the way schools can get away with that and say it's within 700 or 800 calorie lunch and say it's healthy, when it might be a 1,500 to 1700 calorie lunch, they just have to average over seven days. So when they average over seven days, that average fits in within their healthy guidelines, even though that one day that is a really high calorie, not so good meal is okay because on the average it's good. But what about the kid that just loved that meal that day and they only eat that meal? Then it's a little different. So, but when we take that same thought process and we're not rigid with the numbers on one day, but we look more overall a whole week, it it will help us not to be so rigid with I gotta get exactly 1,599 calories. It helps us to look, my average is is good. And then as I mentioned before, when it comes to tracking, if you're tracking macros, instead of tracking everything, maybe you just track one thing. Maybe it's just your protein, maybe it's just your sugar, maybe it's just your fat. And so you you can focus on some of those different things, so you're not trying to focus on all of it. And then again, we use like we talked about the other week, we use mindset over macros. How am I feeling? What's going on? How's my body? So that's the tracker. That's definitely me. Then we have the builder. The builder eats for fuel, simple foods, not emotional, just get it done. I just need some fuel. I'm gonna eat and I'm gonna move on. The builder will eat the same foods often because, again, they're not looking for this awesome food. They're just looking to eat, give me energy, and be able to do what I can. They like simple meals, they are meal preppers because they just like to grab and go, they like to make it easy. Uh they don't need recipes, they just need fuel. The the builder will forget to eat when they're busy. I do not understand the builder that forgets to eat when they're busy. I've never really ever had that that you for I forget to eat. Or this next one is you can undereat without notice. Does anybody have any issues forgetting to eat when you're busy? I do sometimes. Sometimes or undereat without noticing. I don't really think. Yeah, I don't think I've ever had that. Because most everything always everything's around food. Because the tracker is very scheduled. So and I do know people that are builders and you go, and you haven't eaten? Oh, I forgot. Or man, I don't know why I'm so weak. Well, have you eaten today? Oh no, I forgot. Oh no, I hadn't eaten today. So some of the strengths of the builder are they're they're really good with routine. They love simple, healthy foods, because again, they just want fuel. And then they're great at hitting protein and hydration. Again, because they're looking for that fuel, looking for the simple foods, the things that keep them going. So some of the things they they struggle with sometimes is boredom, sometimes low calories, because if you under-eat without noticing, you skip a meal, and and then sometimes you can miss nutrients because of a lack of variety if it's the same thing over and over. So they can be, you know, the builder can build a rotation in their food. Instead of eating identical, they can eat some different things again because they're just looking for fuel. It's not emotional, it's not like, oh, this is great. I love this, I love that. They're just looking for fuel. And they can add some color to their plates, some micronutrients to their plates, just some variety to their plates. So, so kind of going over these food identities, how do we use those? It kind of helps us understand our wiring, how that we make choices that fit us, that works best for us. It gives us some structure, some simple eating strategy. We can so did everybody, most everybody find yourself in one of these four categories. Yes. And maybe again, maybe you had a primary, maybe you had a secondary, maybe you had some mixture of some both. Again, food identity helps create confidence. You stop forcing yourself to eat like someone you're not. So you kind of find out so why sometimes don't food plans work? Because maybe it's a tracker and you're not a tracker, maybe you're just a builder. Or, you know, maybe you're just a a grazer. And so it's hard for the tracker or the the gatherer to to track. So it so it helps kind of understand where you're at and why some plans don't work for you. Maybe you've tried plans that fit in a different category. And one might be, I just thought this is intuitive eating. Intuitive eating might be really good for the grazer. Eating when they're hungry, but again, noticing when they're hungry, those cues, things like that. And then it also simplifies meal planning. How do I, you know, based on those four categories, how do I plan my meals? You can you can eating gets easier when you know this works for me, fit under a tracker, a gatherer, which one works best for me. So the challenge really is kind of notice which one you are. And in that, in that different food identity, kind of what works and what doesn't work for you. In other words, the challenge is is there some things I'm missing out because of my food identity? And is there something that I can kind of focus on? Some of the things I mentioned under the different ones that you can try to help better that food identity. And again, the food identities might change. You might be a tracker, tracker, tracker, and then as you get a little older, you might really find you're a gatherer. And then you get a little older, you might find I'm just a builder. I just want to eat to give me what I need to do my exercise, to do my daily activities, all of those things. So that's just kind of the challenge for this week about your food identity. Hopefully, you pick one out in there, and then you can kind of see where it falls and then what you can do to add to it, to make it one of those struggles, you can kind of help make it better. So, any comments, questions, or thoughts. Identify with your food and and see where you can improve those. And if you all have any questions, just let me know. Thank you all. And thank you for joining us on today's Healthy Huddle. Look forward to seeing you right here next time.