Are your existing eating habits making you consider a transformation in your relationship with food? If yes, you’re in the right spot. Keep reading to discover 5 steps you can follow to mend your food relationship.
Our experiences throughout life play a significant role in shaping how we relate to food today. Perhaps you inherited some eating habits from parents, guardians, or siblings. Alternatively, you may have formed specific tendencies due to dieting or personal trauma. As time goes by, our connections with food change and evolve into what they are now.
At times, the relationship we develop isn’t entirely constructive. Fortunately, this can be altered. By understanding your habits and tendencies, deconstructing them, and adopting new practices that promote balance, you can permanently transform your relationship with food.
I Am Looking to Transform My Relationship With Food
To begin with, give yourself a moment to acknowledge this realization and the pursuit of support. Making changes is seldom straightforward, and the most challenging aspect is often recognizing that it’s necessary. So, you’re already making significant progress!
When you start on a journey like this, ensuring your success through self-compassion is crucial from the outset. Essentially, be forgiving of yourself. As we mentioned earlier, our current relationships with food are forged over years, not overnight. With this perspective, does it seem reasonable to anticipate an instant transformation in your relationship with food? Certainly not. Be gentle with yourself, prepare for obstacles, and keep in mind that change requires time.
5 Steps to Transform Your Relationship With Food
Here are five essential tips I can provide to heal your food relationship. They will guide you through various aspects of your connection with food and show you how to rebuild each component. Remember to take things slowly; attempting all five steps at once isn’t advisable! Begin with one or two, and then progress to others when you feel ready.
Let’s dive in!
Engage in Mindful Eating
At Nutrition Stripped, we highlight two key components of healthy eating: what you consume and how you consume it. Mindful eating focuses more on the process of eating rather than the quantity or specific foods. It’s about bringing attention back to your experience during mealtimes.
Start to engage with your food and be present while enjoying your meals and snacks. Remind yourself that eating isn’t a task, a job, or a means to exert control. It’s a method to nourish your body, engage with culture, and much more. Learn more about the principles of mindful eating here. By simply following this step, you’ll soon find that your relationship with food changes.
Avoid Following Trending Diets and Detox Programs
This is a crucial point. Simply put, don’t do it. I assure you it isn’t beneficial. Diets are designed to keep you returning, leading you into what I refer to as the diet cycle—characterized by being “on track” versus “off track.”
Once you stop succumbing to these trends, you’ll establish consistency. You’ll nourish yourself in a way that caters to your individual body rather than someone else’s. Remember, diet trends operate as marketing tools; they’re businesses. To alter your relationship with food, you must break free from the diet cycle.
Eliminate Food Rules
Next, it’s time to discard food rules. No more prescribing which foods are acceptable or not, or determining what’s right and wrong. Food doesn’t function that way, particularly if you aim for a balanced, positive connection with it. Food rules are limiting and controlling, often leaving you feeling deprived, stressed, or even ashamed.
If you wish to transform your food relationship, you need to shed these rules. Whenever you catch yourself adhering to or even voicing a food rule, take a moment to pause. Ask yourself, “Is this a food rule? How can I achieve balance with food without conforming to this rule?” Over time, you’ll find that you no longer need to pause. You’ll have altered your food relationship, rendering those rules obsolete.
Consistently Value Both Nourishment and Enjoyment
Both elements are essential. To support our physical, mental, and emotional well-being, we must prioritize both enjoyment and nourishment. When we refer to nourishment, we mean the foods that physically support your body. When we speak of enjoyment, we’re talking about foods that bring joy, irrespective of their nutritional profile.
If you can ensure that most of your meals and snacks honor these two factors, you’re on the right path to changing your relationship with food. You won’t feel deprived, and eating won’t become a tedious task. Instead, food will evolve into a pleasurable and effortless aspect of your life!
Consider employing the Foundational Five system for an easy way to incorporate both nourishment and enjoyment.
Stop Perceiving Food as Either Good or Bad
If you want to prioritize both nourishment and enjoyment consistently, this point is particularly vital. If you constantly categorize foods as “bad” whenever indulging in pleasure-based foods, you’ll frequently be plagued with guilt and shame. Conversely, if you feel obligated to eat nourishment-based foods always, food will start to feel like a chore.
Remove moral judgments to shift your food relationship. Start viewing food merely as nourishment, enjoyment, or a blend of both. That’s all! Initially, this may require you to correct or remind yourself from time to time, but before long, this will become your new reality.
The Summary
Altering your relationship with food is feasible. It simply requires a few straightforward steps and some commitment. Anyone can cultivate a positive, balanced relationship with food. Sometimes, all it takes is a bit of support!
Do You Wish to Find More Balance in Your Food Choices?
Then discover your balanced eating archetype!
Participate in this 45-second free quiz to uncover which balanced eating type you are, along with what your unique type requires to maintain a balance in how you nourish yourself. This way, you can finally liberate yourself from food and diet fixation, sustain a balanced weight, and foster a positive relationship with food and your body.