How to Make Peace with Food
Hello! So a few weeks ago I did an episode called making peace with exercise which one of you requested. So with that, I thought we could also talk about making peace with food, or as I refer to it a lot of times, feeling totally calm around food. And my guess is that’s one of the reasons you’re here…you want to feel totally calm around food. So let’s dive into this together.
Specifically, I’m this episode we’re going to talk about the number one thing keeping you from feeling peace with food and then I’m going to give you 3 action steps to take today to start to feel more peace, more calm, with food.
So, I imagine that you are here because you want to feel calm around food. You are wanting to have a different approach to your health, one where you feel in control not controlled by food, one where you are the one in the driver’s seat not on the diet rollercoaster...and by diet rollercoaster what I mean is doing everything right when you’re on a diet but the second you’re off or the second your willpower falters you go to the other extreme. You want to feel healthy and good in your body and be making daily, consistent decisions to feel good in your body. You thought that going on a diet, just another round of whole30 or another month of keto would fix your food problems, but it’s actually made you more obsessed, always thinking about food, always anxious about messing up again… you feel stressed out around food, the opposite of calm and peace. And even though you feel good when you first start a diet because you’re eating better and exercising, you can’t seem to keep it up. And even if you could, you’re not sure if this is the way you want to live your life… you wish you could just enjoy a night out with girlfriends or your husband and not think about the menu or how you’re going to make up what you’re eating tonight, tomorrow.
You thought that going on another diet, another round of whole30, another month of keto would fix your food problems, but it’s actually made you more stressed out with food.
I want you to think for a second what it would be like to feel in control with food. Not from a place of holding on so tight because you’re worried that at any moment you are going to let go, but from a place of choosing to hold on, gently, because you want to hold on. If you think about holding onto a rope, if you are gripping so hard, your muscles are starting to tense up because you’re holding on so hard, you’re not going to be able to hold on for very long. As opposed to if you are holding on gently, the rope is just part of you, it’s a choice you’ve made to hold on rather than someone telling you you had to or you saying things like I just have to hold on, you’re going to enjoy life while holding on. You’re able to do the things you want to do while holding on. You can put your thoughts to something else while holding on.
The same goes for us with food. What I see sooo often is women in this situation of wanting to be healthier, eat better, exercise more consistently, which these are not bad things at all. They are so good and can add to your quality of life so much, make you feel so much better. But they believe that there are only two options when it comes to them and food… either diet, eat perfectly, never eat anything unhealthy, always choose the healthy option. Or, fall into overeating, eating out all the time, eating foods that don’t make them feel good or that feed their body well. Maybe this is the way you’ve thought about your relationship with food… hot and cold, black and white, one extreme or the other.
I typically see 2 extremes… either you believe you have to be perfect and never eat anything unhealthy or you’ll overeat and never eat another healthy food in your life.
But, what if you could find a place in the middle. In the grey space. Imagine with me what that would be like. Eating foods that are healthy, that make your body feel good, that energize you. But also being able to keep ice cream in your freezer without it calling your name to eat it every night and not only that but not being able to stop at one bowl. You can keep dessert at home and you feel totally calm around it. You can enjoy it without overeating it. You eat food that makes you feel good and healthy and energized and it comes easily… you don’t have to have your grip so strong on it… it’s something you feel confident in. You’re in the driver’s seat, you aren’t on a stressful ride where your diet is driving you.
Ahh, how good would that feel?
I want you to pause for a moment and check in with where your thoughts are as I describe what a peaceful and calm relationship with food looks like. Do you have thoughts of, “that’s for someone else, but I know myself and I know that I couldn’t have that” or “I’ve tried intuitive eating and it hasn’t worked for me”.
No matter where you are, no matter what your history with food has been like, no matter who you are… you can feel this peace with food. You can feel calm around food. Let that sink in for a moment. No matter who you are, you can have peace with food.
So, let’s talk about the number one thing that’s keeping you from having peace and calm with food and then I’ll give you 3 things to start to do today to make peace with food.
THE NUMBER ONE THING KEEPING YOU FROM HAVING PEACE WITH FOOD IS…
… DIETING
The first thing that keeps you from having peace with food is dieting. Dieting is the number one reason why you feel chaos around food. It’s the number one reason why you’re afraid of overeating, why actually do overeat. It’s why you feel like you can’t keep ice cream in your freezer or even look at the cookies in the breakroom.
Here’s why… your body doesn’t know the difference or differentiate the difference between dieting and starving. And your body is wired to keep you safe from starvation. It’s in your biology. When you’re on a diet, the same mechanisms happen in your body as they would if you were starving. Your body senses something is off, food is scarce, so I need to 1) conserve and 2) get better at trying to find food.
You body conserves by slowing down your metabolism, decreases your energy so you don’t need to eat as much (this is why you probably don’t want to exercise as much when you’re dieting also). And then it gets better at trying to find food… your senses towards food increase, you start thinking about food more.
This doesn’t sound like it would be very conducive for sticking to your diet, does it? Metabolism decreases all while you can’t stop thinking about food? This is why diets don’t and can’t work. This is why every time you’ve tried to eat healthy in the past and gone on a diet or eating plan or given yourself rules around food that it hasn’t worked out. Diets literally work against your body.
So, this is why I teach you how to work with your body, stop fighting it, stop dieting… so that you can feel peace and calm with food. So you can loosen your grip on food, make decisions about how to eat based on how you want to feel, all coming from a place of self-care. Because working with your body is what will have you feeling consistent, have you feeling healthy, but also have you able to enjoy all parts of your life including caring for your body through nutrition and exercise but also through the other parts of your life that make you a healthy human being.
Ok, so diets are the number one reason why you feel chaos around food, why you feel up and down all the time with eating. Let’s talk about 3 things to start doing right now to feel more peace with food.
3 things to do to feel more peace with food:
So if dieting is the number one reason why you feel chaos around food, stopping dieting is the number one way to feel more calm around food. But how do you do that.
#1 Decide to stop dieting. Even the psychological thought that you may diet again can put you at risk of your body sensing food insecurity. So I want you to decide once and for all, “I’m done with dieting.” Make the decision to be done with dieting.
#2 Get rid of diet tools. Your scale, myfitnesspal, Noom, any other tracking apps. These are all external influences and what keeps you from being able to focus on your internal cues.
#3 Practice breaking a food rule every single day. What I usually have my clients do for this is write down their food rules and every day practice breaking those rules. So maybe this is you have a rule of not eating fried foods or white carbs or dessert on weekdays. Pick one and break it every day. Next week I’m going to be going into this topic even more with talking about unconditional permission with food, but for now know that practicing this exercise of breaking your food rules will help you to make peace with food by getting away from the “shoulds” you have with food to being able to make decisions about eating from internal cues.
So, stop dieting, get rid of diet tools, and practice breaking your food rules. And these are all things that we work on together inside of The Nourish Lab, my online intuitive eating community. We go so much deeper into each of these in there. Don’t wait…come join us!
Come tell me on Instagram one thing you’re doing to start to make peace with food!
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