5 Steps to Making Peace with Food
Sick and tired of feeling out of control around certain foods? Want to feel at ease and empowered by your food choices this silly season...
Here are 5 steps to help you to make peace with food;
1. Write out a list of all the foods you consider to be 'good' and 'bad'.
From the list of 'bad' foods (these are one you fear eating, trigger a binge, or make you feel guilty for eating) decide which one's you are most ready to start challenging and incorporating back into your life. Start with 2-3 items.
2. Then, give yourself the permission to eat a forbidden food from your 'bad food' list.
This can be a daily or weekly challenge to try X amount of forbidden food. This could look like having a piece of toast at breakfast time, or a little bit of chocolate each evening after dinner.
3. Check in with yourself and challenge the inner critical voice
that is making you feel guilty for your actions. Notice what feelings come up, sit with it, ride out the wave of emotions.
Other things to consider:
Does it taste as good as you imaged? better? worse?
Do you really think you would want this food for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the rest of your life?
Or can you see how its intense want for it will eventually get less the more you allow it to be a part of your life?
4. If food guilt follows eating the food, sit with it.
Journal about it and keep reminding yourself that you are allowed to eat this and it will not have any drastic effect on you, your life or your worth.
5. Keep enough of the food items you are working to make peace with on hand
/in the pantry/fridge to help create the neutral feeling that you are allow and can have it anytime you want.
The crazy thing is, that the more control and rules you try to have around food the more control it will have over you and out of control you will feel.
How do you know if you are making process and truely starting to make peace with food?
Some things you might notice when you are truely starting to make peace with food include;
You'll become that annoying person that can keep ice cream in the freezer for weeks and completely forget about it
You'll be able to say no to seconds if you are full
You'll start to notice which foods you actually like the taste of, and which one's you just ate because you were in a all-you-can-eat mindset
You'll be able to stop eating half-way through a meal if you feel like you're not really enjoying it
Being left alone will no longer feel like a window of opportunity to eat everything in sight
You'll stop worrying that certain foods will make you fat straight away
You'll be able to watch other people eat sweets in front of you and not feel like you're missing out
You'll stop feeling like food has a magnetic pull over you
Or it might be something else you notice for yourself. But always remember progress over perfection. This is not something that you will just wake up one day and be completely perfect at, it take consistent small efforts of challenging yourself and sitting with the discomfort.
I encourage you to set yourself this challenge and work on it at your own pace. But start now and start creating those healthy habits and relationships with food before the new year!
If you would love to have support and guidance in this process then do reach out - I have 1:1 coaching spaces available to start now!