Summary

What does having a healthy relationship with food really mean? How do we know when we have one? You might think it’s something that lots of other people have, but you don’t. Something you’re always striving for, but can never quite grasp or hold on to for very long. In this episode you’ll learn exactly how you can clearly define what a healthy relationship with food means for YOU. Hint: It won’t be the same as your best friend. Once you have it defined, it will act as your unique way to be around food and you won’t be constantly wondering when and if you’re on the right track or if you should change up your food plan, yet again!

The 5 Keys to defining your healthy relationship with food are:

1. Questioning “normal eating.”

2. Understanding what Intuitive eating is and is not.

3. Being the boss of your brain.

4. Examining your programming.

5. Eating food that serves your body. 

In this episode you’ll learn:

• The 5 keys to map out what a healthy relationship with food means for YOU

• What intuitive eating is and is not

• How to THINK your way into freedom around food

Podcast Transcript

You may have noticed that I’ve been away from the podcast so I just wanted to give you a quick update. I’m excited to share that my husband and I are expecting our first child in January! We are super excited. Overall I have to say the pregnancy had been smooth although for the majority of it I’ve been really exhausted and haven’t had a lot of bandwidth for much extra and so I’ve focused a lot on resting and taking it easy. Starting to feel more like myself again now though so I’m excited to jump back into the podcast. And this topic is especially interesting for me right now as I’m not all thinking about weight loss for myself, but rather how I want to nourish myself and the baby.

What did you think of when you saw the title of this episode? For many of us, we have a vague notion of what a healthy relationship with food is. We might think it’s something that lots of other people have - but we don’t. Something we’re always striving for, but can never quite grasp or hold on to for very long. 

In this episode I’m going to give you 5 things you can do to define what a healthy relationship with food means for you. This can act as a template - a baseline and as you work with your brain around food - it will be your north star. What you’re moving toward. Because I think this is so important for each of us to choose for ourselves what this looks like. In diet culture we’re constantly being bombarded with the new ‘right way’ to eat or not eat and if we haven’t defined HOW we want to be with food - what that relationship is - then we can easily get off track, feel confused and defeated. 

We’ll talk about what it is to “eat normally,” the enigma that is intuitive eating and how you can be the boss of your brain. We’ll also examine your current programming around food and I offer a reframe that will change everything for you. 

Okay. A healthy relationship with food. What is it ACTUALLY?

How do we start to define this? How do we know when we have it?

Maybe what’s easier is to define what it’s not. It’s probably pretty easy for you to spot an “unhealthy” relationship with food in your past behaviours. Often what comes to mind is binge eating, eating to the point of physical pain, restricting food or being food-obsessed. Thinking about food all the time. Or it could even be being fixated on one food in particular and feeling at the whim of your craving. 

So for many of us, those are examples of what an unhealthy relationship looks like. So what is the opposite? What does it look like for us? Keep in mind, this might be different from people in your family or best friend. 

I invite you to spend some time thinking about this so that you know what you’re truly aiming for. Because it’s not just about reaching your goal weight here. You could easily do that with a 10 day fast and lose 10 lbs. But then, what happens afterward right? 

All that weight comes back on the following month and oftentimes it brings a little extra with it. 

What we’re going for here is much more ambitious. We’re going for transformation. Changing our brains - rewiring our brains on the subject of food. So if you are up for that - keep listening. 

Now, raise your hand if you’ve ever said or had the thought - I just want to be able to “eat normally.” I know I’ve said this over the years. “I just want to eat normally like everyone else.”  

Look around. What do you notice? Have you really looked at what’s inside most people’s shopping carts? Unless you live in my old neighborhood of Kitsilano in Vancouver - where lululemon was literally invented - then most shopping carts are not filled with leafy greens and quinoa ok? No. The next time you’re standing in line at the grocery store - check out what’s in those carts. That is what’s normal.

I want you to question “Normal eating.”

Normal is conforming to the standard (and we have a natural inclination to conform to be accepted by the group). That’s how our brains developed. So it makes sense that we want to quote - be normal.

But then, what does that mean for your weight? I’m in Victoria BC, here in Canada and according to Statistics Canada, 63% of us are classified as overweight. That’s over half! So that means, if you eat normally, you are more likely than not to be overweight. 

I’m offering that you define what normal eating looks like for YOU rather than relying on the culture to define it for you.

Now you may be thinking, but isn’t it normal to have popcorn with butter at the movies, isn’t it normal to overeat during the holidays? And I’d argue that yes, it’s totally normal. And if you don’t have a preoccupation with food and overeating, lucky you.

But if, like me, your dopamine hit comes from food, then what normal eating looks like for you will be different than someone who gets their dopamine hit from over drinking or over spending. 

That’s why I truly think we are the unicorns my friends. Because if drinking or spending or gambling or whatever, is your thing you can avoid it completely right? You don’t have to drink to live, you can stay away from the mall or avoid casinos. But with food, there’s just no where to hide. 

You have to confront yourself - and be present with yourself every single day. And that’s why I’m doing this work, really. I know there are women out there who are where I have been - feeling hopeless and defeated about their weight. 

And I’m telling you, it doesn’t have to be like that. If you are listening to this right now and are really in the depths of it. You’re in the fire, I’m telling you, hold on. This is the way out. The fact that you are even listening to this is a sign you’re ready for change.

So for example, if you are working on your relationship with food and you’re at a bbq or something in which your friends and family are eating junk food and drinking, even though that’s normal, your normal might be avoiding the junk food and drinking. Your normal might be bringing your own healthy meal and owning that. 

Don’t strive to be normal. Strive to be the best version of yourself. 

Okay, let’s talk about Intuitive eating. 

A few years ago, I was really feeling frustrated and at the end of my rope with my weight and I really wanted to understand what intuitive eating was. Because I was really skeptical. I thought at the time, as you may now, that if I “listened to my body” and ate intuitively I would eat cereal all day, every day until the end of time. 

So I worked with a food and body coach specifically named Suzanne Mueller. Now I already was working with another master life coach Karin Title, so now I’m working with two coaches! 

But that’s how desperate and committed I was about this. And also, that’s how much I value this work. Different coaches bring different expertise and experience. They have different styles, so if you’re interested in coaching, do some research and try a few out. Pretty much all coaches will offer a consultation or free session. Now let’s be real, we all know that this is part of their sales process. I offer a free mini session as well. But a good coach will provide you with enough value to make it worth your time. So keep going and try out a few until you find someone you resonate with. 

I will put links to them on my website in the show notes. I highly recommend both of them. 

So with Suzanne, we talked a lot about intuitive eating. She kept telling me to trust my body and that my body knows. And I have to admit, I really didn’t believe it. For my whole life basically, I had been in a restrict/binge cycle. So this was so hard for me to wrap my mind around. 

But here’s what I’ve learned since then. Now if you’ve spaced out, come back to me.

This is important.

Intuitive eating is not eating without restraint.

I’ll say that again. Intuitive eating is not eating without restraint. It is NOT eating whatever you want whenever you want. 

No. If you have a history of overeating, you need to get into a habit of restraint around food and eat reasonably. You may be surprised just how little food your body actually needs and how many calories you’re actually taking in - for most of us, it’s more than we think. We tend to underestimate how much we’re actually taking in. 

Are you freaking out a little right now just hearing about restriction? That’s usually a default reaction. So let me ask you this - Why does restricting your food make you freak out? The answer is because it feels uncomfortable and you’ve been using food emotionally. The solution is not to stop restricting food. The solution is to manage your discomfort and emotional health. 

Let’s clear up the myth about restriction and binging. One of my clients was really worried about this. She emailed me saying that she had done research online and somewhere it said that restricting food leads to binging. 

But here’s what I told her:

Restricting food doesn’t cause binging.

Your thoughts do. When you have a thought about more food, you Feel the desire to eat more, your brain is used to taking action on this feeling by complying with this thought/feeling combination and your Action is, you eat and eat and eat. 

So think of Cocaine for example. Huge dopamine release right? But, given that you aren’t an addict, if you restrain from cocaine, you will not binge on coke. Restriction and restraint doesn’t lead to binging. 

Now you might think - well my body doesn’t need cocaine but it needs food - so if I deprive it of food - it will go crazy and I’ll be out of control. But here’s the thing. As long as you are a conscious human being - you decide whether to buy the food. Whether to go to the fridge. The desire increases in intensity and then wanes when you don’t comply. Is it uncomfortable? Yes. Most people are not going to be willing to feel that emotional discomfort. Most people are going to comply which is why so many people online will tell you that restricting food leads to binging. But it’s just not true. Food restriction is a neutral circumstance that you have thoughts about. 

Be the boss of your brain.

This is the difference between wanting something and being committed to something.

You're going to have discomfort, you might even feel the urge to binge, but that doesn't mean you need or should take action on those feelings unconsciously. Take a deep breath. Feel what you’re feeling.

There's so much that’s outside of your control. You can't control how tall you are, the family that you were born in, the way that you were raised.

But you know what you can control? How you treat yourself, what you say to yourself, how much you eat, the results that you produce at the level you produce them. Nobody can tell you what you will or won’t do. That is entirely up to you. 

Remember, our bodies get programmed on what we repeatedly do. So if we have the habit of binge/over restrict, we will need to work hard to break that cycle. Your body has learned that in times of restriction it needs to produce lots of ghrelin, the hunger hormone to get you to eat. 

That’s okay, it’s natural, that’s how our bodies keep us alive. The problem is when we overeat in response to hunger.

And this binge/restrict cycle is so prominent in our western culture. All you have to do is go into Whole Foods before and after the Christmas holidays. Beforehand they have all the treats on display right - all the party foods. Then you go in the New Year - What do you see then? 

Maple Syrup, lemons and cayenne pepper because now everyone’s doing the 10 day Master Cleanse juice fast. Now, I’m not against juice fasting. But my point is that overeating during the holidays is considered normal. This binge/restrict is considered normal. Question what you want your normal to be. You get to decide how much or how little that cycle belongs in your healthy relationship with food. 

That brings me to my next point:

Start questioning your programming.

What are your current beliefs around food? They might be steeped in entitlement.

• That you should be able to eat anything you want?

• That it’s unfair to have to restrict your food? 

I’ve definitely had those thoughts many times. But what do they lead to? Do they serve you in a healthy way? Usually they elicit a rebellious response which comes with a big F-you to life and overeating. 

Ask yourself what feelings and actions these thoughts are resulting in so that you can stop that pattern. 

And it can be helpful to watch people who don’t have any food drama. Notice how they can take it or leave it. My husband is a great example of this. When it comes to food he’ll avoid something or eat only small amounts when he suspects it doesn’t serve his body, like he’ll lay off of sugar or dairy because it makes him breakout. But does he lament it? Does he complain about it? Or obsess about it? Not in any way. It’s neutral for him. No big deal.

Decide what ROLE you want food to play in your life.

I’d like to offer that for those of us who use food when we’re bored, tired, stressed, anxious or even mildly uncomfortable, we start seeing Food as fuel. 

Food is simply nutrients that give us energy to live our lives. It provides sustenance and vitality to our organs, muscles, brain - every living cell in our body. Just think about that. It’s a wonderful thing that what we put in our bodies will dictate how we feel. When we put in healthy food, in the right amounts, our bodies feel energized and vital. When we don’t, we feel the consequences of that too don't’ we? 

Eat food that serves your body. 

You can’t break up with food. You are in this relationship for the long haul. So decide for yourself what’s “normal” in this relationship.

A healthy relationship with food is not happiness. 

Derive your happiness from your life, not from food. For example, when it comes to the holidays - seek pleasure out of the conversations you have with loved ones, instead of focusing so much on the meals and snacking that happens during this time.

If a lot of resistance is coming up for you right now around food and happiness, just witness it. You don’t have to stiffen up around this. All you have to do is be curious. Question your socialization. Question your emotional ties to food - maybe ones that you developed as a kid. And those can be wonderful memories - they don’t have to be negative. I have really great memories of dipping Twizzlers into Kraft peanut butter with my mom and sister. Yes, that happened. Making rice Krispie squares together all that stuff. Fun times for sure - however it doesn’t serve me now as an adult to eat that stuff. As an adult I want to separate love and connectedness from food. Food is fuel. It’s great - and it’s fuel for my body. Doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy what I eat and eat with gusto - but it’s still simply fuel for my body. 

Okay so to recap.

First think about how you define a healthy relationship with food for yourself. You are the expert of you. You get to create exactly how that looks. And you get to change it down the road if you want to as well, so don’t get bogged down with the perfect description. 

Write it out in your thought journal - what it is and what it is not so that you know what you’re working toward. If this is your particular healing journey, you’re always evolving, changing and bouncing around somewhere on the continuum. 

Secondly, understand that eating intuitively is not eating without restraint. Restraint, restriction is healthy for those of us who have weight to release and use food for emotional reasons. 

This leads us to being the boss of your brain. We decide what thoughts to think on purpose. Restriction doesn’t lead to binging. Indulging thoughts about binging and then acting on those thoughts leads to binging.

Question your social and familial programming around food, and ask yourself what you want to change. What is serving you and your weight loss journey and what can be a fond memory. 

And finally, I suggest you think of food as fuel for your body. Food doesn’t have to be interesting all the time okay? If you love to cook and it’s super interesting to you - even better- just be sure you are cooking in a way that’s going to serve your body. High fibre, whole food, lots of veggies, herbs and spices, healthy fats, lean protein - you know the spiel. 

I hope this gives you a framework in which to start reshaping what your unique relationship to food is for you. You deserve to befriend food - to have a positive relationship. But like any relationship you can’t take it for granted. You have to work at it - give it the attention it deserves and stick with it through the ups and downs.

As always if you have thoughts about this topic, I would love to hear from you. You can find me on instagram at mindful_shape - feel free to DM me with any questions you have. And of course, if you are interested in learning more about private coaching, you can go ahead and book a free mini session through my website. This session is really a chance for us to get to know each other and for you to have the opportunity to see what coaching is like.

I know for many of you this is a topic that’s close to your heart and you may not feel comfortable talking about it with friends or family. I implore those of you who are in this camp to reach out. You do not have to struggle. I am here for you.