For a better relationship with food…

Photo by Caju Gomes on Unsplash

For a better relationship with food, start where you’re at.

I was going to write about how to develop a great relationship with food.

And then I realized that of the 100+ people I’ve worked with, only a fraction start with this goal. Even though–for nearly all of them–this is the most surprising and satisfying outcome of our work.

What is a great relationship with food?

It shows up in comments that I heard just this week like:

• I chose to get a side salad at a burger restaurant this weekend. Because I wanted it. And I was like, “who am I?”

• I celebrated my anniversary with my husband at a winery this weekend and I had a little too much wine… and it was so fun and I didn’t feel guilty about it!

• I was visiting my aunt last weekend who was 70 and was making comments about dieting and her body… at 70! And I felt kinda bad for her. And I’m like, “that’s not going to be me!”

• What felt good this week was that I didn’t actually think about food that much. I had what I needed and I spent my mental energy thinking about other things.

Each of the people who I paraphrased above started their nutrition journey with me with the goals of losing weight and getting stronger.  

A better relationship with food? Sure–sounds great. But really they just wanted to stop feeling so… meh.

Most people are simply more motivated to move away from how they are feeling (tired, weak, frustrated, ashamed) than to move towards any kind of positive relationship with food or their bodies.

And that’s ok.

In my own path to a healthy relationship with food, I was no different. I also wanted to lose weight and was always restricting food in some way. 

Then I started working out at a CrossFit gym in 2012 and was introduced to the Paleo diet.  

I was always down to diet, so I tried it and stumbled into a way of eating that would–for the first time–inch me closer to a better relationship with food.

Rather than a restrictive diet of Rice Krispies and applesauce–which would eventually lead to binging on Potbelly sandwiches and Coldstone–I was following a (still restrictive) diet of squash soup and bacon-topped salads.

But my frenzied, uncontrollable binges started to lose their edge. The feeling I used to get when a piece of cake hit my lips–a euphoria that would drive me to eat long past the point of fullness–dulled.  

The cake was nice, but I didn’t feel as insane when I ate it.

My motivation for trying Paleo was rooted in body hatred, but it opened my eyes to the fact that the intense cravings I’d had before weren’t inevitable.  

Before, I thought that everyone had cravings, and life was about figuring out how to resist them (oof).

But, as it turned out, a major factor in my inability to control myself around tempting foods was not a lack of willpower, but a lack of proper nourishment.

I don’t follow a strict Paleo diet anymore (I don’t follow any diet), but I do choose colorful whole foods and a variety of proteins to form the backbone of what I eat most days. I like how they taste and how they make my body feel.  

I also ate two donuts today and enjoyed them. I haven’t binged in years.

If you had told me this kind of relationship with food was possible 15 years ago, I wouldn’t have believed you.  

I’d have said, “Not me. You don’t know me.”

And so for most of my clients, I don’t even bring it up. At least not at first.  

Most clients can’t remember times in their lives when they were off of a diet, off thinking about a diet, or off feeling shame about their diet or their bodies.

We rarely see examples of people with good relationships to food around us, and disordered eating habits are encouraged and normalized in our culture.

The truth is, building a positive relationship with food–for most people I’ve worked with–is a byproduct of working on habits that move them closer to their weight goals.  

As someone who has emerged from the diet culture matrix, this used to frustrate me. But the more I work with people, the more I realize that the only place to start… is exactly where they are at, with zero shame or judgment.

If we follow the appropriate steps for achieving sustainable weight loss, then their relationship with food will improve.  

Why? Because in the end, it is the thing that will allow them to 1) maintain their progress, 2) feel intentional, empowered, and autonomous in their decisions, and, possibly…

3) realize that the weight goal they had wasn’t as meaningful to them as they originally thought it was.

But we don’t start there. And you don’t need to either. Instead, we usually start here:

• Add in some foods that grow from the ground that you enjoy.

• Add in some protein, and include some fish (or fish oil).

• Slow things down when you eat, and notice the smells, temperatures, textures, flavors.

• Check in with your body throughout the day. Notice what it’s feeling. Be curious.

We focus on the foods, thoughts, and behaviors we are adding, not the ones we are eliminating.  

Feeling pulled in a direction and unable to resist–whether it’s around food, alcohol, shopping, people, or whatever it is–is a powerful message. But the message is not that we are weak.  

It’s often that we are in need of some form of nourishment.

Geneen Roth writes, “Obsession is an unexpected path because it relentlessly points you back to yourself; whenever you want to eat when you are not hungry or don’t want to stop when you’ve had enough, you know something is occurring that needs your attention and kindness.”

Start where you’re at. Whatever is motivating you to change, lean into it. You don’t have to believe that a better relationship with food is possible to take the first step.  

Just start by eating (or doing) more of what nourishes you.