How To Actually Create A Healthy Relationship With Food

Have you ever felt like your physical, mental, emotional health was so out of control that you tried obsessively control it with food?

Do you constantly think about your food so much, you worry about everything you put in your mouth and wonder if your body will react ?

Do you feel like there aren't any safe foods your body can tolerate right now?

Do you restrict to the point of complete misery and still aren't getting better, which then leads into episodes of binge eating to comfort the physical, mental, emotional pain you are in?

The Bigger Problems That Ensue When You're In Burnout & 'Food Obsessed'

You begin to feel insane and your thoughts drive you so crazy . This food obsession literally sucks all the joy out of eating and creeps into your entire life. You may get moody at meal times, and not really be satisfied with what you are eating. Then you entertain thoughts of secretly binging but become depressed because you know that could derail your health for days. So you commit to slavery over every bite.

You try to find more and more restrictive diets to heal all the myriad of symptoms that come from being in burnout. But, the more diets you find the more you think you could need them all, then you get confused. Or you try to combine some but it's fucking insanity to maintain.

You become a curmudgeon when it’s time to go out to eat with family and friends who just can’t relate to your dilemma. You may even preach at them and annoy them OR worse stop socializing and stay home feeling sorry for yourself. You could end up with a more serious condition such as an eating disorder or malnutrition.

It's possibly you could suffer needlessly for months or years when instead you couldhave a very healthy, satisfying relationship with food. An empowering relationship in fact, which will allow you to live your life with so much freedom.  Imagine enjoying meal times with your family again. And going to social events with friends and family. Spending holidays not freaking out for weeks over what you will have to prepare to take with you so you can control your food.  Imagine how freeing it would be if you learn to trust yourself, trust food, recover deeply and get your life back.

How To Overcome Food Obsession For Good

First off, elimination does not heal you. Restriction does not heal you. Nutrition and nourishment heal you. If you want to solve your food obsession and actually enjoy a healthy relationship with food again, you have to heal your whole self.

You need to shift away from the temptation to obsess because that will stress your body further. Stress only makes your ability to tolerate foods and digest them worse. Your food stress actually makes matters worse in the long run.

Your nervous system needs to be balanced, the stress needs to be reduced and supported. Once you can balance your nervous system you can begin to heal the root of the problem. Which include two key things; healing your gut and healing your adrenals. Both require a shift in your mindset and how you show up to eat your food.

When you restrict and obsess and try to restrict some more you are only making matters worse. It's common to think a diet will fix your health problems; whether it's weight related or something else. In burnout, you'll usually experience a bunch of problems and often it's the gut symptoms that you want to manage.

The bloating, gas, constipation, excess feeling of fullness, cravings for sweets, erratic appetite. These are all so annoying you would rather control them if possible with food. Which is understandable, and to some degree actually sensible. However, when it becomes a longer term obsession and you aren't physically recovering, it should be evident that path is not the long term answer for you.

The bottom line: It takes a whole body approach that most women can't figure out on their own without expert help.

You CAN Create A Healthy Relationship With Food

This is something I help my clients with in my mind-body coaching work. Here's what one of my clients shared after working together for several months:

"I feel like I have had a divorce with food and food doesn’t even need to be my 'friend' anymore. I can get along with food but I'm not married to it in an unhealthy relationship that didn't nourish me. Now it’s my fuel which feels really freeing because before I used food to self-soothe and cope. My entire life, food was like my comfort. Food was like a ‘person I owed something to now food is a necessary thing like air, I have to think about it in a way but now I don't owe it anything - it doesn’t have to have my heart."

She went from using food to cope, to using food restrictively to try to heal, to finally establishing a health relationship to food. One where she knew the right balance for her bodies current health picture.

This transition for her brought so much relief, that it gave her back her joy around food. It energized her and no longer weighed her mind down so much that she felt like life was a drag. She began to enjoy her hobbies, her kids, her work once she overcame this monumental hurdle.

My Own Story

I hit rock bottom when my burnout got so bad, I could barely get out of bed and take care of my kids, let alone do my job supporting my clients.

I felt guilty for missing out on supporting my kids as much as I wanted to. I missed spending quality time with them, and I just felt awful day to day.

I knew something had to change.

But I didn't really know what, or how to solve it. So I got obsessed with food.

Thankfully, that food 'obsession' was only a temporary fix, and I am grateful because it led me down the path I am on today. But I realized just how problematic it actually was.

You see, food obsession not only didn't solve the problem.

It made life worse...

I had to constantly control my food, I had to make everything from scratch. I worried about everything I was putting in my mouth, thinking would it trigger a reaction in my body. I became a slave.

I also didn't enjoy going out to eat unless I could control where and what or call ahead and find out exactly what ingredients were in the menu items I wanted.

My time spent in the kitchen meant less time for other things. My stress over food meant less time to do things I enjoyed.

What I eventually realized was eliminating, restricting and controlling my food could never deeply or sustainably heal me.

What I really needed was a whole person approach. I needed to acknowledge MORE than just the food I was eating. Food was just one part and the way I was going about it was so rigid it was creating more stress. What I really needed was a focus on whole body nourishment so I could finally heal my adrenals, my gut and nervous system. I needed to restore my mineral burnout. As well as heal my relationship to stress and with food.

Essentially, I created a gentle and more sustainable lifestyle shift that gave me back my time, energy and life. I was freed from the crushing weight of food obsession, and able to spend more quality time with my kids as well as help my budding nutritional therapy practice start to truly thrive.



Now I would love to hear from you...  Tell me, have you ever struggled with food obsession because you were worried  your body would react badly to every single thing you ate? Did restrictive eating create more stress in your life and lead to other problems? Let me know in the comments below...

If you ready to ditch the food obsession and create a healthy relationship with food so you can get back to fully enjoying your life and pursuing your passion, I invite you to book a breakthrough session with me today. We'll get on the phone and discuss your happiest outcome for your health and dreams right now, and if I believe I can support you in that, I'll share how.