3 Ways to Improve Your Relationship With Food
What does it mean to have a good relationship with food? Those with a healthy attitude towards their diet will usually eat the foods they want, with unconditional permission. They won’t feel guilty about the quantities or the types of food they eat, and nothing is off-limits to them.
But it’s surprisingly rare for people to have such a good relationship with their food. There are countless people with eating disorders and many more with various anxieties or worries about their diet.
There are many ways to experience a negative relationship with food. It might manifest itself in guilt, binge eating, setting rules about foods you can and can’t eat, extreme dieting, or stress when eating around other people. These attitudes can affect social relationships and have an extremely negative impact on your life if you’re not careful.
Food is essential for every single person on the planet to survive, and therefore it shouldn’t provoke these negative responses. It is just as integral to your livelihood as sleep or medicine. To help you enjoy every meal and keep your physical health in good shape you must take steps to improve your relationship with food. Here are three tips to help you get started.
Eat when you’re hungry
In theory, eating is a simple concept. Your body needs nutrients to survive and it produces a feeling of hunger to let you know you need to eat. Eating shouldn’t be fraught with anxiety or emotion; it should be a natural response to this hunger. Rather than focusing on calories or fad diets, just eat when you feel hungry. This is how humans have evolved to relate to food, and it is the healthiest way to give your body what it needs. Don’t restrict yourself if you still feel hungry. Listen to your body’s natural cues and over time you will be better equipped to regulate your appetite and control your food intake.
Practice mindful eating
If you eat without thinking about it, it is easy to let your body take over and end up overdoing it. This is particularly common amongst people who eat in front of the television or while working. Whenever you eat, try to do so mindfully, paying attention to the thoughts and emotions you experience throughout the process. This will help you to determine whether you are hungry and you will savour your food a lot more.
Don’t binge eat
Binge eating is a common way for people to deal with stress, anxiety and other mental health issues. It can provide a source of comfort but it just complicates your relationship with food and leads to other health conditions. If you are prone to binge eating you will be familiar with the sensation of heartburn in particular. But what is heartburn?
Heartburn is a painful sensation in your chest usually caused by acid reflux as a result of eating too much, too quickly. By being more mindful about the quantities of food you eat and the speed at which you consume it, you will reduce the occurrence of heartburn and bloating after meals. If you experience mental health issues like depression and anxiety, talk to a professional or seek more wholesome ways of coping, such as meditation or exercise.
