Your relationship with food is how you think, see, and eat it. Food is necessary in life, but it should not take over our life or our headspace. Excessive dieting, trauma, bad body image, and over-exercising can all lead to having a bad relationship with food. This is not good because over time a bad relationship with food can lead to an eating disorder, weight cycling, high blood pressure, high-stress levels, weakened immune system, and increased risk for heart disease.

To heal your relationship with food you need to implement the principles of intuitive eating. Intuitive eating is an eating style where you eat when you want, what you want, and however much you want. Now it is a lot more complex than what it seems like because in intuitive eating, you are eating food based on listening to your stomach, your cravings, your hunger, and your emotions. Intuitive eating is not mindless eating and it is not a diet. There is no restriction in intuitive eating. This eating pattern is created to be utilized every day over a life span. Everyone is invited to follow intuitive eating, and this eating pattern is meant to benefit all people.

Intuitive eating became popularized by two dietitians Elyse Resch and Evelyn Tribole, who wrote the book called Intuitive Eating. In the book, they created 10 major principles which are to be followed in order. Here I will summarize the first 8 principles, but I highly encourage you to read the full book in order to gain the best understanding of the principles. While going through the principles start with the first principle, learn it, understand it, and implement it into your life before trying to implement the proceeding principles.

Hunger signals are what tell us when we are hungry or full, and they are regulated by a multitude of hormones in our body. These signals need to be trusted in order to have a healthy relationship with food, so when you are hungry eat, and when you get full slow down or stop eating. Now it is not as easy as it sounds because there are many variables that get in the way of listening to your hunger signals. If you come from a past of restriction, you may especially have a harder time knowing if you are hungry or full because restriction can put these hormones into overdrive or suppression. The goal here is not to eat less; the goal is to learn when you are most comfortable to start and stop eating and to avoid extreme hunger and fullness. Here we will discuss how you can learn to listen to your hunger signals.

Emotional eating is when we use eating as a coping mechanism for when we are sad, angry, depressed, etc. Eating as a coping mechanism is not always a negative thing, it is normal to use eating as a coping mechanism here and there. The issue lies in the regularity of your emotional eating and how much you eat when you use it as a coping mechanism. There is a difference between having an ice cream on the way home from a hard day at work versus being depressed and eating an entire gallon of ice cream plus a box of cereal until you feel sick. If the ladder is the case, it is time to dig deeper into the root causes of this behavior and ways to overcome emotional eating. The goal is to not have emotional eating as your only coping mechanism when you are feeling a negative emotion. Follow the proceeding steps in order for the best results.

You can still have disordered eating patterns even though you may not be diagnosed with an eating disorder. Disordered eating is when you engage in patterns that create an unhealthy relationship with food. To live a healthy life, you need to make peace with food and see it as satisfaction and a way to fuel your body. Today, the media often portrays food as only satisfaction or only as fuel, which creates disordered eating patterns.

Having a disordered relationship with food can lead to obsessive thoughts with food, slower metabolism, weight cycling, decreased self-esteem, high stress, nutrient deficiency, and damaged gut health and digestion.

These symptoms should not be used as a diagnosis for an eating disorder; they are just common symptoms of people who have a bad relationship with food. Though, many of these symptoms can lead to an eating disorder depending on severity. Refer this post to someone you know who may be struggling with these symptoms of disordered eating.

Keto, Atkins, paleo, juice cleanses, OMAD (one meal a day), IIFYM (if it fits your macros), Jenny Craig, and Weight Watchers are all some of the most popular fad diets that people fall victim to trying. It is estimated that 45 million Americans go on a diet each year. The common denominator between all of these diets is that they all make you eat a lower amount of calories by restricting types or amounts of food you eat to promote weight loss. They are usually backed by a small amount of science without many long-term trials. You know these diets because most of them have a large social media presence to make them trendy. Think about a time where you or someone you know has tried one of these diets, how long could they stick to it and keep the weight off? Were they satisfied on the diet? The truth is, we are not meant to eat only foods based on a strict diet plan with no flexibility.

You can still have disordered eating patterns even though you may not be diagnosed with an eating disorder. Disordered eating is when you engage in patterns that create an unhealthy relationship with food. To live a healthy life, you need to make peace with food and see it as satisfaction and a way to fuel your body. Today, the media often portrays food as only satisfaction or only as fuel, which creates disordered eating patterns.

Having a disordered relationship with food can lead to obsessive thoughts with food, slower metabolism, weight cycling, decreased self-esteem, high stress, nutrient deficiency, and damaged gut health and digestion.

These symptoms should not be used as a diagnosis for an eating disorder; they are just common symptoms of people who have a bad relationship with food. Though, many of these symptoms can lead to an eating disorder depending on severity. Refer this post to someone you know who may be struggling with these symptoms of disordered eating.

Intuitive eating is an eating style where you eat when you want, what you want, and however much you want. Now it is a lot more complex than what it seems like because in intuitive eating, you are eating food based on listening to your stomach, your cravings, your hunger, and your emotions. Intuitive eating is not mindless eating and it is not a diet. There is no restriction in intuitive eating. This eating pattern is created to be utilized every day over a life span. Everyone is invited to follow intuitive eating, and this eating pattern is meant to benefit all people.

The advantages to intuitive eating include being able to have a healthy relationship with food, being able to have a food-obsessed mind, being able to eat without overstuffing yourself to discomfort, and intuitive eating is also shown to benefit many medical markers like blood pressure, cholesterol, and weight stabilization.

Intuitive eating became popularized by two dietitians Elyse Resch and Evelyn Tribole, who wrote the book called Intuitive Eating. In the book, they created 10 major principles which are to be followed in order. Here I will summarize each of the 10 principles, but I highly encourage you to read the full book in order to gain the best understanding of the principles. While going through the principles start with the first principle, learn it, understand it, and implement it into your life before trying to implement the proceeding principles.