Losing Weight By Changing Your Relationship With Food.

Food is important. It is a necessity for all of us. It provides us with energy to go about our day, supports our immune system to keep us healthy, regulates our hormones to keep us happy and provides everything we need to heal and keep our bones strong. Objectively, it is easy to understand the vital role it plays in our lives. We are biologically wired to enjoy food in order to sustain a healthy lifestyle - the consequences of chronic undereating are just as serious as overeating.

Modern day conveniences have made food highly accessible. It is now easier than ever to indulge in foods from different cultures and convenient sources such as fast-food restaurants. The world has become a literal smorgasbord of delicious options.

Ready access to convenience foods have however had a drastic effect on lifestyle. Many of us are more sedentary than previous generations. This has resulted in many people gaining excess weight. Excess weight affects not only our physical health, but mental health too.

We may try to lose weight to improve our lifestyle, but if we are not careful, we can end up vilifying food along the way.

At the end of the day food is ALWAYS going to be part of life. As such it is important that we develop a positive relationship with it. If we develop bad relationships with food through dieting, we place ourselves in a position to have to continually fight it. This can impact our mental health. A good relationship with food is not just about diet quality, the types of food you eat, or eating protocols you have chosen to implement, but rather how and why you choose the foods that you eat. If you can improve your relationship with food, eating will become a more enjoyable and stress-free behaviour.

Food should be an enjoyable part of life, even when losing weight.

There are a few behaviours that we need to be aware of that can be indicative of a bad relationship with food. You might feel guilty about eating and you avoid or restrict foods that you have deemed “bad”. People may develop a list of rules that isolate ’allowed foods’ which can make eating at social events stressful and a source of great anxiety. Yo-yo dieting and bouncing between restricting and binging, while being drawn towards fad diets or reliance on calorie counting apps are all signs of a bad relationship forming with food.

By building a healthy relationship with food you can experience food freedom while reducing weight to a healthy level. Developing a positive relationship with food isn’t an overnight fix, it takes time and patience. Here are some steps you can take to improve your relationship with food.

1. Eat when you’re hungry

Humans are the only creatures that don’t eat food purely for survival, we eat to celebrate, for enjoyment and cultural reasons. However, this often means food becomes entangled with emotional responses. We eat when we’re happy, we eat when we’re sad. Our reliance on food to curb emotional responses is further muddied by the fact that many of us are conditioned from childhood to “eat everything on our plate”. Overtime, these factors disconnect us with our ability to autoregulate our hunger. We eat when we think we should eat, rather than taking a few moments to consider whether or not we are actually hungry. We are also more inclined to eat everything we have served ourselves, rather than stopping eating once we are satiated.

Spend some time learning to “feel” your hunger levels before eating, and whilst eating take note at what point you are actually full.

1. Practise Mindful Eating

Modern life is full of distractions. When was the last time you ate without watching TV or looking at your phone? These distractions do exactly that, distract us from our natural hunger and satiety signals. Mindful eating involves removing distractions and being present in the moment whilst eating. Take the time to focus on tasting your food, taking note of the texture as you chew and how the experience makes you feel. Be present in the moment. Consciously question how food is affecting your appetite, is the food the solution to the reason you chose to eat? Does eating bring you joy, guilt, or something else? By staying in the moment and consciously evaluating the experience, not only will you form a healthier connection with the reasons behind your food choices, but you’ll also be more conscious of satiety cues.

1. Give yourself permission to eat and let this permission be unconditional

When you create rules around when you can and can’t eat you are likely to experience feelings of deprivation, further fuelling a fear of food. Having a healthy relationship with food means allowing yourself unconditional permission to eat.

Overeating at lunch or indulging in a few snacks doesn’t mean you should deprive yourself when you’re hungry later. This behaviour reinforces the notion that food is bad. Eating when you’re hungry and mindful eating are skills that develop over time. Try not to punish yourself if you feel you may have taken a meal too far. Be kind to yourself.

1. All foods are welcome in your diet

Some foods are more nutritious than others. Some are more nutrient dense, and some are more calorie dense. None of them should be considered “bad”. Labelling them as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ gives them an undeserved power over your emotional wellbeing. Just as the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, the foods that you “can’t have” may appear more tempting. No one single food will affect your overall health. When we eventually break our self-imposed restrictions we are more likely to overindulge as a consequence and feel as if we should make the most of it!

By allowing yourself to consume ‘forbidden’ foods in moderation rather than restricting them, you are far more likely to regulate your intake as you know that they are always available.

1. Seek help from a professional

We understand that your relationship with food is a complex issue with many nuances that can’t always be solved on your own. It can be a challenge to overcome lifelong habits and detangle your emotional relationship with food without professional guidance. Weightless is a team of experienced dietitians, nurses, psychologists and gastroenterologists who take a holistic approach to weight loss, helping you lose weight and keep it off. We understand that everyone’s reason for coming to us is unique, and we provide services that are tailored to each individual to help them reach a healthy, lifelong, sustainable transformation.

If you’re looking to build a strong, healthy relationship with your food, our first piece of advice is to be kind to yourself. Give yourself time to work towards goals that will make you happy and take pride in the small steps that lead you on your journey to health. To find out about all of the services our expert team of health professionals have to offer, contact Weightless today!

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