How To Feel In Control Around Meals Without Food Rules

Let's say you're trying to heal your relationship with food. You're tired of over-analyzing, worrying, and over-thinking everything that you feed yourself. You're thrown into an abyss of what now? You once relied on perhaps eating the same thing at every meal and only eating certain foods because they were deemed "good" foods. On some level, that provided a sense of security, a sense of control, and a sense of structure.

A new sense of structure can be created from how you enter into and out of your meals.

Let's start with entering into a meal.

Are you embracing and welcoming in your hunger?

Does having an appetite feel frustrating?

Do you get nervous about choosing the "right" foods to eat?

If we enter into a meal nervous and stressed out, our digestion will shut down where it will be harder to optimally assimilate any nourishment coming in. Creating a routine for how you enter into every meal can foster a relaxation response in the body where anything you eat can be digested more easily and provide a sense of structure supporting your body in feeling calm and in control.

Some things that can be a part of your pre-meal routine can be:

• Cultivate gratitude for the food coming in

• Take 3 deep belly breaths to relax

• Plate your food in a beautiful way

• Decide what music or podcast you would like to listen to while you eat

• Choose the exact environment you want to eat in

For a lot of my clients, ending a meal can bring up all sorts of emotions.

There can be grief that the pleasurable experience of eating is ending.

There can be fear of did they eat enough to satiate their physical body.

There can be a longing for more food, even when they know their physical hunger has been satisfied.

This is where creating an end of meal routine can be incredibly supportive to transition out of eating as smoothly as possible. And again, creating this end of meal routine will create structure in your day to support your body in feeling calm and relaxed and held.

Some things that can be a part of your end of meal routine can be:

• Thank the food for supporting you to thrive

• Acknowledge that you feel physically full

• Let your body know whenever it needs food again it is allowed to have it

• Reflect on what you enjoyed about that meal

• Get excited about what that nourishment is going to support you in doing the rest of your day

Entering into and exiting out of each meal in this way can support in cultivating a deeper connection with you that each meal gets to be an opportunity to deepen into relationship with your body, create structure to your day you can rely on, and step into trust that your body will guide in what it needs and when. Then, there can be less pressure relying on food to provide a sense of structure as you're getting what you need in a way that feels more nourishing to your body, mind, and soul.