Food is not the boss of me. This statement is a big one, and is often a feeling people who are struggling with eating disorders, poor body image, and a poor relationship with food want to experience for themselves so incredibly badly. This sense of freedom around food is so in many ways, the big benefit of eating intuitively summed up in a quick package. Mindful eating allows us to become more in tune with our bodies and our hunger and fullness signals. In learning to listen to our bodies, and use our bodies to drive our food decisions, we slowly but surely, start to shift the control. When we are in this negative space around food, food is in control. We spend so much time thinking about it, trying to plan it out, engaging in other behaviors to “make up for” our eating, berating ourselves for our eating, and agonizing over social invitations.
When we learn to eat more intuitively, all these things (albeit very slowly), begin to change. We no longer feel the need to spend so much time planning and over thinking our food. Our bodies will tell us what to eat! All those previously stressful situations such as, “oh my gosh there’s food in the breakroom”, “ah friend invited me to dinner what will I eat?!”, “oh no it’s X holiday what will I eat?!” All these things become immensely less charged when we toss out the food rules, honor our hunger and fullness, and just listen to when and what our bodies want to eat. Food truly becomes less important and less emotionally charged. In so many ways, eating in a more mindful way helps us get to that space where we can truly take a step back and say food is not the boss of me!
Questions about taking back control over food or anything else, eating disorder or food and body image related? Please feel free to get in touch!