Is THIS the missing ingredient in your better relationship with food?
On a scale from 1-10, with 10 being “amazing”, how would you rate your relationship with food?
In my coaching practice, I find that some clients really struggle with their mindset and behavior around food. In fact, I’ve been there before too. I love helping others breakup with this barrier that keeps them feeling stuck.
Here are a few signs I’ve seen that suggest someone might have a poor relationship with food (this list is not exhaustive, and these are just a few examples)…
Having “good food” and “bad food” lists
Stressing about social situations where food is involved
Using food to soothe stress, sadness, or other heightened emotions
Having guilt, shame, or disgust with oneself after eating certain foods
Frequently feeling a need to slash calories, “detox”, completely eliminate sugar, or give up all.the.carbs to control weight
Using compensatory behavior like additional exercise or excessive food restriction after a meal
With time and effort (and another key element that I’ll get into below), you CAN break through these barriers that have kept you in a frustrating cycle for so long. You can grow and evolve. You can improve your relationship with food!
Over the years, I’ve seen a common pattern emerge in my clients who are able to find more freedom around food…
They are able to check the voice of their inner critic.
They seek abundance, not restriction.
They can give themselves a blank slate and don’t dwell on the past.
They stay objective, and take a birds’ eye view of perceived setbacks.
They practice self-compassion!
Guess what? This pattern isn’t a fluke, and there is more and more research coming out to back up the benefits of being nice to yourself. Self-compassion (sometimes called self-acceptance) might be the missing ingredient you need to finally breakup with extreme food rules, constant dieting, all-or-nothing thinking, and compensatory behavior around nutrition and exercise.
In a 2021 study, researchers worked with 100 mothers and looked at the relationship between their perceived self-compassion and corresponding eating behaviors. In the study, the authors define self-compassion as, “extending kindness to oneself in times of perceived inadequacy or general suffering”.
This study found that moms with more self-compassion had a higher likelihood of eating better-quality food, possessed more self-esteem, and were less likely to emotionally eat or use compensatory behavior to control their weight.
Like most research, there were limitations to this study, and I sincerely hope this area will receive more attention in the future. However, these recent findings suggest that hating yourself into a healthier lifestyle probably won’t work.
If you truly want to improve your relationship with food, and think it might help to have support along the way, then let’s talk.