Healthy eating habits:

Eating when you’re hungry
Noticing how foods make you feel and eating foods that help your body feel good
Eating foods you enjoy
Feeling calm about the eating experience
Eating a variety of foods to satisfy your mental and physical needs
Listening to your body for cues on what to eat, when to eat, and how much to eat
Eating for enjoyment and nutrition
Eating until you’re satisfied

Unhealthy eating habits:

Not eating when you’re hungry
Labeling or judging certain foods or food groups as ‘bad’ or ‘unhealthy’
Restricting foods you enjoy for non-medical reasons
Feeling anxious about the eating experience
Eating foods you don’t enjoy as punishment or in the name of health
Counting calories, macros, grams of fat or sugar; weighing food
Using food as a reward
Eating to the point of discomfort frequently

Disordered eating is common and sometimes seen as normal in our society

I wanted to create this list to promote awareness around what disordered eating looks like. You may want to push back on some of the things you see on the list of ‘unhealthy eating habits’ and that’s okay. You learn a lot of your eating habits in childhood and challenging these can be difficult for a lot of reasons (Does this mean my parents were wrong in telling me certain foods were bad and should be avoided? I’ve been taught to trust outside sources for what I need, could I really trust myself for that wisdom? Surely if I trusted my body, I’d be eating pizza and ice cream for the rest of my days like Dad always joked about, right?) Learning to make peace with food is difficult and can require a lot of work.

Disordered eating usually starts with a person going on a diet

Sometimes suggested at the advice of a well-intentioned friend, family member, or health professional. Maybe they lose a little weight and are praised. This can turn into constant restricting, which often leads to bingeing (and sometimes purging). Purging is the one behavior that everyone can recognize as disordered. If you do this, you know your eating is disordered in some way. But other disordered behaviors are a little sneakier. If you restrict all the time, you can rationalize it in your mind by saying you’re on a diet or are just very careful about your eating. If you binge all the time, you can rationalize it by saying you’re just an emotional eater going through a rough patch. Regardless of how you spin it in your mind, it’s still not healthy!

Disordered eating is encouraged by diet culture

A lot of us hang on to disordered eating habits because they feel safe and we feel supported in them. Our culture is a big supporter of disordered eating habits.. Fasting is in right now and I’ve seen people doing up to 22 hour fasts daily without thinking this was at all disordered. Ignoring your body’s cues and needs for hunger is not healthy! I get that our bodies can survive through long periods of famine, but this does not mean we should subject our bodies to long periods of famine unnecessarily. If fasting works for you, great! But I would challenge you to really ask yourself if it’s working for you. Are you really getting the nutrients you need to get you through the day feeling awesome?

‘Healthy eating’ isn’t just about the foods you put into your body

If your constantly anxious or fearful around certain foods, this is not healthy! Health is not just physical. If you don’t take into account your mental health when considering your eating habits, you’re missing a big part of the picture. You may be the world’s most self-controlled person and only put ‘clean’ unprocessed, whole food into your body. Wonderful, round of applause for you. How do you feel mentally? Do you feel like you’re missing out on life and fun because of it? If you do, what’s the deal with all the restriction? Chances are, if you’re restricting certain foods because you think they’re ‘bad’ and are going to ruin your health, you’re restricting in other areas of your life, as well. Where else might you be restricting yourself from enjoyment and pleasure? And why?! Life isn’t meant for suffering and restricting!

Healthy eating is trusting your body

It can be difficult to trust your body and make peace with food. We are taught to trust others for nutritional advice or general health advice because we’ve been taught that others know better than we do. Eating shouldn’t be hard, though; we’ve been doing it since the beginning of time without dietitians or health experts. We have greatly overcomplicated eating, but it doesn’t have to be this way! Our bodies are wise and know what we need. Tune in to your body and give it what it needs.

If you need extra support, contact me to schedule a counseling appointment!

Ditching diet culture

It’s so difficult to maintain a healthy relationship with food in our culture where dieting is the norm and avoiding certain foods is seen as a good or wise thing to do. We’re taught to feel shame if we indulge in certain foods and learn to resent the bodies we have because of our indulgences. We listen to how culture tells us to eat rather than listening to our bodies because we don’t trust that we know what we need. We restrict ourselves from certain foods, set goals for our food intake, and then berate ourselves when we eat the food we promised ourselves we’d stay away from. This is diet culture and it’s super toxic.

We need food and eating food makes us feel good but somehow we’ve demonized food in our culture. There are certain foods that are bad and you should feel guilty if you eat them. To that I’d say if you stole the food you feel guilty about eating, I’ll allow you to feel guilty. Otherwise, the guilt is a little unnecessary don’t you think?

There’s no reason to feel guilty about something you ate. If you ate it and it made you feel bad physically, you’re already suffering enough. If you ate it and it made you feel good physically, your body is happy with the sacrifice you’ve given it and there’s no reason to feel bad. When we can practice mindfulness around how the food we eat affects our body, we are better able to fuel our body so it can help us meet our needs.

What is mindful eating?

I think people complicate the term mindfulness; think of mindfulness simply as being aware and intentional. You’re eating an orange? Mindful eating would require you to be aware of the orange: it’s flavor, texture, and smell. It would require you to think about the orange’s journey to you and all the hands required to get the food into your body: the farmer, the shipper, the grocery store worker. You would practice gratitude for those hands and for the food itself. You would think about how the food will nourish you and enable you to do the things you love. You would not label the orange as good or bad and you would not judge yourself as good or bad for eating the orange. You would chew slowly and savor the flavor. You would stop eating when your body tells you to, not when the portion you served yourself is gone. Those are the basics: practicing awareness and gratitude around food, thinking about the source and purpose of food, not judging the experience of eating, and listening to your body in regards to it’s needs for food.

What is intuitive eating?

Intuitive eating incorporates mindfulness into it’s principles but also focuses heavily on ditching diet culture and cultivating respect for your body. The focus of intuitive eating is in transforming your relationship with food and your body as our culture often causes our relationship to these things to be pretty poor.

10 Steps to Mindful & Intuitive Eating

Eat when you’re hungry

Hunger is the body’s way of telling us that we’re lacking sustenance. If you try to fight off hunger, you will end up at the refrigerator at midnight gorging on whatever you can get your hands on because your body will be in famine mode. Your body is just trying to survive and hunger is it’s way of letting you know it needs something more than you’re giving it!

Honor your feelings without using food

A lot of times we eat for reasons other than hunger, so we have to learn how to stop chewing our worries and pain. Ask yourself why you’re turning to food and what purpose it’s serving for you. Are you eating because you’re bored? Sad? Angry? Stressed? Food might not be the best way to deal with these emotions; take action to really address your body’s messages of discomfort/pain rather than distracting your body with temporary pleasure.

Respect and practice gratitude for your food

Think about where it came from and how it got to your plate. Acknowledge all the hands it took to bring this nourishment to your body. Remind yourself that it’s a privilege to have access to an abundance of food and respect food for the miracle that it is.

Set the table before eating

Okay, so you don’t actually need to set the table, but you do need to metaphorically set the table. Make time for the meal. Sit down to eat. Relax. Breathe. Get yourself in the right headspace to properly experience the meal.

Enjoy your food!

Don’t be thinking about the ten thousand other things going on in your life and don’t allow any outside distractions (phone, TV, work) while eating. Think about the food you’re putting into your mouth. You have to eat, so you might as well enjoy it!

Eat slowly

Chew your food and put your utensils down between bites. Notice how your body changes with each bite. Pay attention to how your body responds to different foods. Recognize when your body has had enough.

Respect your body!

Give it what it needs! And stop giving it what it doesn’t need! Listen to what it’s telling you and respond appropriately. If your body tells you it needs more of something (food, exercise, rest, etc.), give it that! If it tells you it’s had enough, honor that! Your body is not a machine and it’s needs are always changing. Honor your body and it’s needs.

Eat (mostly) for nourishment

Food is nourishment for your body. Think about what foods give your mind and body the energy and strength they need to thrive and choose food based on these factors.

But stop labeling and judging your food

If a food makes you feel good physically and mentally, stop labeling it as bad! When we set certain foods or food groups as off-limits and restrict our access to them, this makes us want them more! When we allow ourselves to freely eat the foods that make us feel good, we’ll stop gorging on ‘restricted’ food.

And please stop labeling and judging your eating habits as good or bad

We must get out of the diet mentality and stop judging our ‘performance’ around food. If you want to indulge in dessert, do it! This doesn’t make you bad and it isn’t a moral failure. If you continue to judge your eating habits as good or bad, you will continue the cycle of guilt and shame you feel after indulging or eating a ‘forbidden food’.

Interested in starting therapy to begin healing your relationship with food and your body? Shoot me an email or book an appointment with me. Know somebody else who could benefit from this information? Send it to them!