A person’s relationship with food is very complex, and you constantly need to work on it.

Food is not only a source of nourishment, but it is also a part of a person’s experiences and memories.

A healthy relationship with food is not related to the number of calories, quality of food, macros, not vegetable servings. It’s about the way you let all of that affect you.

An unhealthy relationship with food is usually all about restrictions, telling yourself you can’t eat because you’ll “gain weight”, etc. It can be caused by a variety of factors, and it can lead to eating disorders.

Healing your relationship with food can be a slow, gradual process, yet it can also be a fulfilling one.

Having a healthy relationship with food will make you generally happier and satisfied with yourself, and it will help you enjoy life.

How To Heal Your Relationship With Food

Practice Mindful Eating or Intuitive Eating

Mindful eating or intuitive eating is a great way to start going towards a healthy relationship with food.

What that is essentially is, is listening to your body and building healthy eating habits.

You’re listening to see when you’re hungry, when you’re full, and what your body is craving.

That can also help stop emotional eating, as you’re trying to be mindful and figure out your hunger cues - when you’re really hungry, and when you want to eat just because you’re nervous, sad, upset, or anything similar.

That can also help you with weight loss, as you’ll be eating when your body actually needs it, and not just because you’re bored.

It will help with your relationship with food, because you’ll know you’re actually eating to nourish your body, and that mindset can really be helpful.

It can also help prevent binge eating, as you’re trying to figure out exactly when your body is full and when you don’t need to eat more.

Be Grateful For Your Food

When you have an unhealthy relationship with food, it often means you don’t want to eat just because of the number of the scale.

But something that can help, is practicing being grateful for your food.

You have access to nourishing foods that will fuel your body - take advantage of that. Your body will thank you.

Enjoy Your Food

Food should be enjoyed. Don’t look at it as something that will make you gain weight, something you have to avoid.

It’s something that can fuel your body, and be tasty!

There are tons of ways to eat healthy and delicious food at the same time, so enjoy your food without stressing.

Practice Positive Affirmations

Healing your relationship with food is all about the mindset and your thoughts. So, something that can help you is practicing positive affirmations.

Here are some you can try:

I feel great when I nourish my body.

I am so happy to give my body the food it needs to function well.

I love my body.

I love the food I’m eating because my body needs it and it helps me be healthy.

There are obviously tons of others you can try, just search on Google.

Stop Punishing Yourself For The Food You Ate

You’re on a weight loss journey and you ate a burger.

Okay, so what?

That one burger will not ruin everything you worked for. That one burger won’t set you back 1000 steps.

When you have an unhealthy relationship with food, and you eat something you think is ‘bad’ (see next tip to read more about that), you’ll probably punish yourself by skipping all of your other meals. Or even torturing yourself tomorrow.

Don’t do that. Don’t punish yourself. It’s not healthy and it’s not a good mindset.

Instead, prioritize eating nourishing foods after that, and you’ll get back on track. Just continue with your healthy, nutritious meals after that like it didn’t happen, and STOP stressing about it.

Stop Labeling Food As ‘Good’ Or Bad’

Labeling food as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ is a big part of diet culture and diet mentality.

It’s extremely harmful to anyone who doesn’t have the best relationship with food to begin with.

Yes, there are some foods that are more nourishing, and some that won’t bring as many health benefits, but no food is ‘bad’ food.

A slice of pizza won’t change anything. If you’re focusing on being healthy and eating healthy food that nourishes you, eating a slice of pizza once in a while won’t do you any harm.

In fact, if you’re craving it, it will make you happy and it will stop you from binge eating later (because restrictions always cause binge eating in the end), so it can be a good thing.

Stop Counting Calories

Counting calories & macros can be a useful tool for someone who’s trying to lose weight (even for those who want to maintain or gain weight).

However, it can be really harmful when you have an unhealthy relationship with food.

It can get you to the point where you’re obsessing over every single calories, where you can’t intake anything without measuring it and calculating, and where you’re afraid of foods that are a bit higher in calories.

Therefore, counting calories can actually create an unhealthy relationship with food.

So, don’t do it unless you 100% have a healthy relationship with food, you’re not obsessing over it, and you’re just doing it to get a general idea about the food you’re eating.

Change Your Mindset

This is probably the most important tip when you’re working on healing your relationship with food.

Change your mindset. Instead of looking at food as something that can cause weight gain, look at it as something that gives you energy, makes you healthy, and nourishes your body.

Your body needs food, and it uses it as fuel. So, think about food like that.

Stop Stressing Over The Number On The Scale

When you have an unhealthy relationship with your body, you’re constantly stressing about your body image, and you’re constantly weighing yourself.

That can really be hurtful.

First of all, there are more important things than the number on the scale. Health is one of them. How you feel is another one.

You can be getting healthier and fitter and the number on the scale might not be changing.

If you’re losing weight and building muscle at the same time, you might notice only a small change on the scale, but a big change in how you look and feel.