The way we relate to food has to do with multiple factors and each person has a way of relating to food. This relationship can be a healthy relationship, but on the other hand it can be one filled with fear, guilt, and dissatisfaction. A bad relationship with food regularly comes from a history where diets, with the aim of controlling body size, have been a constant.
The constant diets they have as a long-term result a disconnection of the bodily signals of hunger, satiety and satisfaction when eating, which lead to wanting to hyper-control everything that is ingested through menus or rigid portions. In other words, people no longer eat because they are hungry, but because the diet says that I should eat; He doesn’t stop eating either because he’s full, but because I’ve finished what I had to; or if satiety comes before finishing what is on the plate, it is scary to pay attention to it because it is scary to be hungry soon. These are just examples of how diets disconnect the body from its needs, and turn the time of choosing, preparing and eating food into an uncomfortable moment.
How can I know that my relationship with food needs attention? If your relationship with food looks like this, it’s time to ask for help:
1. You contemplate starting a diet to “take care of yourself” and right away cravings for “forbidden food” such as desserts, ice creams, chocolates come to you. In your thoughts dominate beliefs that there are good foods (that lose weight) and bad foods (that make you fat).
2. When you finish dieting you have a food binge. that you restricted You feel a loss of control over food, and you find it difficult to stop eating foods that “you should not eat”.
3. You have little trust in the signals of hunger and satiety that your body gives you. The external rules make you doubt your appetite because perhaps they have made you think that it is too soon to be hungry again, or you doubt your satiety and perhaps you should already eat something because they have also told you not to let too many hours go by without to eat.
4. You consider that your body is different and needs to eat less than otherss, since it does not fit into the “ideal body/weight”. Stories of poor relationship with food commonly stem from a poor relationship with body image. Doing a job to make peace with the body and take care of it without fighting with it, is one of the most important bases to make peace with food.
5. You are less and less able to endure a diet. Perhaps the first diet was very “successful” because you lost weight, but it is becoming more and more difficult for you to maintain it and you cannot lose weight easily.
6. You have a ritual to say goodbye to food before starting another diet. It is commonly known as “the last supper” where you usually eat everything that will not be possible to eat on the diet (“bad” foods) and on some occasions, it can be thought that it will be a farewell forever. Does it sound familiar to you?
7. Avoid socializing so as not to break the diet, since you fear that you will not be able to control yourself. Stopping going to meetings or restaurants because you don’t know what to eat, or you think you’ll eat too much and it scares you, is an indisputable sign of a bad relationship with food. Healthy eating should bring quality to your life, and not subtract.
8. You use coffee, tea, light coke to have energy and be able to perform during the day. If a body does not eat enough energy and nutrients, the body cannot function properly. Stimulants such as caffeine can be allies to relieve fatigue, but they can never do what a complete and balanced diet can.
It is important to know that you can have a healthy diet without having to be on a diet all your life. The wisdom of the body accompanied by correct knowledge, are bases that will provide you with tools to connect with your needs and nurture yourself without fear. A healthy diet should integrate physical, mental and emotional health, in addition to enriching your quality of life.
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