7 steps to improve your relationship with food

Like most people, I had a bad relationship with food. Let me elaborate. I am the type of guy who either eats too much or diets so hard that I don’t eat anything at all. When I am dieting I think about what I eat to the point that it becomes a headache. On most occasions, I even refuse to eat anything while I am at a party or a special occasion, in fear of “breaking the dieting streak”. I know some people may call it commitment, but I’d say “Blödsinn”. It’s a horrible way to live. Because I think too much about eating, it becomes overwhelming and I just give up and get back to my routine of overeating.

Is this routine familiar to anyone? Or is it just me? I would love to have a good body and I know I have the discipline to do it. But I needed some guidance to achieve it. Thankfully I am off of the toxic routine and have been off of it for over 6 months now. I know it is not a lot but for me it is and I don’t think I will go back to my old cycle any time soon. Because the past 3 months have been a stressful time. Therefore if I would have slacked off, then I would have slacked off by now.

I feel what you are thinking, this is another lame weight loss article. Err, you are wrong it is not. I don’t care about your weight. It’s not about losing some weight or losing belly fat or whatever. This article will try to explain the 7 steps I followed to have a good relationship with eating habits. So, without further ado, I’ll explain the 7 steps.

1. Start a food journal

If you only adopt this habit to your lifestyle, then I think this article has served its purpose. Starting a food journal is such a simple activity. But let me tell you, it is the most powerful thing you can do if you want to eat healthily more consistently. Do you know why I say this? Because when we think that we will start to eat healthy from tomorrow onwards, we do it. We follow a brilliant meal plan from youtube, bodybuilding.com, or any other meal planning resources. But the problem is from my experience we only follow it for around 2–3 weeks.

This is pretty self-explanatory. Because each of us faces difficulties and stresses and all of these moods make us get back to our old eating patterns. Now fighting with these urges without being aware of them is like following the child training program from the movie “300” with a broken limb. It is not impossible but highly improbable. That’s where the food journal helps. By having a food journal you not only become a bit more aware of what you eat, but you also will be able to look back on what you have eaten within the past several weeks and whether your diet was improved or gotten worse.

But just remember this, when you decide to keep a food journal please don’t make it any more complicated than it needs to be. Don’t add any styles to it. Don’t take too much time to track your food. Just write the time you had your meal and what you ate. Also, I would suggest using a real notebook instead of some software. But this is highly a personal choice.

2. Write without judging

This is supplementary to step 1. The biggest mistake one can do when writing a food journal is to judge and feel bad about what they eat during the day. This not only makes them feel bad but stops them from writing a food journal in the first place. So, just write what you ate. It doesn’t matter you weren’t supposed to eat that many cookies before you sleep. If you ate them just write them down. It’s not that difficult.

3. Take it slow. Give yourself a break

“No beating yourself up. That’s not allowed. Be patient with yourself.” — Holly Mosier

The worst thing we can do to ourselves is to push past the limits in the beginning. It will just become exhausting, painful and most probably we feel like we cannot take it and give up. We don’t want any of that. What we want is patience and boringness. We want our body and our mind to slowly adapt to the small dietary changes we do. If you want to add some workouts as well, integrate them slowly, add a workout here and there, make small adjustments to your diet. Don’t starve yourself. Don’t eat the vegetables you hate. It won’t last, I promise. Make an actionable and enjoyable plan. Then You’ll do it automatically.

4. Try different types of diets

Do this with a grain of salt. Because some of the most popular diets are not for everyone. For instance, I would never dream to follow a keto diet. Not that I have anything against it, but I don’t feel that it’s my thing. But what worked for me is “Intermittent fasting” (IF) and “One meal a day” (OMAD). I know they are one of the most trendy diet topics for several years now. And it has been for a good reason. There are tons of proven benefits of IF and OMAD. For me, the reason to try and stick to them was the discipline and the flexibility those two diets offer. I would like to talk about how I use IF and OMAD for eating healthy. But that’s a story for another day.

5. Allow yourself to eat unhealthily

Do you know that by trying too hard to avoid eating unhealthy we make those cravings even worse? That’s why we always eat too much after doing a hardcore diet. It’s like having sex after a long time of restrain. I know that’s not a good analogy, but that’s what I feel like 😂. So, don’t be afraid to allow yourself to eat that delicious cheesy pizza, or big mac or whatever. Allow yourself to slack off, enjoy the junk food you eat. Don’t feel guilty about it. Just know that you are eating something that is not so healthy, and do it with awareness.

6. Punish yourself for eating the junk food

I am kidding 😁. But this is true to an extent. Let’s say you had a whole pizza today. If you did that you shouldn’t just continue to eat regularly from tomorrow. You should minimize the amount of food and may even do some fasting. For me, this used to be my OMAD’s. But now I do OMAD’s around 50% of the days and intermittent fasting for the other half. By doing this what happens is you start to remember that, yes you can eat, but not too much, and when you eat unhealthily there is always a consequence. Once you are used to eating it will be much better. I promise.

Just think of it as if you are training a dog or something. If your dog did something really bad you let them know in some way. You do this not because you hate them, but because you want them to learn and get better.

7. Keep experimenting

This is what keeps the whole cycle more interesting. While doing your daily diet just do something different once in a while (Trying OMAD for one day for instance). By doing some experiments once in a while, you not only make the diet more interesting but also have a chance to find a better routine that you are currently following. But remember not to overdo this. Because overdoing it can throw you off from your habits.

So that’s it. Those are the 7 steps I followed to improve my relationship with food. I hope they help you too even in a minor way. And I hope you have a healthy and balanced lifestyle. Thanks ❤️.