3 Unexpected Tips to Develop a Healthy Relationship with Food

Episode 11. Today's episode I dive into 3 tips to improve your relationship with food that you may not have considered. Free Resources Mentioned in this Episode Anti-Diet Pep Talk: Struggling to regain control of your eating? Grab this audio guide to walk you through the steps to regain control and get in touch with your body in an anti-diet way. 1. Consider Your Environment, But Not in the Typical Way Yes, our food environment 100% matters. However, I want to talk about your social environment. You often hear me talk about autonomy as a key psychological need for long-term habit change. My question for you is, is your environment supporting your autonomy? Or is it consistently thwarting it? Have the Conversations with a Plan I often talk to folks who are in relationships where they don't feel free to be themselves, or they feel constantly criticized or judged for their decisions, food or otherwise. If you have people in your life playing the "food police" and you haven't taken the time to calmly explain to them why it's unhelpful, now is a great time to do so. Even if they don't change their behavior, you have calmly asserted yourself and given yourself the message that your feelings matter, as does your autonomy. I also often talk to folks about assertive communication. Assertive communication often gets confused with aggression or confrontation. But assertiveness is actually the exact opposite of this. It's communicating in a way that's respectful of the other person and of yourself. It isn't blaming or shaming, but simply stating the facts based on your experience. Assertive Communication Example Instead of angrily saying, "that isn't helpful! You are just making things worse!" you could try something like: "When you comment on my eating, it makes me feel self-conscious and anxious. It would be more helpful if you could not say anything." or "I have a hard time not judging myself and trusting my body and it's important for me to learn to do this. I know you think you