Healthy Eating Skills For A Healthy Relationship With Food
We have to make multiple food choices every day, and navigating successfully around the food environment is a skill in itself. Most of us are confronted daily by delicious-looking, cheap and easy to prepare foods, so we’re never far from temptation. Being armed with some strategies to draw upon to eat in an enjoyable, balanced way can help us to feel in charge of food. Eating ‘well’ isn’t just about eating nutritious foods- an ability, and desire, to make good food choices most of the time is also a reflection of a good relationship with food. If you feel that your eating habits could do with some improvement, self-awareness is the key to change. By becoming more aware of what, how and why you eat, you can start to address overeating and gain insight into why you might not be making food choices that are in your own best interest.
Having healthy eating skills isn’t about knowing the calories in foods or being able to say no to ‘bad’ foods- it’s about listening to the body and eating accordingly, knowing which foods/food combinations nourish the body and satiate you (both physically and psychologically), and having your own personalised way of eating that suits you, rather than feeling the need to rely on a ‘rule book’ about what to eat and what to avoid. It’s also about giving yourself permission and choice around food, and being able to manage rather than avoid temptation, whilst working out what your needs are in any given moment- maybe it’s not food you need, perhaps it’s something else. It’s also about being able to eat in balance, not swinging between extremes. When we’re doing things in balance, we tend to feel happier and more at peace.
“Quite honestly I feel like a different person because of the way Emma has helped me to feel more free around food and eating”.
The Problem With Diets
If a diet plan gives you generic guidelines about what and how much to eat, this can prevent you from thinking for yourself and connecting with which meals and snacks are best for you, and which portion sizes are right for you. Although clear guidelines can be helpful, such diet plans and accompanying advice don’t tend to include exploring a person’s relationship with food. The individual might also try to ignore feelings of hunger if they’ve eaten the ‘prescribed’ amount of food, feeling that they’re 
not allowed any more food- but getting into a habit of ignoring the body’s signals can cause disconnect between mind and body. Feeling hungry whilst trying to lose weight of course makes diet plans hard to stick to for most people. Instead, it’s better to identify which foods/food combinations and amounts of foods are satiating for the individual, helping them to avoid blood sugar peaks and dips and frequent hunger. Understanding blood sugar management is a key part of weight loss and long-term weight control. If it helps you to have a sustaining snack between meals, then it’s a good idea to eat one or two snacks per day if it helps you to avoid getting overly hungry. Most diet plans recommend snacks between meals if required, but it’s important to choose snacks that sustain you- a piece of fruit on its own might not suffice. If you feel hungry, then it’s a good idea to eat something rather than ignoring internal cues that are telling you it’s time to eat- listen to your body, not the diet plan.
Being ‘on’ or ‘off’ a diet can also encourage an all-or-nothing mindset of either being ‘good’ (on the diet) or ‘bad’ (off the diet); you might assess your eating as either ‘success’ or ‘failure’. Read my blog post: ‘Stop Yo-Yo Dieting With Middle-Way Eating’. If it helps you to follow your own rules or ‘personal guidelines’, then incorporate these into a flexible and enjoyable personalised plan of your own, rather than following someone else’s rules. Going on diets can also encourage an obsession with the weighing scales, when in fact a person’s priority might be to improve their relationship with food- weight loss can then be a positive by-product. Avoid going on diet plans where your favourite foods are forbidden or significantly limited- instead, learn to mindfully eat the foods you love in moderate amounts so that you don’t end up craving forbidden foods or feeling guilty when you eat a ‘bad’ food. If you can stop relying on diets to control your eating you’ll feel more liberated and empowered, rather than yo-yo dieting which is often accompanied by weight re-gain.
“One of the biggest realisations was the detrimental effect that years of trying different diets had had on my relationship with food”.
Don’t Just Focus On Weight Loss- Address Your Relationship With Food Too
I meet people who weigh themselves daily. Sometimes this is because they don’t trust themselves around food and they feel they need to constantly keep an eye on their weight for fear of weight gain. Similarly when people want to lose weight and start a diet, they can get fixated on the weighing scales. It’s good to have a goal, but people tend to rely purely on willpower to eat less and lose weight- yet willpower alone just isn’t enough. If a person is an emotional 
eater they might be really focused on how much weight they’re losing for a time, but if they tend to rely on food to ‘cope’, it’s unlikely that they’ll keep losing weight for more than a few weeks, or even days. It can be very motivating when weight loss occurs, but it can also be very disheartening when the scales isn’t showing weight loss, perhaps because a person isn’t sticking to the diet. It’s really important to explore your relationship with food and address any problematic eating habits first, or alongside, a weight loss goal.
Many people have had little opportunity to address their relationship with food- or perhaps they’re fearful of exploring their relationship with food. I help clients to build self-awareness and self-insight, enabling them to identify why they might regularly overeat or make poor food choices (when they’re not following a diet), and then together we work on finding strategies to help them improve their relationship with food. For those with a strong inner critic, I find that once they start to understand themselves a bit better they’re able to start being more self-compassionate, and they feel more empowered and motivated because they finally understand the whys. Importantly, I also help individuals to address any lack of self-belief they might have in relation to achieving healthier habits and long-term weight management, which often stems from a long history of yo-yo dieting along with cycles of weight loss and weight re-gain.
Steadier Weight Loss Means More Flexibility
In our ‘quick fix’ society of instant gratification many people are impatient to lose weight, particularly if they’ve lost weight quickly in the past on a rapid weight loss plan. In addition, some might feel that in order to control their eating they need to be on a restrictive diet because they don’t trust themselves around food. By abandoning the dieting mindset and instead focusing on long-term behaviour change, it’s possible to break free from yo-yo dieting. Small, consistent changes is a good starting point- there’s no point following an eating plan perfectly for a couple of weeks and then reverting back to old eating habits. If something isn’t difficult, it’s enjoyable and fits into your lifestyle, you’re more likely to be consistent. After some time, the new habits you’ve practised can then become second nature. It’s better to make smaller but achievable changes and have slower weight loss than it is to lose weight quickly without embedding new eating habits. Choice and permission around food is important too, and a flexible, less all-or-nothing approach to food. It’s better to have fewer food rules and more flexibility and choice- even if this means slower weight loss, you’ll be eating in a way that’s easier to maintain for the long-term.
Getting Away From Perfect Mode
If people have a tendency to try and follow diets perfectly, they may find that if they ‘blow it’ just once it can feel like failure, and then they write off the rest of the day. This is often a reflection of the very common all-or-nothing mindset. I help clients to work on their all-or-nothing thinking and instead adopt a more flexible attitude towards food- this includes avoiding categorising foods as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Focusing on spotting the positives about your eating over the course of the day rather than honing in on what you did ‘wrong’ can help with addressing an all-or-nothing, catastrophic mindset; there’s no such thing as right or wrong eating. Getting away from ‘data-driven’ eating is important too, where food choices are geared around numbers, ie calories and macros (how many grams of protein, carbohydrates or fat). Rather than eating in a ‘black and white’, rigid way, we can learn to embrace the ‘middle way’. Practising mindfully eating a certain amount of something you fancy, rather than denying yourself that food or completely overindulging in it, can help to shift you out of ‘good’/’bad’ and self-limiting all-or-nothing thinking and behaviours.
Knowledge is Power: Empowering You To Transform Your Eating
When people gain more knowledge about food and nutrition and awareness of their own eating patterns, 
they have a better chance of adopting new eating habits. If they’re more aware of their own personal challenges when it comes to eating, they can then focus on those areas and develop the relevant strategies and skills required to help them feel more in charge of food.
Once clients have an understanding of how their bodies physically respond to certain foods, they’re able to recognise that how they eat is not driven simply by their thoughts and feelings, which could cause the client to label themselves as having no willpower, but also by physiological processes taking place in the body which can influence hunger, cravings and mood. They can then choose the appropriate foods to help them feel fuller for longer and more in control of their appetite (blood sugar control).
Gaining knowledge, skills and self-insight is empowering and can really encourage a ‘can do’ attitude and build self-belief, which in turn can provide the foundation and motivation for creating new habits.
“Emma has helped me so much with understanding my relationship with food.”
Deconstructing Habits
Habits don’t change overnight- it requires experimenting, practice, dedication and patience. I work with clients to motivate and inspire them, to set up new habits they feel are manageable, enjoyable and sustainable, and to help them feel more in charge of their eating without feeling the need to be on a strict diet. Once they’re more in control of their eating, they find that weight loss follows naturally.
My approach to helping people improve their relationship with food and lose weight involves encouraging them to do some self-reflection and look at their current eating and lifestyle habits. In order to ‘de-construct’ unhelpful habits and build more helpful ones, it requires people to become more aware of what, how and why they eat, and to address their mindset. I can work with you to help you create new habits, which relies on first addressing any unhelpful thought processes, values or belief systems which may be negatively influencing your relationship with food.
“Emma suggested small (and often easy) adjustments to my daily habits to help me be more mindful of my eating and start to see food as a friend and not foe”.
Engaging The Brain
We often eat on ‘autopilot’, eating mindlessly without necessarily considering what other options we might have. I help clients to work through various eating and lifestyle scenarios to get them thinking about other options they might have, what they need to consider in any particular scenario to help them make food choices that are in their own best interest, what would be their usual default or knee-jerk behaviour/response and how they might be able to consider alternative, better options. When clients start to ‘engage the brain’, they’re able to start eating more mindfully.
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My Services
My services include a webinar ‘How To Stop Binge Eating’, one-to-one sessions, talks (online, or based in Surrey) and an online fortnightly support group. Click here for a summary of my talks. Click here to purchase tickets for any of my events via Eventbrite.
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