10 Steps To Peace With Food And Your Body
Filed Under: Body Acceptance
16 September 2022 | Written by Xenia Ayiotis
So much of our thinking is taken up by what to eat, what not to eat, what to wear and how we look…
Imagine if we freed up our thinking around food and our bodies and devoted that time and head space to more meaningful aspects of our lives!
Imagine a peaceful relationship with food and our bodies! What difference would that make?
- How would we show up in the world?
- How would we treat ourselves and treat others?
- How would we feel on a daily basis?
- If we felt peace around our bodies, what ripple effect would this have on those around us?
How do we make peace and end this consuming struggle? Here are some steps to take…
Step 1: Media friend or foe?
We need to question most of the media. We live in a culture where the media tells us that thin = happy, thin = successful, thin = worthy. The media generally promotes an “ideal” body shape and size and when we compare ourselves to this ideal, it often drives us into self-judgement leading to self-hate and feeling “not good enough”. Let’s stop buying into these messages and limit our exposure to adverts and publications that promote an unrealistic body ideal. The majority of women’s bodies do not look like the models in the magazines, they only represent a small percentage of women. If you want to delve deeper into this, read these blogs — “How to Stop Obsessing About Being Thin” and “Do You Compare Your Body?”.
Step 2: Decide and Commit
Make a decision and commit to ending the food and body fight. Make peace your focus and intention. Sign a peace treaty with your body! Here is one as a gift for you.
Step 3: Tell yourself the truth
Tell yourself the truth about your relationship with your body and food. How has this struggle served you? Has it allowed you to have excuses not to do the things you want? Who would you be if you were not at war with food and your body?
Step 4: Take Action
Making peace is an active process – it’s not a passive thought. Taking action towards peace means noticing your judgements about your body or your eating and choosing to let them go or replacing these negative thought patterns with neutral or positive thoughts. It takes awareness and patience. It means not being tempted by a new diet or quick fix. It means practicing self-acceptance which for most of us, is so much harder than self-criticism…
Step 5: Know Your Triggers
Get to know your triggers to body bash, to binge eat or overeat. What are they? Social events, parties, going to the beach, certain people, work events, “comparisonitis”? If you are aware of your triggers, you can plan for them and work around them.
Step 6: Allow it be hard
Don’t expect this to be easy! Can you allow it to be difficult? Even though it may be difficult, it does not need to mean suffering. The way to peace with food and your body can be difficult at times – most change is hard. When we resist the change and push against it, it causes suffering – if we allow it to be difficult – it simply becomes hard work.
Step 7: Experiment
Try different approaches – see what works and what doesn’t work. Experiments are not meant to be perfect. What I know “for sure” is that elimination, diets, willpower and control do not work. They just lead to overeating and more self-hate.
Step 8: Feel your feelings
Easier said than done! We humans are wired for pleasure and to avoid pain. Most of us were not taught how to deal with our emotions. Our typical response to discomfort is to flee, deny or repress. If you find it very hard to deal with emotions and the only way out is to eat then learn to eat emotionally in a mindful way – emotional eating does not need to be emotional overeating!
Step 9: Patience
Be patient it’s a process! It’s almost like a tango – 2 steps forward, 1 step back, 1 step side-ways and 1 forward again. Change is slow. Embrace the process.
Step 10: Watch this
Take a look at these videos of Emma Thompson talking about body image and dieting.
Rinse – Repeat – Rinse again. What I have learned and continue to learn is that the path to a peaceful relationship with food is definitely not peaceful neither is it a linear journey. Being at peace with food and your body does not mean you will never overeat again, or that you will never want to binge. It simply means that when you do overeat or binge that you will treat yourself differently.
Wishing you peace,
Xen
Hello, I'm Xen. Welcome!
I help women all over the world drop the struggle with food and their bodies to create a life of peace and freedom.
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