Healing my relationship with food

One of the hardest parts of my own healing journey up to now has been improving my relationship with food, and as I feel this is something many others might share wanted to drop a few words on the topic. As ever, everyone’s journey is unique so all of the below is just suggestion, ideas and discussion fodder!

The background

In my childhood - which was loving but not especially emotionally literate - food became a way to express care, and I’m sure this is common for many families. For me food also became a coping mechanism, used as a distraction when I had difficult emotions that I didn’t feel safe to share or even to look at. So food was at once a place of love and safety but also of fear and hiding away.

What did this actually look like for me? From a young age I found it hard to control my eating, overeating not only at mealtimes but regularly snacking, in a way that often felt compulsive. Buffets and barbeques were my dream but also my nightmare as I just would not be able to stop, but there were also middle-of-the-night snack runs, sugar-laden snacks and so on.

Now I can’t say that my relationship with food is fixed but it is certainly the best it has ever been. But boy has it taken a lot of work. I am 43 now and honestly most of my adult life has seen me veering between overeating / beating myself about it / trying to make it all OK through exercise (which sometimes only served to heighten the fluctations). And honestly the thing that makes my relationship with food the best it has ever been is that overall my relationship and love for myself is the best it’s every been; yet if you are struggling with compulsive eating (or compulsive anything) then you might want to try some of the specifics outlined below.

What changed?

Here are some of the ideas and practices that really helped me:
- Mindful eating: Seems obvious but turning the radio or TV off, sitting up straight, putting my phone away and really bringing presence to the act of eating. This can actually be surprisingly hard, and I really recommend trying this even once and just seeing how it feels to eat without distraction.
- Ayurveda: A holistic healing practice that originated thousands of years ago in India, Ayurveda suggests indiviualised ways to eat and look after ourselves, based on our specific constitutions. I spent some time doing some research and even went to visit an ayurvedic practicioner. It was really interesting to learn a different way of thinking about foods and realise the wisdom of treating our self-care individually. Being in flow with different times of day and seasons is also a big part of it and this has definitely helped me (see fasting section below). I by no means follow a strict Ayurvedic diet these days, but I have definitely incorporated some of what I learned into my daily eating practices.
- Food Diary: One of the tools that helped me the most. Every time I ate something I would make a note of the time, what I was and also my mood. I found this so helpful in just bringing that moment of pause and awareness to any eating. Though I didn’t necessarily go back over the diary too much, there were definitely some easy to spot patterns of how low mood drew me to particular foods or eating in general.
- Gratitude / Prayer: There is something quite beautiful about taking a moment to offer thanks before a meal. I tend to pick one thing or aspect to be thankful for - that might be anything from the bee that pollinated the plant, the shopkeeper who sold me the product, the chef whose recipe I used or frankly whatever else pops into my head. As with the food diary, as much as anything this can also just act as a little break to help remind me that I am trying to eat with awareness.
- Intermittent Fasting: This has been a really interesting practice for me. There are various ways of doing it but essentially you are increasing the gaps between meals. These days I typically don’t eat breakfast so often have around 16 hours between dinner and lunch the next day - but going back to the Ayurveda point, this is only what works for me, I found breakfast quite easy to lose but some people need to eat little and often, others might find it impossible to skip breakfast but easier to skip meals later in the day. As well as feeling lighter this practice has also been really instructive for me that I don’t need food all the time and as a reminder that sometimes (in fact often) the signs that I am hungry might be something else going on for me. IMPORTANT NOTE: If you do want to try any type of fasting then it’s really important to build this up slowly - extend the window where you don’t eat by an hour at a time rather than just going all in with a longer fast; and listen to your body, if you are feeling weak or something isn’t right then eat!
- Silence and contemplation: It might seem tangential but I have been working with this a lot recently. When I notice difficult emotions - whether that’s sadness, anxiety or whatever - rather than trying to ignore them I am actively choosing to sit with them (the bath has been a great contemplation place for me but anywhere quiet will do). For me this feels like finally getting closer to the root cause - how can I acknowledge the parts of me that feel challenged right now, and rather than trying to ignore them actually listen to and even love them. Like I said, a little tangential but actually this kind of work is at the heart (I hope!) of solving the problem for good rather than applying short-term fixes (many of which, like those above, are still valid and helpful as part of the journey!)

I will finish by saying that the above are small suggestions of some things that helped me but in some cases more serious intervention might be needed (whether that’s therapeutic, medical, recovery programmes etc.) and so I appreciate anything I offer here is only tip-of-iceberg type stuff. Thanks for reading.