How To Change Your Relationship With Food

Changing your relationship with food is about shifting from a mindset of restriction, guilt, or mindless consumption to one of mindfulness, balance, and nourishment.

This can be a significant challenge for many because eating is deeply tied to culture, habits, and emotions.

Food often represents comfort, tradition, and social connection, making it hard to break patterns or reframe perspectives.

Emotional triggers like stress or boredom can also lead to unhealthy choices, while longstanding habits or cultural norms may feel too ingrained to adjust.

However, recognizing these influences is the first step toward creating a healthier, more balanced approach to food that works for your lifestyle and goals.

Here are some practical steps you can take, in no particular order:

1. Redefine the Purpose of Food

• View food as fuel for your body and brain, not just a source of pleasure or stress relief.
• Focus on how food makes you feel, like improving energy, mood, and performance.

2. Practice Mindful Eating

• Slow down during meals. Savor the flavors, textures, and smells of your food.
• Might sound silly, but CHEW your food more while you're exploring the flavors, textures and smells.
• Set down your fork or spoon between bites. Shoveling it in as fast as you can like you're burying the evidence does not support your goals.
• Check in with your hunger and fullness cues before, during, and after eating.

3. Ditch the “Good” vs. “Bad” Mindset

• Instead of labeling foods as “good” or “bad,” focus on their roles in your diet.
• Ask, “How can this food support my goals?” rather than feeling guilty about indulging occasionally.

4. Learn About Nutrition

• Understanding macronutrients (protein, fats, carbs) and micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) can make food choices more clear for you.
• Use easy to access and easy to understand resources like Forever Strong by Dr. Gabrielle Lyon or podcasts by experts like Dr. Andrew Huberman or Dr. Peter Attia to deepen your knowledge. These resources are put together beautifully for some extremely digestible (no pun intended) brain gains that'll enhance your life.

5. Prep and Plan

• Meal prep with simple, macro-friendly recipes that suit your lifestyle. Remember, failing to plan is planning to fail.
• Have a backup plan if things don't go exactly as planned (you know they won't.) My backup plan is always to hit up the grocery store where you can find things like rotisserie chicken, deli meat, fruit, cottage cheese/yogurt and things of that nature. Last resort: find the fast food place and get plain old grilled chicken (or burger) without the bun and the other fixins. Find a side that is better than French fries - you know they probably have a salad or fruit of some sort. 
• Prioritize foods that you enjoy and that align with your health and performance goals.

6. Challenge Food Rules and Diet Myths

• If you’ve been influenced by restrictive diets, QUESTION THEIR VALIDITY. Do these diets actually make sense? Do they get you closer to your goals or send you down a rabbit hole that you get stuck in?
• Find a balance that works for you, such as including treats mindfully instead of eliminating them.

7. Address Emotional Eating

• Identify triggers (stress, boredom, sadness) that lead to mindless snacking.
• Develop alternative coping mechanisms like walking, training, journaling, or talking to a friend. This can be very helpful when you recognize that the behavior you want to change is right in front of you -- get distracted with something healthy and you'll probably feel really good about your decision.

8. Set Small, Sustainable Goals

• Start with manageable changes, like adding a serving of vegetables to each meal or reducing sugary drinks throughout the week (like those freaking Pumpkin Spice Lattes).
• Celebrate progress rather than perfection. And remember, sometimes no change (like things didn't get worse) is also progress.

9. Build a Positive Environment

• Surround yourself with people, content, and tools that support a healthy food mindset.
• Follow social media accounts focused on education and balance rather than restriction or extreme ideals. Always vet your sources and find people that you trust to share accurate information rather than clickbait for popularity.

10. Consider Professional Support

• A dietitian or nutrition coach (me) can help tailor strategies to your individual needs and be right there with you every step of the way to adjust things as needed. This is a huge advantage for those looking to make a real change in their life.
• Just because this is number 10 on the list doesn't mean it's a last resort. It may even be a great step 1.

Changing your relationship with food is a marathon, not a sprint. You CAN break free from food guilt, binging, and continuous bad choices, it just takes work. Are you willing to put in that work?