How to Change your Relationship with Food

How to Change your Relationship with Food & Health

The Power of “Being,” the Science Behind Journaling, & My Intention-Setting Process

What is Food Freedom? What would it mean for you to make peace with food? This course is all about how to change your relationship with food so you can live your healthiest life. Because how we think and feel about food, about our health, about ourselves—all of this shapes how we behave and how we live our lives.

We focus so much on what to do to be healthy: how to eat, how not to eat, how to exercise. (Especially around New Year’s.) But, what does it mean to be healthy? Throughout this course, we’ll be exploring how to change your relationship with food so you can truly be healthier—without having to stress about calories, macronutrients, or diets.

In my experience, all of this stress only got in the way of my health and wellness. I knew all of the things about nutrition and exercise and diets! Yet, it wasn’t until I worked on reducing my stress and developing a healthy relationship with food that I was able to make real progress. (With my physical health, my mental health, my emotional wellness and, yes, weight loss.)

Today’s video will give an overview of what the Food Freedom course is, and I explain how this course came to be as I healed my own relationship with food.

From Human Doing to Human Being

Let’s start with a concept I’ve shared before that always seems to support me, wherever I’m at on my journey, and it’s really become foundational in my approach to life.

Be —> Do —> Have

In case you don’t remember—this framework came from my experience at the Hoffman Process years ago, and it resonated with me so much that I got “Be” tattooed on my arm the day I left!

The idea is, if we want to have things we want in life, we must do things to get them–but this doing must happen from a place of being for it to be meaningful and fulfilling.

When I was first exposed to the concept, I was confused.

After years of exploring, I realize it’s a bit of a “paradigm shift” more than a “perspective shift.” It goes against all my conditioning—which told me “do the things you’re supposed to do, and you’ll be happy and successful.”

And yet, no matter how much doing I did, I was left unsatisfied. Money, followers/subscribers, and “stuff” weren’t bringing the happiness I was told they should. It wasn’t until I started exploring this concept of “being” that my experience started to shift.

And, when it comes to how to change your relationship with food, I believe that being is at the core of the process.

What is “Being?”

You’ll have to explore it for yourself, of course. For me, I’ve found it’s being right here, right now—present and aware of this moment, without trying to get anywhere else.

That doesn’t mean I don’t have goals or dreams, but rather, I aim to be present as often as possible, instead of lost in the future, constantly waiting to get somewhere else. After all, I can only really be here right now—who knows if and when the future will come? When I can be here and present more often, I can enjoy moments fully, and make authentic, intentional choices.

Here I am, rambling in the abstract, after telling you this series was going to be about science. I assure you—it is! Even “being” is science-backed!

The Benefits of Journaling

One of the main ways I explored being within myself is through journaling. Numerous scientific studies have shown that journaling has a wide range of benefits—some more obvious, and others rather surprising:

• increases mindfulness
• boosts memory
• enhances communication skills
• improves cognitive abilities
• aids in stress management
• can ease symptoms of depression, anxiety & other mental health conditions
• increases emotional intelligence
• greater self-confidence & self-efficacy
• better sleep
• reduced blood pressure
• strengthens immune system
• faster wound healing
• decreased symptoms of asthma, arthritis, and other health conditions

And specifically, journaling about traumatic, stressful or otherwise disturbing experiences has the most measurable impact on our overall wellbeing. Journaling about these events can not only help us to process them, but research also indicates that it leads to more positive moods and fewer illnesses when compared to journaling about everyday experiences alone.

Even one 15-20-minute journaling session can be beneficial—even better if you can make time to do it three or four times a week, even for a few minutes per day!

How to Change your Relationship with Food

Start Journaling!

If you are curious about how to change your relationship with food and become more present in your life, I encourage you to keep a journal alongside this course, so you can put some of what resonates in your mind down on paper. Any notebook or even loose-leaf paper will do!

It’s not about keeping the journal to read later (although reflecting can be very helpful), but rather, it’s about translating it from your consciousness as a jumble of concepts, into actual words and phrases.

I’ll be including a journal prompt every day for your own reflection, with a downloadable PDF if you’d like to print it out and explore there.

Today’s Journal Prompt:

My Intention-Setting Process

Transformation Requires Transition

I hope you can enjoy this voyage and benefit from the free content in this course. There is no one path or set method for how to change your relationship with food – the journey takes time, and it will be different for each person. Through daily work and practice, as we’ll dive into throughout this course, healing and changing your relationship with food is possible.

My goal has become to help people stress LESS about food and health, so they can actually heal! This means, in many ways, letting go of what we thought health “should” be, and getting to know ourselves. It’s a journey—that’s for sure.

Be patient and kind with yourself!

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