Do you struggle with an unhealthy relationship with food?

Trust me, I understand.

For me intuitive eating is something I had to learn again after struggling with an unhealthy relationship with food for the majority of my teenage years up until my mid-twenties. Undereating, overeating, not eating at all, weird eating rules,..

I already left all of that behind years ago with some small relapses inbetween, especially when I got sucked into that whole „high carb low fat“ lifestyle for a little while.

I’m so grateful that today I’m able to listen to my body again, for me that’s all intuitive eating is about. Some days I eat more, some days I eat less.

And even though I love food and am very passionate about this topic, I don’t even think about it that much anymore. In the past it’s been such a stress factor in my life to think about what I should or shouldn’t eat, when to eat and how much to eat. Now I just eat whenever I want, whatever I want.

Of course I mainly eat what I’d call healthy food that is actually good for my body but I don’t force myself to do so. In my experience, once you get used to more natural foods you stop craving all that unhealthy processed stuff, which to me isn’t really considered food anymore, at least not nourishing food that my body actually needs. I still do eat these things every once in a while when I really feel like it or am hungry and don’t have another option and that’s okay, too – no guilty feelings at all.

To give you an idea, what intuitive eating looks like for me: Usually I always eat breakfast, sometimes at 7am, sometimes at 10am but some days I don’t feel hungry all morning and only have my first meal around lunchtime. I’m not a fan of eating too much food late in the evening but sometimes I get hungry again before going to bed or I get home from work late and then start cooking at 10pm.

After stopping to only eat plant foods, I didn’t really feel like having too many of my typical vegan meals that I’d eaten for years but I feel that now my body is kinda balancing itself out. For the last weeks for example I’d been craving a smoothie or yogurt for breakfast more often so that’s what I had.. even though I’m usually not a big smoothie person at all and prefer solid foods.

I believe it’s so imporant to eat according to what your day looks like instead of having eating times and rules set for yourself. If you don’t have a very strict daily routine and don’t always get up at the same time, go to bed at the same time, work at the same time and so on, it can be difficult to eat at the same times every day. Personally, I don’t have a strict routine at the moment at all, every day looks different, so I don’t really see the point for someone like me setting fixed eating times. It makes a lot more sense to just eat when I feel hungry and have the time to eat.

To be honest with you: I can’t really help you with finding your way back to intuitive eating. There are a lot of tipps you can find online and for some they might be helpful and for others they might not, we’re all so different.

All I can tell you is that it definitely is possible to find your way back to a normal relationship with food even after struggling for years.

Today to me food is just food.

Of course I still enjoy it, love to try out new foods, go out to eat,.. but my life doesn’t revolve around food, I don’t constantly think about when I get my next meal. I just realized there are things in life that are way more important and meaningful than food. In the end food is just something that keeps my body nourished and energized to experience all of these other things.