For those of you familiar with my work, you know that my approach views weight-loss as a side-effect of balancing your body with the right foods for you (i.e. there isn’t one way of eating that works for everyone) and addressing the emotional reasons we fall off track by overtime, rewriting our story to one that uncovers our own agency and resets our internal sense of safety and therefore our nervous systems “fight or flight” response.
This approach creates options and freedoms that you didn’t know were possible in your life and around food.
The six “food freedoms” unlocked by the Truce with Food process are based on the 6 most common ways that clients and listeners say their weight obsession “handcuffed” them.
The notes below are just the beginning. They introduce Season 10, Episode 1 of the Insatiable podcast. If there is one food freedom that strongly speaks to you, click the link to go directly to that episode to learn more in-depth about each one.
Want to start your Truce with Food journey now? Take the FREE Truce with Food self-study mini-course:
FREE Truce with Food Mini-Course
Food Freedom 1: Stop Monitoring Yourself Around Food
Understanding our own bio-individuality is a key step to not feeling a preoccupation with food and being so hungry all the time. When blood sugar is balanced, this creates a self-reinforcing feel-good cycle that helps to resist sugar.
We want to view food more in line with how we view the world. When you balance your blood sugar, you can because the nervous system (the fight or flight response) will view food and diet in a different way than we’ve been taught.
Take home tips:
- Focus on balancing your blood sugar while fulfilling your unique nutrient needs.
- Work to silence the nervous system that treats food and weight gain as a threat.
Learn more about balancing your blood sugar according to your bio-individuality by listening to Insatiable, Season 10, Episode 2.
Food Freedom 2: Feel in Control, Not Controlled by Food
When you create a Truce with Food, you realize you have choices and can experiment with these choices to find what is best for your body and life. The challenge with choice is we often don’t know what other choices we have because we are in black and white thinking (aka as all or nothing) and measuring the wrong things.
Take home tips:
To be self-directed, or “in choice” around food:
- STOP connecting your food to being good or bad.
- STOP analyzing if you are losing weight.
- START asking: did I feel good or bad?
- START considering your cravings and your mood.
Learn the difference between control and choice, and how choice gets you closer to your goals in Insatiable, Season 10, Episode 3.
Food Freedom 3: Redefine Self-Acceptance
Acceptance helps when we realize we have needs and are allowed to have needs (without being needy) and we have others who support us with those needs.
When we begin to make true peace and acceptance with our body, weight loss can be empowering.
Take home tips:
For self-acceptance to mean radical responsibility one must:
- Look at our habits as symptoms.
- Resists the normalization of an industrialized food supply.
- Advocate for your needs and take responsibility to learn what foods do and don’t work for your body.
Delve deep into redefining self-acceptance and eating more intuitively and consistently with your goals in Insatiable, Season 10, Episode 4.
Food Freedom 4: Stop the Binge Restrict Cycle (and mindset)
Restriction leads to bingeing and overeating because the body is starved and deprived of key nutrients. When diets work in the beginning, we begin to believe they are the magic, which reinforces all-or-nothing eating and causes constant bingeing-restricting.
What we need to learn in life and in our diets is a growth mindset: treat what we previously thought of as failures as research and opportunities that ultimately make us more discerning and more successful.
The emotional story work is of greater importance than the food because overeating and bingeing are emotional (and often from stressors we don’t realize we are inflicting upon ourselves).
All-or-nothing eating comes from all or nothing thinking, which is a root cause of a lot of our stress.
Take home tips:
- Interrupt and mediate the physiological response caused by the binge-restrict cycle.
- Refine the all-or-nothing mindset that reinforces these cycles.
Learn how to get out of the all-or-nothing mindset with Insatiable, Season 10, Episode 5.
Food Freedom 5: End the Guilt (and Downward Eating Spiral)
Stabilized blood sugar equals stabilized mood. When you keep your blood sugar balanced, you can be more discerning in your dessert or sugar choices. This is how my clients and I have worked on our blood sugar story, by treating dessert as research. To end the guilt, you must learn how to build discernment around your choices.
Take home tips:
- Learn your body and your eating patterns when you are in your story.
- Make food choices that break the downward eating spiral (one cookie turns into days of bingeing).
Learn Ali’s sugar rule of thumb and a few mindset tools to transform choices into advantages with Insatiable, Season 10, Episode 6.
Food Freedom 6: Sugar Rehab
Sugar rehab IS a thing. You need to detox from the chemical dependency of sugar and learn how to understand and heal the root cause that is driving you to numb your pain with sugar. The more sugar you eat, the more you will want.
Take home tips:
- “Health foods” have A LOT of hidden sugars; begin to build your awareness of added sugars will make you less susceptible to the sugar siren.
- Balance sugar consumption, like fruit, with healthy fat to slow your absorption.
Discover 5 easy food swaps to prevent sugar cravings in Insatiable, Season 10, Episode 7.
These are the tip of the iceberg and a highly simplified overview to help you learn what Season 10 of Insatiable is all about.
Dive deeper into each topic by listening to the linked episode.
Want to start your Truce with Food journey now? Take the FREE Truce with Food self-study mini-course:
Leave a Reply