The fear of food is a real phobia. Unfortunately one that has gotten out of hand. Everywhere you turn there is a new diet lurking on the market telling you if you just give up, restrict, workout more, eliminate then you will see results and you will finally be happy. It sounds so promising, so enticing, so exciting yet you know deep down it won’t work, or at least not long-term. Because what has?
You’re here, desperate, lost and yet clinging to an ounce of hope that there is something, someway to finally achieve health that doesn’t involve another crazy plan or regimen. I have to tell you, you’ve landed in the right place.
You’ve come to a place of believing that health should not be something we live for, instead health should be a way of living for something so much greater. Without believing this first and foremost, you’ll be stuck in the diet traps for more life than you’d like to believe.
Even more, happiness should not be a condition, a superficial emotion that is attached to results. Because when we do this we place an emotional attachment to food rather than a life-giving necessity. This superficial form of happiness becomes a superficial comfort to pains that food can’t solve. I promise, happiness can be found in contentment, in the nitty-gritty, in the work and in the pain.
fear won’t go away
I used to think fear would go away.
That there would be this day when the clouds parted and all of my fears would disappear in an instant. But as long as we are walking this Earth, fear will always be here, and for a good reason. Fear can also be our friend just as much our enemy. It’s what we do with fear that changes our action and ultimately our outcome.
Life takes courage. I love what Ambrose Redmoon once wrote;
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear.”
The step before the steps is to end the misery of trying to eliminate what can’t be. To stop beating ourselves up about fear and instead change the way we handle fear. Dr. Srini Pillay has a great analogy to how fear works in the brain.
Imagine a tug-of-war going on in your brain’s emotional center, with fear pulling on one side and hope on the other. Due to your brain’s innate survivalist hard wiring, fear always has the unfair advantage. It’s the undisputed universal tug-of-war-in-your-noodle-champion. But when you choose to”bulk up” your hope by attending to positive outcomes, sticking to your intention and getting the support you need to stay focused, the tide will turn. Hope and the possibility become more important than the fear.
This is how courage is achieved.
You have to ask yourself, in dealing with food fears, what is more important to you than this?
It could be providing health and healing inside your body, it could be setting an example to your children. Think and answer from the deep parts of your heart before we begin.
tips to overcoming the fear of food
The bottom line, you can enjoy food with no strings attached. Here are five tips to overcoming the fear of food and finally eating for health rather than a source of superficial comfort.
1. provide daily hope
As the analogy states above, the best way to overcome {not eliminate} fear is to “bulk-up” hope. To stay positive and live on mission to your life. This could mean; accepting the compliment, taking a few moments to savor in the fullness of your life, to do something for yourself, to create a gratitude journal, to foster a deep and meaningful relationship, to replace negative thoughts with positive ones. Mostly, it means to let go of the good versus bad mindset and start owning who you are. To be accepting, to practice self-love and to live with great desire knowing you are enough.
2. choose foods with benefits
It’s time to put to rest the “eat this not that” mentality. To end the good food versus bad food and instead just focus on the positive. Focus on what food can do and will do for your body. To take note of how your body feels and what provides the lasting energy, makes you feel alive and well. Slowly start adding in the foods with benefits which will in time knock out the foods that don’t help your body without restriction, deprivation or starvation. Focusing on how you can eat to live, not just survive.
3. banish forbidden foods
Go against the voice in your head that the “forbidden” foods will be a breaking point in your diet. Unless of course you have a medical reason like celiac disease or other autoimmunity preventing you from eating specific food groups, we have to get outside the notion that food can make you magically gain weight upon eating. That the world will end, you will fail and be left at square one, questioning everything.
We have to learn that you can eat delicious foods you love with the right mindset and still obtain a healthy weight. That weight loss isn’t directly related to deprivation, starvation and restriction, instead it is about risk taking, about being self-aware, about learning and growing and changing based off of your own body’s needs. It’s about trust.
4. trust yourself
The hardest thing we have yet to conquer is the absolute confidence that our body does know best. That it was designed with your health in mind and that survival is of upmost importance. We have to trust ourselves, our body and listen to its needs. Anytime we step outside of this we step outside of trust, we have a cascade of survival mechanisms that kick into place resulting in weight gain, inflammation and eventually disease.
Instead of focusing so much on the hurt and pain of the past or living in fear of the future we need to stay focused on the present. To take each day as it comes and live in the moment. To be fully aware of your body, its cravings it’s need and providing that even if it goes outside of the norm. Staying focused on the now not only prevents the heart ache of the past and the anxiety of the future but it makes the everyday choices easier and cleaner.
5. live more fully
If we want to live the life of our dreams, the life we wish, sometimes that means we have to sit in the fear of food. We have to learn to overcome the fear, that the fear isn’t all that we’ve made it out to be. If you want to be free from food obsessions it might mean you have to be less calculated, and less planned. If you want to be the person who can go to a restaurant and party and not worry about what to eat, you have to learn to socialize rather than isolate.
If you want to overcome the fear of food you have to live in the hope of what can be. You have to make your wants a reality by taking the risk, being self-aware, trusting the process, little by little, every single day. It won’t be easy, it may be hard and it will take time. It’s a journey not of eliminating fear but of learning to live with fear in hope of the future.
hope of the future
I hope this gives you the piece of mind you need to take the right next step, to overcome worry with hope. To live courageous and on fire with desire to achieve the lasting health that is waiting for you.
Everyday, may you wake up and commit to living with self-love, awareness, discipline and hope. To take risks, challenge your negative thoughts, and run fully in the present moment. To end living for health and use it as a means to soaking in every precious moment of this life. Your body is capable, you are capable, you are enough. Believe it today!
