How to Shift Your Language Around Food (For Good!)
Something I coach my clients on regularly is noticing the language in which they think and talk about food in their minds and out loud.
Awareness is the first step to making change. I bring an awareness to my clients behavior as well as their inner and outer dialogue.
For example, they go out to dinner and the next day they tell me; “I should have just ordered the grilled chicken and salad! I was SO bad! I ate terribly!”
I suggest reframing that to sound more like;
“I’m noticing that I’m having the thought that I should have ordered the grilled chicken with salad. Tomorrow is a new day and I will meal prep for the week in advance.”⠀
Two reasons why this reframe when talking about food is SUPER helpful: ⠀
1. It takes the guilt out of the equation for the person
I remind them that they aren’t less healthy for not ordering the grilled chicken and it’s ok to not always order the most “nutrient dense” or “balanced” foods on the menu. It does not make you any less “healthy.”
2. It separates them from their thoughts
Thoughts are not always true but we know they are very powerful. Our thoughts have the power to COMPLETELY alter our mood, energy and focus. When we’re able to acknowledge that our thoughts are separate from us, we can separate ourselves from the thought with more ease and grace. ⠀
After we bring awareness to the issue, we focus on building consistent and small habits on a week to week basis.
Sustainable habits are built on repetition which means they need to be done everyday with confidence and ease. Setting small goals each week in an effort to change behavior is key. These goals need to be realistic so clients can CRUSH them because it’s only natural for progress NOT to be linear. Which means you will take two steps forward and two steps back. But this is NORMAL and expected! This does not mean you’re failing- it means you’re human and imperfectly perfect.
Keep in mind the last thing we want is to elicit guilt from not being “perfect.”
Guilt is a HUGE emotion that diet culture plays off of. Diet culture has conditioned us to believe it’s normal to feel guilty around food, but it isn’t! You don’t need to be bogged down by guilt when it comes to eating. ⠀
Through my 12-week online coaching program, not only do we work together to debunk these old narratives and myths instilled in us by diet culture, we also work on constructing new narratives to help you reach true FOOD FREEDOM.⠀⠀