Ditch perfectionism if you want to heal

When you are trying to fix your relationship with food, among other things, ditching perfectionism is very important. If you have been on a diet for a longer period of time, you are used to rules and not following the rules makes you less successful. Dieters seek “perfection”. When you are healing your relationship with food, its important to understand the following:

1. Ditching the perfect, clean way of eating is going to take time. You will want to go back to your old ways, but trust yourself that you are doing the right thing

2. If you are learning how to listen to your body be curious. Assess your hunger and satiety cues as well as the types of food you would love to eat-there are no rules here

3. If you are setting goals, make them realistic: making a snack this week rather than: stop overeating

4. If you see yourself overeating (since there are no rules), accept and learn from it. It’s important that you understand WHY you binged in the first place

5. This journey is not linear, some days you will have everything under “control” and some will resemble your dieting days. Pushing again back on track means you are aware that you are learning more about the journey.One more thing: you can’t heal your relationship with food if you are still counting calories, counting macros, trying to eat clean etc…all of this may work for some people but not for those who can easily be triggered to go back to their old disrupted ways of eating.