How to Find Joy in Eating Again

Tired of the constant struggle with food? Learn how to find your joy in eating again by breaking free from cycles of deprivation, overeating, and guilt.

Discover practical steps for a healthier, joyful relationship with food.

Eating really can be joyful again. Here’s how to find joy in eating again.

Most women I talk to are in some cycle of depriving themselves at meals then overeating later; all while telling themselves they’ll do better tomorrow.

I hear about the frustration all the time. Diet culture has led to frustrating cycles of deprivation, overeating, and shame. 

This affects our mental health, health issues, and eating habits. Instead of taking care of your body, you become obsessed with losing weight, even though you aren’t able to figure out how to do that. 

Break Free from the Deprivation and Overeating Cycle

The purpose of this post is to identify your cycle of restricting and overindulging, and how to stop it by creating a balanced eating pattern.

It may seem impossible to have a healthy relationship with food or to find joy in eating, but you can. It is possible to eat without shame and guilt. 

Here’s some perspective. I know most things you’ve read about to this point, indicates that your body is like a machine. Insert this many calories, lose this amount of weight.

We have been convinced that it is all easily under our control if only we just had enough willpower. This is the voice and message of diet culture. 

So, let’s confront that head on.

Have you ever asked yourself why, if it is so easy and uncomplicated, can’t you just lose the weight? You know you are pretty good at just about anything you set your mind to. Yet, this must be really complicated if you can’t do this seemingly easy thing.

That’s because it isn’t easy. Your body was made to keep the weight on and not changes size on a whim. We are literally built to survive food deprivation.

For probably decades, you’ve been focused on restricting or eating less. That was considered healthy. But is it?

We’ve forgotten that the purpose of eating is nourishment for our body. Instead of eating to nourish ourselves, eating becomes a mine field of fear, frustration, anxiety, and binge-eating.

​Eating seems anything but joyful!

Understanding How Your Body Handles Weight

At any given time, you are in one of three states of being.

• You are gaining weight. Even if it’s a couple of pounds a year your body is putting on weight
• If you are maintaining, your weight stays within a range of a few pounds
• Losing weight means your weight is going down, even if it’s very slow

Often women give up their efforts in the between phases. If you are trying to go from gaining to maintaining (which means you have stopped the gain). This is a big deal!

Or they give up when they are successfully maintaining, not gaining, but haven’t begun losing yet.

Frequently we want to go straight from gaining to losing and then we expect to lose on a consistent basis. Diets often help us accomplish this for a while.

However, and I stand by this. If you lose weight eating in a way you can’t sustain, you will gain the weight back. The thrill of thinness is rarely (about 5%) able to sustain a diet way of eating.

Don’t eat in a way that you cannot eat forever.

Where is the Joy in Eating?

I know, so far that all sounds like a bummer.

Most women think the joy is in the thinness or when they get to the losing stage. Instead the joy begins as soon as you:

• Quit the cycle of deprivation and overeating
• Stop over snacking or binging
• Eating enough food to feel satisfied
• Moving your body, resting, and taking care of yourself
• Learning to eat for your body and treating it with love
• Learn to eat at holidays, on vacation, and in restaurants
• No longer see food as good and bad

The joy comes when you feel in control of your eating and your time. Because here is what many of you don’t realize.

To take care of your one and only precious body, you need to devote time and effort to it. And most women need to be able to prioritize themselves.

Honestly this is the toughest part of the process for most women. We totally understand depriving ourselves more or doing harder and harder things.

In my opinion, the toughest part of the process is learning to take care of yourself, trust yourself, and love yourself enough to spend time and effort on yourself.

But when you can do that, you can find joy in eating again. The joy is knowing you can eat what you want in any situation. Your joy isn’t tied to a particular size or number; your joy is in your effort and how you feel about yourself.

Here is how you can find joy in eating again

Focus on Eating Enough, Not Less

In my experience coaching women over the past five years; most women are not overeating all the time. 

What I see the most of is that they under eat at meals, then overeat or binge at other times. So the very first step is to stabilize your meals and eat enough that you feel satisfied.

This is the number one thing, my clients say helps them reduce cravings, overeating, and binging. 

There is something really joyful about allowing yourself to enjoy your meals. Not as a special occasion but each and every day, you eat food you enjoy and you eat enough you feel satisfied.

This step alone does so much good. If you have been gaining weight, this will often stop the gain and allow you to create a foundation.

When you focus on eating nutritious meals, you are better equipped to not snack because of hunger. 

You’ll also be better equipped to resist urges to eat because of boredom or engage in emotional eating. 

Stop Labeling Food as ‘Good’ or ‘Bad’

By seeing food as neutral, rather than categorizing it as good or bad, you can reduce guilt and increase enjoyment when eating.

Food can serve many purposes.

Food is nourishment and what we eat matters. Food can make us feel better or it can make us feel horrible. 

So food itself isn’t good or bad, but it can be helpful to us or not. 

Take ice-cream for example. Joyfully eating a homemade ice-cream cone at a roadside shop is very different from eating a pint of ice cream every night and feeling horrible about it.

There is absolutely a time for treats! 

Another thing I see is thinking about normal food as good or bad. For example butter used to be considered bad for you.

It’s not. Eggs aren’t. A steak isn’t.

Now, you may have reasons to not eat those foods or others but they can definitely be eaten and enjoyed,

On the other hand, how many of you think of salads or rice cakes as good food?

It’s really helpful to think of food as being helpful to you for your health goals or not helpful.

Include more of the helpful foods and save the less-than-helpful foods for a treat now and then.

Learn to Listen to Your Body’s Hunger Signals

Learning how to tune in to your hunger cues, rather than eating out of habit or emotion will be the basis of eating that will help you in so many situations.

This will leadsto a more intuitive and joyful approach to food.

Here’s the thing. Most of us were raised to eat by the clock rather than by hunger. 

To make this worse, because of dieting, we focused on arbitrary portion sizes that left us feeling hungry.

Being hungry leads to snacking around the clock. How many of you leave the table a little unsatisfied and then snack trying to find something to satisfy you,

When youn eat around the clock, you can correctly assess your hunger. But when you eat only at meals, you start your meal hungry and then you can tell when you are full.

Your body is built to do this! 

Being able to feel your hunger and fullness is an important function of your body’s hormones. They may get out-of-whack but you can restore them by waiting to eat until you are hungry and stopping when you feel comfortable.

Prioritize Self-Care and Time for Yourself

I cannot overstate the importance of self-love and the role it plays in building a healthy relationship with food. 

This could include things like resting, moving your body in a way that feels good, and dedicating time for yourself.

Your mental well-being is important.

Many women come to me, hoping for a way to lose weight. They believe that they are overweight because they need to get control of their willpower.

What they actually need to get control of is their life.

I see three things:

• Overworking at their job
• Overdoing for family and friends
• A focus on always being busy

By midlife, many women have decades of overdoing or overworking to the extent they feel bad if they stop to rest.

Taking care of your nutrition requires time and effort devoted to yourself. That can be difficult to hear and understand.

Most of us have no idea how to put ourselves first. We worry about being perceived as lazy or selfish. So we stay in motion so that will never happen.

Or we worry that we will disappoint or let someone down.

My friend, listen up.

In your life long attempt to not be perceived as lazy or selfish and never letting anyone down; you have sacrificed your own health and emotional well-being.

To achieve your best health you have to really put yourself first.

Everyone will be okay. If this is bringing up some anxiety, check out this post. I believe with all my heart that when we take care of ourselves; it is actually better for the other people in our lives.

Practice Mindful Eating in Your Way

I’ve focuses on mindful eating for all of my adult life. What I mean by that, is that I think about what I am putting in my body.

Most of the time I sit at a table to eat. I think about the balance of food not just on the plate in front of me, but in my life overall.

I pay attention to how food makes me feeL. Do I feel better or worse after eating something?

Yes, this does sound like a lot of effort.

Here’s the thing. A couple of generations back, food was not as varied or plentiful. People worked with what they had.

Now we are faced literally with thousands of choices every single day.

Fortunately when you focus on real food; you do eliminate a lot of the confusion.

You don’t need the perfect protein bar or snacks to carry around. You don’t even need recipes most of the time.

It can be as simple as picking a protein, some vegetables, and a couple of tablespoons of healthy fats that sound good to you.

Eat enough that you feel comfortable and satisfied. 

Make Peace with Holidays, Vacations, and Eating Out

Here’s how to feel confident in social eating situations and how to enjoy these moments without feeling stressed or over-indulgent.

When you are eating enough on the regular vacations or special occasions are easier to deal with. 

When you are depriving yourself daily; special occasions may seem like a time to overeat and over indulge.

But when you know with your entire being that you can eat, you don’t need to go overboard on vacation or holidays. Seriously, just treat these meals like all the others.

Eat what you want and eat enough you feel satisfied. Stick to eating at meals.

This allows my clients to enjoy their holidays and not gain weight. They can easily maintain their weight no matter what situation they are in.

How to Find Joy in Eating Again

We’re in this for the long haul. All my clients learn to enjoy eating in a way they haven’t for decades. Eating out is no longer a struggle. They don’t fear food anymore.

Food makes them feel good, not shameful or frustrated.

Eating becomes joyful again. 

f you’re tired of battling the cycle of deprivation and overeating, let’s talk. 

Book a free Zoom consultation with me to see if life coaching is the right path to help you find balance, joy in eating, and a healthier relationship with yourself. 

Your body deserves your time and care. Let’s explore how you can make that happen!