Having a better relationship to food is about mindset, which takes unraveling the current messages you have been operating under and re-wiring the brain with messages that serve you.
This all starts out with discovering your current messages and limiting beliefs.
After completing these questions, go back through your answers and look for behavioral and emotional patterns.
What do you know now that you didn’t know before?
How can you improve your relationship to food?
How do you take action?
Do you need to speak with a professional for support?
Download these questions below and print them out.
- What does “food” mean to you? What do you associate food and eating with?
- What is your relationship to food like? Describe it like you would a relationship with an actual person.
- How does food make me feel? How do I wish I felt about food?
- Why do I eat? What 3 words describe my relationship to food right now? What 3 words do I wish did?
- What do I want food to do for me?
- Do you consider where food comes from or do you think of food as an end product?
- Are you a distracted eater or do you just eat? If you are a distracted eater, what usually distracts you?
- Do you record everything that you eat and drink? If so, what are your intentions behind it? Are your intentions healthy and appropriate?
- What are the negative thought before, during, and after eating? Eating very little? Eating just enough? Overeating? Binging?
- When, Where, and What is happening when you feel intense pulls toward food?
- If I eat when I am physically not hungry, its because….
- If my emotional eating is trying to tell me a message, what would that message be?
- What stresses me out the most? What do I do to cope with stress?
- Describe your first memory of dysregulated eating. How old were you? What were the circumstances of it? How did you feel?
- What did your parents (or who ever raised you) used to say when talking about your body? What did they used to say when talking about their own body?
- What did your parents (or who ever raised you) used to say when talking about how you should eat? What did they used to say when talking about how they should eat?
- Who had the biggest impact on your food habits growing up? Why?
- Name the positive and negative messages you received around healthy eating.
- What habit(s) did you establish early on that you would like to transform?
- Name somebody who you believe has a healthy relationship with food. What do you notice about them? How is your relationship with food different, and is it similar in any ways? What is between you and having a healthy relationship with food?
- What are you craving in your life, what do you want more than anything, that you are using food to feel? Think of emotions.
- Who do you see when you look in the mirror?
- How will changing your dysregulated eating and improving your relationship to food affect your body, mind, and spirit in the future?
- What parts feel the most challenging when thinking of a better relationship to food? Which parts feeling easy?
- What patterns do you notice when it comes to nourishing yourself?
- What inspires you to be healthy? How can you make more room for this in your life?
- I feel the most like myself when…
- I would love to do _____________, but I’m not sure I could. Why is that?
- What do you believe you deserve in life? Thinking about that, what do you need to let go of to make it happen?
- Imagine your life 3 years from now. If everything worked out the way that you hope for, what would that look like? Love? Family? Work? Wealth? Health?
- To you, what does it mean to show up as your best self?
- How could having a healthy relationship with food impact the rest of your life? Relationships? Health? Career?
- Do you need additional support when working on having a healthy relationship to food? What kind of support do you need?
- What is my body? How do I connect food and my body?
- If I could wave a magic wand and have my dream body, what would it be?
- When I look in the mirror, I feel…
- What are my biggest daily challenges with food and body? If I didn’t have these problems, how would my life be different?
- Dear body, I love you because…
- List three positive intentions that you can use to motivate your journey towards intuitive eating and creating a healthy, sustainable relationship with food and your body. Example: “I will nourish my body every day and will speak kindly to myself to help support a healthy body and mind” Example: “I will speak kindly to my body and appreciate it for all it does for me every day.”
- What are 3 things that you appreciate about your body?
- Do you usually eat alone and or randomly? Do you eat with others at set times and places?
- Write about your relationship to cooking. Do you like to cook or prefer someone else does it for you? Do you see it as a chore or as a fun pastime? Did you grow up in a household where one or both of your parents enjoyed cooking, or did you eat a lot of take-out and TV dinners? What are your favorite dishes to prepare?
- How do you define the term “comfort food”? What is your favorite comfort food? Is it something your mom or dad or grandma used to make when you were little or an indulgence you only have a few times a year? Describe your ultimate comfort food in detail and reflect on why you associate it with contentment, coziness or well-being.
- Is there anything about nutrition that you would like to learn more about?
- Does your family have any special dietary rules?
- How does your culture influence your eating habits?
- How does the media / television commercials / social media / celebrities / models / etc. influence your eating habits?
- What is your opinion on fad diets?
- If you have tried a fad diet, which one? How did it affect you physically, mentally and emotionally?
- Do you tend to eat the same foods over and over again? If so, why is that? Would you like to try new foods? How can you begin incorporating new food choices into your day? What would eating new foods do for you?
Download this journal prompt.
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