When the new year hits, so do all the diet, exercise, and body-related messages. You start hearing even more about what foods are “good” or “bad” and what you “should” or “shouldn’t” be eating.
That’s why now is a great time to refresh and strengthen your food mindset. You can set yourself up for an easy-going holiday as well as a self-loving start to the new year.
Imagine what your life would be like if food wasn’t a concern. Think of the ways you might spend all that freed-up mental energy. It’s possible to go through life without overthinking food, and that allows everything else to open up.
You can feel truly connected to relationships, dancing, and joy rather than constantly distracted by food and your body (those two go hand in hand).
Get clear on where you are now.
It’s going to help to have a clear picture of what your current food relationship and mindset are. If you’re someone whose food stress heightens around the holidays, acknowledge that and consider why it happens. Maybe it’s the dressing room candy that leads you to start worrying.
Whatever concerns have come up, think about where they came from and how you can move through them. Consider what people and food experiences have influenced your perspectives on food.
Consider your ideal vision for your food mindset.
When you have a clear vision and goals associated with it, you’ll have a much easier time moving forward with food in ways that support your physical and emotional well-being.
Most of the dancers I work with tell me they want to have an easy time making food choices, don’t want to stress about it, and don’t want to be thinking about food constantly. If that resonates with you, it’s a great place to start.
How to stop thinking about food all the time.
When you think about food all the time, you assume that food is the problem. In reality, it’s not, and it really never was. The food and unhelpful food relationship is a symptom of something else.
The real problem is usually an imbalance in another area or areas of your life. When you’re not connected to joy, passion, and grounded energy, you might choose to fixate on food to have something in your life that feels predictable.
Lose the food fixation. Here’s how:
- Eat consistently. Make sure you’re having 3 meals a day and 1 to 2 snacks. There can be variation with this in the future, but to start establishing a healthy, balanced, supportive food mindset, this is a great place to start.
- Ask yourself which areas of your life need your attention. Consider social life, relationships, joy, career (dance, whether you’re a pro or pre-pro), health, creativity, finances, education, spirituality, and home environment.
- Once you identify areas of opportunity within your life, clarify what it means to you to be “successful” in each of those areas. Then, create action steps to help you achieve those shifts.
- Connect to your body. The pain you experience that goes unfelt is stored in your body. The act of making friends with your body is going to allow you to release that pain and move forward. You’ll feel better and find freedom in dance and life.
Often, the hardest step is acknowledging and accepting that the food isn’t the problem. It’s possible you’ve made food the enemy for years. That means it may take a while to release those thoughts.
Journaling questions to refresh your food mindset before the new year:
- Where are you now?
- What has led you here?
- Vision for food mindset: How would you like to feel about food?
- List some of your desired food feelings (examples: free, easy, low-stress, confident, excited).
- What are your food values?
- Can you think of friends/family who (from your perspective) seem to have very balanced food relationships? What does that look like from the outside?
- What steps or support can you enlist to take action in making your food vision a reality?
Start this process now. Don’t wait until the dieting messages are amplified. Support yourself to get to a place of food ease and confidence over the next few weeks so you can enter a new year from an empowered place.
Shifting your food mindset and perspective is exactly the sort of thing we can do together in Elite Best Body Coaching. If you’re ready to find out if you’re a good fit for this support, take the first step today and schedule your free coaching consultation call.
If you’d rather listen to a podcast episode on this topic, listen here:
