Shifting from a distorted relationship with food to becoming a conscious eater is a journey; it will not be linear, and that is ok. Conscious eating is an ongoing practice of learning about ourselves, our bodies, and food. This practice allows us to eventually trust ourselves, rather than rely on external factors, or rules, to dictate how we eat, with little to no consideration as to what we like, what we need, or our levels of satisfaction.

Food rules can often become rigid over time, not allowing for flexibility, nuance, or space to thrive. Today, I want to explore one of my old food rules, and how I have challenged it.

For many years, I steadfastly believed that I could not eat after 7:00pm, as I had learned (been incorrectly indoctrinated with false information) that eating after dark would cause weight gain. Of course this terrified me, so in came the rule: No eating After Seven. This rule kept me stuck! I could not go out and be social, I went to bed hungry and struggled to sleep, and I binged because my body was under-fed.

The challenge here is that the body does not understand time in the same way we can intellectually understand time - the body only knows HOW LONG it has been since it was last nourished. And calories are not like Cinderella’s pumpkin - they do not magically change after an arbitrary time into a substance that is processed differently by the body.

Join me while I explore this in the video below: