4 Ways to Begin Healing Your Relationship With Food
It’s a rainy Tuesday evening, and I gaze into the fridge with an insatiable appetite. I want to learn how to stop comfort eating and find my comfort in God, but when I’m honest about it, sugar is more palpable at the end of a long day. I’d love to find healing in my relationship with food, but I have not arrived—not by a long shot.
As I stand in front of the fridge, I pray, “Lord, I need your grace. I need you to work in my life and help me break free from my pattern of escapist eating.”
Healing Your Relationship With Food
There are no lightning bolts from heaven, but I look out the window and see my boys riding their bikes in circles on the deck. The sun is sinking low, and magenta streaks light up the horizon.
As if the Creator of the universe has just invited me to join him outside, I close the fridge and walk to the deck.
“Watch us, Mom!” my little boy exclaims as I sit down in a patio chair.
There’s nothing particularly spiritual about sitting on the deck with my kids, but I’m certain God’s grace drew me away from my thoughts about food and reminded me of his calling for me. I’m reminded that my calling is to love the people he places in my path instead of obsessing over what I’m going to eat next.
4 Ways to Begin Healing Your Relationship With Food
Whether you struggle with comfort eating or a different destructive habit, God wants to lead you to freedom. Let’s look at some practical ways to lean into God’s grace and let him work in our lives to bring us the freedom we cannot find through willpower alone.
1. Begin by asking Jesus to help heal your relationship with food.
Willpower can be helpful; however, willpower doesn’t hold the power to set us free.
Jesus holds the power to set us free.
Instead of asking for more willpower, ask Jesus to align your heart with his heart regarding food. Ask him to help you develop a relationship in which food is enjoyable but not all-consuming. Ask him to set you free from the power of overindulgence as well as deprivation.
Jesus wants food to be a gift to fuel your body—and also a gift to enjoy! He doesn’t want you to be controlled or bound by this good gift.
2. Ask Jesus to change the way you see your body.
For most of us, food and body image are closely linked. Throughout the past few years, God has been renewing my mind by helping me see myself the way I see my children.
I’ve been learning to treat myself the way I would treat my kids. I imagine their sweet faces and cherished bodies.
When critical thoughts about myself arise, I remind myself to be tender with myself in the same way I’m tender with my kids. I forgive myself for making mistakes and aim to care for my body in the same way I care for their little bodies.
This mindset helps me resist some of the following behaviors: It keeps me from shoving sugar into my mouth to fill an emotional void; I’m far less critical when I look in the mirror; I’m willing to invest in vitamins and healthy food for the good of my body; I exercise for the well-being of my body and not primarily to burn calories or chase a cultural image.
Try embracing this mindset for yourself. Imagine your most precious loved one when self-critical thoughts arise. Remind yourself to be loving and caring with your body in the same way you love and care for your loved one.
Furthermore, ask yourself, Would I shove junk food into my kids’ mouths to help them escape their emotions? Would I deprive them of meals to make up for cookies and ice cream cones?
Remind yourself to treat your body as you would treat your loved ones.
God can use this mindset to transform your life. Most of all, he will align your heart with his heart. You are even more precious to him than your most precious loved one is to you.
Would I shove junk food into my kids' mouths to help them escape their emotions? Would I deprive them of meals to make up for cookies and ice cream cones? #comforteating Click To Tweet
3. Change your focus.
Have you ever noticed that when you give up a certain food or activity, that precise food or activity seems to consume your thoughts?
A deprivation mindset will make it harder to lose weight or step into new patterns of healthy eating. Instead of fasting from certain foods or jumping into the latest diet craze, fast from obsessing over food or body image. Shift your focus.
When I’m stuck in a bad place with food, it’s like the throne of my heart is occupied by two entities: thoughts about food and thoughts about my body. I turn to food for comfort and feel guilty about it. I resent what the food will do to my body, and I might even deprive myself for a few days—feeling accomplished when I turn to the scale and see the number drop.
It’s an ugly cycle, fueled by self-focus. In these times, I need to take myself off the throne of my life (and my focus) and fix my gaze on Christ, who is truly on the throne.
When thoughts about comfort eating, depriving yourself, or feeling fat come to your mind, cast down the thoughts. Turn your eyes to the throne of God and ask for his eyes to see the needs of those around you. Don’t escape into food. Instead, sit on the floor and play with your kids, turn off the TV and talk to your husband, or pick up the phone and call a friend.
This shift has led to my biggest personal breakthrough in learning how to stop comfort eating. When I refuse to obsess over food, feel guilty about food, or crave food, I am surprisingly less tempted to escape into it.
4. Stick with it over time.
Research suggests it takes a little over two months to start a new habit.
For two months, fast from thinking about yourself, aim to eat healthily and reasonably, and keep asking Jesus for help in directing your thoughts away from yourself and toward him. Extend grace to yourself when you fail, and begin again the next day.
A Powerful Book to Help Heal Your Relationship With Food:
Are you ready to connect with God in fresh ways and experience his healing power? God wants to heal your heart, lead you to freedom from destructive thoughts, and guide you deeper into his love. Let Lean Into Grace show you how to experience God’s powerful presence like never before. This book features one chapter about healing your relationship with food as well as 15 additional chapters to help you find freedom and healing in various areas of your life. Find this life-changing book for free on the Kindle Unlimited plan or for 12.99 in print right here now!
Calling All Mothers and Daughters!
Lastly, in addition to writing to adults, I am passionate about ministering to the next generation.
Would you like to connect with your tween or teen daughter and help her grow closer to God? My 12-year-old daughter, Bekah, and I wrote a mother-daughter devotional book just for you. Girl to Girl: 60 Mother-Daughter Devotions for a Closer Relationship and Deeper Faith includes 60 devotions with Scripture, commentaries from both of us, conversation starters, and even a shared journaling section.
Our vision is for girls ages 7-17 to enjoy it with their moms, grandmas, or older women they look up to. However, mothers and daughters of all ages are using this book to grow closer together! This book makes a wonderful gift for a mother or daughter you care about!
You can buy your paperback or eBook on Amazon right here.
