How often do you sit down for a meal or snack and experience a moment of worry before you eat? Probably more often than you’d like.
I see this happening with way too many women after finishing treatment for hormone-driven breast cancer; their food scares them!
Food doesn’t have to be scary, and eating doesn’t have to feel stressful, panicky or worrisome.
What Eating with Peace ISN’T
Is this relatable? You. . .
- Second-guess every bite
- Don’t feel safe about the food decisions you make
- Feel like you have to micromanage everything you eat
- Pause with worry before you enjoy a treat (like ice cream)
- Feel like eating anything has become enormously stressful
- Treat yourself to a food you don’t normally eat (a cookie), then feel guilty
- Experience constant anxiety and fear about food (even if it’s low-grade, beneath the surface)
I’m guessing this sounds familiar, and that’s why you’re here.
If you struggle with any (or all) of those issues, you know you’re not eating with peace.
And it’s exhausting.
You know what’s even more exhausting?
When you know you’re not eating with peace and you want things to be different, but your brain is so food-panicked you can’t get there.
There tend to be three main reasons why your brain is stuck in panic mode about food:
- You read so much conflicting information, nothing feels congruent
- You never gain that sense of confidence about what you’re eating, so you second-guess yourself and don’t trust your own judgment
- You try to figure out your post-treatment diet on your own, but don’t feel knowledgeable enough to know what’s best
- You jump from one approach to another without feeling sure about any of them. Some of those approaches are so restrictive they feed the guilt and stress you already have
- You think there’s one best way to eat to reduce your recurrence risk
- Even if that “one best way” to eat is challenging for you to maintain, you will yourself to “just try harder” to stay on track and be “good”
What Eating with Peace IS
How do you get there?
With the skillset and mindset necessary to optimize your nutritional health and well-being.
Here’s what it looks like:
- SKILLSET – A base of breast cancer nutrition knowledge and facts to draw from
- This helps you make confident diet decisions! When you understand the impact your food choices have on your breast and overall health, you know for a fact there’s no physiological way a single chocolate chip cookie will make your cancer come back
- MINDSET – An intrinsic knowledge about which foods make you feel good, and an intentional approach to choosing those foods most often
- Connecting with your body to learn which foods make you feel your best is a necessary component to eating with peace. And in those times when you’re not intentional about choosing the ‘best’ foods for you? You don’t go into the eat/regret/guilt cycle
These two work hand-in-hand; I encourage you not to prioritize one over the other!
Why Avoid the Eat/Regret/Guilt Cycle?
When you’re in that eat/regret/guilt cycle, it’s easy to trash talk yourself and head down the “F”-it food highway.
The “F”-it food highway has all sorts of off-ramps to other places your brain likes to visit, like the exits for:
- Start tomorrow
- I’m failing at this
- I’ll never get it right
- I have no willpower
- It doesn’t matter what I eat
- I’m gonna make my cancer come back
You know what I’m talking about, because it’s likely you’re living it.
If you’re not okay with that, and you’re ready for change, I want you to know that there is help available. We all need support to make lifestyle changes, especially when it comes to something as personal as after-breast cancer nutrition.
The take-away? Eating the foods you love without guilt, panic or stress is what eating with peace is all about, and yes, you can have that too!
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This information is for educational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. Please consult your dietitian or doctor for guidance specific to your needs.
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