Alisa Tiburzi
- Feb 19, 2023
- 4 min read

5 Steps to Start Eating From a Place of Self-Love

I’m sharing today five steps you can start taking today to start eating from a place that is a little more loving toward yourself. They’re steps I’ve used myself and things I help clients work through on a regular basis. I hope there’s something here that can help you make the process of improving your nutrition and relationship to food feel a whole lot better, too!

1. Let go of other people’s rules for your diet.

You might be hanging on to old ideas for what or how you SHOULD be eating, based on old ideas, programs you’ve tried, what friends are doing, things on social media… It’s time to let go of those! If you were waiting for permission, here ya go: You do not have to follow other people’s rules or guidelines for the way that you eat if they are not comfortable for YOU.

2. Start listening to when you’re hungry & when you’re full.

This can be particularly challenging for people who have been following programs or meal plans for so long, because you may have lost some of your intuition when it comes to these kinds of cues. You might have to practice, and that’s totally okay. You can practice asking yourself throughout the day, “Do I feel hunger or do I feel satisfied right now?” And you can ask yourself that during and after meals, too. “Am I getting full? Am I still hungry? Does this food taste good or feel satisfying?” Tuning into this can help you start to take back control of food.

3. Notice how foods make you feel.

Listening to your cues isn’t just about when you eat, but what you eat, too. Again, you might be used to following rules or plans that tell you what to eat, so that can be tricky. Or (to go the opposite way), maybe you have never really tuned into how foods make you feel before! I know that I didn’t for a really long time - or at least, I didn’t listen. I knew I was lactose intolerant for years and I just pretty much ignored it. I’d eat cheese or icecream and just muscle through the painful consequences of it. When the symptoms begin to increase, I’d pop lactaid pills with meals and snacks to handle them… Which “worked” of course, but after a while I couldn’t shake the idea that I was ignoring what my body was trying to tell me! You might start to notice how foods make you feel, too: Do some things make you sluggish or energized? Does your digestion change? Do you get headaches? Do you feel nothing? Does your skin break out? It’s amazing what you might notice when you start to pay attention.

4. Nutrition by addition.

Can you add one more nutrient to your meal or snack?

This is my favorite tip because it’s so super simple! When you prepare a meal or a snack, take a second to notice what nutrients you’re including, and find a way to add one more that will compliment it. I’ll give you a few examples:

I want toast w/ avocado (carbs + fats), so I’ll add tomato & nutritional yeast (wate/colorr + protein)
I want pasta and broccoli (carbs + color/fiber), so I’ll add white beans (protein)
I want a sandwich (carbs + protein), so I’ll add lettuce/tomato/cucumber (water/color)
I want to snack on almonds (fat + protein), so I’ll add an apple (fiber + water)
I’m making a salad - what combo of nutrients can I add?

It’s simple little steps, single additions, but what it’s going to do is build awareness & increase your nutrient consumption as you go throughout your day.

5. Release the guilt & pressure!

One meal is 1/1,095 meals you’ll eat this year (at 3 meals a day, of course). If it feels like you aren’t “doing a lot” when it comes to your nutrition but you ARE making little changes throughout your day, that could add up to 1,000 changes! In the same way, if you make a food choice that doesn’t feel good or that you’re experiencing regret or guilt over, remind yourself that it was 1/1,000 meal choices, and that what matters is what you do MOST of the time, so allow yourself the change to improve with your next choice. Don’t wait for a new day or a new week or a new month to do some kind of big recommittal and put all that “fresh start” pressure on yourself! Just keep things rolling. As they say in Frozen 2, sometimes all you can do is the “next right thing.” So release the guilt, release the pressure, remind yourself that you are making choices from a place of love, and make the next choice that is right for YOU, your body, and your nutrition.

Did one of these 5 tips stand out to you? I would love to know which! Jump over to instagram & send a DM or comment on a recent post and let me know your thoughts!

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