Principle #3: Make Peace with Food

Once you've mastered honoring your hunger the next step is to make peace with the food that you are eating.

Call a truce, stop the food fight!! Give yourself unconditional permission to eat. You read it right-UNCONDITIONAL PERMISSION TO EAT!!! If you tell yourself that you can't or shouldn't have a particular food, it will lead you to having intense feelings of deprivation that can build into uncontrollable cravings and bingeing. When you finally "give-in" to your forbidden food, eating will be experienced with such intensity, it usually results in Last Supper overeating, and overwhelming guilt.

Tips for Making Peace with Food:

1. Give yourself unconditionall permission to eat WHATEVER you want. There is NO SUCH THING AS A BAD FOOD!!!

2. Beware of giving yourself "psuedo-permission" by telling yourself you can eat what you like, but continuing to hold onto guilty thoughts when you do eat forbidden foods.

3. Do not deprive yourself of any food that sounds appealing.

4. Observe how your body feels when eating this food and how satisfying it is to your tongue. Write it down or make a mental note of these feelings.

5. Keep an ample supply of all the foods that you think you might like to eat. Restock when supplies get low.

Alot of people feel that this step will actually lead to weight gain and uncontrollable eating. The truth: at first it may but as you truly allow yourself freedom with food and you have made complete peace with food and know that what you like will always be available to you, you'll be able to stop after a moderate amount.