10 Signs It’s Time to Stop Dieting and Start Healing Your Relationship with Food
What if you felt at peace with food and your body by this time next year?
Instead of your thoughts being preoccupied with how much you weigh, how many calories you’re eating each day, or how to avoid the appetizers and dessert at your friend’s birthday dinner, your mind would be free and clear of dieting rules and restrictions. Rather than counting, tracking, or measuring your way through mealtimes, you’d confidently eat when you’re hungry, stop when you’re comfortably full, and choose foods that make you feel both satisfied and energized.
Better still, you’d feel free to eat the foods you love, even ice cream and chips, without guilt or the pressure of “having to make up for it" in the gym the next day. All while confidently nourishing and caring for your body in a way that supports your physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing or what I like to call your “whole health.”
If this sounds great but feels like a pipe dream, it’s important to understand what’s holding you back from trusting yourself with food before you can move forward.
Do You Have a Hidden Dieting Mindset?
Diet culture has a sneaky way of embedding itself in our lives, invading our thoughts, behaviors, and beliefs around food and our bodies without us even realizing it.
Believe it or not, you don’t even have to be “a dieter” in the traditional sense for diet culture to harm your relationship with food. Its influence goes way beyond diets themselves. It appears in casual and seemingly innocent conversations about food, health, and bodies with friends, family, and even strangers at the grocery store; it’s rife on social media; and it even gets wrapped into advice from health professionals.
It may show up in the form of restrictive food rules, feeling guilty for eating “bad” foods, or in the constant pressure you feel to shrink your body, regardless of whether you’re actively dieting.
Diet culture often masquerades as “health,” “wellness,” or “self-improvement” — when in truth, it keeps far too many people stuck in unhealthy and frustrating patterns with food and battling negative body image.
So, how do you know if diet culture is harming your health and relationship with food? Here are 10 clear signsit may be time to break up with dieting and diet culture so you can cultivate a happier, healthier relationship with food and your body.
Want to understand more about what drives your eating? Take my free quiz, What Type of Eater Am I? for personalized insights and tips about your eating patterns and how to make lasting changes.
Ten Signs Dieting Is Harming Your Relationship with Food (or Your Health)
1. The number on the scale determines your mood or how you think about your day. If stepping on the scale can either make or break your day, chances are it’s taking on too much significance in your life. When the number goes down, regardless of what caused the drop, you may feel a sense of pride or a jolt of self-confidence, as if your worth is tied to a specific measurement. But when it goes up, or even just stays the same, you may feel as though you’re failing and feel frustration, guilt, or shame.
When the scale takes on too much mental or emotional space, it can impact your mood, self-esteem, and even your health behaviors themselves. For example, the number you see may determine what you think you’re allowed or not allowed to eat that day. The number on the scale shows your relationship with gravity. It doesn’t define who you are as a person — your worth, your value, your strength, your heart. It doesn’t determine your health, because your health is multi-faceted and so much more than a single number or data point.
If the scale keeps you stuck, constantly self-monitoring or judging your body or feeling as though you’re in a battle with food or yourself, it may be time to step back and assess the role it’s playing in your life and wellbeing.
2. You’re constantly either on plan or off plan. You may find yourself constantly swinging between being on a diet or off a diet, eating either so good or so bad. Your weight may cycle up and down with each dieting or clean eating attempt. It may also feel as though diets are getting less and less effective or the “things that used to work” no longer do.
3. You don’t recognize or trust your hunger or fullness cues. You rely on calorie counts, WW points, macro counts, or regimented portion sizes to tell you when and how much to eat. You may not notice your hunger cues until you’re absolutely famished, or you may regularly eat past your comfortable fullness point. The idea of eating without rules or guidelines may feel unimaginable or cause you to feel anxious because you’re unsure how you’d keep your eating in check without them.
4. You don’t trust yourself to keep certain foods in the house. When they’re present, they may consume your thoughts, making it hard to focus on other things. If you do allow yourself to eat them, you may feel out of control or overeat and binge them. You wish these foods didn’t hold so much power over you!
5. You feel guilt or shame about your food choices. You feel like you’ve failed if you eat a piece of cake or enjoy some pizza on a Friday night and you’re frustrated with yourself or guilty when you don’t eat the way you know you should. There may even be foods you feel so ashamed of eating that you try to do it in secret so you can avoid feeling judged or embarrassed, even though this likely leaves you feeling worse.
6. You’re constantly starting over with your diet or healthy eating goals. You might go to bed every night promising yourself that tomorrow you’ll cut out sugar, only eat salads, or “do better.” It may feel as though you’re starting over with a new diet every Monday because you just can’t seem to get on plan and stay there.
7. “Eating healthy” means cutting out bunches of foods. There are so many foods that simply feel off limits because you believe you’ll gain weight if you eat them. You may question whether you should be eating fruit, carbs, starchy vegetables, dairy, and endless other foods. It feels like your list of “approved” foods gets smaller and smaller. Some days, it may even feel like there’s nothing left to eat if you follow all the rules you’ve heard.
8. You avoid social outings because of your restrictive food rules. Your dieting rules are so strict or extensive that you may have a hard time eating out at restaurants or social events. When you do eat out, you worry how many calories are in your food or how you’ll avoid overdoing it on things that are off plan. You may even bring your own approved foods with you so you can stay on track with your goals. Other times, it just feels easier to stay home.
9. You view exercise mostly as a tool to lose or manage your weight. Instead of being a source of enjoyment, it may feel more like a form of punishment for not eating “right” or you may view it as a way to earn certain foods. You may find yourself thinking that certain forms of exercise don’t count if they don’t burn enough calories, produce enough sweat, or hit a certain intensity level. You may struggle with all-or-nothing patterns with exercise because it’s wrapped up in your dieting or weight loss attempts.
10. You’re not fully engaging in life the way you’d like because you’re constantly in your head, preoccupied with food. You’re constantly thinking about what you should or shouldn’t eat, second-guessing your food choices, or stressing over every bite, usually feeling either deprived or guilty. Deciding what to eat or trying to avoid foods that feel off limits takes up way too much time, brain space, or mental energy. As a result, you find yourself not fully engaging in your relationships, activities, or passions because you’re too preoccupied with food, your diet, or your body image.
If you’re nodding your head, recognizing yourself in many of these examples, please know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you’re not alone and it’s not your fault. Diet culture is the problem — not your body. I know it can feel discouraging and you may be wondering if food will always take up this much space in your life. The short answer is it doesn’t have to!
There is a proven path to healing with an Intuitive Eating approach to food.
When You’re Afraid to Stop Dieting
If the idea of stopping dieting feels scary, that makes sense. Diet culture teaches us that control equals safety. It disconnects us from our bodies and undermines confidence and self-trust with food.
Notice what feelings are coming up and consider what they may be telling you about your relationship with food. Many people fear they’ll gain weight if they walk away from dieting. In reality, Intuitive Eating can help you stop weight cycling.
If you find yourself asking, but what if gain weight? Consider flipping the script and reflecting on how the constant monitoring, restricting, and endless food rules are impacting your health and wellbeing. Try asking, what else you might I gain by healing my relationship with food? A certified Intuitive Eating dietitian and/or mental health therapist can help support you through this process.
If you’re ready to begin, you don’t need to have it all figured out and you don’t have to do it all at once. A helpful first step is to begin opting out of diet culture by deleting your food tracking apps and calorie counters, unfollowing diet or weight loss accounts on social media, and tossing your books, food scales, and other dieting tools. It’s so much harder to make peace with food when you’re still heavily immersed in diet culture.
Next, get curious instead of critical. Notice the food rules you’ve been following and question where they came from and whether they’re supporting you or making eating feel harder. You can start challenging these food rules one by one.
Remind yourself that health is not defined by a number or by eating perfectly—but by taking care of yourself with consistency, kindness, and respect for your body over time.
What Healing Your Relationship with Food Actually Looks Like
Please hear this: deciding to stop dieting doesn’t mean giving up on yourself or your health or that you suddenly need to love your body just as it is. It means choosing to let go of the belief that dieting and constantly trying to shrink yourself are the path to better health and wellbeing. It’s about recognizing that the rigid and restrictive nature of diet culture is causing you more harm than good, and choosing to explore a kinder, more sustainable way to care for your mind and body.
Over time, by learning to eat intuitively and heal their relationship with food, people often notice:
Increased confidence in their food choices
Cravings lose their urgency
Eating becomes simpler and more satisfying
Guilt fades, even when enjoying “fun” foods
It’s easier to be consistent with healthy habits, including exercise
Nutrition improves
They feel more deeply connected to their body and its needs
A better body image
Yes, it’s about the food on your plate, but really it’s about so much more. Stepping away from dieting opens the door to a life where food supports you and enriches your quality of life, rather than controlling you or causing stress. After working with hundreds of women, I’ve seen over and over again that Intuitive Eating turns into intuitive living!
Want support to heal your relationship with food? Book a free strategy call with me here and let’s chat about your personalized path to food and body peace.