Forget the inspirational Instagram quotes, the practical first step to healing your relationship with food is actually regular eating.

Most people see someone struggling with disordered eating patterns, especially heavily restricting food in the manner of anorexia, and think that it’s a mental problem that manifests itself in the food.

So they assume that the first step to healing is to deal with the psychological barriers to eating. They think that if you can fix the mind, food will naturally follow.

However, while it’s somewhat true that eating issues can be the manifestation of a mental health issue, the opposite is also true! Not eating well, especially not eating enough, affects the way the brain thinks.

The Minnesota Starvation Experiment is the most striking example of this. Healthy young men who were semi-starved became obsessed with food, anxious, depressed, apathetic. Some accounts say that their body image was altered so much that some of the men thought they were fat despite looking like skeletons. All suffered serious psychological distress. And it was caused by inadequate nutrition, not the other way around.

This serves a crucial point: without enough energy on board, clients simply do not have the cognitive or emotional capacity to engage in the deeper psychological work to heal. Food needs to come first. That’s why regular eating is a core feature of my Food Freedom Framework – a step-by-step system for health professionals to help guide their clients from disordered eating to intuitive eating.

Let’s have a deeper look at the ways in which regular eating helps to heal your clients.

A starved brain cannot fully heal

Brain function literally depends on consistent energy intake. Ever skipped a meal and felt brain fog set in? Or gotten rather cranky and snapped at the kids? Your cognitive clarity, emotional regulation, and impulse control all rely on regular energy.

So it makes sense that chronic restriction leads to increased anxiety, intrusive thoughts about food, and black and white thinking.

But imagine trying to heal these issues while the brain is malnourished? It’s not going to be anywhere near as effective as therapy with a well-fed brain.

One of the first steps in the Food Freedom Framework is ensuring clients are eating regularly, so we can begin to restore their cognitive function and help stabilize their mood – so they can properly engage in therapy.

Eating enough lays the groundwork for working through fear of not being in control, body image concerns, and other psychological patterns that need addressing.

Regular eating restores hunger cues and reduces bingeing

The body responds to restriction as a threat. Think of caveman times when not enough food meant a famine, or being chased by a tiger or something. It means ‘fight or flight’ mode. And when there is food available, the body goes “Quick! Give it all to me now, in case we don’t get another chance”. That’s part of the reason restriction often leads to binge eating.

And why consistent meals are needed to calm the body down, get back into ‘rest and digest’ mode, and restore regular hunger and fullness cues. After a period of increased hunger, the body will calm down and binge eating usually dramatically lessens because the physical drive for it has gone.

(The emotional drive may still be there, but that’s a blog post for another day).

A simple regular eating plan is vital to healing – that’s why this unsexy advice is one of the very first steps of the Food Freedom Framework.

‘Getting through’ is a completely valid first step

Many clients are terrified to eat regularly because it means eating more. They may be scared to gain weight and want to avoid the physical and emotional discomfort that comes with eating more than they want to at this time.

At this stage, I advocate for ‘getting through’ rather than doing any mental work around sitting with discomfort, challenging unhelpful thoughts and feelings, or eating mindfully. That can come later. For now, distraction is key.

TV shows, podcasts, music, and eating with supportive loved ones who can chat away about other things are all immensely helpful. Over time, you can transition your clients from distraction-based eating to mindful eating and making more food choices for themselves.

Your clients may be looking for some Instagram-worthy inspiration to heal their disordered eating thoughts, but in the real world the unsexy advice of regular eating still reigns supreme. Only with proper nourishment can your clients effectively engage in the emotional work required for long-term recovery.

If you want to know how I guide my clients from disordered eating to intuitive eating using the Food Freedom Framework, download the cheat sheet of it here!