The Roadmap to Food Freedom (Ep.1) - Regular Eating
What does food freedom look like?
If you’re someone who feels choosing somewhere to eat is overwhelming, trying a new food feels impossible, or maybe the thought of your chosen meal being unavailable at a restaurant sends your anxiety through the roof.
You’re not alone - many people dream of getting back to a more natural, flexible way of eating where food doesn’t take up so much mental space, where you can trust yourself around food, and you can just enjoy eating again.
You might picture being able to spontaneously meet a friend for dinner, choose something from the menu, sit down and enjoy your meal without worrying about what you’re eating, how much you’re eating or what other people think. You’re able to be present. That’s the picture of food freedom that many of us want.
But if you’re currently struggling with your relationship with food, that picture can feel distance or impossible to reach.
I’m sure you’ve heard the saying:before you can run, you have to learn to walk. But when it comes to reaching food freedom, even walking might feel like a big leap. This is where the RAVES framework can be helpful. Think of it as laying the foundations or the roadmap to food freedom.
The RAVES roadmap
RAVES is a framework we use to think about the different elements that can support recovery from disordered eating and help build a more flexible relationship with food.
R — Regularity
A — Adequacy
V — Variety
E — Eating socially
S — Spontaneity
The framework provides a way of thinking about the different areas that can contribute to a more flexible and sustainable relationship with food, and regular eating is a really important place to start.
Before we can start get to spontaneous, flexible and enjoyable eating, we may first need to establish a more reliable pattern of eating.
Why start with regular eating?
We start with regular eating because it helps create the foundation for other positive eating patterns you build in the future. If you have disordered eating or an eating disorder, you’ve likely engaged in food eating behaviours that are unhelpful. Irregular, infrequent or delaying your eating, for example, is a common food behaviour. This may look like skipping breakfast or lunch, eating small meals, fasting for long periods of time, or only grazing/snacking all day without eating a proper balanced meal.
For our body and brain to properly function, we need regular nutrition throughout the day. For some, it’s eating every ~3 hours. For others, it looks like 3 meals, 2-3 snacks a day. The timing and how much you eat can vary from person to person and depends on your lifestyle, age, activity levels, socialising, work, etc. For most, especially if you are someone who has been restricting for a long time, it’s helpful to “eat by the clock”.
Regular eating also helps manage blood sugar spikes, metabolism and support your digestive system as it gets used to receiving food more consistently. For example, someone experiencing constipation or irregular bowel movements may find that establishing a more consistent eating pattern supports more regular bowel habits (although digestive symptoms can have many causes and regular eating isn’t a cure-all).
Other benefits of regular eating:
creates structure and predictability around eating - so it becomes a normal part of life again.
keeps your blood sugar levels steady (reduces tiredness, irritability, poor concentration)
helps stop unhelpful eating patterns (like delayed eating, binge eating)
prevents binge eating - when you eat more regularly, you’re less likely to be hungry and feel out of control around food
improves your metabolism, gastrointestinal functioning (e.g. more regular bowel movements!)
“But what if I’m not hungry?”
If you’ve been restricting, dieting or experiencing disordered eating, your hunger signals may feel muted, confusing or difficult to trust. You might not feel hungry in the morning. You might suddenly feel ravenous later in the day. You might struggle to tell the difference between physical hunger, cravings and emotional responses to food.
If this feels familiar, you may be experiencing difficulty noticing or interpreting your body’s internal signals. This is sometimes described as reduced interoceptive awareness - theability to notice, interpret, and respond to signals inside your body, including hunger or fullness.
This is one reason why advice like “just eat when you’re hungry and stop when you’re full” seems unhelpful. If your hunger/fullness cues are difficult to pick up, how are you supposed to use them as your guide?!
Because of this, regular eating can help kickstart your body’s Regular eating gives your body consistency and over time, this can help you improve your interoceptive awareness (your body’s ability to pick up on hunger and fullness cues).
How to eat regularly
This is where we want to avoid creating another set of rigid food rules. You may have heard that you should eat three meals and two snacks. Or eat every ~3 hours. These approaches can be useful starting points for some people, but there isn’t one pattern that works for everyone.
It’s helpful to plan, prep and prioritise (the 3 P’s).
Plan: Think about the meals/snacks you want to have, what ingredients you need to buy, and what time you’ll eat (sometimes planning, where and who with, can be helpful!).
p.s. - often we recommend clients to buy ready meals/snacks, pre-cut veg/fruit, and things like meal deals to make choice easier - this is totally fine, find what works for you.
Decide what your goal is:
Can you eat 2 meals a day instead of only 1?
Can you begin to reduce the long periods of restriction from 6 hours to 3 hours?
Do you need to set some alarms to make sure you don’t forget to eat? (I know I’m speaking to many of you on this one!!)
Prep: Prep your meals however far in advance. do you need to prep 1 week in advance? 3 days? or just the night before? Whatever works for you, make sure you give yourself some time to prep. It’s much easier to stick to regular eating when a plan is in place, to avoid that last minute panicked feeling you might get where you end up giving up and eating nothing at all (remember, we are not being spontaneous at the moment, it’s good to stick to a plan).
Prioritise: like most things in life, if it’s important to you, you will prioritise it. This may mean temporarily moving around your workday, or your gym session or other commitments you may have.
Our top tips:
Try not to go more than 4 hours without eating something - even if something small.
Pack a snack! I always have a cereal bar, some nuts or fruit in my bag or my car just in case I forget or get caught up and plans change.
It’s okay to start small - if you feel all you can manage is a cereal bar or a yoghurt right now, that’s a step towards eating more consistently. Just remember, regularity is one part of the picture and over time, we need to work towards eating enough to meet our body’s needs (Episode 2 coming out soon!)
Don’t beat yourself up if you miss your meal/snack - just pick yourself back up, and get back on track. It’s progress, not perfection, that moves us forward.
If you find yourself constantly grazing because you are hungry outside between planned meals/snack times, this might actually be a sign that you are not enough enough in your meals/snacks.
Regularity is only the beginning
Once regular eating starts to feel more established, we can begin working on the next parts of the roadmap.
Adequacy. Are you getting enough food and nutrition to meet your body’s needs?
Variety. Can you gradually expand the range of foods you’re comfortable eating?
Eating socially. Can you begin to feel more comfortable eating with other people?
Spontaneity. Can you cope when plans change, a restaurant is unexpectedly closed, or the meal you planned isn’t available?
These things are what start to move us towards the picture food freedom you imagined at the beginning.
And importantly, it’s about building flexibility, confidence and trust around food, one small step at a time.
Need some help with getting back on track and starting a healthy foundation?
At The Nutrition Collaborative, we offer compassionate, individualised 1:1 support for people who are struggling with their relationship with food and what to work towards food freedom alongside achieving their health goals. Our approach is flexible, evidence-informed and centred around your needs, your life and where you are right now.
If you’re ready to work towards a more peaceful relationship with food, get in touch. We’d love to collaborate with you.
Eat well. Live well. Be free.
