The Authentic Eating Matrix 🎉
Hi 🤍
“Life is too short to put up with a crappy relationship with food or be unhappy with how we’re nourishing ourselves.”
These words have been echoing in my mind, and I’ve been working on something that, if these words hit home, I think you’ll find incredibly helpful. I recently shared it over on Instagram but wanted to tell you about it here too!
If you prefer to listen, feel free to jump over to the podcast episode on the topic here.
Otherwise – let me introduce you to…
The Authentic Eating Matrix
Ta Da! 🎉
Essentially, The Authentic Eating Matrix is a self-awareness tool to help you discover which aspect of your eating needs more love. Don't worry, I'll tell you how to use it below.
Why I created it
Aside from the fact that everyone loves a quiz or self-assessment tool. There are a few other reasons why a created.
First and foremost, I believe it’s heartbreaking that so many of us accept or normalise a less-than-ideal relationship with food. We’re made to feel that it’s just something we have to live with because it’s so common. Worse yet, some people are burdened with shame, afraid to ask for help, or unsure where it’s safe to find support. This is where The Authentic Eating Matrix comes in – it’s like a self-assessment tool to see if you need or want help and to give you some direction on where to start.
The second reason I designed The Authentic Eating Matrix this way is because our relationship with food is subjective and far from black and white. Many tools offer yes or no answers, but we all know that our connection with food is dynamic, changeable, and influenced by numerous factors. I wanted something that could capture this complexity, which is why it’s presented as a scatterplot.
Its intention is to help you to figure out where you need to put more love: your relationship with food, your eating patterns, both or neither. And because it’s subjective, it really gets you thinking.
Am I happy with where I am?
Am I willing to accept my eating patterns or how I feel about food long-term?
And if not, by sending more love to where it’s needed, you’ll start the process of shifting toward a way of eating that is more authentic to YOU. Hence why it’s called The Authentic Eating Matrix.
How to use it
1. Reflect on your relationship with food
On a scale from feeling really good and peaceful to challenging and tumultuous, where would you place it?
You can also use a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 being the most peaceful and 1 the most challenging. Remember, these things are dynamic, so just answer based on your average feeling.
Examples of a peaceful relationship with food:
· The amount of brain space taken up by thoughts about food that feels reasonable
· Not feeling guilt about what or how much you eat
· Can eat around most people without shame
· Self-talk related to food is mostly neutral or positive
· Minimal rigid food rules
· Able to be flexible when it comes to making food choices
· Caring about nourishing your body to an extent that feels aligned
Examples of a challenging relationship with food:
· Preoccupied with thoughts about your food or body
· Feeling guilty for eating certain types or amounts of food
· Feeling shame eating in front of others
· Urges to restrict food
· Urges to binge eat or feeling out of control around food
· Negative self-talk related to food
· Rigid food rules e.g. “I shouldn’t eat after 7pm”
· Experiencing significant stress or anxiety about food e.g. worrying about calories
· An obsession with “healthy eating” to the point it feels unhealthy
· Feeling confused or overwhelmed by what to eat
Based on your reflection, just take a mental note of where you would place a mark along the relationship with food axis (peaceful, challenging or somewhere in between)
2. Reflect on how you feel about your eating patterns
Do they feel good and aligned with your values? Does it feel nourishing to your body and soul. Remember, aligned eating is unique to you. What is aligned for one person might be completely different than what is aligned for someone else.
On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the most aligned and 1 being the most misaligned, where would they sit?
Examples of when your eating pattern might feel aligned:
· Feeling content with what, when, how and why you’re eating most of the time
· Eating in a way that is connected with your appetite cues most of the time
· Eating in a way that supports your wellbeing or any health conditions you might have most of the time
· Incorporates foods that support social health in an amount that feels aligned
· Spending an amount of energy on food that feels reasonable
Examples of when your eating pattern might feel misaligned:
· Binge eating or “emotional eating” often
· Eating foods that cause symptoms or make your feel unwell often
· Eating in a way that goes against your appetite cues
· Not eating a balance or variety of foods that you’re happy with most of the time
· Eating in a way that doesn’t support your wellbeing most of the time despite wanting to (often people’s mind goes to “junk” food here, but it can also be eating too “clean” or restricting that doesn’t support optimal wellbeing)
· Struggling to follow through on or sustain positive changes long-term
· Spending too much energy on food (e.g. shopping, preparing, cooking etc) and it feels out of alignment with where you want to spend your energy
Based on your reflection, take a mental note of where you would place a mark along the eating patterns axis (aligned, misaligned or somewhere in between).
3. Find where those two imagined marks meet on the chart and place a mark
Remember there’s no moral judgement here. Firstly, no one’s is going to be aligned or peaceful all of the time. Secondly, if things are hard, it makes sense given the diet culture we’re surrounded by. Thirdly, these things are dynamic and can change hour to hour, day to day, week to week, month to month and year to year.
So if you’re not currently where you want to be, it doesn’t have to be forever. This tool is to help you decide whether it’s something you to work on or get support with.
What your results mean
Once you’ve plotted your mark – how do we interpret it? Being a scatterplot, there could be many interpretations. But for simplicities sake, I kept it to the four key interpretations as follows:
Challenging relationship with food / misaligned eating patterns
I’m sorry you find yourself here. First and foremost, it’s not your fault. Our society has some pretty crummy beliefs about nutrition and bodies that they enforce on us from a young age. Know that you’re not alone and that there’s help available.
If your eating patterns are inconsistent, irregular or inadequate, it can be helpful to start by making sure you’re eating enough and finding some consistency. Eating enough food in a regular manner is the foundation of both healing your relationship with food and finding an eating pattern that works for you. Once you’ve laid that foundation, it’s much easier to then work on your relationship with food followed by wellbeing goals.
Challenging relationship with food / aligned eating patterns
So often I see people who have sacrificed their relationship with food in order to eat in a certain way. Sometimes that way of eating is more aligned with what they think they “should” be doing rather than what is authentic to them. Do you fall into that camp?
Either way, you don’t have to put up with a crappy relationship with food in order to be happy with your eating patterns. As you start working towards a more peaceful relationship with food, you may need to allow more flexibility in how and what you eat. But don’t stress, it’s all part of the process of finding equilibrium.
Peaceful relationship with food / misaligned eating patterns
Yay for a happy relationship with food! You’re in a wonderful place for making some tweaks to your eating patterns. Just don’t forget to keep prioritising how you FEEL about food in the process.
Peaceful relationship with food / aligned eating patterns
Give yourself a big high-five. Seriously. It’s hard to have a happy relationship with food and be content with our eating patterns in this culture. Hold onto it! Go forth and be a wonderful role model in the world.
That’s it! Hopefully it has given you a sense of which aspect of your eating needs a little more love.
If you do it, let me know. It can be great to save it somewhere and track your progress on it in future.
If anyone is great with coding and can help me make it into a functional tool on my website or blog, let me know! I think it would be fun for people to fill it in online.
Thanks for being here, you guys are the best.
Nadia xx