I've seen it many times before in the keto community. And maybe you have to this idea that keto has healed my relationship with food. But is that actually true or are we operating out of a place of fear of certain foods, of certain situations of certain environments? Where we are really now using avoidance as a way of coping. Instead of truly healing our relationship Food. Now. There is some truth to this. keto is such a powerful tool. Once you've removed processed flour and sugar and carbs from your diet. We are now able to truly hone in on our hunger cues. We are able to. Taste food in a different way where sweetness has a different sensation in our body, and we can honor our body by. Stopping when we're actually full and eating really nourishing, indulgent seeming foods, where we get to actually feel satisfied. So in that respect. It really is a powerful tool. To help us. In healing, our relationship with food versus. Eating certain foods that really trigger dopamine hits in our mind. We're now we're just spiraling out of control. Where we're bingeing or overeating on carby foods because we've allowed it in once. So now we're just going to keep going. So once we've removed certain foods from our diets, from our nutrition. We can then really start using our body. To help us navigate through. What actual hunger feels like and what feeling full actually feels. feels like But what I'd like to offer is. Are we truly healed? Or are we just avoiding. Triggers and are we avoiding certain foods that we don't feel in control around? And if that's the case, is that actually a healed relationship with food? Or are we just practicing avoidance and calling it healing? Our triggers are actually powerful clues about where we need to They are things we're most sensitive to and bothered by and upset by. We can go to any length. To try to avoid something that we consider a trigger. For you that might feel like. If I have one little bit of a carb, it's going to spiral so far out of control because I can't trust myself. To not eat all the carbs. Once I have a little carb. So in that respect has keto actually healed your relationship with food. It doesn't really sound like it. So as we're working to navigate through our keto lifestyle, and even once we've found a really good groove. We will go to great lengths to avoid anything. We consider triggering. Any carbs we think are triggering. Any foods, we feel like we need to have self control around or strong willpower around. Any environments, any people, any certain occasions? These triggers are things that we're super sensitive to and bothered by or things that destabilize us. They can vary depending on the person, they could be certain languages, memories, places, or events. And when we feel triggered, we might become so overwhelmed that we have a strong, emotional reaction to it. For many of us, we might even isolate ourselves from certain things because we are so afraid. That will be triggered. To eat the carbs. That it's better that we just don't even go at all. And we can resent people around us. If our family's sitting there having all the carbs they want in the world, and we're sitting there with our cauliflower, rice, and chicken and feeling sorry for ourselves about it. We are. Operating from a place of avoidance and that resentment can really build up and be there. And we want to avoid our triggers. As much as possible. But does that mean we've actually healed? You know, for many of us. We practice this avoidance because we're self-protecting and we believe that avoiding the carbs or the things that we can't control ourselves around is the best way to keep ourselves safe and to protect From pain of what it could mean. If we spiral out of control or gain the weight back or ruin all our progress. We're afraid of the emotions we feel when we're triggered and. We'll try to avoid having to experience any more of them than we already have. We're tired of that emotional rope rollercoaster that includes the ups and downs and the grips and the. Sense of loss of control. And we might feel relieved and think that we've healed enough to function normally. And to not always be on the defense or looking out for something that might trigger us next. But the reality is these foods are going to be around. Carbs are going to be around. Sugar's going to be around the people in your life. That trigger you are going to be around. The environments and the special occasions, those things are always going to be there. So if you're feeling some type of way about what I'm even saying right now, I am speaking directly to you. If you feel like. Ketos healed my relationship with food, but. I'm not even going to put myself in the circumstances or in the environments or around the people where I'm going to feel triggered to have carbs. We're really just practicing avoidance at this point. And we haven't healed our relationship with food. And we haven't built the self-trust we need to move forward and we haven't really even acknowledged what it is we're truly feeling in our body and what we're thinking In our minds And I want you to know that I completely get it. I was 100% guilty of this. When I first started my keto journey. I refrained from having any carbs. For pretty much a year. And I told myself and everyone that would listen around That I've healed my relationship with food. That keto was the thing I'm going to do keto perfectly for the rest of my life. Super strict. This is, this is it for me. This is my new way of eating and I'm going to be happy forever and healthy forever and maintain all my weight Like I told myself all the things. I was so convinced that I was healed. But. When I incorporated carbs into my lifestyle. During an extremely emotional time. It's spiraled out of control. I was having all the carbs and bingeing and overeating and it just kept going on and on. And I kept telling myself like, how is this possible? I've totally healed myself. But what I realized was I wasn't healed at all. In fact, I now just created a new rule around food that had me fearing carbs and had me scared of eating a potato or that I would never be able to get myself back on track if I had. The slightest bit of sugar i lived it. i completely was convinced that i had healed my relationship with food when really i was just practicing avoidance tactics and creating more The truth is. The more we use avoidance to cope. The more, our pain and our feelings go unhealed. And the more our sensitivity. Around carbs around what that could mean around what might happen if we have them that just grows. Whatever we tend to avoid. Just festers and it becomes more complex. And then we have to unpack and unravel all of it. And we might think that we're safe within our comfort zone of avoidance. But any time we feel triggered we're pushed forcibly out of that false illusion of comfort when we're being triggered, we're literally being shown. What areas of ourselves still need to be healed. Our greatest lessons are often accompanied by this discomfort and pain and these growing pains. Are part of the healing process. And when we can accept this invitation to dig deeper and to embark on a journey of self exploration, we initiate that healing process. So, what are you being triggered by? Are there certain things that a loved one? Says or does that bothers you and might cause you to reach for food in a disempowered way? Are there events, places, or memories that bring up unwanted feelings for How do your triggers make you feel? What do you usually do to avoid them? What unresolved internal issues are you being called to explore and investigate? Aside from this is just the keto rule and I can't trust myself around certain foods. Therefore I'm just going to avoid them at all costs. That is not healing now, if you're happy with your keto lifestyle, and this is not an issue for you and you're completely fine around carbs and that doesn't even phase you. Cool. Amazing. If that's the case, then I would like to offer that keto hasn't healed your relationship with food. You healed your relationship with However. If you are practicing avoidance of carbs in the sense that you're scared to have them, you feel like you need to use a ton of willpower when you're around them. When we can look at our triggers, head on is when we can reclaim our power over the pain. That's been overwhelming us about them. And the process of exposing ourselves to our triggers and confronting that pain is the direct road. To truly healing our relationship with food. It can take the sting out of these triggers and makes them less painful. So when triggering thoughts arise or some triggering event occurs, we are no longer. Reacting to it and feeling devastated by it. We're able to face these demons, remembering that they're just indicators of the issues we have to heal. Their invitations to look within ourselves and explore our inner selves in more depth so that we can truly heal our relationship with food. So it's not so much about avoiding carbs at all costs. What I would like to invite you to consider is if I have carbs. How can I build self trust that I will return to my keto lifestyle because that's where I feel my best. That's what makes me happiest and that's. That allows me to be who i truly want to be in my life for my family and Myself. Chances are that if something in this podcast alone, or me even talking about this has triggered you in any kind of way, or it's got your backup a little bit. That there's probably some more healing to do around our relationship with food. And sometimes people identify as a sugar addict or a food addict, but. What I would like to offer is that really comes down to. Requiring more healing and more self exploration. Into the idea of self-trust. And how to build more self-trust so that when we have the carbs, when we have the thing. We know within ourselves. That we'll get back to our keto lifestyle because we've healed our relationship Food Self-trust is not trusting yourself to know all the answers, nor is it believing they will always do the right thing. It's having the conviction that you will be kind and respectful to yourself regardless of the outcome of your efforts. The very definition is the firm reliance on the integrity of yourself. So, as I mentioned before, keto is not responsible for healing, your relationship with food. It is an incredible tool to have in your tool belt to help you heal your relationship with food, because it allows you to feel into your body more because it allows you to question what's coming up in your mind. What emotions are triggering But in addition to that, we have to do the work to. Increase our self-awareness. To take radical responsibility over our choices. And to build self-trust. Once we've been able to build more. Self-trust. We're now able to have more clarity and confidence in our choices. We are coming from. A deeper place of knowing that. We can learn from our mistakes. We can learn from our experiences, both the successes and failures. And because we trust ourselves, we know they're not mistakes at all, because we are openly. Uh, Seeking out the experiences without the self punishment so that we can And grow So here's an example of something that could really undermine our self-trust and that is regret. When we've had the carbs. And then suddenly we're faced with so much regret. We start worrying, we start questioning if we've ruined all our progress. Regret itself. Isn't the problem, but what keeps us stuck in regret is the resistance to feeling the full depth of it. It's overwhelming and we don't have the resources sometimes to really hold. What it is that regrets, trying to tell us. So when we feel regret, this is really just a bigger opportunity for us to practice being compassionate with ourselves and forgiving ourselves. It's a way for us to demonstrate that we've learned from this mistake. And that makes regret evaporate. Then self-forgiveness and self-trust automatically occur. We are producing evidence that reflects the integration of what we've just learned. Instead of just avoiding it completely. We have now learned from this mistake learned from this setback and now we've been able to hold ourselves through that so that we can make different choices and decisions moving forward The word. Something else that we really need to address when it comes to building self-trust on our keto journey is how we relate to that inner critic. That inner voice. That will try to argue that we need to accept all the negative shit it's throwing at us. But when we buy into that negative voice, We diminish our self-trust. We're now trying to escape that inner critic by. Either eating all the carbs or avoiding all the carbs with the most amount of willpower and self-control possible, we are really just trying to distract ourselves from that voice. But. The way to build self-trust is to relate to that inner critic and show it that it is taking a seed of truth and blowing it way out of proportion. So. There are ways we can get to know our inner critic. But mostly, we just have to get really curious about what it's trying to tell us. And really compassionate with ourselves that these thoughts are there. What is the inner critic? Where does it come from? What are its intentions? What does it want from us? What is it trying to tell us? Is that true? We need to just hold space around what it's trying to tell us and get curious around. If what it's telling us is even true in the first place. Then we can make an empowered decision And to final tool that we can really use when developing this sense of self-trust. So we can truly heal our relationship with food. And enjoy our keto lifestyle. If that includes carbs, even if it doesn't whatever feels best for you. Uh, tool we've really need to utilize is. Stop being caught in the past or worrying about the future. This undermines our self-trust because we miss out on all of the opportunities around us. We are so fearful of the possibility of future suffering. That we're living in the future. Or if we live in the consciousness of regret, we're living in the past. And defer bouncing back and forth between the past and the future. We're missing the present. And if we're not present, we can't learn. And we keep recycling through the same mistakes, the same thought patterns, the same. Grips that make us want to just restrict even further or use white nickel willpower or have so much self-control otherwise i will Fail As soon as we stop focusing on the future, we're going to feel anxious and vulnerable. Because when we're living in the present, it might feel really unprotected. But the challenge is to cultivate a courageous heart that can tolerate these longer periods of presence. And to focus on the choices right in front of you and how they're going to make you feel and what that can mean for you. And by cultivating this tolerance. For feeling anxious for not living in the future or dwelling on the past. We are releasing a huge piece of fear. And through that release, self-trust automatically grow stronger. When we're in the present moment, it is the ultimate protection. It's like this paradox where it feels like you're dropping the worry. And it can feel dangerous. But. The vulnerability of Bailey being purely present is actually like a sanctuary because there is no fear. This is something that I work with my clients on all the time, because this is the ultimate tool. For healing, our relationship with food. keto, did it do that for you? It is on you to do that for you. And the best way to do that. Is through building self-awareness self-trust taking responsibility. And being curious and compassionate with yourself. The weight of regret and the lack of presence can crack us open in a way that we can no longer maintain our previous self. This is great news. This is the path to healing. And learning to manage that inner critic can free up so much energy that is necessary to develop. Self-trust. And learning to stay present with. The decisions that are right in front of you and cultivating our relationship with that inner voice. One that is not dependent on. Regrets of the carbs I just had and thinking in the past, or what will happen if I have the carbs and thinking in the future and just sitting in the present moment and. Making decisions based on what feels best for you, what feels best in your body? And knowing that you have healed your relationship with food. To the point where you trust yourself. To get back on track to make sure that you're feeling your best to. Just go back to your usual routines without it having to spiral completely out of control. The truth keto will never heal your relationship with It never can heal your relationship with food because it's an external thing. The only way we can truly heal our relationship with food. And use keto as a tool to help us through that. Is by doing the deeper inner work is by cultivating self-trust and building it and increasing our self-awareness around the decisions we're making or not making and the actions we're taking or not taking. And if this is all feeling super overwhelming to you just know that there is help out there. If you want to have a conversation How we could work together to truly heal your relationship with food so that you can move forward in a way that truly serves you. I would be open and loved to have that conversation with But just know that you can absolutely do this. I am living proof. That you can do this. Like I said, I was strict keto for a year. I thought I'd healed my relationship with But I've really hadn't. I was just avoiding all the things and pretending. That I had healed my relationship with food. And now that I've been doing keto for over four years and I include carbs within my keto lifestyle. Now I can say that I have healed my relationship with food. So if you want any guidance on this process, Please don't hesitate to reach out. I will link up. Uh, way you can message me in the show notes. But just as a final takeaway. If we want to truly heal our relationship with food. It requires doing the deeper work and addressing the fears that come up around having carbs and how we feel about that or what that could mean for us. And our keto weight loss journey. Practicing avoidance based on fear. And calling it healing. Is not true healing on your keto weight loss journey. And I would invite you to sit with that. And reflect on where you can start building more self-trust with yourself. To truly help you move forward and live a happy healthy keto lifestyle