Best Quotes from Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat by Michelle May with Page Numbers

"Instead of trying to stay in control, then subsequently losing control, mindfulness helps you pause so you are in charge."

"Like Connie, you won’t feel out of control or need to be in control—because you’ll be in charge."

"Eating will become pleasurable again, free from guilt and bingeing."

"In the eat-repent-repeat cycle, when you eat what you want, you feel guilty; when you eat what you 'should,' you feel deprived."

"You’re either tightly wound up in rules or you’re unraveling—overeating or bingeing."

"Mindfulness is simply deliberate awareness of the present moment without judgment."

"The feelings of guilt and self-hatred lead to more negative self-talk and further isolation."

"Once the patterns are clear, we’ll explore binge eating further."

"Instead of following strict rules created by experts, this process will show you how to become the expert."

"I guess I always knew that—but until I learned about mindful eating, I just didn’t know what to do to stop it."

Emotional eating, yo-yo dieting, negative body image, and other influences may have disconnected you from the information your body feeds to you at all times—your body wisdom.

It may be difficult for you to fathom the possibility that you can learn to trust yourself.

Wisdom is not just knowledge. It is experience.

The sensations of hunger and satiety are the simplest, yet most powerful tools for reconnecting yourself with your instinctive ability to know what your body needs.

Learning to recognize hunger before you’re famished can help prevent overeating.

The only way to feel fully satisfied with food is to eat because your body needs it.

You don’t need to be in control; you need to be in charge.

As you learn to trust yourself, you’ll gain the skills and confidence to make decisions no matter what the circumstances.

Our culture often promotes unrealistic and unhealthy expectations about what bodies should look like.

If you are unable to accept and love yourself as you are now, it is unlikely that you will ever be satisfied with yourself no matter what changes you make.

You’re in charge of what you do next.

Being in charge means you get to make choices.

Giving yourself permission to eat anyway is one of the most powerful ways to change your relationship with food.

When you want to eat (or keep eating) even though you aren’t hungry, you get to decide what you’ll do next.

Eating even though you aren’t hungry is easy and may give you temporary pleasure or distraction.

Eating or continuing to eat when you aren’t hungry can’t possibly give you the same level of satisfaction as eating to satisfy physical hunger.

Redirecting your attention works especially well for environmental triggers.

When you give yourself the opportunity to discover what you’re thinking and feeling, you’ll probably realize that most of the time it’s not about the food.

The more resentful and tired I felt, the more I binged.

Mindful decision-making can also help you think about how your life might change physically, emotionally, relationally, educationally, vocationally, financially, and spiritually.

Your triggers for overeating are powerless over you—until the sequence is activated.

What you think causes you to feel a certain way.

Your thoughts become self-fulfilling prophecies.

Mindfulness gives you response-ability.

Just because I think about food, doesn’t mean I have to do anything about it.

It’s wonderful that Grandma is passing on these traditions. I’ll savor every bite and every moment!

You have the power to change the thoughts that aren’t working for you.

Reprogramming your mind will create a self-perpetuating loop of self-care.

Every time you choose a different action, you create a new connection.

Your needs are important. You are enough.

"When a craving doesn't come from hunger, eating will never satisfy it."

"Emotional connections to food are woven into the fabric of our social experience."

"If you eat for emotional reasons, you have discovered a way to regulate and balance your emotions."

"Rather than pulling away and resisting the feeling, try to stay with it."

"The ability to shift your physical and emotional energy helps keep you in balance."

"Emotions are normal, healthy, and helpful because they are powerful sources of information about your true needs."

"Without awareness that the underlying reason no longer serves you, you’ll feel powerless to change the habit."

"You can choose to acknowledge that you are having difficult feelings and make a decision to return to them at a better time."

"Admittedly, it is more challenging to uncover the issues that drive overeating and bingeing."

"When you become aware of an emotion, take a moment to mindfully tune in to your body to discover any physical sensations associated with that emotion".

The most effective way to make permanent healthy lifestyle changes is to learn to eat according to your body’s signals and to eat as healthfully as possible without feeling deprived.

Satisfaction is not just physical fullness. Satisfaction comes from enjoying the food you eat.

When you don’t eat the food you really want, you may overeat other foods then eventually get around to eating what you wanted anyway.

The purpose of letting go of restrictive eating is to remove the false sense of value you place on certain foods.

Food decisions are neither good nor bad, but clearly, some foods offer more nutritional benefits than others.

Without a doubt, you’ll continue to hear about many wonder diets that promise amazing results. If it sounds too good to be true, it is!

When you give yourself unconditional permission to eat what you want, you’ll notice that food quickly loses the power and strong attraction it once had.

You are in charge of having food available to eat when you are hungry.

Decisions made based on emotion without logic is often impulsive and can leave you with regret.

If you can’t imagine eating a certain way for the rest of your life, don’t bother doing it for even a day.

If you love to eat, act like it!

Mindfulness changes eating into a memorable, multisensory experience.

Eating is a natural, healthy, and pleasurable activity when you’re eating to meet your body’s needs.

When you eat with the intention of caring for yourself, you’ll feel content, not deprived.

Eating mindfully helps you recognize the difference between physical satisfaction and fullness.

Awareness of what you’re doing and the potential consequences are difficult to face during a binge.

Instead of making a New Year’s resolution to lose weight, I wrote out a plan for how I would take better care of myself.

Eating with the intention of nourishing your body and enjoying your food is what it means to truly love what you eat.

Once you’ve experienced the pleasure of eating mindfully, you may be inspired to become more mindful during other activities, too.

Living fully in the moment will allow you to listen to and trust your innate wisdom.

"Eating the right amount of food isn’t about being good; it’s about feeling good."

"When you’re satisfied, you simply don’t need anything else. You feel content, fulfilled, pleased, and even happy."

"You’re most likely to learn when you’re gentle, patient, encouraging, and optimistic with yourself throughout the process."

"Occasional overeating—eating when you’re not hungry or eating past the point of fullness—is part of 'normal' eating."

"Regret means you don’t like how you feel and you wish you hadn’t eaten so much. It leaves the door open for you to learn from the experience."

"Just as you use your hunger level to let you know when to eat, you’ll use your fullness level to let you know when you’ve had enough."

"Perfection isn’t possible, or even necessary, so return to your Mindful Eating Cycle."

"Eating intuitively allows you to reassess and adjust based on your own body’s signals and needs."

"Recovery requires a conscious decision that bingeing is no longer an option— a deliberate choice to break up with your friend."

"I am becoming more open to the idea that I have enough and I am enough!"

Investing your energy to build a strong self-care buffer zone will make you less vulnerable and more resilient to the triggers and stressors you face each day.

Caring for Yourself means reconnecting with your physical and emotional needs.

Your self-care voice is the compassionate, wise voice that understands what you’ve been through, yet keeps your best intentions in mind.

Think of the last time you were passionate about something, something that energized you.

Stress takes a physical and emotional toll—who doesn’t want to feel more balanced and calm, even if only for a few moments?

Worrying is a habit, and habits can be changed with awareness.

You were doing the best you knew how at the time.

You don’t have to be perfect to be enough.

Avoiding confrontation and conflict and stuffing your feelings, thoughts, and opinions down with food prevents you from expressing yourself.

I’m interested in getting to know me better too!

I realized just how small my life had become.

I was depending on food to make me happy.

This process lays a foundation of decision-making skills, coping strategies, and most important, new relationships with food and with your body.

Mindful eating is a process, not a destination.

Diets always got harder and harder to follow with each passing day.

I want to feel satisfied and energetic, not deprived or guilty.

The biggest change though, is that I don’t define my self-worth by a number on a scale.

Simply notice which decision point you’re at in your Mindful Eating Cycle and return to mindful eating.

I use food to fuel myself, then I use that energy to find other ways to entertain, distract, and soothe myself.

Healing your relationship with food and your body isn’t going to make your life perfect, but it will create space for you to live the life you crave.