Nourish dont punish

Reframing Your Relationship with Food

By Shimpli Patil, Head Nutritionist & Lifestyle Expert, Luke Coutinho Holistic Healing Systems (LCHHS)

We’re almost towards the end of 2025, and I love how most of us are more aware of what we’re putting in our bodies. But this awareness has its own cons. So many of us eat with guilt, fear, or pressure. We punish ourselves for “wrong” choices, and we reward ourselves with food when emotions get too heavy. Over time, this disconnect affects not just physical health, but emotional and spiritual well-being too.

But food was never meant to be the enemy. It was meant to be a support in our healing.

Reframing your relationship with food begins with a mindset shift. Instead of asking “Is this good or bad?”, start asking “Is this nourishing me right now?” 

Nourishment isn’t only about macros. It is about how you feel before, during, and after a meal. 

Are you eating from a space of calm or chaos? Are you chewing mindfully or rushing through life? 

Are you listening to your body’s intelligence or outsourcing your choices to trends and fear?

One of the biggest teachings we share with our clients and patients is. The relationship you have with food mirrors the relationship you have with yourself. 

If you constantly judge your plate, you end up judging yourself. But if you approach meals with compassion, awareness, and gratitude, something inside you begins to shift as well.

Start by slowing down. A meal eaten mindfully nourishes you more than the same meal eaten in stress. 

Engage your senses, chew well, breathe between bites. This simple act activates your parasympathetic nervous system, i.e. the rest-and-digest state, allowing better digestion, assimilation, and energy. When the body is calm, it knows how to heal.

Second, respect your bio-individuality. There is no one diet that works for everyone. Your body is unique. Your gut health, emotional landscape, lifestyle, sleep pattern, and medical history all influence what nourishes you. Instead of forcing yourself into rigid food rules, observe how different foods make you feel.

A meal that energises someone else may drain you, and that’s okay. Listening to your body is one of the highest forms of self-respect.

Third, drop the guilt! Guilt doesn’t help you digest better. It doesn’t burn calories. All it does is create stress hormones that work against your goals. If you indulge, enjoy it fully, and return to balance at the next meal. 

Finally, focus on simple, timeless principles. Eat real food!  fresh, seasonal, and local. Always choose real food over processed. Stay hydrated. Give your gut the fibre, diversity, and rest it needs. Create gentle gaps between meals. Don't keep nibbling through the day, or don't even keep long gaps.

Nourish your emotional health through sleep, movement, breathwork, and by connecting inwards. When your lifestyle aligns, your cravings and choices naturally shift.

Food becomes a powerful tool for healing when you stop using it to punish yourself. When the body is calm, it knows how to repair. That is exactly the foundation of how we approach wellness at LCHHS, rooted in the principles of Foundational Medicine.

Nourishment is all about how you show up to your plate every day. When you start celebrating your body instead of controlling it, food becomes joyful again, and your health begins to transform from the inside out.