There's a vital difference between food rules and healthy eating habits:

• Food rules are rigid: you have strict parameters around how you should eat and feel guilty or worried when you don't eat according to that plan.
• Healthy eating habits are flexible: you prioritise nutritious ingredients but don’t agonise over what to eat.

Following food rules can be physically, mentally, and socially exhausting, impacting your overall quality of life.

If we think of food in terms of good and bad, and that eating is a bad behaviour, it is easy to believe you are a bad person for eating. Then food becomes a source of stress and shame instead of nourishment and pleasure.

Rather than feeling you're a terrible person without self-control because you ate some ice cream, acknowledge that you just ate something delicious because you wanted it. Thinking this way makes it easier to let go and move on.