Photo by Eneko Uruñuela on Unsplash

From calorie tracking to intuitive eating

How I developed a healthy relationship with food and how you can start with four simple steps.

Eva Keiffenheim
7 min readMar 28, 2020

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A summary in four sentences: My unhealthy relationship with food started in 2011. Forcing myself to create a calorie deficit resulted in binge eating and significant weight fluctuations (up to +/- 13% of bodyweight). That, in turn, made my life joyless and stressful. When I discovered intuitive eating, my relationship with food changed. Since I trust my body, my fears vanished, and I’m gravitating towards my ideal weight while feeling happy and alive.

The reason I share my story is that I feel many people are going through a similar struggle I went through. Intuitive eating can be a way out of a downward spiral for others as well. I’m neither an eating coach, nor am I selling any online course. Also, I respect all other forms of “eating behaviors” there are, as long as the eating behavior does not take energy from the eater — enough pretalk. Let’s dive into the journey.

Chasing a beauty ideal and a calorie-deficit

I was 18 when I had my first critical thought on my diet and weight. By the time, my weight and body were, what I’d call it in retrospect, healthy average. But “healthy average body” wasn’t enough in the…

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Eva Keiffenheim

Learning enthusiast, TEDx speaker, and writer with +3M views | Elevate your love for learning with my free, weekly Learn Letter: http://bit.ly/learnletter