I healed my relationship with food—here's how you can too
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Hello and welcome to the Claim Your Power podcast, the ultimate show for all things self-love, spirituality, and personal growth. I'm your host, Kim Peretz. I'm a three-time author, content creator, avid traveler, entrepreneur, and matcha enthusiast. You are at the right place if you're ready to rediscover the love within, align with your purpose, and unleash your highest potential. It's time to claim your power.

Hello my beautiful friends and welcome back to another episode of the pod. I miss you guys. I know we didn't have an episode last week, but I'm back at it better than ever. Last week I just kind of needed to take the week off. I was doing a lot of big traveling days. I was jet lagged. I was unpacking.

But I'm finally back into my apartment, my space, my routine, and I'm also back on the pod and I'm so excited. And today we're going to talk about something that, honestly, it's not that I was hesitant to talk about it, but it was something that genuinely...

I wasn't ready to talk about on the podcast yet because I felt like I needed to fully master this lesson in my life and fully master this part of my life in order to actually share it with you guys. I don't like to share or talk about stuff that I don't feel like I've mastered or I've been through because to me that's just sugarcoating and that's inauthentic.

But today I'm going to talk to you guys kind of about how I healed my relationship with food, with wellness, with health, and all of those good things. I feel like this episode topic kind of fits the energy of October. I don't know, kind of like the energy of autumn and, you know, you're cooking a lot and you're all about

routines and health and all those things. So I just felt like this episode was aligned with this month. And speaking of October, for my Claim Your Power exclusive community members, I just posted recently October's bonus podcast episode and I think you guys are really going to like it. I also recently posted October's manifestation playlist, October's book recommendations, and by the time this episode will be out, I would have already posted October's

October's new moon energy update with the oracle deck reading and inspirational insights and all of those good content. And if you have no idea what I'm talking about and you're thinking to yourself, Kim, you didn't tell me you have bonus podcast episodes and all these good resources, you just have to join my Patreon. It's really easy. I'm gonna leave the link in

in the episode notes so you guys can join. You can even pause this episode right now. It's an amazing community with so much resources and I'm only gonna keep expanding it. And it's the best way to honestly support me. Also, one more thing speaking of October. I wanted to let you guys know that

that this month in October, the next couple of weeks are going to be kind of the last few weeks where I'm going to have a good amount of availability for one-on-one calls. Once I enter November and December, my calendar is pretty much booked solid. So if a part of you feels called to work with me, this is your sign. I know one-on-one calls are not for everyone, but

It is an amazing investment in your personal growth and your spiritual journey or whatever other goals you have for yourself. I'm there to support you. So if you feel called to work with me, I really suggest you book your call for October because once November and December rolls in, I'm still going to be taking calls, but it's just going to be at a much more limited capacity. I want to be able to help as many of you as I can. So I will also leave the sign up link to book a call with me and apply to work with me one-on-one in the

episode notes so you guys can do that as well. And as always, I hope you guys love this podcast episode. If you do, please make sure to rate the podcast, share it with a friend. And if you're listening to this podcast on your next hot girl walk, matcha run in the car,

at home, whatever it may be. You know I love to see it. So if you ever post an Instagram story about it, make sure to tag me. I love to share it. I love to see you guys listening to the podcast all over the world, wherever you are. It makes me so happy. And reading your messages and your kind words just fill my heart in unimaginable ways. So I just wanted to say thank you for supporting me, my show, the podcast.

and this amazing community that we have all built together. So without further ado, let's dive into today's episode. So as many of you guys know, I've shared on the podcast before that a couple years ago in the past, before I even had the podcast, before I even was doing social media, I had struggled with an eating disorder.

And eating disorders stem for a lot of people for a lot of different reasons. And today I'm just going to be speaking from my own experiences. And I also want to say that this episode is about empowerment. It's not about sharing a sob story or a victim mentality. It's really just about being more vulnerable with you guys about the things I've been through through my past.

as a way to maybe inspire you that if you can go if i can go from being in that low place in my life and completely shifting it towards a more positive amazing stance of where i am now you can do the same when i struggled with an eating disorder there was a couple of reasons for why this was happening one it was my need for perfectionism i had this

very much rooted wound within me that everything needed to be perfect and I needed to control everything and that really really affected my relationship with food as well as actually I don't know if some of you guys can also relate to this but this is something that I've noticed actually with a lot of women that don't talk about it is it's kind of

eating disorder that stemmed from an over commitment to health but like on the wrong side so some people are really disconnected from their health and wellness and that causes issues with their relationship with food in their body but for me it was like an over commitment to health so I was vegan at the time I

I don't eat gluten. So for me, that was like basically eliminating 90% of what I could eat in my life. And so that basically like butchered my whole relationship with food because I didn't know what I could eat. And so I would just get lazy and I would overthink. And then every time I would eat something, I would think it's unhealthy or not good for me. And so I just would choose not to eat and I would skip meals. And that ended up causing so many issues in my body. I mean, I lost my cycle. I developed an ovarian cyst.

cystic acne, and all of those things and all of those deep-rooted issues stemmed from my relationship with food. And it wasn't until I healed that relationship with food on a physical and mental level, and I really made those shifts in my life, that all of those problems just subsided and healed. Because when I healed my body from within with my relationship with

food, and emotionally, all of those problems just heal. Just as you guys know, now my body is healthy. I feel good. I have a 28-day cycle that is just so aligned. I also have a cycle syncing guide, so if you guys want to learn more about that, I'll put it in the episode notes so you guys can download it. My acne cleared up. My skin is glowing. It's radiant. Obviously, I still get a pimple here and there, especially when I travel and stuff like that.

But my cystic acne is completely eliminated. I do not struggle with the same amount of acne as I did before. I have no ovarian cyst. I am healthy. I am active.

I feel good in my body. Not only that, I no longer restrict myself and I no longer have a toxic relationship with food. And in today's episode, I really want to empower you and tell you kind of the roadmap to how I heal that relationship with food so that you're inspired to do the same. The first thing, this is like the most crucial thing that I had to realize while I was in a midst of an eating disorder, is that the only person that can save me and heal me is myself.

No amount of doctor that wants to prescribe me different pills, not even my family or my friends who really cared about me, who encouraged me to eat, to stop being vegan, who wanted to help me in so many ways. None of those things actually changed anything in my life because the first thing I needed to do was be fully committed to myself.

and my well-being. And if I wasn't committed to that, if I didn't believe that I could heal, and if I didn't want to heal, if I didn't have the desire to shift that because I was suffering, but if I didn't have that desire, nobody else could have saved me. And that was the first thing that I needed to realize. And obviously, like when it comes to your relationship with food, there are a lot of different external triggers, you know, social stigmas in the world,

unattainable body standards, maybe toxic relationships in your life that are actually contributing to your relationship with food. And all of those things, I'm not dismissing them. They do contribute to triggers in our lives, just like everything else, not just your relationship with food. Every other thing in our lives, like there are external triggers, correct?

But at the same time, if we blame all of our problems on the external, then that gives away our power and we never have the power to heal because we give all our energy to those things and those people and those experiences and those stigmas and that strips us away of our ability to heal and change our life.

So the first thing that you have to realize when you want to heal your relationship with food is you have to take full responsibility for your health, for your mentality, for your well-being, and for your mindset. Is that easy? No. It is a lot easier said than done, especially when you are deep in a stigma of triggered wounds, and especially if you've been struggling with this for a long time.

But you have to choose your heart because in life there will always be certain heart. It is hard to be, you know, work hard and achieve your goals, but it is also hard to be broke. It is hard to be unhealthy and lazy, but it is also hard to be fit and active and into fitness and all of those health. Like you have to choose your heart. So just like that, it is hard to struggle with your relationship with

food and it is hard to you know suffer in that stigma in your life but it is also just as hard to pick yourself up when you're down and to choose a different path for yourself and to no longer let other people especially yourself and your mind dictate how you feel about yourself and dictate your health so the first thing you have to realize is this is a journey between you and you and

Yes, there are outside triggers, but at the end of the day, the only person that can heal you is yourself. I can't heal you. I can share with you resources. I can share with you my experiences. I can share with you my tips, how to change your life and how I changed my life. But at the end of the day, if you don't take those things and if it is not important for you and desirable for you to make those actionable change in your life,

then nothing is going to change. Nothing changes unless nothing changes. Another tip that I have for you guys that really changed the game for me is I stopped labeling and restricting food. So at the time of my heightened eating disorder, I was vegan. I still don't eat gluten just because that has nothing to do with restricting. I would love to eat gluten, but it actually makes me feel pretty sick. So when I eat gluten, it's only like in Europe where the wheat is a lot different. But when I'm in the States, I

Stay the fuck away from gluten. It makes me break out. It makes me sit in the bathroom too long. I do not like it. So maybe, by the way, if you guys struggle with stomach issues and all those things, you should really check if you're sensitive to gluten because a lot of people in the U.S. have that sensitivity. But in Europe, it's different because...

Their farming and the way that they like do all of the food industry is completely different than the States. Anyways, I'm going off track. But at the time that I was having an eating disorder and I had a really bad relationship with food, I was vegan. And that meant that I was basically restricting most of the nutrients that my body was needing. So I wasn't eating meat. So I didn't have enough...

Iron and that's why I kind of lost my cycle. I wasn't eating eggs So I was really nutrient deficient in vitamin b12 and all those things that my body was needing. I

I was basically just eating plants, like lettuce. And I'm not saying that it's bad to be vegan. I think as a woman that's young, like in your teens or 20s, it is not the best idea. But do with that info what you will. Just because your body needs those nutrients, especially if you still have like an active cycle.

But at the end of the day, like I was a bad vegan. Like I didn't do a lot of research. I basically just woke up one day and was like, I'm vegan because I was getting into my spiritual journey. And I was like, okay, the next phase is to stop eating anything by animals. And so I just like completely eliminated that.

animal products for my diet and that was so toxic because I didn't even transition to it. I wasn't eating enough proteins. I was literally basically just eating plants and I am not a cow or a horse. Like I cannot live like that and that caused.

So many issues in my life. And so the first thing that I had to realize about my relationship with food is that...

Did you know that if you drive a Hi, you can get fined with a DUI? A DUI? Really? I didn't know. Man, you're so low. I don't drive a Hi anymore. I was talking about what I did before. It doesn't matter what you think. If you feel different, you drive differently. Drive Hi, get a DUI. Paid by NHTSA.

If I am hurting myself, but I'm not hurting other people, that's still just as toxic and bad. And that applies to like everything like that was also really stemming again in my perfectionism and people pleasing mentality at the time because I was like, okay, I'm not going to eat animals because I care about animals and I care about my life and all of that.

But I was literally ruining my life and I was ruining my health. And like, I could have died. Like, it was bad. Like, I was like really nutrient deficient in a lot of things. And if I had kept it going, like it could have been gotten me to a really, really dark place. And so this applies to just everything in life. Like, if you're not hurting other people and you're pleasing everyone, but at the end of the day, like you're filling up from an empty cup, like that's going to end up hurting you. So the first thing you need to realize is you need to ask yourself, like, am I doing enough for myself?

Am I giving enough for myself? Or am I restricting myself? Because if you're restricting and you're labeling everything as good or bad, like that's going to be so toxic in the long run because at the end of the day, nothing is good or bad. Everything in life is just about balance. It's really just about where you put your energy on the spectrum. Just like for instance, I don't think that going out to a club or partying and dancing with your friends is bad.

I don't think that doesn't make you any less spiritual. But if you're doing that every night and you're getting blackout drunk and you're trying to, you know, avoid your feelings and emotions and you're dismissing from reality, then that's the toxic part of it. So really, there's not about...

Nothing is good or bad. It's just about balance. Just like enjoying a nice dessert is not bad or good. It's just about balance. And everything in life is about balance. And that's a really important thing that I want to pass on to you guys is...

Because at the time I kind of had an all or nothing mentality. I was like, okay, this is unhealthy. This is healthy. This is good for me and this is bad for me. And obviously like I'm not encouraging you to like eat really toxic fast foods with like canola oils and like all that shit. Like I'm very opposed to that because at the end of the day that impacts your health.

But I'm more trying to just share with you that nothing is black or white and the more that you strive for balance instead of perfectionism, the better that your life and your relationship with food and everything else around you will get. Now I want to share with you guys also a mentality shift that I had made during my healing process with my relationship with food that really changed my mindset and really helped me heal and transition out of it.

And that is this idea that my body is a temple and my soul, like my body is the house for my soul. And so when I abandoned my body, when I don't take good care of my body, and when I give out on my body, I'm basically giving up on my soul and I'm giving up on my essence in life. And what I had had to realize that was so crucial to my healing point was that my body deserves my love at every

every single phase, every single period of my life. And I honestly have goosebumps talking about it and I'm honestly tearing up. Sorry guys. But I know you can't even see me but I am tearing up because this is like an emotional topic for me. It's very vulnerable but it's so important to talk about. But basically, I had to realize that

My body is worthy of my love with no conditions. And that when I get down on it, when I don't take good care of it, when I abandon it, I'm abandoning my soul and my whole essence and my heart and my goodwill. So whoever needs this reminder, listen up. Your body is worthy of your love without conditions. You are worthy of your love without conditions. It is your birthright.

You deserve to eat even if you didn't work out. You deserve to eat even if you weren't productive, even if you don't look your best or feel your best. You deserve to fuel your body with love and food and abundance because that is your birthright. And never, ever, ever, it stops today. Do not allow your mind to tell you otherwise because your mind will trick you.

But your mind and your body are not one and the same. Yes, there's a big interconnection. But your body gives up after your mind does. That's also something that I always tell people. Like when I went to a workout class with one of my best friends, we went to a yoga scope class. And it was like one of the hardest classes of my life. And guys, I do a lot of yoga. I mean, I did my yoga teacher training. But that's a hard class because you're in a heated sauna room. You're using weights. It's like a combination of lifting and yoga.

And I took one of my best friends with me and she also practices yoga, but it was hard for her. And at some point we were doing like a plank and she was looking at me. She's like, Kim, no, I want to give up. Like I want to leave. And I knew that I knew that it wasn't like from like, oh, I feel sick or anything. Like obviously if she wasn't feeling good, I would have had a different response.

But it was more like she was like joking around and she was like, I'm really struggling. Like I'm about to give up on myself. But I knew that she wanted to stay like I could see it in her eyes that she was having a good time. So I literally look at her and I said, listen to me, your mind gives up before your body.

You can do it. And that applies to everything in your life. Also, like your goals, your dreams, all of that, the mind always gives up before the body. And so when you have given up on your healing journey, just know that your body is still fighting for you. Your body has an infinite amount of cells, of muscles, of organs,

organs of energy inside of it and it is still fighting for your health and to feel good. So do not give up on it. Show it the love that it deserves and the gratitude that it deserves because it does so much for you behind the scenes that you have no idea. So you really have to remind yourself that especially in the lowest toughest moments in your life that

Even though you want to give up, your body hasn't. So you're worthy and your body is worthy of you to continue fighting for your healing and for feeling good and for transforming your life. Another thing that really helped me heal my relationship with food is I kind of had to humble myself and remind myself,

of my privilege. There are thousands and hundreds of thousands of people all over the world that do not have access to clean food, organic food, water, let alone food itself. Like there are thousands and thousands and thousands of people who are homeless, who have no access for food. And honestly, if you're out here listening to my podcast right now, and you have a Spotify membership, and you have

a phone, then you probably also have access to food in your home. Like I'm also not trying to like stigmatize it. But I know who my demographic is. And I know you guys have access to food. And that's probably something that you don't have to worry about, like you have food on your table. And that is such a big privilege, even if you're not the richest, most abundant, successful person.

You are honestly incredibly, incredibly lucky if you have a meal on your table, a hot meal every single day. And what so many of us in the modern westernized world, we take that for granted. And that's something that I really had to remind myself and have that like shadow work and remind myself and humble myself. Kim,

You have the privilege to eat food. You have the opportunity to eat food. And I'm not saying this to like instill a scarcity mindset. I'm saying this to instill an abundance mindset. It's like when you eat your next meal, you have to focus on being present and enjoying your food and your meal.

And this mentality doesn't like heal your relationship with food, but it sets a good foundation for reminding yourself the why of healing. So this mentality that I just shared with you, it's not like about a healing mentality. This is not like you don't, when you struggle with an eating disorder, you don't tell yourself, oh, I have the privilege to eat, so I'm going to eat.

But it's more like the thing that sets the foundation of, okay, this is why you want to heal. This is why you want to change your life because you have a privilege to eat. You have a privilege to fuel your body with food and there are thousands of people who would trade places with you. So the way that I took this mindset in my life and I made it actionable that really helped me was I kind of started falling in love again with my relationship with food.

So the thing is, we only kind of in society prioritize our relationship with other people, especially our romantic relationships. But you have to realize that basically everything in life is an energy exchange in a relationship. So just like your relationship with money, like for instance, when it comes to money, like I have an actual relationship with money. Like I journal like love letters to money. I talk to money as if it's another person in my life.

And that's kind of how I view my relationship. And that's something that I also did with my relationship with food is I started seeing food as like somebody that I really, really, really love. And I want to have a good solid relationship with good communication with good energy with not somebody that I hated and loathe and resented. And so I started working on like having a relationship with food in like

an actual relationship and I know that sounds kind of silly and delulu but I swear this is one of the things that really helped me and some ways that I would do that like actionable ways is like for instance

I fell in love again with cooking. I started trying new recipes that got me excited to be in the kitchen or try something new to create. I really inspired creative energy again. I started following food influencers and creators that talk about healthy recipes and wellness and people that really inspired me because I think something that's so helpful is finding someone that had your problem and solved it and is on another side of it

And following them, hearing their journey, their path, and using that as a source of inspiration, that was really useful to me. And that really helped me change my relationship with food and feel really inspired to feel good in my body again.

I became really acutely aware of the people and the content that I was consuming. And this again goes back to like the trigger of societal impacts of the relationship with food. I basically unfollowed any accounts that, you know, instilled any toxic feeling or emotion within me because there is no fucking way that I'm going to let somebody else trigger me on my phone.

Like that was my mentality. I was like, I'm unfollowing this account, this account. Like there's just no way like my health is more important. And I started filling my feed with positive accounts, positive content. I also did that cleanse in my actual life. I started asking myself, okay, are there any relationships in my life

that are negative influences on me. And at the same time, I wasn't doing it from a victim mentality. Like it wasn't like, oh, you said this one thing to me or like you have this problem so that, you know, impacts me and I'm blaming everything on you. It wasn't from that mentality. It was like,

I need peace in my life and if certain people in my life are only contributing negative things to me and negative influences, I'm just not going to pour my energy into them. At least not for now. Like sometimes I even rekindle those friendships with certain people because I was in a different place before.

But I realized that at the time when I was struggling, I was around a lot of people that were also struggling and we kind of like formed this sob circle. And you can't heal in the same environment that you keep getting hurt in. And so I kind of like started merging into new friendships. I started healing my relationship with myself, really asking myself the questions of, are these certain people serving me? Are they lighting me up or are they draining me?

And if they were doing the negative influences, I just took a step back. I kind of distanced myself so that I can give myself space to heal and enter a new mentality. And after that, maybe I re-evaluated the friendship. Maybe I went back to the friendship. Like we both have space. We both have transformation and we can meet from a different energy.

I realize those certain friendships that I distance away from, I don't need to reconnect with them. They don't serve me anymore. And that's also part of life and that's also part of growth. Not every single person is meant to be with the highest version of you. Some people in your life were only meant to be in the chapter of the

the unhealed version of you and that's okay. And I know I talk a lot about spirituality and self-development, but I also have so much more to share about health and wellness and lifestyle. So if you guys are interested in that, let me know because I can definitely put out more of those resources in the Claim Your Power exclusive community on my Patreon, like different resources in the chats, more pod episodes about it because I would love to share that with you guys more. So just let me know if you guys are interested. But to end this episode...

I want to share with you a journaling prompt that I suggest you do at some point after listening to this episode to really hone in everything that we talked about, all the wisdom, and to really help you connect deeper to your own body and your own health and connection with food. So this is the journaling prompt.

Write a letter to your body expressing gratitude for its strength and resilience despite the challenges. And I want you to basically write a love letter and a letter of gratitude for your body and all it has done for you and all the love it has shown you. And see what comes up. Notice what emotions come up for you, what blocks you.

what old memories or experiences. And I also really want to encourage you while you're journaling to think about any milestones or even the smallest of accomplishments you've reached during this part of your journey, even if you're not fully healed, even if you don't feel fully good about yourself. Or maybe you've been listening to this episode just because you're interested in my story and you have a positive relationship with food. You can definitely still do this journaling exercise just to

create a more sacred connection with your body. So I really suggest you guys do this and thank you guys so much for listening to today's episode. Feel free to share this episode if you feel like it will help someone in your life. And yes, I'll see you next week. Love you guys. Beautiful souls, thank you so much for joining me in today's episode. As always, I will talk to you next week. Bye.

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