Do you feel like food has way too much power in your life and don't see a way out?  Subscribe and leave a review here in just seconds. This episode is brought to you by my online course, Your Step-by-Step Guide to PCOS and Food Peace™. Enrollment is open! Receive my FREE road map: Your First 3 Steps Toward Food Peace™ with PCOS. You CAN make peace with food even with PCOS and I want to show you how. Check out the whole Love, Food Podcast store here. All T-Shirt designs have at least one with size range options from XS to 5X. All proceeds go to funding this labor of love to keep it as a free resource for you. Product links may be affiliate. If you click and make a purchase, there's no extra cost to you. The transcribed episode can be found here. Episode's Key Points: How do we know when food has too much power? It's when we're thinking about it ALL DAY LONG. At night, while you're eating a meal... all day. We as humans are wired to survive, and if we're not getting access to enough food, our bodies are going to send food preoccupation into overdrive. But there are ways to think about food in a calmer way! And it isn't more restriction. Remember, food preoccupation is you being a successful human. We don't want to demonize that! Diet culture and body hatred perpetuate all of these food rules and body rules, but these rules are manmade... they don't actually help us, and they disconnect us from our internal wisdom. Using food to soothe is a SKILL! It's not something to feel shameful about. But maybe this coping skill doesn't suit you anymore, and that's okay. Unconditional permission to eat is KEY to reducing food preoccupation, and as long as you're giving yourself permission, you can explore what I call symbolic hunger. Food also has too little power in our life... but what does this mean? It means that we aren't giving ourselves room within our relationship with food for anything but food as fuel. We also need food for pleasure, and we need to give ourselves true unconditional permission to eat. You don't need to be fixed... the world does! Food is the GREATEST connector. It unites us, and it connects us to ourselves. Our relationship with food is a great window into our relationship with ourselves. When we make peace with food, we make peace with ourselves. Show Notes: Julie Dillon RD blog Link to subscribe to the weekly FREE Food Peace™ Newsletter. It is sent out every Tuesday morning. By signing up, I will also send you Love Food's Food Peace™ Syllabus. My guest spot on Don't Salt My Game Podcast The She's All Fat Podcast My blog post, "When Relying on Hunger is Too Scary" ---> This week's Food Peace Syllabus addition #1 My blog post, "What is Symbolic Hunger?" ---> This week's Food Peace Syllabus addition #2 Eating Disorder Dietitians can help your Food Peace™ journey. Get access to one near you here. Do you have a complicated relationship with food? I want to help! Send your Dear Food letter to [email protected].  Click here to leave me a review in iTunes and subscribe. This type of kindness helps the show continue! Thank you for listening to the Love, Food series.