When Did Food Become the Enemy?

Somewhere along the line, food became the enemy.

Not a source of fuel or nourishment, but something to fear, control, and restrict — until you’re left with cravings, fatigue, bloating, mood swings, poor sleep, hormonal issues, or stalled progress… and most of the time, you don’t even realise these symptoms are linked to simply not eating enough.

Enough nutrients.

Enough when your body needs it most.

Just enough — because you’ve been conditioned to fear food.

Whether it’s missing key vitamins and minerals, under-fueling before exercise, or avoiding meals altogether because it feels “safer” — the result is the same: your body falls out of balance, and you’re left wondering why nothing is working.

For so many women, they’ve been conditioned to fear the very thing their body needs most — food.

They begin limiting how much they eat, delaying meals, cutting out entire food groups, and becoming increasingly strict with what, when, and how they eat.

But what if being strict is the very thing holding you back?

Studies show that 75% of women report some form of disordered eating behavior — whether it’s chronic dieting, obsessive tracking, food fear, or ongoing cycles of bingeing and restriction.

Traditional methods like calorie counting, fasting, and extreme restriction are often promoted as the solution — but for many women, they’ve become part of the problem.

And over time, they don’t just fail — they cause harm.

Leaving women with distorted beliefs around food, body image, and self-worth.

Disconnected. Confused. Defeated.

Because it’s not just about food.

It’s about everything you’ve been told food should be — controlled, earned, avoided.

Diet culture, toxic beauty standards, and years of misinformation have twisted your relationship with food — turning something essential into something threatening.

This blog is here to help you unlearn all of that.

To show you that eating isn’t the issue — it’s the fear, confusion, and rules around it.

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I know this story well — because I lived it.

What started as a desire to “fit in” quickly spiraled into obsession. I battled anorexia through my teens, dropping down to a size 4 dress for my formal. (And in case you’re wondering — I’m from Australia, and they don’t even make size 4. My mum had to buy a size 6 and take it in two inches.) When the pressure to eat again became too much, I did — but every bite was followed by guilt. That guilt snowballed into years of bulimia.

Eventually, I “recovered” from eating disorders… but disordered eating still followed me everywhere. The chronic dieting. The food fear. The restriction, guilt, and shame. It lingered well into my twenties.

I’d binge, then restrict.

Even after completing a diploma in nutrition, nothing changed. If anything, the education I received only reinforced the control — track every bite, monitor every calorie, stay disciplined. But the more I tracked, the more disconnected I became.

Although I was finally eating enough, I still wanted control. I became the person who brought chicken and broccoli to dinner parties. I avoided social events. I planned every meal with military precision and punished myself for going off-script.

It was disordered eating — I just wasn't even aware of it.

Meanwhile, my body was crying out for help.

Autoimmune pain. Chronic fatigue. Intense cravings. Mood swings. PMS so bad I was taking time off every month. I kept searching for the cause, not realising that how I was eating — and thinking about food — was the root of the problem.

I thought control was the answer.

But in reality, I was slowly shutting my body down.

Then came the wake-up call.

It started with cravings — intense, unrelenting peanut butter binges (yes, the 1kg jar) like clockwork, every month, around the same time... I dove into the research, completed courses on the menstrual cycle, and discovered that most “standard” calorie equations never account for the 10–20% increase in energy needs during this phase.

I had been unknowingly under-eating.

Then I looked at my fatigue. At the time, I was training fasted every morning, pushing hard. But study after study showed women need food before training — yet no coach, nutritionist, or doctor had ever told me that.

I started eating before my workouts. And the fatigue that had haunted me… started to lift. That’s when it hit me: Everything I had been taught — about food, about calories, about exercise — was based on research done on men.

Since then, I’ve spent years researching women’s physiology, hormones, metabolism, and how our bodies truly function — allowing me to replace fear-based misinformation with evidence-informed understanding.

I made it my mission to help women unlearn what we’ve been taught… that food is not the enemy. And finally rebuild a relationship with food based on nourishment, not fear.

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Eating Disorders vs. Disordered Eating

Eating disorders are clinically diagnosed mental health conditions — including anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder. These disorders have specific diagnostic criteria and typically require professional treatment. Research shows that over 85–90% of eating disorders occur in women, highlighting the unique ways biological and social factors influence the female brain and behavior.

Disordered eating, on the other hand, is far more common — and no less serious. Some studies suggest that around 75% of women report experiencing some form of disordered eating behavior: chronic dieting, food restriction, obsessive calorie or macro tracking, emotional eating, or a persistent fear of food.

While many women may not meet the full criteria for a diagnosed eating disorder, that doesn’t mean they’re free from harm.

Disordered eating can disrupt hormone function, mental health, metabolism, and quality of life — and it often hides behind so-called “healthy habits."

But why does this affect women so disproportionately?

Why Are Women More Prone to Disordered Eating?

Women’s struggles with disordered eating aren’t just about willpower or personal choice — they’re shaped by powerful social and cultural conditioning.

From a young age, women are taught to equate their worth with appearance, thinness, and control. Diet culture glorifies restriction, labels foods as “good” or “bad,” and praises discipline over nourishment. As a result, many women fall into cycles of guilt, fear, and obsession — avoiding food, skipping meals, or tracking every calorie in the name of “health.”

But the numbers aren’t random — they reflect something deeper.

Studies show that women are disproportionately affected by disordered eating, not just because of societal expectations or misinformation, but because of how their bodies, brains, and environments interact.

Biological sex differences — from hormones to brain activity to metabolic responses — make women more vulnerable to the effects of food restriction. 

How Women's Body's Respond to Restriction

While diet culture pushes a one-size-fits-all approach, emerging research reveals that women’s bodies and brains react very differently to food restriction than men’s. These differences aren’t just hormonal — they’re neurological and metabolic, influencing how women think about food, how their bodies conserve energy, and how restriction impacts their long-term health. Here’s what the science shows:

• Women’s Brains React Differently to High-Calorie Foods: Men and women process food cues differently in the brain. In a brain imaging study, researchers showed pictures of high- and low-calorie foods to healthy men and women. While both groups were healthy, their brain responses were very different (Killgore et al., 2011). Women’s brains showed significantly more activity when looking at high-calorie foods — especially in areas linked to:

  • Self-control and decision-making (prefrontal cortex),

  • Self-awareness and internal reflection (cingulate cortex),

  • Body and gut awareness (insula).

  Men did not show stronger activity in any of these brain areas. This indicates that women’s brains appear to be more sensitive to the calorie content of food — especially when it comes to foods perceived as “bad” or “indulgent.” This heightened activity in areas related to self-control and self-judgment may help explain why food can trigger more emotional, mental, and behavioral conflict in women than in men.

• Women’s Bodies Conserve Energy Differently — Even in the Brain: When food is scarce, the body adapts by conserving energy — but women and men do this differently. Research shows that female brains maintain high activity during food restriction, particularly in regions like the prefrontal and visual cortex. Male brains, on the other hand, reduce energy use in these areas to conserve fuel.

  This means that when women undereat, their brains stay more alert and active, which can lead to increased mental fatigue, overthinking, and emotional strain. And because the brain continues to consume energy during restriction, the body compensates by shutting down other functions — such as ovulation and reproductive hormone production. At the same time, women tend to preserve fat and lose muscle and bone mass — a survival mechanism believed to protect fertility during times of famine.

• Women’s Metabolic Needs are Different to Men & Fluctuate: In the second half of the menstrual cycle — the luteal phase — a woman’s resting metabolic rate (RMR) can actually increase by 10–20%. This means women may burn significantly more calories at rest — on average around 200–600 calories more. However, calorie equations and traditional diet methods don’t account for this cyclical increase, often leading to unnecessary restriction, intensified cravings, and feelings of failure — not because women are lacking discipline, but because the methods were never designed for a female body.

• Chronic Restriction May Impair Cognition: Chronic calorie restriction (CCR) doesn’t just affect mood or energy — over time, it can change the way the brain functions. Long-term malnutrition has been linked to lasting impairments in memory, decision-making, and cognitive flexibility, especially in people with a history of eating disorders. Even short-term fasting in healthy individuals has been shown to reduce cognitive performance — especially in tasks requiring focus and flexibility — highlighting how sensitive the brain is to low energy availability.

• Women Are More Attuned to Social Comparison: Women’s brains are also more attuned to social comparison, especially when it comes to body image. Brain scans show that women have a heightened response in areas linked to shame, self-awareness, and social judgment when viewing other women’s bodies. This neurological sensitivity may help explain why food, weight, and appearance become so emotionally loaded — and why women are more likely to internalize guilt and pressure around eating.

  
  

How Calorie Counting Disconnects Women from Their Bodies

For women — especially those already prone to anxiety, people-pleasing, perfectionism, or body image struggles — calorie counting can feel like control. But in reality, it often becomes obsession. Research shows:

• Calorie-tracking apps are linked to body dissatisfaction: Women are far more likely to use calorie-tracking apps than males. And this behavior is often tied to higher levels of body dissatisfaction and increases the likelihood of disordered eating patterns. (Martin et al., 2018, PMID: 29405860)

• Calorie labels on menus can trigger anxiety and disordered choices: Women — especially those with existing disordered eating — respond negatively to menu calorie labels. Those with anorexia or bulimia ordered significantly fewer calories, while those with binge eating disorder ordered more. Across the board, many women report increased anxiety, guilt, and shame when calories were emphasised over nourishment. (Haynos & Roberto, 2017, PMID: 28130796)

• The female brain is designed for connection, intuition, and rhythm — not control. When food becomes a numbers game (calories and macros), it disconnects women from internal cues — hunger, fullness, satisfaction, energy, and emotional state — reinforcing external rules instead of body-led nourishment.

Many women start tracking with good intentions — wanting to be “healthier” or more aware. But for a large number, it stops being about learning and starts becoming about control, guilt, and restriction. These biological and neurological differences help explain why women are more vulnerable to disordered eating — and why traditional methods like calorie counting often work against our biology, not with it.

When food becomes a number, eating turns into an act of control rather than nourishment. Calorie counting reduces meals to rigid rules and targets, disconnecting women from their natural intuition and internal cues. Instead of eating when hungry or choosing foods based on how the body feels, women start eating according to numbers on a screen — ignoring fatigue, cravings, fullness, and other signs of imbalance.

Over time, this disconnection silences the body’s language and replaces self-awareness with self-surveillance. But women weren’t designed for this. We are wired for rhythm, intuition, and internal alignment. Any approach that disconnects us from that — no matter how “accurate” — isn’t just unsustainable… it’s harmful.

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When Did Food Become the Enemy?

Somewhere along the way, food stopped being nourishment — and became something to fear, control, or earn.

We were taught to ignore hunger cues and symptoms, to measure every bite.

But restriction didn’t lead to freedom — it led to fatigue, cravings, hormone imbalances, and confusion.

The truth is, it was never food that was the problem.

It was the fear. The misinformation. The methods that worked against our biology instead of with it.

Now you know better — and you get to do better.

You don’t need more control.

You need connection — to your body, your hunger, your rhythm, and your power.

What’s the Alternative?

So, if restriction, tracking, and fear aren’t the answer… what is?

Well, women don’t need another rigid system. We need an approach that works with our biology, supports our hormones, and rebuilds trust in our body’s natural signals — not one that demands control, fear, or punishment.

So, here’s where you can start:

• Eat at regular intervals, especially before and after your workouts. Don’t wait until the cravings or fatigue hit.

• Prioritise protein every meal, at least 20–30g of protein — and don’t be afraid to add carbs, healthy fats, or even more food, especially when your body is under stress or in your luteal phase.

• Track your symptoms, not your macros. Notice how your energy, mood, cravings, sleep, and focus change with different foods or at different times of your cycle.

• Let hunger be a signal, not a failure. If you’re constantly hungry, your body might be telling you something — not working against you.

• Reflect instead of restrict. If you overeat or feel off-track, ask what your body might have needed earlier — not what you should cut tomorrow.

But doing this consistently — in a way that supports your cycle, your metabolism, and your goals — takes more than just knowing the steps.

That’s why I created the Women’s Way Method: to show you exactly how to apply this in real life, with a clear plan that works with your body, not against it.

The Women's Way Method & Mini Course

The Women’s Way Method is a structured yet flexible approach that supports fat loss and muscle growth without calorie counting, and most importantly, without damaging your metabolism, hormones, or mental health.

This method is built around three essential phases that work together to help you achieve lasting results:

Restore: This first phase is about restoring trust in your body’s language — tuning back into your hunger, fullness, and energy cues. It focuses on healing your metabolism and replenishing your energy after times of restriction or imbalance. It’s about giving your system the support it needs to function optimally again.

Reduce: Once you’ve restored that connection and balance, this phase helps you safely and mindfully reduce your intake to support fat loss (if needed). The emphasis is on gentle adjustments, paying close attention to your body’s signals to avoid stress or muscle loss.

Balance: Finally, this phase supports hormone regulation and maintaining a harmonious relationship with food and your body. It’s about nurturing sustainable habits and keeping your results long-term.

Cycling through these phases — rather than staying in a constant calorie deficit — respects your body’s natural rhythms and needs, helping you avoid hormonal disruption, regular symptoms, and the frustration of stalled progress.

What You’ll Learn in the Women's Way mini course

In the Women’s Way mini course, you’ll gain practical tools and knowledge to:

• Tune into your body’s natural signals instead of obsessing over numbers

• Build balanced meals that support your hormones, energy, and fat loss or muscle growth goals

• Navigate the three key phases — Restore, Reduce, and Balance — with confidence

• Approach fat loss and muscle building effectively without calorie counting

• Rebuild trust and develop a healthy, sustainable relationship with food and your body

This course is designed to help you reclaim your health, balance your hormones, and create lasting peace with food and your body.

Who This Is For?

This course is for the woman who has tried it all — chronic dieting, tracking app's, meal plans, calorie counting — but still feels stuck, overwhelmed, or anxious around food.

If you’re tired of the cycle of restriction and bingeing, guilt and obsession, and you want a real, evidence-informed approach that works with your body as a woman — this is for you.

Take the Next Step

You don’t have to figure this out alone — and you don't have to count calories. The Women’s Way mini course is your step-by-step roadmap to break free from calorie counting and reclaim your relationship with food.

Starting July 25th, you can join a community of women learning to work with their bodies — not against them.

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