I was Instagram the other day and a personal trainer influencer came across my feed. I clicked because she looked familiar (there’s a backstory), and found myself genuinely appreciating her content. She’s strong, and offers short, accessible movement practices that are thoughtfully cued and easy to engage with. Then I came across a post that began with a single line: “I eat for fat loss.” I noticed an immediate internal response—a flash of protective anger that softened into sadness. The feeling stayed with me, which is why I’m choosing to reflect on it here. I think many, if not most of us, have layered relationships with food. We eat for nourishment but also for connection, for celebration, for comfort, for ritual, for pleasure. Food is rarely only functional. It is relational. It is emotional. It’s tied to memory, care, identity, culture… so many things. So when I read “I eat for fat loss,” something in me feels a narrowing of that relational space. And this feels at odds with something that's important to me: listening to the body with compassion, rather than directing it toward an outcome through reduction. And I acknowledge, this is my internal response. It is shaped by my own history with food, and by the care I’ve developed over time in how I relate to my body and my eating. What arose was not a judgment of this person, it was more about noticing the language and what it does in me. For some, that kind of framing may offer a sense of structure or clarity. But in me, it lands as contraction. That response led me, with some curiosity, to the philosophical roots of yoga practice and what it has to say about our relationship to food. In the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, one of the foundational texts of Hatha Yoga, there is a concept called mitāhāra (मिताहार), from mita (measured, moderate) and āhāra (food or intake). It appears early in the text, in the section where the essential supports for practice are established. Mitāhāra isn’t a diet in the modern sense. While the text does include specific guidelines and at times, restriction, the underlying question is about what supports steadiness. What allows clarity of body and mind. Food, in this context, is considered in terms of its effect on practice: does it support clarity, steadiness, and ease? Later traditions, like Ayurveda, build on this by individualizing food more explicitly, based on constitution, digestion, and environment. Food becomes more directly therapeutic, something adjusted to restore balance within a particular body, at a particular time. And across both, there’s a similar underlying approach: food isn’t treated as a moral problem or an aesthetic project. It’s something that may support (or not support) a sense of steadiness and ease in the system. Over time, especially in modern contexts, these teachings have also become intertwined with fitness culture and wellness culture. This is where language like “clean eating,” “discipline,” or “fat loss” starts to appear alongside yogic vocabulary. But the shift in emphasis is worth noticing. In the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, the question is: what supports steadiness of practice? In Ayurveda: what restores balance in this body? And in much of modern culture: how do I change the body to reach a particular goal? These aren’t the same questions. And I don’t think one framework sits entirely outside the others. Each can become rigid. Each can be held more or less relationally. Which is why I keep coming back to something simpler: not just what should I do, but what helps me feel more present, more responsive, more in relationship with myself? What supports that kind of steadiness? What allows clarity? What helps me stay present to what is here? This leads me back to the first yama: ahimsa (non-harming), and the understanding that harm isn’t only something we direct outwardly toward others. It can also show up in how we relate to ourselves and, in this case, in whether the body is treated as something to be corrected, or something to be listened to. Recently I’ve been sitting with the idea that harm may be the point at which relationship turns into control. And for me, “I eat for fat loss” feels like something narrows in the relationship between self and body. Eating becomes organized around outcome and reduction, rather than responsiveness and listening. And I think part of my reaction is feeling protective of how easily that kind of narrowing can become rigid. My perspective is not separate from that, but shaped by it. I try to notice the different impulses around eating: boredom, comfort-seeking, hunger and to stay in conversation with them. Not necessarily to challenge or change them, but to stay close enough to them that they can be known. That awareness, in itself, is the practice. For some, “listening” may not always feel clear or accessible. And so the practice may be less about getting that "right", and more about staying in relationship in whatever way is possible—through awareness, consistency, or gentle structure. And I share all this not as something fully resolved, but as something I'm practicing. I think many of us are living inside language we didn’t consciously choose—phrases and frameworks we’ve absorbed over time—that can quietly shape how we see our bodies, and what we believe they are for. So perhaps we can offer ourselves into the question: Where does my relationship with food feel like listening… and where does it begin to feel like control? And what shifts when food becomes something I relate to in a supportive way, rather than something I manage? This is another invitation to notice.
