Unhappy with the results of your attempts to lose weight or eat healthy, you’ve been trying even more rigid diets or exercise plans to regain a sense of control, but it seems to elude you. It’s starting to feel like food is your enemy.

On the outside, you seem to have it all together. You’re productive at work, you have good friends and family, you pay your bills on time… you adult so well most days! You try to live a healthy lifestyle because it’s important to you. But lately there’s a nagging worry that if you let go just a little… if you don’t count every calorie… if you aren’t clean eating at every meal… if you aren’t burning off a certain number of calories daily or weekly… things will spiral out of control.

Your concerns about healthy eating and exercise are turning into an obsession. It’s hard to know if this is a problem, though, since everyone around you seems to be doing the same thing. But you know deep down that life has more to offer than endless opportunities to obsess about your appearance. You don’t just want to be remembered for how well you counted carbs. You just wish this was easier.

Others sometimes complain that you don’t hang out with them anymore. You say no to social invitations because it’s easier to stay home, where you have more control over what you eat. You sometimes say no because you need to work out, and there’s no extra time for anything else. More often lately you just don’t feel like doing anything, so you stay in and soothe yourself with food.

You’re frustrated that you so often turn to food to cope with uncomfortable emotions. But nothing else works as well, and trying to get to the root of this on your own is just too hard! All you want is a normal, healthy relationship with food and your body, but you don’t know how to get there.