Food Rules are Everywhere
Do you feel like you are hijacked into believing what you should or should not eat and how and when? Knowingly or unknowingly the typical person is persuaded to eat in a certain way or experiences guilt or shame around food due to food rules. Food rules are those direct or indirect messages that tell us don’t eat that, why are you buying the oreos again, or don’t eat after 8 pm. You may find yourself in a constant cycle of feeling restricted or over indulged with food.
The principles of deprivation
Want to know why? This is thanks to a psychological principle of deprivation. When we deny ourselves certain foods, times we are only allowed to eat foods, only one cheat day per week, we are engaging in deprivation. Even if it’s not truly depriving, our brain thinks so. Then guess what happens!? We want it more!
Hello, remember when our parents told us not to sneak out of the house or to be home by a certain time? Did you want to do it anyways?
Yes, our brain wants what it can’t have. This happened perfectly for me when I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes and had to watch my carb intake. ALL I WANTED WAS CAKE! What was it like before I was told not to eat the cake? Fine! I ate cake occasionally, enjoyed it at times and I really like cake. But being told no was different! I felt like I NEEDED the cake. I found myself going to the pantry wanting all the “off limit” things. Moderation no longer felt like enough.
By placing external food rules on ourselves it takes away our internal drive, pleasure, and intuition to modulate our hunger. When I speak about external rules I mean being able to eat or not eat at certain times, eating specific types of foods but not others, and following a specific amount of food, such as restricting yourself to a “serving size.” For the record, a serving size is just a measurement, not an actual guideline as to how much to eat.
It takes away our power!
Why food rules don’t work for us
You may feel completely powerless in the sense of food. We often want this power back so we stick to some guidelines that someone somewhere said we should follow.
Ever find yourself thinking, “If I could just stop eating X, I could get it together” or “If I could just stop eating so much, I would feel better?”
Here’s the issue: when we are following the advice from anyone other than our own selves, we are giving up our bodies own ability to regulate ourselves, including hunger.
Before food rules, criticism from others and thoughts about what is considered “healthy” or “not healthy” our bodies knew EXACTLY how to regulate themselves. When we choose not to listen to our bodies, we find ourselves stuck between feeling we are having a “good day with food” or a “bad day with food.”
Our hunger changes day to day. Our interest in food changes day to day. Our preferences for types of food changes day to day.
So accepting some guidelines to follow does not work long term, nor should you fall into these ideas. Again, we are giving up our own body’s power to regulate our hunger.
You may feel you don’t know how to moderate your hunger and learning to get in touch with your internal cues is different from following any diet plan.
Stuck on the merry- go- round of food rules and restrictions
Envision restriction like a pendulum. One side is restriction or deprivation, the other side is over indulgence or bingeing. When we attempt to stay on one side of the pendulum we are going to fall to the other side. This leads to feelings of guilt and shame around food. Again, deprivation does not have to be true deprivation, just perceived deprivation.
So we swing back and forth from one side to another, good days and bad days and back again. We are constantly stuck in a cycle of guilt and shame then restriction, then indulgence then deprivation then bingeing again. This does not work!
Ready to get off that merry-go-round? Ready to break the cycle of food rules?
What’s Next!
The goal: To have freedom with food, you have to allow ALL foods to fit. Do you ever question what would happen if you stopped telling yourself no? The fear of gaining weight, feeling out of control or powerless typically stops us from allowing ourselves full control. What if the reverse of those feelings was true?
Allowing all foods is just one step. This is a difficult process because food is in our lives everywhere!
But you have to start somewhere!
To have food freedom you need to:
Understand your relationship with food
Develop healthier coping skills to regulate food, by your internal cues
Learn how to intuitive eat
This may seem like a tall order, however I have been helping others accomplish these goals for years now with successful results!
If the time is now, reach out, ask for help, work with me or my team and get started on your journey to food freedom.
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