The One Key Step to Intuitive Eating You Cannot Skip
Wanna stop feeling out of control around certain foods? Or maybe you’d like to stop feeling like crap after giving into uncontrollable cravings?
There’s one key step you can’t miss if you want to solve these common food struggles and learn to eat intuitively: making peace with food by giving yourself unconditional permission to eat the foods that scare you or seem “off limits.”
I know what you’re thinking…Elizabeth, if I could eat those foods in reasonable amounts, I would. I can’t; I don’t have enough willpower or self-discipline, that’s the problem!
But what if willpower isn’t the root of your lack of self trust—and deprivation is actually to blame?
When we’re forcefully deprived of anything we like or need, we long for it. Remember what happened with toilet paper and human connection in 2020? Food is no exception!
Study after study backs this up. When dieters swear off certain foods—chocolate, carbs, pizza, or what have you—they set themselves up to not only obsess over and endlessly crave those same foods…but to consume them in a no-holds-barred, out-of-control type manner when they do finally eat them.
Believe it or not, research shows this even happens when we just *think* about restricting foods too!
Here’s an example: It’s Thursday and you decide you’re going to go on a diet come Monday. What do you typically do between now and then? Most dieters will load up on all the foods they plan to cut out in a Last Supper style of eating. This is the power of even just mentally restricting food!
Restriction very often leads to rebound overeating. The best way to think of this is as a pendulum. When you restrict foods, either physically or mentally, you’re pulling a pendulum far back to one side, spring-loading it to launch over to the opposite extreme when you do finally eat those same foods or go off your diet.
Usually, once people find themselves on the “guilt” end of the pendulum, they buckle down and decide to “get serious about their goals,” cutting out, restricting, or eliminating bunches of foods… only to launch the restrict-overeat cycle yet again.
In the end, you just keep swinging back and forth between restricting and overeating.
To truly stop this cycle once and for all you need to ditch the restrictive mindset that launches the pendulum swinging in the first place. In Intuitive Eating, we call this “making peace with foods” by giving yourself unconditional permission to eat and enjoy all foods.
Perhaps it may feel paradoxical, but this has the ultimate effect of stripping the food of its maddening hold over you. It enables you to more easily tune into your hunger and fullness cues, how that food makes you feel, and whether or not you even enjoy eating it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked my clients through the process of making peace with food only for them to discover they don’t even like or enjoy foods they used to binge on!
Essentially, as I tell my clients, permission strips the food of its crazy hold over you and returns that power to YOU.
Here are some tips to help you successfully go through this process of making peace with foods:
Remind yourself you can eat and enjoy all foods as much as you want, without guilt. Don’t worry, this doesn’t mean you’ll only ever eat those “off limits” foods from now until the end of time–that’s just what your dieting brain is currently telling you because it’s responding from its usual place of restriction.
If you find yourself eating more of certain previously off-limits foods than feels good in your body, don’t freak out or go back to dieting. This is an important part of the process. Remember that pendulum? Your brain doesn’t yet know that these foods will be available anytime, no strings attached. It will take time for it to adjust to this new mindset and for the pendulum to settle into middle-ground, feel-good eating territory.
Practice eating mindfully, savoring your food, with minimal distractions. This will make it so much easier for you to (a) enjoy what you’re eating; and (b) tune into your body’s hunger and fullness cues.
Some people find it easiest to start more systematically with just one food they typically don’t allow themselves to eat. If you want to try this route, plan to enjoy this food after you’ve eaten a decent meal so you’re not overly hungry. This will make it much easier to stop at a comfortable fullness point.
If you choose to do it this way, repeat this process again with this same food as often as you’d like until your brain is convinced you’ll be able to eat and enjoy it anytime you want. When you’re ready, repeat the process with another “off limits” food. Eventually, momentum will pick up like a snowball rolling downhill and you’ll find you have more trust in yourself and your food choices, experience fewer wild cravings, and are better able to tune into which foods, in which amounts, feel best in your body.
I’ve seen this process change the lives of client after client, helping them feel finally feel empowered and at peace with food—often for the first time in their adult lives. It’s a beautiful unfolding to witness!
Making peace with food is one of the most challenging Intuitive Eating principles to implement. There are many common places where people get stuck in cycles of fear, self-doubt, and discomfort.
It’s super helpful to have the support of an experienced dietitian and Intuitive Eating coach who can help you overcome these and other common roadblocks to becoming an Intuitive Eater. I’d love to support you, cheer you on, and help you stay true to yourself and your goals as you learn to find food and body peace with Intuitive Eating, gentle nutrition, and health-promoting self-care.
If you’d like to learn more about what it looks and feels like to work together as you find food and body peace, click here to schedule a FREE Intro to Intuitive Eating chat now.
Disclaimer: This information is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical, nutrition, or mental health advice and doesn't constitute a provider-patient relationship.