Breaking up with diet culture: Are food rules sabotaging your best intentions?
I have dedicated my work in the last several years to helping women (and men) break up with the diet industry and the negativity that often dictates people’s lives. I’m excited to continue this conversation with an important topic: food rules. This is about click-bait social media buzzwords like “clean foods”, “clean swaps”, and “toxic foods”. If food rules are making you miserable, here’s how to have a healthier mindset.
First of all, don’t worry - you are not alone. Food rules are something I encounter on a daily basis, whether it’s with my clients, friends and even family. I wanted to put this post together to help you see there is another way of living, a place where you’re not in food jail, constantly worrying about the impact one chocolate bar is going to have on you, judging your choices, and analysing whether you look good enough in photos.
We are constantly inundated with food options. There’s always 15 different types of product to choose from, whether it’s bread, peanut butter, or low fat yogurt. There’s also a huge amount of diet marketing that comes with them, as though weight loss should always be front of mind.
The problem with food rules, options, and the language that comes with it all is that it is sabotaging your best intentions. Instead of spiraling up and feeling good about your decisions, the food rules that you’ve learnt or used for years create judgement, guilt, and shame.
The pressure to be hypervigilant about every food and ingredient that passes our lips is unrelenting. Food fear mongering comes from the media we consume - magazines, books, TV - and the people we interact with - friends, family, parents. When we are subjected to other people’s opinions, we create barriers to forming our own. You may hear X food is bad for you, so you will therefore not buy it again, and only buy fresh unprocessed produce. We find ourselves in a never ending battle, spending too much time trying to control absolutely everything about our eating habits or we feel totally and utterly overwhelmed.
Have you put yourself in ‘food jail’?
The more you tend to agree with these statements, the more you are living by food rules and need to get out of jail!
“I feel disappointed in myself”
If you’re using phrases like the one above then it’s time to focus on doing more internal healing. Because no matter how many food swaps, restrictions, and rules you put in place, you will never be enough. When you stop dieting, you may find yourself back to square one.
Something that may seem absurd to you is not having any rules altogether. It’s something I practice with my clients and, when I first suggest this, I fully expect them to walk out the door, thinking I’m mad to remove all restrictions especially when you have a poor relationship to food. So many people have been conditioned to fall back on old habits, when really the only diet that works is a lifestyle you can sustain: food freedom.
“It’s important to remember to free yourself from jail and fire the “food police”—you have the keys to decide what works for you - Rebecca Scritchfield, Author of Body Kindness.
To help you move forward and free yourself from jail, try the tips below. Give them time and patience. You have to apply them continually to really help bring you back to feeling connected with food, and a relationship that leaves you feeling good.
1) Believe no food is morally good or bad
No food has moral value, so make sure you trust your opinions about taste and enjoyment to guide your food choices. Include foods you love on your regular menu, rather than restricting them to a “cheat day” or once in a blue moon.
2) Be skeptical of any information sensationalising food:
Try to ignore words like “poison,” “toxin,” “never eat,” “clean food” or other words that trigger your fear reflexes inappropriately. It’s time to smarten up and get wise to language that doesn’t belong in your vocabulary to justify why you shouldn’t eat or have something.
3) Challenge your own beliefs
Stop and think about why you’re avoiding certain foods. Do you even remember? Is it possible what you believe may not be true?
4) Give yourself a get-out-of-food-jail party
Make a list of foods you tend to avoid, and then serve them with other foods at a party with friends. Savor them out in the open.
5) Make a “food freedom” list
Choose one food from your list per week you will eat every day in a calm, pleasurable way. Not when you’re feeling high on emotions. It’s creating moments to enjoy the food you enjoy.
6) Date your dessert
Come up with a special plan for enjoying a yummy cupcake that resembles how you imagine other people eat cupcakes. Make a date with yourself to savour those moments, the tastes and how good it feels. Removing the guilt around eating something that you’ve been told is a “treat,” “naughty” and make the most of those taste buds.
Feeling absolute freedom from years of food purgatory is a journey. Try not to rush the process and be quick to forgive yourself when you slip back into old habits.
Some further reading and great resources come from the book Body Kindness - Rebecca Scritchfield to help you on this journey as well as her podcast.
Bottom Line: There will always be these marketing gimmicks and the latest celebs or influencers trying to get more money in there pocket to benefit from their scare tactics. Use the new skills and approaches to help you get and stay more connected to yourself
If you’re struggling to live day-to-day with food choices that make you feel guilty or take up your energy then connect with me, Lizzie, at www.wearebeyondstrong.com for us to work together in overcoming your mental barriers and create food freedom.
You may also enjoy…
1-1 COACHING WITH LIZZIE
TRAIN WITH ME IN BALI
