Part 4 of my intuitive eating series is about challenging the food police!
“Scream a loud no to thoughts in your head that declare you’re “good” for eating minimal calories or “bad” because you ate a piece of chocolate cake. The food police monitor the unreasonable rules that diet culture has created. The police station is housed deep in your psyche, and its loudspeaker shouts negative barbs, hopeless phrases, and guilt-provoking indictments. Chasing the food police away is a critical step in returning to Intuitive Eating.”
(From Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch)
Throughout my life I have unconsciously developed rules about what is “good” eating and what is “bad.” Today’s wellness industry touts anything that is whole, “clean,” and minimally processed as good. And when you stray from that, you must not be paying attention to your health.
Perhaps one of the biggest rules I had was around sugar. A couple of years ago, I did the Whole30 diet. The purpose of it was not to lose weight, but to learn which foods impacted my health. Though I did learn that dairy was causing acne, I also internalized some pretty strong diet culture rules about eating. Namely, that sugar is the devil. Whole30 taught me that sugar was lurking in everything, and I internalized a rule to try to avoid it at all costs.
One example of this was I drank my tea black on the morning for fear of having too much sugar. I checked food labels for sugar content and opted for less tasty versions of my favorite condiments. When I was trying to lose weight, cutting out sweets was the first thing I did. And what do you think I craved as a result? BINGO, sweets!
I remember one time I decided to make “healthy” brownies that contained AVOCADOS, almond flour, and minimal sugar only in the form of maple syrup. Needless to say, they were disgusting and I probably would have been much more satisfied with a few bites of a traditional brownie. The food police made me think the avocado brownies were “good” and traditional brownies were “bad.”
In challenging the food police, I’ve developed an inner dialogue that allows me to notice when dieting rules might be creeping into what I choose to eat. That isn’t to say I ignore nutrition, but I understand when I’m making choices solely based on calorie count or diet culture rules. And after reading Anti Diet by Christy Harrison I’m learning that many popular myths about food and nutrition are in most cases unproven by science (including the risks of sugar!)
Now, I don’t demonize sugar. I add a couple teaspoons of honey to my tea in the morning and you can bet I don’t eat any gross avocado brownies. I know that I feel sluggish if I eat a sugary donut for breakfast, but I don’t skip it because the food police tells me to— I skip it because of how it makes me feel. I give myself permission to eat dessert whenever I’m craving it. I LOVE Hold the Cone from Trader Joe’s, and home made gooey brownies with ice cream on top. And because I’ve made peace with food and I honor my hunger, I can trust myself to eat the dessert only when I’m hungry, and without devouring the whole pan of brownies or carton of ice cream.
Overall, my inner intuitive eater has taught me to pay attention to the way food makes me feel- Satisfied? Full? Sluggish? Happy? Energized? THIS feeling from food governs my decisions of what to eat– NOT the food police, food rules, or whether the food will cause weight gain.
As always, I encourage you to check out Intuitive Eating and the Intuitive Eating Workbook to learn more. If you’re interested in more data about why diets don’t work and more research into studies like the one I mentioned regarding sugar, check out Anti Diet by Christy Harrison.
