What are your food ‘shoulds’?

Quickly rattle them off:

Just one helping? Don’t eat sweets without protein? Only dark chocolate? Limit red meat? Leave 3 meals in between meals?

These are BS.

There are just getting in your way.

Whenever you notice these, realize it’s a totally arbitrary “should” and something you learned from a diet book or a lame-o “health” magazine.

The only ‘food should’ is:

You should eat what you want, when you want.

It’s the only way to neutralize food.

Done.

Ok, well let me just say first off, that intuitive eating is the only way we are supposed to be eating.

Eating with impulses and desire. Not worrying about the specifics or macros or calories or kinds of food (unless you have real food intolerances, but if you do… I mean avoiding those foods is ALL part of intuition.)

Overthinking our natural eating mechanism is not natural. Trying to control our intake and our weights will backfire. As nutritionist Christy Harrison says, “Going on a diet is the best way to gain weight.”

Yea. We are wired to have backlash against restriction. Mentally, physically, emotionally.

But let me tell you why your attempts at Intuitive Eating (which is the name of a great book that many people find as a great step towards eating normally.)

You are still making it into a diet. You are still trying to use it as a way to lose weight. You are still using it as a way to try and eat less. That is inherently going to backfire, because that is still attempted restriction under the guise of eating ‘whatever you want but not really cause you’d really better eat a small amount’.

No. That’s not normal eating. That’s not intuitive eating. That’s hardcore mental restriction. And it’s still a diet. And so you still have something to rebel against.

And that’s why your intuitive eating isn’t working.

I talk about restriction all the time. Physical restriction is the last thing you want for your relationship with food.

But there is another kind of restriction that’ll mess you up just as badly, and it’s mental restriction.

This is a really important concept (that Isabel Foxen Duke coined a version of the term as ’emotional restriction’.)

I don’t think of it as emotional – I think of it as mental.

Simply put… it’s guilt over eating. The mind chatter version of restriction.

“I shouldn’t be eating this way.”

And just like physical restriction (actually eating less), mental restriction will keep you in a binge-y mode too.

Meaning, even if you are telling yourself you’re allowing to eat everything … but you feel guilt over what or how much you’re eating, you’re still stuck in that cycle.

Mental restriction can be, but is not limited to:

Oooooh, I’ll let myself eat everything but I’d better just eat a little

If this is working I should start eating less

I shouldn’t eat a lot even though I’m allowed to

I am allowed to eat a lot …but eating a lot is bad

Oh, I can have a brownie but only if I eat it slowly and don’t finish it

I ate poorly today so if I’m intuitive I shouldn’t eat this way tomorrow

Oh I ate ALL OF THAT— what is WRONG with me? I SHOULDN’T need this much!?

I am gonna let myself eat whatever I want, and if it doesn’t work, it’s back on a diet for me!

Lots of mental restriction happens in the subconscious, but you’ll know if you have it because you’ll be feeling stress over eating.

What to do about it? Start being aware of when and where you still have stress around food and thoughts that are mental restriction. Be compassionate with yourself, arm yourself with reasons not to restrict.

For more work on mental restriction you can look at my ebook You’re Beliefs About Food Suck.

Lastly, remind yourself… eating a lot is not bad. We need a lot of food. If you’re hungry for it, you need it.

Yes, really.