Why you can’t stop thinking about food 24/7 and how to make peace with food to transform your health using the 5 step process of systematic habituation!

Why dieting creates 24/7 food obsession?

Constantly thinking about food is a common pattern that emerges early on in diet culture behaviour, where food has been restricted, placed in categories of ‘good’ and ‘bad’, and even forbidden depending on which plan or diet rules you have been following. Calorie counting, points, sins, macros etc all create ultimately, deprivation of choice, and stop you connecting with your inbuilt hunger and fullness ques, and freedom to truly listen to your body and fuel it with the food that it really and truly craves without restriction. This often results over time in a see saw effect that results in sabotage and overeating in response to deprivation and restriction, which over time results in that all too well known chronic diet pattern of ‘weight cycling’, where you keeping losing and putting on the same amount of weight, or even more weight over time, as your body struggles to maintain balance with these unnatural eating patterns. 

Why making peace with food will transform your health!

In intuitive eating terms, making peace with food is principle 3 of the 10 principles of intuitive eating self care framework, and is often the principle many people feel fearful of, as they think that eating whatever they want will lead to eating uncontrollably and making poor food choices. The reality however, is that when you truly listen to your body and attune with understanding and nuance, you learn that your body wants nourishment from a wide variety of food sources, which starts to rebuild the trust lost through dieting, and integration of the 10 principles of intuitive helps to restore balance, harmony, and freedom in your eating choices and relationships with food.

Principle 3 - make peace with food

‘Call a truce, and stop the food fight!Give yourself unconditional permission to eat. If you tell yourself that you cannot or should not have a particular food, it can lead to intense feelings of deprivation that build into uncontrollable cravings and often, binge eating. When you finally ‘give-in’ to your forbidden food, eating is experienced with such intensity, it usually results in overeating and overwhelming guilt.

How to make peace with food?

The answer is through a process called systematic habituation; when you remove the excitement of ‘forbidden-fruit’ syndrome by giving yourself permission to eat the foods that you usually restrict and possibly binge on, these foods lose their novelty over time. This creates the ability to tune into your body more easily knowing that you can always eat any foods that you choose any time, by implementing the 10 principles of intuitive eating.

Are you ready? If you can answer YES to most of the following questions, and this will help you identify if you are ready to start making peace with food:

1 .I have an environment in which I am able to eat uncrushed and without distraction

2. I am able to identify key vulnerability points - such as being too hungry, too stressed out, too tired etc.

3. I am able to clearly identify my biological hunger cues, ranging from ravenously empty to pleasant and gentle hunger. 

4. I can clearly identify my biological cues of fullness, ranging from gentle fullness to painfully stuffed.

5. I can distinguish between the unconformable sensations of guilt versus the uncomfortable sensation of feeling too full. 

6. I am able to cope with my feelings without turning to food. 

7. I can distinguish between being hungry enough for a meal or just needing a snack. 

8. I am able to cope with my feelings without turning to food.

9. I can distinguish between being hungry enough for a meal or just needing a snack. 

10. My food choices are not affected by the opinions of others 

5 steps of systematic habituation to help you make peace with food:

1.Pay attention to the foods that are appealing to you and make a list of them. 

2.Put a check by the foods you actually do eat, then circle remaining foods that you have been restricting. 

3.Give yourself permission to eat one forbidden food choice at a time and go and buy the food or order at a restaurant, etc. If you choose ice cream as an example, try to stick to the same flavour etc to keep the habituation process constant, picking different ice-cream flavours for example can continue to trigger the ‘forbidden-fruit’ syndrome behaviour.

4.Check in with yourself to see if the food tastes as good as you imagined. If you find that you really liked it, continue to give yourself permission to buy or order it. Eat the chosen food as regularly as desired, until the food no longer feels ‘forbidden’. This may mean having the food of choice regularly available in the cupboards at home when you feel safe and ready to do this.

5.Make sure you keep enough of the food in your kitchen so that you know that it will be there if you want it. Or if that seems too scary, go to a restaurant and order that particular food as often as you like. 

*When you feel you have made peace with your chosen food on the list, move onto the next one and repeat the process. Usually after you have achieved food peace around the first few forbidden foods on your list, you will no longer need repeat this process with all the individual foods on your list, and you will find that you are able to feel free and peaceful around all foods and all flavours of your chosen foods, hurray!