Intuitive Eating: Challenge the Food Police
Learning intuitive eating is a journey, and one that takes practice. To help you out, we’re going to go through the principles of Intuitive Eating one by one. If this is the first blog you’re reading, pause here and go back to our earlier blogs in the series, which will help you learn how to say goodbye to dieting and become attuned to your biological hunger.
Food rules, often referred to as ‘the food police’, are the unreasonable rules in your head, created by dieting and diet culture, that cause you to feel guilty. These rules often pop up on a daily basis, and build judgment and morality into your food decisions.
It’s important to acknowledge that strict food rules are often a direct consequence of diet culture, and getting rid of this internal diatribe is an imperative part of learning how to eat intuitively. This internal narrative develops through years of dieting and exposure to societal messages, and ultimately sets the stage for a very complicated relationship with food and body, because it an encourages reliance on external cues (food rules) instead of internal cues (biological hunger). Here’s the catch, no single food or nutrient is unequivocally good or bad, healthy or unhealthy - it’s just not that black and white. A fraught relationship with food is so much more unhealthy than the foods we are taught to fear.
I like to think of challenging the food police as a three step process, which I remember as ‘the three N’s. They are as follows:
1. Notice
It’s important to be able to pay attention to what’s going on in your body. Self-awareness is a key part of learning to eat intuitively. This is called ‘interoceptive awareness’, and we’ve talked more about it in one of our earlier blogs. Simply put, it’s the ability to understand and identify what’s going on in both our body and mind. This can include your hunger and fullness levels, emotions and mood, cravings, energy level, body sensations and any judgments you note.
2. Neutralise
It’s so important to adjust the way we think and talk about food, and reframe the narrative in your head from judgemental to self-compassionate. It can be difficult to make that jump, so establishing a neutral inner dialogue can be a realistic middle ground. You may find it helpful to identify all of the rules and beliefs that you live by, and work on challenging those thoughts.
For example, if you use words like “must,” “perfect,” “can’t,” “bad” or “awful,” it probably shouldn’t be floating around in your head. Replace these thoughts and phrases with rational and reasonable ones instead. Use words like “may,” “can” and “is OK,”. This may look like changing your narrative from “I can’t eat after 9pm”, to “I can eat whenever I’m hungry”. Thoughts like, “I skipped breakfast and was starving by 12 p.m.” or, “I had a piece of cake after dinner but didn’t pay attention to how it tasted” are neutral observations, and free of judgment.
3. Nurture
Ultimately, we want you to be able to turn your critical inner voice into one that is both neutral and nurturing. Once you’ve been able to make neutral observations instead of allowing the food police to take control, it’s time to practice self compassion! Try talking to yourself the same way you’d respond to a best friend or loved one.
It’s a good idea to come up with several positive affirmations you can repeat to yourself when you’re caught in a moment of judgement or shame. Here are a few to get you started:
“I am learning to trust myself with food, and overcome past food rules.”
“I really overate today. I wonder what I was feeling that could have made me need more food to comfort myself today?”
“This is a process; I am still learning, and I am not alone.”
It can be a challenge to shift your thinking, but the small changes you make will add up over time toward a better relationship with food.
This blog is not a substitute for medical, psychological, or dietetic advice, and is for informational and educational purposes only. If you or somebody you love is struggling, contact your GP, or call/text 1737 to speak to a licensed therapist.