I used to live for a good pot luck. At parties, you could usually find me hanging out by the food table, simultaneously loving it and hating myself for feeling so out of control. Afterwards, I would typically feel so uncomfortably full that I couldn't even enjoy the party.
I figured this was just a "me" thing. I just didn't really have self-control. I believed that if I just stayed away from these kinds of food that were my kryptonite, I'd be fine. But one I got a taste, it was all over.
As I began to learn about intuitive eating, I became curious about this out of control behavior of mine.
In the book Anti-Diet, author Christy Harrison, MPH, RD, discusses how when the body is deprived of the appropriate amount of fuel, such as with attempts at intentional weight loss, it triggers physiological processes that raise hormones that make you feel hungry. On top of that, it intentionally seeks out high calorie foods because they give us the most bang for our buck calorie-wise. A hormone called Neuropeptide Y continues to increase the longer the body goes without getting carbs, the body's main energy source. As a result, your desire for carbs continues to intensify the higher it gets. The way to decrease this hormone, is to eat carbs. So if you've felt that intensity to eat carbs or sweets, you aren't crazy or out of control, your body is doing what it was designed to do.
Harrison also talks about nutrition from an evolutionary standpoint as well. Our body will fight to remain the size that it is because it thinks it's starving when it's not getting enough calories. in the past, it was a significant risk to our safety and well-being if we didn't have enough food. While our environments have changed to have an abundance of foods, with the exception of instances of food scarcity, our brains are still conditioned to focus on survival at all costs.
So, what I thought was a self control issue, turned out to be caused by my restrictive eating behaviors I was doing to shrink my body.
When I began to feed myself consistently and adequately, my self contr issues seemed to dissipate. I will note here, this was with all foods, not just nutrient dense "healthy" foods. In fact, the more I gave myself permission (physically and mentally) to have non-nutritious foods or fun foods, the fewer issues I had with "control" around food.
This concept is also backed by evidence found in a landmark study by Ancel Keyes between 1944-1945. A group of men volunteered to participate instead of being drafted for the war. These men were chosen based on the fact they were considered to be physically and mentally healthy at the start of the study and were put on a semi-starvation diet to study the effects of rationing food on soldiers at war.
As the study progressed, the men developed strange behaviors including obsessive thoughts about food, studying cookbooks, and having significant food cravings. By the end of the study, some of the participants required treatment for eating disorders and many had developed unhealthy behaviors surrounding food.
The crazy thing is that these participants were given around 1700 calories per day and had no social media or many of the other modern day societal pressures.
It's no wonder so many of us feel out of control around food when 68% of Americans have dieted at some point in their lives. (Harrison, 2021)
As I work on practicing eating intuitively according to my hunger cues without pursing intentional weight loss, I no longer feel out of control around food.
Guys, it wasn't a self control thing. I was just hungry. My body was trying to keep me safe.
The funny thing is that most of the time I may have looked like I had a lot of self control, but that was really just a form of restrained eating. This is "the intention to restrict food intake deliberately in order to prevent weight gain or to promote weight loss." (Tuschl, 1990). To others, the person appears "in control", but when they let their guard down, the body will refeed itself to get the calories it needs aka feeling "out of control" around food.
Good news, if you find this happens to you, it means your body is actually working properly, not broken. Also, you are not alone. This is super common and I've experienced it first hand. So, if you've felt this "out of control" feeling like me, ask yourself if it could be related to limiting calories.
Let me know your experiences with this. I'd love to hear!
Harrison, C. (2021) Anti-diet: Reclaim Your Time, Money, We'l-Being, and Happiness Through Intuitive Eating. Little, Brown Spark.
Tribole E, Resch E. (2020) Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works. St. Martin’s Publishing Group.
Tuschl R. J. (1990). From dietary restraint to binge eating: some theoretical considerations. Appetite 14, 105–109. 10.1016/0195-6663(90)90004-R
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