As mentioned before, I used to feel out of control around food, especially tasty things like pop tarts, Oreos, and hot dips 🤤
So we all know the story, I tried to stay away from them because I knew that once I started eating them, I would continue until they were gone. Then I'd feel terrible physically. I would swear them off, once again, because I had proven to myself that I couldn't control myself around them.
Sound familiar? Do you have any foods like that?
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I made a pact to stay away from them most of the time, only allowing them as "treats" once in awhile as a "reward" or special occasion. But deep down, I had this belief that eating these foods was unhealthy. Eating "junk food" was not going to get me to my "goals" of health and thinness that society told me were the gold standard.
This belief held strong until I began learning about Intuitive Eating. As I read, I began to have my deeply rooted beliefs surrounding health, weight loss, and and my behavior completely rocked. I began to question everything. I learned that what I eat makes up only a small portion of of my overall health, yet we place huge weight on it (no pun intended) letting it drive our mental health, moral thoughts, and daily behavior.
During this process, I learned what physical and mental deprivation does to us. I'm referring to, not only withholding certain things from ourselves physically, but the voice in our head telling us we are weak, bad, and that we will need to "make it up" if we do "slip" and have something from the forbidden list.
I learned if we eliminate that restriction, we would also eliminate self control issues around food. It seemed a little too good to be true to decided I would try experiments with food habituation mentioned in the research. Great food, research, psychology? My nerdy self was totally on board.
Here's what I did. I chose a food that I had previously (seriously) restricted. I chose strawberry Pop Tarts with the rainbow sprinkles. Yes, please. The task was to eat them whenever I felt like it and as much as I wanted.
Sounds crazy, right?
There was one big caveat with this experiment. During and after eating the food, it was essential that I mentally allowed myself to have it. That meant, as I was indulging, I was not berating myself with negative comments about how I had no self control, that this was so "bad" for me, or that it was unhealthy. Afterwards, I was not allowed to tell myself I would have to "make up" for it or swear them off forever. This, I found out, is where the true cognitive change happens in working towards good freedom.
So, I bought a pack of Pop Tarts and opened one up. As I took my first bite, I savored the flavor, the crunch of the frosting followed by the sweet jelly inside. It was delightful. All I thought about what the sensory experience and how much I loved it. I tried to pay attention to how full I was getting (this was after a lot of work learning to actually detect my fullness) and noticed objective feelings about how the amount I ate made my body feel physically.
Rinse and repeat everyday for the next week, sometimes more than once a day.
Initially, I felt like a kid on Christmas morning. It felt too good to be true. But as the week went on, something amazing happened. The dazzling experience began to lose its luster. Gradually, I began to focus less on how great of a time I was having and more on the fact that it was just a Pop Tart. Slowly, the experience began to get....boring.
However, that, I was told, meant it had been a success.
When I quieted the negative thoughts in my head, I was actually able to hear the messages from my body. And by the end of the week, the messages were: "Okay, this was fun, but let's move on."
I found I no longer thought about Pop Tarts after that. They were no longer out on this pedestal like they had been now that I had permission to have them whenever I wanted. I'll be honest, it was even a little sad that they didn't give me the same rush of excitement that they once had.
I should note that there is no set timeline or specific foods for certain people. This is highly focused on the individual and for you, it may a different food and take a very different timeframe to get to this point.
We've all heard it before, we want what we can't have. Everything gets old once we have it in unlimited quantities. We see this with unlimited PTO, the new toy that gets old with our kids after a week, and the leftovers from 2 nights ago. Here's a secret, it happens with food too. It happens with chips, cookies, candy, and peanut butter. But just eating it isn't enough, it's mentally letting yourself off the hook where the real lesson lives.
If you did this experiment, what food would you choose?
You can learn more about this in "Inuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Anti Diet Approach by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch.
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