The 4th Thing to Give Up if You’re Ready to Stop Binge Eating (4 of11)…

The 4th thing to let go of to finally stop binge eating forever is labeling foods as “healthy” and “unhealthy,” and only eating the healthy foods when you are “trying to be good.” Do you hear all of the judgments I just made in one sentence?

Those of us that have struggled in our relationship with food for years have all sorts of judgments and rules about eating that keep us stuck in cycles of anxiety and overeating. When we first become conscious of our weight we are taught to diet. And as I’ve mentioned before, diets fail 99% of the time, leaving you defeated, ashamed, with the same amount of excess weight and many times even more. Usually, this leads us to seek more information on what else we could possibly do differently in order to lose weight.

Most of us spend several years in this cycle so just stop for a second and think about the amount of nutrition information that can accumulate over time. It is absolutely absurd how many “food rules,” and restrictions we learn as new diets, fads, and foods become popular. In fact, this is so prevalent that a term “Orthorexia,” the obsession with healthy eating, has been named. Many people begin overeating because they just want to listen to the experts and eat healthier, only to find themselves in anything but a healthy lifestyle.

The problem is that nobody can get on the same page. The Keto crew disagrees with the Weight Watchers crew. And the Weight Watchers disagree with the Vegans and the Vegans disagree with the Paleos and the Paleos disagree with the Raw Foodies, and the intermittent fasters think they are hold the answers, and some groups think sugar is the devil, others say its dairy, others say its gluten, and while you chase every one of these possibilities you completely lose touch with yourself and your relationship with food spirals into confusion and despair.

Trying to figure out what to eat has become exhausting.

If you read my first post in this series you already know that dieting is not the way to go, which might be frustrating for you because there is actually something comforting about just being told what to do. Us dieters get high on rules and control. Something about a new diet gives us a buzz in our system. We love it – until we rebel against it with a binge.

But what I’m inviting you to do here is let go of all judgments about food so that you can actually learn from your own body.

That’s right, babe. Y-O-U are the new authority on what to eat, when to eat, and how much. You say which foods are right for your body and which ones aren’t.

See, that intelligent body of yours not only will tell you when it’s hungry and when it’s full, but it will also happily give you feedback about which foods it’s not crazy about. I’m sure this is different advice than you’ve heard before because up until now you’ve just been trying to find the “right” diet. What I teach my clients in my Binge to Balance program is how to do exactly this – use their body as their guide. And just like anything else, these are new skills to learn.

When you begin putting effort towards learning these new skills, you’d be surprised at how quickly you catch on, at all of the signals you missed before, at how in tune you can be with your body, and ultimately, that you are the best resource in deciding what to eat.

Dropping the judgments about food will help you finally get clear on what certain foods feel like in your body and which ones are the right ones for you. 

This will also help eliminate the anxiety around what to eat, which will lead you to feel more relaxed about food in general, feel less deprived when foods are no longer “off-limits,” and ultimately decrease episodes of binge and emotional eating.

Thank you for staying open-minded, and thank yourself for taking the time to read this and open your mind to new possibilities and ways of approaching food. You’re doing great!

All my love,

Cina