Ep. 16- Why You Feel Out of Control Around Food.
May 23,2024
Do you ever feel like you can’t stop eating?
Like you’re out of control around food?
That you can’t eat sugar in moderation?
Let’s talk about WHY this happens!
Today I discuss:
debunking myths: why you’re NOT out of control
understanding hunger and its role in frantic eating
4 reasons you feel out of control around food
Happy Thursday, confident eaters! Today I want to help you understand why you might be feeling out of control around food. Why you feel like you just can't stop eating, you end up in the cabinets, in a big frenzy, not able to stop. I want you to be able to do something like start eating an Oreo without feeling like you're going to finish the whole packet without that overwhelming feeling of desire coming up. And I want you to know, first of all, that it is 100 percent possible because I used to be the person who felt like anytime I had something sugary or sweet, I would not be able to stop unless I finished it all. So I have been there, done that, felt that and completely change how I interact with food. I am now able to open up my cabinets with full confidence that no matter what I put in my mouth, I'm going to be able to stay conscious, mindful, and in charge throughout that entire experience and be able to eat in amounts that feel good to me.
So first we are going to go over what is not happening that you may be thinking is why you're out of control around food. First, you're not out of control because you lack willpower. So willpower is saying to yourself, just don't eat anymore. Stop it. No more. It's like this very wave your finger, Slap on the back saying stop it.
Don't do that and Willpower uses a lot of white knuckling where you're just trying really really hard, which is why it's not sustainable. So This is not happening because you are a failure at using willpower. Willpower just doesn't even work in the first place. It's also not because you are broken or that there's something wrong with you that you're the one person who has just totally fucked up your relationship with food and is never going to fix it.
That is also not what's happening. And it's also not the food itself. Now, this is a big one, because a lot of people say, Well, I'm just addicted to the sugar. Or, it's just because they're processed foods that I'm addicted to it, that I can't stop, that I feel so out of control. And I am not here to debate the chemical properties of processed foods today. Maybe that's for another day.
But here is the truth. If it were the food itself that were causing you to feel out of control, everyone who ate that food would feel out of control. And that is not the truth. There are many people in the world who are able to eat Oreos and cookies and chips and Feel like they can stop, right?
So it's not just the food itself. No one is out here going to their local grocery store with hundreds of dollars Trying to sneak in sugar and get it in as fast as possible because they're so out of control like that's not how it happens And they want you to look for evidence of the people in your life that can eat these foods in moderation, that don't feel out of control, that do just have a little bit and move on, because I'm sure there are examples of people who do this.
So I want you to really build this belief that it is possible to have this peaceful relationship with any and all foods, that you can be in a place where you feel like these foods are just neutral, they're not good or bad, that you can just have a little bit and move on.
So now I'm gonna go over the four reasons why you feel out of control around food now The first reason is you're just hungry your body needs food. Okay. Imagine if you were out of the house for the day running errands, you were doing stuff, you were gone for hours and you didn't have any water with you.
And then if you got home, you were really thirsty and so you started chugging water. You had a lot of it, and you're like, wow, I was really thirsty. I drank a lot of water. I drank it pretty quickly, and it was good. And now I feel satisfied. That's what's happening when you are hungry, is essentially, you know, let's say.
you are running errands for the day, same situation, and you get home and you feel like, oh my gosh, I just feel like I'm in a frenzy around food. That's not a problem. Like, you don't make it a problem that you're in a frenzy around water when you go all day and you're really thirsty for it. So it's the same thing around food, right?
We don't want to mistake our hunger as a feeling of being out of control. It's just, We, our body is asking for food. It just wants calories. It's asking for nutrition. But if you are going to intentionally restrict your calories to, like, this is more than just a without longer doing errands for the day type of thing.
When you go into a big calorie restriction, you're going to have a bigger desire for food. Again, because your body is trying to help you and keep you alive. Just like the longer you were to go without water and be in a water restriction, the more your brain would start to ask for lots of water. So if you go into eating food after a period of extreme calorie restriction or even just like a moderate calorie deficit, like that can sometimes be enough to freak out our brain, you're going to feel a little out of control.
Now, you know, if we're just in this normal amount of hunger, this is something that happens to me sometimes still, where I'll go into the kitchen, it's lunchtime, and I'll be like, Oh my gosh, I want like three bars of chocolate right now, I'm so hungry. And I might even start eating a chocolate and I'll be like, Oh my gosh, yes, I want more chocolate, I'm feeling out of control now.
But then I realize I'm just hungry and it's time for lunch, so then I'll sit down, I'll make myself lunch, I'll eat the lunch, and after lunch I feel totally fine. I feel no more desire for the chocolate, I don't feel like I want to keep eating anymore. I just feel ready to move on. So I also don't want you to confuse the excitement for food when you're hungry with this declaration that you're going to be out of control.
Because you can be excited for food, and even if you start eating it a little quickly at first, If you recognize that that's normal and that's just part of being hungry, then you're less likely to make it a problem and go, you know what? I already feel out of control. Screw it. I'm just going to keep eating. I can't stop myself. And then go in this big downward spiral.
The second reason you might be feeling out of control around food is because you have developed strong urges to binge. So if you fall in the category of a binge eater or even an overeater, you can get urges just to overeat too. And this is a habit you've been having for a while.
Your lower brain, this part of you that makes things automatic and habitual and as easy as possible has now automated the habit of eating a lot of food. So if you get triggered during your day and an urge comes up, you might start feeling like, I don't even know what happened. I just wasn't even aware that these urges came up and I just felt like I turned into a zombie and I started eating everything in sight in my cabinet.
So it's not that you were out of control. It's just that you didn't recognize that these urges were coming up telling you to do that same old habit, and it just felt like it happened so quickly you didn't even catch them. You didn't have an opportunity to manage them, to sit with them, to change your thoughts around them.
So, if you don't know anything about your urges or you don't have any tools for them, they're probably going to feel very strong. And I talk about urges a lot on this podcast, so go listen to some other episodes. I think episode three is why you binge on How to Stop. I talk about urges on there. And really, your brain is just trying to get you to do what it's always done because that feels easiest.
So it's going on autopilot while you're eating, and you need to take it off of autopilot by recognizing that your brain is going on this loop that you don't actually want to binge. That this is something that you can stop and you can choose to sit with instead of acting on. Because every time you act on that urge again, that's reinforcing that brain pathway so the urges are going to keep coming up.
That's why they feel so strong and you feel like they're happening so often is because you keep acting on them and you keep eating.
The third reason you're feeling out of control around food is because you're rebelling against old diet rules. Throughout the years, my guess is you've either gone on some sort of diet, or you've been told some certain rules or restrictions around what you should eat, what you shouldn't eat, what's good, what's bad.
And you picked up some of these food rules from other people and other diets along the way. And the problem with this is all of these rules were told to you by someone other than yourself. And because you didn't create these rules, you might not want to follow them. You might want to rebel against them because you don't like them. You just took them on because you thought, as someone said, this was a good idea to do.
I like to think of this one as like a kid going into college when they've never had alcohol before or their parents have been really strict with alcohol. We all hear those stories of, you know, the strict parents who never let their kids go out, who was really, really strict about their drinking policies.
And then all of a sudden they send their kid to college and they go absolutely insane. They're the biggest partiers. They're out drinking every night. They're failing out of college. And it's like, well, what is going on here?
And the theory goes that because the kids never had a chance to learn to moderate their drinking or partying and they never got to decide for themselves and make that decision on what they wanted, when they went off to school, they didn't know how to make those decisions so much.
They didn't know how to decide what they wanted from their perspective. They just wanted to rebel against the rules that they were taught.
So if this is you, that you're doing this around food, you're kind of the adult going to college around food and you're having a big party with all the foods you never used to allow yourself, or all the foods you told were off limits, I want you to remember that there are no true rules around food ever, right?
All of these things are just made up. Now, sure, there are, of course Nutritional studies, but there's no like one rule that you can only eat 26 grams of sugar a day. And if you have 27 grams of sugar a day, you're gonna die and you're gonna have all these terrible health consequences. It's like, no, there's a range within there.
There isn't anything that's super strict, super hard and fast, like you get to decide how you want to be eating and make these guidelines for yourself. So if you decide that you do want guidelines around your eating, make sure that it's coming from your true desires versus what someone told you, and make sure it's something that you 100 percent want to do for your entire life.
Otherwise, it's going to be very hard to stick with it and you're gonna want to rebel against it. Reminding yourself you get to make the rules. You don't have to follow anyone else's.
Now, the fourth and final reason you're feeling out of control around food. Let's think about out of control, that is a feeling, it is an emotion you feel, you feel out of control around food.
And all of our feelings are coming from our thoughts. You are creating your feelings from your thoughts. So there are certain thoughts that you are having right now that are making you feel out of control around food. And this goes back to that point around it's not the food that's making you feel out of control. It's something else. That something else is your thoughts. Because other people do not have these thoughts around food if they are eating things in moderation, which is why they don't feel out of control around food and you do.
So some common thoughts I see that lead to this feeling of being out of control is I need it. It doesn't matter. I don't know when I'm going to get this again. That one puts you in a scarcity mindset where you want it all in now. You think that you're never going to get it again, so you better get as much of it in right now.
It's too hard. I can't stop. If you're thinking that, it's going to be hard to stop when you're telling yourself the whole time, I can't stop.
Right? And I get this thought of I can't stop because it's coming from your past where you feel like you really couldn't stop against this feeling of I just felt like I had to keep going and going and going, but even saying it's hard for me to stop is better than I can't stop. Because when you tell yourself you can't stop, you have zero options to stop.
You can't do it. It's not an option. But if you say it's hard to stop, then at least you know that it's possible for you to do it. It just might feel hard. Now, even saying it's hard to stop as a thought, you could think it's easy for me to stop, which I would recommend thinking, but start to inch your way up into these thoughts that feel believable to you.
So if it feels more believable to think it's hard to stop right now, that is still better than I can't stop.
Thinking this is just so good. Who wants to stop eating something that just tastes so good? Not me. I want to keep going. So you want to ask yourself, how does this food actually taste? When you're on your fourth cookie, does it really taste so good?
My guess is not. I don't know about you, but if I tune in to my fourth cookie, it's starting to taste way too sweet, sugary, maybe a little bit, I'm like, salty. I'm thinking of like a, Salted chocolate chip cookie, because that's the ones I like. I like sweet and salty together. But notice how it doesn't actually taste good, right?
The first few bites, sure, maybe it does taste so good. But the truth is, the more you keep eating, the worse it tastes. All of these thoughts have this underlying belief that I don't have a choice in this.
Think of an area of your life where you truly don't have a choice in things, right? Something like what the weather's going to be like today, right? No matter how much you think about what you'd like it to be today, it's just going to be what it's going to be. That is a thing you truly do not have a choice in.
But your food decisions, what goes in your mouth, is something that you always have a choice in. Because food is an inanimate object. It does not move on its own. It is not like the weather where it just appears and does its thing. It just sits there, okay? So the truth is you always do stop eating eventually.
At some point you choose to be done. You decide to end the eating. No one Comes to me and says, I have eaten every single day 24 7 forever, right? Everyone stops eventually. And it's just a matter of deciding and choosing to stop earlier than where you are now. So right now, you are feeling out of control, but you are not actually out of control.
It is not a fact that you are out of control. It is just something that you are feeling based on the thoughts you are telling yourself. But because it is not a truth of the world that you're out of control, it means you absolutely can stop, right? And you can change your relationship with food. You can change how you're eating.
So look at the truth that you are a smart, capable human being, and you know how to not put the food from the cabinet into your mouth. You get to decide. And I want you to think about it as an opportunity to show yourself that you are in charge of you. Show yourself the truth. Because that will leave you empowered, and when you are empowered, you're more likely to make better food decisions throughout the day.
Right? So tell yourself the truth this week that you are in control around food no matter what you are thinking otherwise. All right. Have a good week, confident eaters. Talk to you later.