Food rules. Challenge the food police.
The next stage of intuitive eating is learning to challenge the food police. You can read last week’s post here, Making Peace with Food.
It is difficult trying to stop dieting when we are surrounded by people on diets who are talking about how much weight they have lost, or which plan they are following this week and how their aunt, neighbour or woman in the queue at the Post Office has lost X amount of weight.
You can feel left out of the conversation at work or on a night out with friends. It’s only natural, we all want to belong.
To overcome this hurdle we need to be aware of these scenarios so we can be prepared for them.
Knowing your reasons for going through this process will certainly help, you never know you might be able to win some hearts and minds along the way.
This week’s post looks deeper into who we are fighting so that we can more easily identify diet culture within our daily life.
Who are the Food Police?
When we were kids the Food Police would have been our parents or primary caregivers, the people we learned about our food values from. Values such as:
- Clean your plate
- Eat this, then you can have that
- Don’t waste food
As an adult, we are our food police and to a certain extent, the media, along with well-meaning family, friends and even strangers!!
The food police label food as ‘good’ or ‘bad’.
Over the decades’ different food groups have been demonised.
Depending on which decade you grew up in your food values will be different.
Being exposed to diet fads can affect the internal narrative you have around certain foods and food groups.
The food police make it nearly impossible to enjoy our food, they are part of diet culture.
Listening to the food police and taking part in restrictive diets is harmful to our long-term health and well-being, it creates;
- Hormonal imbalance
- Disordered eating
- Weakened immunity
- Reduced metabolism
- Bone weakness
All of which have a massive negative impact on your menopause journey.
How to Identify the Food Police?
The food police can be sneaky but here are some things you may hear or you say to yourself;
- If you eat that you are going to have to exercise to make up for it
- No carbs (or insert relevant food group) today
- You didn’t get enough steps in today
- Why have I got no willpower?
- I’ve been dieting ALL day/week, I deserve this (insert food you have deprived yourself of)
Challenging the food police is about questioning whether these rules support your overall health and creating a better relationship with food.
This whole journey can feel overwhelming when you are surrounded by diet culture but with the right support, you can start to heal your relationship with food and as a result with yourself.
As you do, your body will find optimal health and natural balance.
Where do Food Rules come from?
Food rules come from an external source.
Eating intuitively comes from within, it is about listening to your body and what it needs.
According to researchers at Cornell University we make over 200 food-related decisions every day.
It is no wonder that as a society we gravitate towards ‘food rules’ to help us narrow down these choices.
Having rules about food removes the guesswork, it’s easier to follow the rules than make independent choices when we are so busy in our day to day lives and surrounded by so much conflicting information.
Herein lies the issue, our bodies are not intended to be governed by rules.
We are all unique with individual requirements.
We are the only ones that can tell ourselves what our bodies need.
It is this skill that we need to re-learn.
Food rules can also be influenced by our values such as not wanting to waste food. Remember though;
Whether food is left on your plate or eaten when you no longer need it, whether on your plate or in your body, is still a waste if you are clearly full.
Evelyn Tribole
A little psychology
According to the theory of Eric Berne, founder of Transactional Analysis, we operate from one of 3 ‘Ego States’ daily.
The Parent, Adult or Child, is the PAC model.
- The Parent ego state has thoughts and theories learned from our parents or other parental figures or role models in our life. This state is in charge of the rules – I should, always, don’t. It can be nurturing or critical.
- The Adult ego state describes our ability to think and make our own decisions based on internal and external experiences. Our Adult ego is how we keep our Parent and Child ego states in check. This ego state operates in the present, it is calm and detached.
- The Child ego state takes us back to how we behaved and felt as a child. It can be negative or playful.
By applying this theory to Intuitive Eating we can begin to heal our relationship with food by learning to understand ourselves better along with our reactions and self-talk.
Being in the Adult ego state controls the parent and child states.
Intuitive Eating is a process
Learning to eat intuitively and stop dieting forever is a process.
Don’t aim for the end goal and create a roller coaster of emotions. Understand it is a process and a journey.
I took myself on this journey and got stuck in many places along the way such as thinking, I will try just one more diet, and have one more go at losing weight before giving intuitive eating a go and unconditional permission to eat, in hindsight my journey would have been shorter with support.
I made it in the end, sure there are times when I get sucked into the whole media circus of wanting to be a certain size or weight, I am a 48-year-old peri-menopausal woman, and of course, I hanker for my younger years.
But, I have a strategy that keeps me from wallowing there. I have a purpose in life and I feel great the majority of the time. I understand the menopause journey and how to nourish rather than punish my body and it serves me well.
The key is to show ourselves compassion and patience.
We need to be inquisitive about our journey throughout life, especially our menopause journey, and learn how to nourish our body so that it will experience fewer menopause symptoms and be healthy enough to see us well into our post-menopause years.
Start Your Journey to Optimal Health
If you would like to have a chat about your menopause journey and how learning how to ditch restrictive dieting could support you to feel like yourself again, or even better, then book a complimentary 30-minute menopause assessment.
You can learn more about my hybrid online study and 1-1 support programs HERE.
Get my blog posts straight into your inbox every Friday evening by signing up to one of my free downloadable resources, next week I will be sharing more about finding satisfaction from food.