A first step in challenging the Food Police is even being able to catch them in action. Distinguishing a specific kind of self-talk from the continuous chatter of our busy mind is not easy. But perhaps being perfectly attuned to our thoughts isn’t even necessary. Here are some ideas.

A first thing I’ve done is to make a kind of retrospect of my beliefs with respect to my eating and exercise behavior. We use our beliefs to make sense of our world. We continuously interpret events, situations, and our thoughts and feelings. Our beliefs greatly determine how we interpret these experiences. They are also basis of rules. Certain beliefs and derived rules are core elements of diet mentality and may stand in our way of becoming an intuitive eater.

Making these beliefs explicit is a first step in changing them. What may help is thinking about beliefs about different aspects, like:

  • What are my beliefs about weight loss? E.g. “I believe that losing weight will make me happy”, “I must do something about my weight”
  • What are my beliefs about weight gain? E.g. “Gaining more weight would be terrible”, “If I do nothing, I will gain weight and be a miserable failure”
  • What are my beliefs about certain foods? I listed different types of foods and asked myself this question. E.g. “Eating brownies makes me fat”, “I have no control over eating brownies” – and the derived rule “I should therefore simply not eat brownies (although I really want to)”. Or “Once I start, I cannot stop eating nuts/crisps”
  • What are my beliefs as to when and how I should eat? E.g. “I should only eat if really hungry”, “I should restrict my eating if earlier that day I ate too much.” Also, do you evaluate your day as good or bad depending on how you’ve eaten? This can be very unhelpful. E.g. after having a satisfying dinner and simply stopping without the need to eat more; feeling satisfied, and neutral, almost light in the stomach; I had the following thought: I did good. This thought was immediately followed by a bad feeling. Suddenly I reframed this wonderful satisfying experience using diet mentality and I immediately felt deprived. This awakened the “diet rebel” within me, and I almost went for more food. 
  • What are my beliefs about my body?  
  • What are my beliefs about exercise? E.g. do you evaluate your day as good or bad depending on whether you exercised or not? 

 In a next step I tried to re-examine my beliefs. I thought about objective statements that I can make about them, and how I might reformulate them in a more objective, healthier, and more helpful form.

  • There is a significant body of research that shows that dieting only results in temporary weight loss. In fact, it results in long term weight gain. Therefore, putting weight-loss as a center of my efforts may make me feel in control and happy with results in the short term, but will only undermine my confidence and health, and push me further in diet mentality.
  • Our bodies are very good at keeping a weight at a given level. If we can learn how to just leave it to do its job. On the other hand, I might indeed gain a bit of weight in the process of learning how to become an intuitive eater. As I learn how to listen to my body and slowly learn how to overcome binging, my weight will most probably stabilize, and it might even drop by a moderate amount. I know from experience that my weight tends to stay stable during the periods of work-home routine. In addition, it’s okay if along the way, I adopt a couple of healthy rules and good eating habits next to just following my body’s cues – which will also have stabilizing impact on my weight.

Some objective observations about food:

  • I like the creamy texture of ice cream, especially if there are crunchy pieces (like nuts). I like how it melts in my mouth. I like that it comes in different flavors. Ice cream is so refreshing, especially during summer. After a relatively small amount of ice-cream, I stop feeling the taste. The last bites do not feel as satisfying as the first ones.
  • Sharing brownies, chocolates or any sweets with people can be a satisfying and a bonding experience.
  • Brownies are a high calorie food. Even a small piece of brownie can be satisfying. Brownies fill me up fast. Even small quantities of brownies can feel heavy in my stomach. Eating brownies when hungry leaves me unsatisfied.
  • I like the taste of chocolate. I like the combination of the crunchy crust and soft inside textures of a brownie
  • Brownies in themselves have no power to make me fat

The point is to teach ourselves to use this kind of objective language, and arm ourselves with facts and helpful beliefs so that we can answer the attacks of the Food Police the next time they strike. Eventually I’m hoping to replace the distorted beliefs by the healthier ones.

Another tip is paying attention to our self-talk in specific situations. Here are a couple of ideas. Listen to your self-talk in following situations:

  • While standing in front of a mirror. Take a notepad and write down how you feel and think. Repeat this exercise with some (or all) clothes off.
  • While looking at the food you crave
  • Being hungry
  • While eating
  • After a meal
  • While thinking if you should go exercise

Another approach that worked for me was to try to "back-trace" the thoughts from feelings and the situation. Sometimes I just feel the hurt from the attacks of the Food Police. Or I went through a difficult eating experience (e.g. a binge). I then try to take the time and think back - what could it be that the Food Police was saying to me? I try some sentences, thoughts - what is it that the Food Police could have been saying to me to make feel that way in this situation? Some resonate with me more than others. Taking the time to retrospectively analyze a hurtful feeling or an experience can give us additional insights.

That’s all I got for this week. Happy Food Police hunting!