Saying Goodbye Food Guilt
Here is your unconditional permission to eat. Yes, you read that correct. This Christmas you are able to eat whatever you want. There’s one guideline when you feel that sense of guilt creeping up on you… when you eat this delicious food, I would like you to be curious about why you like it.
Being curious about our food preferences helps us stay attuned while eating it. When we engage our senses in looking at the color, sound, temperature, and taste of our food, we start to notice how much we enjoy it or perhaps it doesn’t quite meet our expectations.
Food guilt often happens this time of year because we have foods that are ‘forbidden’ or ‘bad’ in our mindset, so when we engage in eating them, we eat past our fullness cues, chastise ourselves for our lack of discipline, or vow we will burn it off later. This can create shame. Shaming ourselves about our food choices tends to make us feel the need to re-gain control through dieting. Hence the January new year’s resolution to diet and lose weight. We begin to say ‘its ok to eat this now, because I’ll work it off in January.” And this cycle of earning our calories and compensating for our food choices begins.
When I work with clients through their food guilt, they often fear if they let go of the guilt then they will lose the run of themselves and eat too many calories or gain weight or not be able to re-establish discipline with their habits. Truthfully, this can happen regardless of experiencing guilt. The guilt is a distraction from what we are truly feeling.
Many times whats happening beneath the surface around how we feel about ourselves, another year over, and the progression of time gets fueled into thoughts about how we can re-claim a sense of control…usually through our bodies. This isn’t a bad notion, just gets mis-channeled and over-simplified into a calories in = calories out equation.
Instead, this year, lets enjoy the foods we enjoy. Lets stay attuned when eating them. You’ll naturally notice your fullness sooner. Let yourself engage in healthy activity and new year’s resolutions, if you want them, because this is also a healthy behaviour for body. Not because its a debt you’re working off but rather an investment in your future.
