Navigating the Emotional Barriers to Anti-Diet Eating
The Gap Between Knowing and Doing
If you are anything like me when I first embraced intuitive eating and started rejecting diet culture, you understand in a logical, big-brain way why diets don’t work and in theory why an anti-diet approach makes sense. Yet still, there is resistance.
The resistance might show up as internal negotiations and objections, like:
“I don’t diet, but if I eat sugar my inflammation will be out of control.”
“I can’t tell what my body wants. I only feel the extremes: extremely hungry and extremely full.”
“I am too tired, stressed, and anxious. It’s easier if someone else just tells me what to do.”
I have found in this work, knowing the facts isn’t enough. We also need to process some intense emotional hurdles because diet culture gave us a powerful, albeit faulty, psychological safety net.
I talked a lot about fear in the last post. A fear of body changes, losing control, standing up to so-called authority figures, and social changes. And, yes, fear is an emotion. Fear has a big role in this work but if you just address your fears with all the handy advice from the last post, you will likely still find a gap between knowing and truly embodying the peace and calm of trusting your body.
True anti-diet work is emotional work. Sure, there are some physical habits that might need to be addressed (more on that another time), but it is the deep psychological messages that diet culture implanted – guilt and shame for eating certain foods, the urge to numb or avoid uncomfortable feelings with a false sense of control, holding your body up as a measuring stick of worth – that need to be unseated.
The Moral Battleground: Guilt, Shame, and Secret Eating
Rejecting diet culture is like pulling deep-rooted weeds from a garden. Just because you pluck the leafy tops, it doesn’t mean you got all the roots. The weed can, and probably will, pop up again. Saying you don’t diet isn't the same as digging out the roots of dieting.
Most, if not all, of my clients say they experience guilt after eating certain foods or certain quantities of food. Guilt is when you feel bad about having done something (I did a bad thing). But many clients also feel shame about what, when, or how they eat. Shame shifts the focus from the action to the identity: I am a bad person for having done it. Diet culture taught us to make this jump.
Diet culture has very effectively spread the message that some foods are “good” and some foods are “bad.” And further, it has taught us to think we are a good person for eating “good” foods and a bad person for eating “bad” foods.
The Cycle of Secrecy
These cycles of guilt and shame can lead to secret eating. Hiding eating habits also tends to intensify feelings of guilt and shame. Shame thrives in isolation.
You might find yourself eating differently around people, say in a meeting at work, then you do when you are at home alone. This is called performative eating. You are, consciously or unconsciously, putting on a show of what a “good” person you are eating all the “right” foods. People may even comment on it: “Oh you are so good for ordering the salad! I am being bad today; I got chips with my sandwich.”
These comments and these rules make food an emotional battleground, and it doesn’t need to be that way. The very act of existing in a human body means you need to eat to stay alive. The core truth is simple: Food is morally neutral.
To further confuse the issue, what is “good” or “bad” changes constantly. In any given diet, the list of “bad” foods could include carbs, meat, grains, fruit, beans, vegetables, and/or fat. In any given diet, the list of “good” foods could include carbs, meat, grains, fruit, beans, vegetables, and/or fat. Is it any wonder we don’t know what to eat?
Making peace with food, giving yourself unconditional permission to eat any food without fear, guilt, or shame, is the off-ramp to this emotionally charged relationship. This is a great example of logical knowledge not being the same as embodiment.
You can’t mentally talk your way out of food fear; you have to actually eat the food to teach your body and brain that it is safe. It will probably feel emotional and messy the first few times you try it, and that is okay and expected. Confronting and noticing difficult feelings is part of the process, and support is always available if it feels like too much to do on your own.
Emotional Avoidance: Food for Distraction, Comfort, and Numbing
The rules of dieting alone can provide cover for uncomfortable emotions. When you are busy reading labels, worrying about your weight, or restricting food, you don’t have time to notice underlying stress, boredom, anxiety, or grief.
If those uncomfortable emotions do manage to surface, it is common to quash them down with a mind-numbing binge where now the only thing you can focus on is your physical discomfort followed by guilt or shame (clearly attributed to the food).
It is no coincidence that when life is feeling overwhelming or out of control, you might find yourself craving a diet OR have a strong urge to break the diet you are currently following.
Diet rules, whether we are following them or rebelling against them, give us the illusion of control. Food (and body) becomes a convenient scapegoat when those big feelings break through. Emotional eating is a psychological safety net, protecting you from having to deal with difficult emotions.
When you stop following (or breaking) diet rules, you can be left with left with uncomfortable feelings and no easy answer. In the beginning, this can make anti-diet eating feel chaotic.
One thing to keep in mind is that there is nothing wrong with eating for emotional reasons. Eating is a powerful tool that can quickly change how we are feeling. Emotional eating is a spectrum from harmless to harmful. The goal with a non-diet approach is not to eliminate all emotional eating, but to build out your toolbox for coping with emotions.
I personally have noticed over time that when I find myself eating emotionally, it is usually a sign that some other part of my self-care is off. Perhaps I am not sleeping enough, haven’t moved my body in a while, or said yes to too many calendar invites. Or all of the above.
Instead of beating myself up, I can use emotional eating as a barometer of my inner life. It is a gentle reminder to come back to what makes me feel most like me.
Identity Crisis: Body Size, Self-Worth, and Internalized Anti-Fat Bias
Another thing diet culture teaches us is that our bodies are a public display of our morality and worth. People with small, thin, and/or white bodies are often socially deemed as good, healthy, and smart. People with large, fat, and/or melanated skin are often unfairly categorized as bad, unhealthy, lazy, or stupid.
For those not born with the genes and social determinants of health to fit the “good” category, you are taught to perform it. Similar to performative eating, simply showing you are trying to change your body to be more socially acceptable makes you slightly more socially acceptable.
If you can show you have the discipline, motivation, and willpower, to follow a restrictive diet and punishing exercise routine (even if it doesn’t work or leaves you fatter and unhealthier than when you started), you must be a good person under all that perceived badness.
This is complete and utter bullshit, of course. Worth, morals, and health are not determined by appearance.
But diet culture is so sneaky and insidious many of us not only fully believe these messages, we ignore messages from our own bodies that tell us anything to the contrary. This is internalized anti-fat bias. We believe that we are inferior, lazy, unworthy or unhealth due to the size of our bodies. These deeply internalized messages can make it truly challenging to break free from the diet mentality.
You are worthy of respect and dignity regardless of what you eat or how you look. Again, knowing that fact and embodying that idea are two very different things. In order to start truly believing you are worthy, you can look for small, daily ways to show yourself you are:
Wearing clothes that are comfortable (stop buying “motivational” sized clothing that only serves as a source of shame)
Nourishing your body with foods that you like (and practice listening to hunger, fullness, and satisfaction cues)
Speaking kindly to yourself (actively challenge diet culture rules when they pop up in your head)
Moving your body in ways that feel good (regardless of calories burned, weight lifted, or time spent)
Allowing yourself to rest (burnout doesn’t benefit anyone)
Shift from Food Tracking to Feeling Check-Ins: The 3 N’s
If you made it this far, you have no doubt felt some of these emotional barriers: the guilt about food, the avoidance of uncomfortable emotions, the shame around your body. Now that you are more aware of these patterns, the next step is to interrupt them when they arise. When the urge to restrict, check your body, or emotionally eat surfaces, you have a powerful opportunity to choose self-compassion over self-punishment.
When the urge to engage in diet-culture thoughts or behaviors come up, get curious, not critical. Use the 3 N’s for an emotional check-in:
Notice: Gently observe negative self-talk, the desire to restrict food, or check your body or weight.
Name: Can you identify the emotion you are feeling? In the beginning, it might be easier to keep it simple with uncomfortable, comfortable, or neutral.
Navigate: Learning to sit with an emotion can be a powerful tool, but you can also start with gentle distraction. Try using one of your senses like sight, sound, or touch instead of taste. Choose an action that supports the emotional need you named.
To move you from knowing to embodying, you need to practice making peace with food, coping with your emotions with kindness, and respecting your body. Instead of holding yourself up to the punishing rules of diet culture, try using the 3 N’s to nurture yourself toward a better relationship with food, body, and self.
Next time, I will shift from the emotional challenge of rejecting diet culture to tackling some of the behavioral habits that can keep us stuck.
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The information provided is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended to be medical advice or to diagnosis, treat, cure or prevent any disease. This information does not replace a one-on-one relationship with a physician or healthcare professional. Dietary changes and/or the taking of nutritional supplements may have differing effects on individuals.
To learn more about how working with a nutritionist could help you, schedule a free 15-minute call.