You’ve Tried Everything To Stop Overeating

Except for this one thing that made a huge difference for me

I had a sugar hangover on most Monday mornings. Still filled from eating too much the night before. Still empty and hungry for something I couldn’t name.

My mind would be busy trying to figure out how to stop myself from overeating and losing control around food ever again. I’d tell myself, “If I could just fix this, everything else in my life would be better.”

Yet, a week would pass. A month. And many more. Despite all of my efforts and prayers, I couldn’t stop myself from doing what I kept doing week after week. And I tried everything. More diets. Calorie tracking. Nutritionists. Therapists. Mantras. Journaling.

There came a point when I knew that I had to try something new. I felt somewhat insane doing the same thing and expecting a different result. Here is what I did.

What’s happening now.

Chances are, you’re frustrated when you eat too much because you’re afraid of weight gain. You want to change your body and get healthier. Yet, overeating is painful because it’s getting in your way.

Overeating becomes an obstacle on your path, preventing you from getting to where you want to go.

The obstacle gets bigger and bigger because we create a lot of stories around overeating and what it means to have this problem. The first time you overate, it may have been a pebble. Now, after months or years of this pattern, it’s turned into a massive boulder.

A problem becomes a problem when we make it mean something.

Eating 10 Oreos has become a big deal. It’s personal. It means something about you, your value, and your character.

Consider an “I do this… because I’m…..” statement. For example, “I can’t stop overeating because I’m broken, and there is something wrong with me.” This may be a typical conversation you have in your mind.

Overeating is no longer about having a filled belly; it means something more. It can mean you’re broken, wrong, damaged, and have no willpower.

Overeating becomes a personal attack.

Explore how you’re making overeating a problem in your mind. Consider questions like these:

When you just ate that second bowl of ice cream, what did you say to yourself about yourself?

What does it mean about yourself that you ate more than what your body needs?

What does overeating say about you, your character, your health, and your body?

Stepping around the obstacle.

Overeating isn’t the problem. The problem is how you’re thinking about overeating. Feeling broken is the real problem.

This is why you may feel stuck. Your focus and attention have stayed on the same internal conversation.

You’ve been pouring your energy into trying to fix the problem the same way over and over.

Without the narrative around what it means to overeat, you can look at your patterns with food with fresh eyes. Overeating will no longer be an obstacle that’s in your way.

Examining why you feel damaged and believing weight loss will fix that is the real work. But let’s put that aside for now.

A new approach.

When I stopped focusing on stopping myself from overeating and started focusing on tuning into my body, my binging quietly and unceremoniously slowed down and eventually stopped.

Give yourself permission to let go of the stories and beliefs that have made overeating significant to you.

When these patterns are no longer personal, you’ll change your focus and attention to make the changes you desire in your relationship with food.

Healing My Relationship With Food Helped Release My Addiction to Busyness

Being hooked on the hustle was all about my fear of being alone

I’ve been known to wear hard work and busyness as a badge of honor. In high school, I’d often run from softball practice to a babysitting gig, with just a quick shower and a snack on the run. In college, there was even more to keep me busy. Running on the cross country team, volunteering at the student credit union, and studying hard. There was no limit to what I could pack into my schedule. The more the better. I was in constant motion.

Busy and Hard Work Were the Same Thing

Wikipedia may not define busyness and hard work in the same way, but I did. Could one work hard without being busy? Could one be busy without working hard? Yes and yes. But I didn’t know how to separate the two. And frankly, I didn’t want to.

An Addiction to Busyness

I loved being so busy. Doing so much left me feeling so accomplished. My work ethic was something that set me apart from the crowd. In college, I had this snarky little voice that often looked down at my peers when they were sleeping in on the weekends or they told me about their B on an exam. “Hmmph. I guess you didn’t work hard enough.” I thought.

I was working late one night in the office when Bob poked his head in my office. At the end of the conversation he said “Tara, you’re the Tina Turner of public accounting.” It was a funny comment to hear. According to Bob, working until 9 pm put me on par with one of the greatest superstars of all time. That was just more fuel to toss on my hard work fire. What Bob may have overlooked is that he was in the office, too.

In a world where I didn’t quite know my worth, I reached and strived for the most logical way I could find it; hard work. I could earn my value and everyone around me agreed. Our names get posted in the newspaper when we achieve high honors. We get awarded great jobs because of our grades and extracurricular activities. Promotions don’t just land in our lap. We work for them. Our business revenues don’t increase on their own. Growth and expansion take effort. Lots and lots of effort.

Have you noticed this too? Busyness becomes a lifeline, something that assures our safety when we don’t know where we stand in the world. “I feel good when I accomplish something”, seemingly benign words may sound like common sense.

Yet, who are we when we aren’t working our asses off?

The Price We Pay for the Hustle

Are you running on fumes?

When you hit the proverbial wall at 3 pm, instead of finding yourself laying down on your bed for a nap, do you find yourself in the Dunkin’ drive-through for some cold brew and energy to get you through the second shift of your day?

We hustle to and sometimes through our exhaustion. And, without realizing why we’re hustling, there is a risk that you’ll keep doing it. The only thing that may stop you is when your body collapses, gets sick, or get injured.

I tore my shoulder rotator cuff while snowboarding a few years back. One of my kids cut in front of me and I reached back to stop myself from falling. Any medical doctor would say the cause of my injury was my fall. But it wasn’t. My body was exhausted. I was running three businesses. My three kids were in the thick of elementary school and middle school. My body kept whispering, this is too much. Slow down. Rest. I had the weight of the world on my shoulders and they couldn’t take another ounce of busyness.

But I didn’t, couldn’t, and had no idea how to listen to my body back then. All I knew was the hustle. The hustle worked until my body failed. Which may be happening to you. Our body knows what it needs and it knows when it needs rest. Prioritizing hard work at the expense of the care of your body never works in the long run.

Our body’s whispers will turn to assertive demands, which will turn into screams. When we don’t listen to the screams, she’ll take us out. She tried to tell us nicely. She was persistent. But she won’t be silenced. Not when it comes to keeping herself in balance. And that’s exactly who pays the price when we hustle for hustle sake. Our body.

If It’s Going to Be, It’s Gotta Be Me

I have a deep-rooted fear that I’m alone. It’s raw and when I leave it unchecked, it feels so friggin’ real. I can look around at my husband, my kids, my family, and friends, and my logical brain says, what are you talking about? You’re not alone.

The fear of being alone is indifferent to reality. I’ll have a vision of myself in this tiny rowboat in the middle of an ocean. It’s stormy, the waves are high, and the skies are gray.

I’m all by myself, doing life on my own. No one is there to keep me safe. No one is there to protect me. No one is there to send me a fuckin’ lifeline. If I’m going to survive the storm, I need to row. Just me. In my tiny rowboat.

No wonder I needed the hustle to survive the first few decades of my life. My busyness saved me until it broke me.

Slowing Down Is Scary

At first, I needed certain conditions in place to slow down and relax. Slowing down only came after every other responsibility was taken care of. Did I deserve a beach resort vacation? Yes, when I worked twice as hard to make sure to work, projects. and home were all taken care of while I was away.

I hear this from my clients too. At the end of the day, the dishwasher needs to be loaded, the kitchen cleaned, and laundry started, then and only then, can they relax. There is that earning thing again.

Healing My Relationship with Food

While I was working hard and living a self-imposed busy life, I was also taking on a part-time job called weight loss. I was good at being busy with trying to lose weight. My work ethic was ideal for reading books, following programs, tracking calories, running miles, and spending hours in the gym. I was disciplined and trying to lose weight with hard work was another way for me to stay busy.

Something started to shift inside of me when I started to practice yoga and meditation. I started to become aware of my patterns. Instead of living inside of the dysfunction, I could witness it. I started to notice the pain and suffering I was feeling around food. How critical I was of myself and my body, how often I thought about food and what to eat, the rollercoaster ride I took every time I stepped on the scale, and the overeating and bingeing.

Something needed to change and I started with food. It was the most painful thing in my life at the time. I could be busy, but I couldn’t do the aching belly from eating a sleeve of cookies and ½ bag of Hershey Kisses.

Noticing My Body

For the first time in my life, I started to follow my hunger and fullness sensations. While dieting, I dismissed them and tried to ignore them. I started to tune in to my body, which opened the door just enough for me to notice other signals my body was sharing with me.

When I was in the hustle, there was no time or patience for me to notice my body. But now, I was intentionally stopping and inviting these sensations in. It was like my body came back to life and said, “Thanks for listening! I have so much more to share with you.” And the sensations came through, whether I liked it or not. I couldn’t stop listening because I knew it was the healing I wanted and needed.

There was a time in my life when I needed to be busy. It was the only way I knew myself. But this self was fearful, she had something to prove. When she was busy, she didn’t feel alone. Her busyness kept her running from the rowboat.

It’s All About Connection

As I started to get to know my body, I found my safety. It wasn’t in my accomplishments, it was within my own energy and being. I don’t want to paint the wrong picture. I still hustle, until I catch myself. I notice when I push and work hard for no reason. It happens, but not for long. Because my body lets me know when I need rest and when I need to slow down.

I have the healing of my relationship with food to thank. It brought me back to my body, where I can be present to myself and the world around me. When I was fearful of being alone, hard work, busyness, and weight loss were all of those things I did to prove myself. I had to show the world I was worth loving and accepting. Now, I have a way of connecting to my wholeness. And that connection needs no hustle.

How To Let Go of Perfectionism With Food

There was a time in my life when every morning, my first thought was, “I want to have a perfect day with food.” It was part mantra, part prayer.

I was trying to use sheer will to eat the right foods and avoid the wrong ones. I hoped that if I asked God, the universe, or anyone or anything that was listening to my wish, they would help me.

Are you trying to have a perfect day with food?

You don’t need to be on an official diet to be trying to eat perfectly. If you’re trying to lose weight and get healthy, you have a pretty good idea of what foods you should be eating and which ones you shouldn’t.

It’s common to adopt an internal diet voice, which is that little voice that is constantly monitoring what you’re eating and telling you that you’re being good or you’re being bad.

When you’re trying to be perfect, it means that you’re trying to be 100% compliant when following food rules and never break a single one of them.

Yet, let’s look at what happens when you’re trying to be perfect.

The day starts perfectly.

It always does. And then, as the day goes on, life happens. You get an unexpected call from the kid’s school. You have one of those uncomfortable conversations with a family member. You receive an unexpected bill and worry about money.

Or, you drive by your favorite bakery. You go to a networking event that’s serving cookies or muffins and you think, just one won’t hurt.

Life happens. Everyday life with stressors, discomfort, surprises, ups, and downs. And, food, which is just a part of life, happens to be around and available.

The moment you take one bite, your perfect day just disappears. In the blink of an eye, or one small bite.

One bite makes the day wrong.

You’ve already blown it. Like a switch that got flipped, you can’t have a perfect day with food. Who cares? You mine as well eat what you want. So you’ll eat the bad and forbidden foods that you’re not allowing yourself to eat on a perfect day.

After all, tomorrow will be different. Tomorrow, you’ll start again.

But there is something else. You don’t get to just eat what you want without paying a price. You’ll go off the rails, but you won’t do it without feeling guilty and ashamed about what you’re eating.

When you’re not doing it perfectly, you’re feeling bad about yourself.

The embarrassment and shame of eating so badly feels so dark and uncomfortable. You wish you could hide and maybe even disappear. But you can’t.

You may even wonder if something is wrong with you. “Why do I eat like this?” “Why can’t I stop myself from this madness?”

You can only try to hide the disappointment in yourself. And the best way to do that is with redemption.

The only way to feel better is to promise yourself that tomorrow will be different.

A contract is made. You know you can’t do anything about how you ate today, but you can eat perfectly tomorrow. You’ll pay the price, you know you will. The promise of tomorrow is like a glimmer of light that pulls you through.

It even gives you a little lift of optimism. When the sun rises, you’ll get a fresh start. You go to bed with a clear plan on how to be perfect with food and a glimmer of hope in your heart.

The next day starts perfectly. Because it always does.

And the pattern repeats like Groundhog Day.

The destructive cycle of trying to be perfect with food only gives you shame and self-doubt. And, the ironic part is that you’re likely overeating foods that don’t feel great in your body.

Trying to be perfect around food is a lose-lose. You’re working so hard to attain the unattainable.

There is no such thing as perfect eating when you’re trying to eat to someone else’s perfect standards. It’s impossible.

And, because human bodies won’t tolerate food restriction (mentally or physically), it will retaliate and override your desires for perfection. Overeating and binge eating is inevitable.

But more importantly, feeling so much shame and embarrassment is not healthy. You deserve to feel good in your body and have confidence in your food choices.

Perfectionism is getting in the way of true health and vitality.

Start to notice how the destructive cycle of your attempts at perfect eating is impacting your mental and emotional health. Your well-being isn’t worth sacrificing.

Create a new, kinder standard for yourself around food. Nourishing yourself in alignment with your values around your health and how you want to live your life.

When you start to feel that shame and embarrassment, instead of reacting by restricting more, ease up. Be compassionate as you practice forgiveness.

Gently start to give yourself permission to replace perfectionism (and the need to follow external rules) with listening to your body and your inner guidance.

It’s okay to let go of needing to be perfect around food.

It may be scary as you start to let go of perfectionism around food. You may be believing that rigidity is required to keep you in control. I get that.

As you explore this pattern for yourself, and start listening to the signals your body is sharing with you, you’ll discover that you can trust yourself around food. That’s a pattern worth repeating over and over again.

Client Case Study - Julie: Trusting the Process To Feel Balanced Around Food and Love Her Body

A mutual friend shared one of my short courses on social media. Julie (not her real name) signed up right away. After the course, Julie and I worked together in my 3 month One-to-One Coaching program.  After a year, I interviewed her for this client case study.

Julie was struggling with food. She was restricting and overeating and knew it was taking too much of her time and energy. She also didn’t like her body, which really bothered her. She wanted to accept her body, but she didn’t want to gain weight. 

Allowing All Foods

When Julie started to give herself permission to eat what she previously labeled “forbidden” foods, it was really scary.  She had to keep letting go of this fear, so she could eventually trust her instincts. 

She learned to recognize that scared voice that said “you can’t have that” and knew this voice couldn’t be trusted. This took time. 

She called 2020 the year of ice cream. She allowed herself ice cream when she wanted it. She kept allowing herself guilt-free ice cream and enjoyed each bite. 

This process of habituation is an important one and is unique for each person. While allowing yourself foods that you had previously forbidden, those foods eventually lose their novelty. Instead of eating them with guilt, shame, or because you want to treat yourself, these foods become emotionally neutral and you feel indifferent to them. 

Eventually, something changed. Ice cream stopped having power over her.

Julie is now free to have all foods that she likes to have in her home without worrying that she’ll overindulge. She also knows that if she wants to, she can overindulge, and that’s okay. 

Exploring How To Value Herself

Julie and I explored some deeper themes around how she valued herself. She became aware of the beliefs and patterns that made her feel bad about herself and she saw the role that food played. 

She could see that when she didn’t feel good enough, she could identify the external expectations and outside influences that drove her to diet, to begin with.

As she gained awareness that it wasn’t her, it was outside of her, she could take her own power back and value herself on her own terms. 

Specifically, the impact of this transformation came through in her relationship with her body and her dating life. 

Letting Go of the (Unrealistic) Thin Ideal

Julie started to change the dialogue she had in her head about her body. She shared with me how she talks to her body now, which sounds like a beautiful companionship. 

She shared: 

“Maybe this is just who I’m meant to be. If I just accept that my body is what it is, and I’m eating healthy and feeling good, then I don’t have to change it. I may never be that skinny version of me, but my body is changing and it’s still amazing.” 

I’m Happy On My Own

Julie realized that if people were judging her for how she looked, she didn’t want them in her life. She was able to come to a genuine place of liking herself, including being okay with being on her own. She realized that companionship for the sake of being with someone wasn’t going to help her like herself. 

Julie has dropped an old narrative that she’s frumpy and middle-aged and embodies her own vitality and zest for life.

She now knows how to move forward, adjust her direction as needed and be flexible when life throws her unexpected curve balls. 

If I gain weight, I gain weight

Initially, Julie gained weight. And as hard as it was, she was okay with that. She was working through bigger things. 

She shared “If this brings me back to a place of balance, I’m going to trust the process. And it did.” Eventually, the weight that came on, came off.

A few other things that helped Julie was: 

• Reading my book Hungry: Trust Your Body and Free Your Mind around Food. This gave her compassion for her own journey and an appreciation for how long the journey may take. 

• Recognizing that her voice in her head doesn’t matter and that she can let her thoughts go. 

• Getting an understanding of what she was really fearful of and what to do with those fears.

Food Freedom and Body Appreciation

“I opened a sleeve of girl scout cookies, ate a couple, came back because I wanted a couple more. Then, I was satisfied. 

A year or so ago, I wouldn’t have done that. I didn’t eat the whole sleeve.”

“I’m in a really good place. It’s taken time. I had to let things go and trust in a process that seems scary. Our sessions allowed me to dig and explore what I may not have on my own. You gave me the tools to continue to do the work that I needed to do in my own time.

Thank you for the work we did together- it was a wonderful experience for me and I would recommend it to anyone.”

As she continues to appreciate her body and her relationship with food doesn’t have power over her, her body weight has adjusted. (Weight loss was not a focus of the work Julie and I did together).  

I’m personally inspired by Julie’s undeniable respect and admiration she has for her own body. She recently had surgery that has left scars on her lower belly.  

She told me, “My body is beautiful. I think my scars are gorgeous.” 

How to Tell if You’re Really Hungry

It’s a beautiful discovery of reconnecting with your body

For many people, recognizing hunger feels complicated.

It’s really common to question your hunger and wonder if you’re just thirsty, bored, anxious, tired, or nauseous.

There is plenty of information out there on recognizing hunger. Yet, there are few important things that you need to keep in mind.

We were born knowing our hunger

Just like breathing, peeing, and knowing when we’re too warm or too cold, hunger is a biological instinct that everybody has. This is why you can’t console a hungry baby with something other than food. And why you can’t feed a baby that isn’t hungry.

A baby doesn’t need to think about hunger. They know when they’re hungry. Period.

Remember when you were a kid and you left food on your plate so you could go outside to play? Your hunger was satisfied so you moved on. There were other things you wanted to do besides eat. Play. Schoolwork. TV. Video games. Time with friends.

But then something changed.

We stopped prioritizing our hunger

A parent may have demanded that you finish all of the food on your plate. Or, they promised dessert if you ate your vegetables, even though you don’t like broccoli. Or, you were told that if you didn’t eat during mealtime, you wouldn’t be able to eat later. It was either 6 pm dinner or no dinner.

You couldn’t override your parent’s rules, so you had to override your body’s cues. Hunger (and the absence of it) became something to negotiate with.

There are dozens and dozens of reasons why our parents and our culture dictate eating times and create food rules for us.

They may be great at dictating for us when to eat and what to eat. But they’re not great at reminding us that our body knows when it’s hungry. And that hunger is something to honor.

If your parents didn’t demand that you cleaned your plate or made certain foods forbidden, consider yourself lucky. You got the message that listening to your hunger was a safe practice. If there was ice cream in the freezer, you could have a bowl whenever you wanted it. And you only ate it when you were hungry for it.

Hunger is the enemy

When you went on your first diet or weight loss plan, you were given food rules to follow. Certain foods became off-limits. You needed to restrict how many calories you could eat each day.

As you’ve pursued weight loss, your hunger becomes highly inconvenient. Like a big boulder on your path to weight loss success, you learned to not attend to or listen to your hunger. Hunger was an obstacle.

You may be very resourceful at ignoring your hunger. Chewing gum, drinking coffee or diet soda, or drinking large amounts of water are some ways you may have tried to avoid the inevitable hunger signals so you can stick to your diet plan.

Hunger will always win

Many of my clients don’t notice hunger until they’re well beyond hungry. They’re starving. They’ve either not recognized the numerous signals their body shared asking for nourishment, or they’ve intentionally neglected them, hoping they’d go away.

Asking your body to not be hungry is asking your body to do the ONE thing it knows to do: stay in balance. It’s quite brilliant at keeping you alive and in a state of homeostasis. This is why you may notice that when you’re well beyond hungry, your mental and emotional state goes out of balance.

You’ll start to think about food a lot. You’ll get cranky and easily agitated. You’ll get anxious and feel overwhelmed.

At some point, your body’s demands will take over and you’ll eat urgently. Many people describe this as a feeling of being out of control because they eat fast and they eat whatever food is available.

Overeating or bingeing, something that diet culture demonizes as a problem, is just your body keeping you safe. If you’ve gone long periods without enough nourishment (because you’ve been dieting), when you do allow yourself to eat, your body will demand food because it’s unsure when food will be available again.

The opportunity

It’s a big step, I know. For all of the reasons I’ve shared, you’ve been taught to not trust your hunger. Your hunger has led to out-of-control eating.

It’s important to remember that your body is still sharing hunger signals with you, you’re just out of practice noticing these signals.

Getting to know your hunger is also a practice of acknowledging your needs. You are human, with a physical body that will make simple demands to operate at its best.

Are you also avoiding your other basic human needs?

You deserve to feel satiated, no matter what sized body you have. You also deserve to be well-rested. You deserve to have a body filled with energy. You deserve to feel loved, safe and secure.

As you permit yourself to honor your need for more nourishment, you’re also opening the door to allowing yourself to receive rest, love, and contentment.

Get to know your hunger

As you reconnect to your physical hunger cues, it’s important to stop looking at the clock. You may be surprised when you’re hungry a few hours after eating breakfast, or that you’re not hungry until 10 am. Your biological hunger doesn’t follow a clock.

Your hunger patterns aren’t static. They change with things like activity level, sleep, weather, travel, and your menstrual cycle.

Just like everybody is unique, each body shares hunger signals uniquely. How I notice my hunger will be different than yours.

The best way to discover your hunger is to be curious about it. Consider yourself a scientist, observe your body in a whole new way and collect a variety of data points before you reach any conclusions.

Your body is masterful at communicating hunger to you. Hunger isn’t just a growling belly, but instead a full-body process. Let’s take a look at some of the signals your body sends to you by noticing what’s happening:

In your head

One of the clearest signals you may first notice is your ability to focus. When you’re hungry, it may be hard to concentrate on the task at hand. Consider the last time you ate. If it’s been more than a few hours, there is a good chance you’re hungry.

When you’re hungry, you may start to think about your next meal or snack.

I was on a snowshoe hike this past winter when I started thinking about a bowl of chili with cheese sprinkled on top. I could see the chili in my mind. I even imagined the smell, the taste, and how the first spoonful felt in my body.

With your mood

You may be very familiar with the term “hangry” when you get impatient, angry, and frustrated at those around you because you’re hungry. Your mood is one way your body is communicating hunger to you. You may notice that you get cranky and agitated.

You may feel tired and low on energy.

Your body

You may get a headache when you’re hungry.

Of course, your hunger can arrive with an emptiness. You can notice this when you don’t feel any weight or presence in your belly, instead, it may feel like a void.

You may also notice your belly rumbling and growling when it’s hungry.

These are just a few common signals of hunger. There are certainly others.

It’s not about doing it right

As you start to discover your hunger signals, give yourself permission to not get it perfect. There is no “right” time to eat. However, there can be a sweet spot of your hunger, when you’re hungry enough that food will taste really good to you and when you’re not so hungry that you need to eat quickly and urgently.

The best way to know if you were hungry is to eat something. Do you feel better than you did before you ate?

Exploring your hunger is a really powerful process in healing your relationship with food. You’re reconnected to your body. The signals are there, it’s a matter of relearning how to honor them.

As you do, you’ll be practicing self-trust and creating a non-negotiable connection with your body.

Healing Your Relationship With Food Starts With Accepting Where You Are

You’re exactly where you’re meant to be, even when you don’t like it

“I just need to get through this.”

“If I could just figure this one problem out, my life will get better.”

“I’ll do things differently tomorrow.”

This is the language of wishing and hoping our life will change. And we all want something different, don’t we?

If you’re like my clients and want to change your relationship with food, you may say things like:

• “I just need to stop overeating.“

• “If I could just figure out why I’m so out of control around food, my life will get better.”

• “I’ll eat better tomorrow.”

Let’s consider Donna. Donna’s freakin’ exhausted by her relationship with food. She binged on tortilla chips last night and hated how her body felt when she went to bed.

Donna woke up this morning with fresh resolve. She promised herself that today would be different. Yet by mid-afternoon, she was so hungry that she couldn’t stop herself from overeating.

Familiar painful patterns get the best of us. We stay in them, hoping and wishing for them to change.

If you can relate, I’d like for you to consider one universal truth:

You are exactly where you’re meant to be.

That includes Donna. As frustrated as she may be.

We fight, we argue, we wish and we hope our problems away. Does that ever help us make a change?

We hate our problems

Our problems don’t feel good. They’re painful. Your overstuffed belly hurts. When you don’t like how your clothes fit, the heaviness of shame makes you want to hide safely under the covers.

It’s not just the problem we hate, we judge ourselves for having these problems. You may not even realize you’re doing this. It may happen so naturally.

Start to notice how you talk to yourself about your relationship with food and your body. Words like “I should!”, “Why this?!”, and “If only!” are typical ways we judge ourselves.

When we are so busy judging and criticizing ourselves for our problems, it’s difficult to move ourselves to a place where we can entertain a new solution. All of our energy is so focused on what’s wrong, we don’t have the capacity or headspace to consider how to move in a new direction.

Recognizing that you’re exactly where you’re meant to be means you can stop fighting with yourself around your problem.

Can you feel the relief in that?

We’re afraid that if we accept our problems then our problems won’t change

Many of us are under the misconception that guilt is a motivator. The thinking goes that If we feel ashamed enough by our actions, then we will be driven to change them.

Is the whipping of a stick ever motivating?

Chances are, no. The carrot, in essence, acceptance, is a true motivator.

When you feel the shift of knowing you’re exactly where you’re meant to be, you’ll offer yourself more compassion.

Guilt is part of an old paradigm. It’s time to let it go. Solving your problems can come from a motivation fueled by kindness.

We can accept our problems and still want them to change

Consider you’re going on a long road trip. When you load your destination into your favorite GPS app, the first thing it does is determine your starting point.

Without acknowledging where you’re starting, how do you know how to go where you want to go?

By accepting what your relationship with food is right now, without judgment, you can acknowledge it fully. How have your current patterns with food benefited you? How have they hurt you?

As you consider ‘your problem’ from all angles, it may not be quite the problem you thought it was. As you accept what’s been painful, you may start to see how many unmet needs these patterns have tried to meet.

By definition, you are where you’re meant to be. Simply because you are. Arguing with this truth is arguing with reality. When we know in our heart of hearts that we are exactly where we are meant to be, we can let our patterns, situations, or circumstances just be.

What opens up for you when you’re no longer blaming yourself for your problems? When you don’t need guilt to motivate you? When you can do two things at once, accept your patterns AND choose to change them?

Let this new energy move through you. Let it move you forward.

Because, at this moment, you’re exactly where you need to be.

You Know You’re Not Hungry, So Why Do You Want to Keep Eating?

You’ve just finished dinner. Your belly is filled. Yet, your mind is filled with thoughts of what else to eat. Crackers, cookies, more dinner, ice cream.

It defies all logic. Your body doesn’t want food, but another part of you, a loud and clear part, does. You’re wondering, how can I be hungry and full at the same time?

I know how confusing and frustrating this internal battle is. You don’t want to eat when you’re not hungry. Your body doesn’t want to eat when you’re not hungry. But you want more food.

What the hell is going on?

Let’s explore just a few reasons this could be happening for you.

Did you miss something?

Eating for pleasure is a birthright. But that may not be your experience. Eating may feel like a chore, something you just need to check off the to-do list.

Or, you may not even take the time or slow down enough to even enjoy the pleasure of eating. Sitting together with loved ones can feel nourishing, no matter what food is on the table.

When you finished your meal, were you able to receive what was offered? Did you feel connected to the tastes, smells and textures of the food you ate? Did you feel connected to the conversations and people you were breaking bread with?

If you didn’t, this isn’t something to feel guilty or ashamed about. If you were like me growing up, we sat around the coffee table in front of the TV for most of our family meals. Mindful eating wasn’t a thing, and my mind was on a few other things besides the food in front of me.

You may want more because you’re craving the contentment from finishing a satisfying meal.

Did you eat what you wanted to eat?

Diet culture tells us what foods are “good” and what foods are “bad”. It’s common to choose to eat things we think we SHOULD be eating instead of eating foods we know we will enjoy eating.

Before I practiced Intuitive Eating, I’d always choose the lowest calorie or “healthiest” food. This is one of the many gifts of Intuitive Eating. I learned to let go of those food labels, ask myself and give myself permission to eat food that I would enjoy eating and would satisfy me.

If you want to eat a grilled cheese sandwich, no amount of baby carrots and hummus will satisfy you. It will only leave you wanting more.

Is there a rebel voice living within you?

“I deserve to eat this.” “Screw this, I can eat what I want.” “I need to eat this now because I can’t eat it tomorrow.”

Our internal voices are powerful. You may be noticing a rebellious voice, one that doesn’t want to be controlled. This voice is our response to someone or something trying to tell us how to eat and what to eat. It’s a reaction to diet trauma.

This voice is trying to maintain your own freedom and autonomy around food choices. It may sound like a young child stomping their feet and saying, you can’t be the boss of me. Or, it may be angry and determined to let the world know that you decide what to do with your body.

This voice is trying to protect you, but it doesn’t serve your desire to listen to the signals your body is sharing.

What is your body asking for?

You may be bone tired and need energy. You may be confronted with a problem at work and just don’t want to deal with it. You may feel overwhelmed by life, a pandemic, vaccines, school at home, on and on.

Food can offer you some temporary energy, distraction, and comfort.

You may also need to feel safe. You may want the weight and certainty of food in your belly so you can feel secure. Sometimes overfilling gives you this physical experience.

It’s okay that you’re seeking food for other reasons than physical hunger. It doesn’t make you a bad, out of control, or crazy person. It just makes you human.

How Intuitive Eaters Choose What to Eat

If you’re practicing Intuitive Eating, or just curious what it would be like to go by yourself to an ice cream shop order whatever you’d like to order, and eat with no guilt, shame or remorse, then read on.

After a long bike ride along the Tampa riverwalk and shore drive, I knew I wanted soft serve ice cream. On the short drive to Mr Penguin, a vision came to mind. Chocolate and vanilla swirl in a cup. With chocolate jimmies. Of course.

As I was enjoying my swirl on the outdoor picnic tables, a mom with her toddler and young baby settled in nearby. I overheard the toddler asking his mother, “why does she get a big one?”. “Because she’s an adult.”, Mom quickly replied.

For a half a beat, I was self-conscious. Should I have ordered a kiddie? Did I deserve to eat medium size? Old conversations, the ones I had with myself when I was dieting and restricting, came flooding back.

And I noticed these thoughts. Without getting caught up in what could have been interpreted as judgement or criticism (by a 3 year old ;)), I pivoted. I felt relaxed as I enjoyed the rest of my ice cream.

Here’s how I reconnected with my Intuitive Eating practice.

Rules Need Not Apply

It all started well before the thought of soft serve even entered my mind on that warm February day. Weeks, months, even years before. I stopped following dieting rules.

Even more importantly, I reconciled within myself that dieting, namely allowing a weight loss program, an “expert”, or protocol, with their rules and lists of what I could eat or couldn’t eat, was harmful to my health.

Harmful to my health?, you may be asking. Am I being a bit dramatic? No. Not even close. I noticed that every time I said I couldn’t have something, I wanted it even more. Every time I told myself I was going to be “good” and eat healthier, I ate cheese, crackers and chocolate for dinner.

I didn’t arrive at this overnight. Not like Kelly Diels did. She shared on my Hungry: Trust Your Body. Free Your Mind podcast how she woke up one morning, realized that dieting and restricting foods was making her complicit with the societal rules that women need to be thin to be desirable.

The moment Kelly connected those dots in her mind was the moment that she decided, when it came to food, she would never betray her body again. Like a switch that got turned off, she stopped dieting on the spot.

If you want to eat ice cream with freedom and ease, you can’t have a rule inside of you that says you can’t, shouldn’t, need to earn it, allow it only because it’s on a cheat day, or saying “fuck it” I’ll eat whatever the hell I want to eat.

To eat intuitively, practice letting go of the external rules and restrictive mindset around food.

Curiosity and Consulting Your Body

With rules, you now consult another source of wisdom: yourself.

Ask yourself a series of questions. These questions aren’t directed at your brain, that holds the ‘shoulds’ and ‘shouldn’ts’. The questions are directed at the whole of you, your body, your mind, your soul.

How hungry am I?

What am I hungry for?

What would I enjoy eating?

What would taste really good?

How do I want to feel after I’ve eaten?

Take the time to play out some scenarios and see how your body reacts to each one.

When I was considering soft serve, I wasn’t hungry for something nutritionally dense, like a full meal. I wanted something cold. I even considered an iced coffee. Conveniently, there was a coffee shop next to the bike shop. But no. Soft serve it was.

Eat with Your Attention

As I sat on the picnic table, I wasn’t on my phone. As with most of my meals now, when I sit to eat, eating is the only thing I’m doing.

I noticed how the ice cream tasted. Which was some of the best soft serve I’ve had (Dairy Queen, take notice!). I enjoyed bite after bite.

You likely know how to eat mindfully. When it comes to intuitive eating, you’re not doing it as a way to stop yourself from eating too much. You’re eating with all of your attention so you can fully enjoy food.

Permission to Eat More

When I ordered a medium, I did it as a reminder that I could have as much ice cream as I wanted. This is my way of reminding myself that I’m not restricting or limiting. I can’t tolerate restriction and I don’t want to trigger my mind to think a diet is coming.

When you eat intuitively, you allow yourself enough food that feels right to you. It’s not the smallest one, a tiny bite or just a square.

In the beginning of your intuitive eating journey, you may need to heal past diet trauma so your body is confident that you’ll give it enough nourishment.

Sweet Satisfaction

There comes a point when the sensation arrives. This is the magic of intuitive eating. That point of satisfaction. When it arrives, it can’t be disputed. It doesn’t matter how much you’ve eaten or how much you have left.

As I was eating my soft serve, I noticed the moment when every part of me was perfectly content. I knew that I could take another bite if I chose to, but why would I? It wouldn’t serve me, support me or give me more pleasure in what I’m eating.

Without rules or someone or something telling me what I should eat or not eat, I know this truth within myself because my body and awareness told me so.

One of the Biggest Challenges When Shifting Your Relationship with Food

I spoke with two women this week, let’s call them Joan and Veronica, that started dieting and struggling with their weight when they were 8 years old. (*$% Ugh! ) 

Over the past few decades, they’ve both created their own perspective around their relationship with food. Some common beliefs or perspectives of long-time dieters can sound like this: 

• I’ll always struggle with sugar and carbs. 

• My weight has always been a battle for me. 

• I need to be diligent and really organized with meal plans to stay on track. 

• I can’t have one bite of dessert without spiraling out of control. 

• I’m not consistent at working out. Getting to the gym takes a lot of effort. 

Joan and Veronica suspected that something was keeping them stuck, but they couldn’t put their finger on it. 

Your own perspective, the beliefs, and thoughts you’ve collected, are often quiet and subtle. You’ve carried them around for so long that you may not even notice them. They may nag at you like a pebble would at the bottom of your sneaker. 

And this is one of the biggest challenges when changing your relationship with food. 

Your perspective doesn’t force you into a big ugly cry that brings you to your knees. Instead, you learn to live with these beliefs and likely don’t realize the impact it has on making changes in the future.

Our perspective and the beliefs we hold can either work for us or work against us. When we believe things will “always” be a certain way, we’re trapped. It’s hard to create a new way out.  

I’ll tell you what I shared with Joan and Veronica. 

You can change your relationship with food. You can leave dieting behind and practice trusting your body. These beliefs can be undone (often it’s easier than you could ever imagine!). 

The first critical step is to recognize the perspective you’ve created. Then, challenge it. Is it true that you’ll always struggle with food? Is it true that after one bite of a dessert you’ll spiral out of control? 

When you no longer have a limiting perspective, you can create a relationship with food that feels right to you. You can then move into ease. What’s possible for you with your relationship with food?

I just love that perspective!  Don’t you? 

Does dieting help you lose weight?

We all know the answer. No. Of course not. Isn’t it common knowledge that dieting doesn’t work? 

Oh, wait, you haven’t heard? In that case, check out this research study. Or this study of dieting, weight gain, and children. Or, try this one. Wait, one more. 

But, we don’t need research articles to tell us something we’ve learned from experience. 

Remember your first diet? The first time I tried Weight Watchers, it worked. Really well. I was relentless with my point counting, recipe researching, and meal planning. After a few months, I was back to my high school weight. Success. 

Even before I started Weight Watchers, I had heard some rumblings about how dieting didn’t work. I even heard that dieting led to weight gain. But I thought, No. Not me. 

Those statistics don’t apply to me. 

I’m disciplined. I’m focused. 

I’m a good dieter. 

I’d prove them wrong. 

I’d be the exception.  

I’d be in the 5% that could diet and keep the weight off. 

I’d be special.

We both know how this story goes. The weight stays off until it doesn’t.

When I tried Weight Watchers a second time after the birth of my second son, I thought that if it worked once, it should work again, right? I started with all of the same intentions and motivations. I was determined. 

Yet, after a few days, I’d forget to log my points in. I’d let myself snack on a bagel from my office’s break room. I’d make a big batch of veggie soup on Sunday but it would stay in the fridge, untouched. I’d throw out a head of lettuce or zucchini at the end of the week because they went bad. 

Basically, I was really disinterested. And, no matter how good my self pep talk was every morning, I couldn’t stick to dieting.

Can you relate?  

Not being able to successfully diet was secretly devastating to me. How could I lose weight if I couldn’t diet? What other options do I have? 

Without dieting, you may fear being out of control around food. You may worry you’ll be overeating all the time or binging on ice cream or cookies. You may be so afraid you’ll gain weight. I also know that fear and hopelessness. 

For motivated and action-oriented women like you and I, the worst thing you can do is give us a problem without a way to solve it. We will keep trying something over and over until we find something that works. That’s just the way we’re wired. We don’t like failing and we don’t like giving up. 

So, today, if you are in this place, I want to offer you a concrete action step. Something you can do that may spark some hope inside of you. Something that moves you toward letting go of something that doesn’t work and doesn’t serve you. 

Reacquaint yourself with your own physical hunger and fullness. The best way to do this is to be in conversation with your body. Ask your body questions and be willing to listen for answers. 

What does your hunger feel like in your body? When you spend time with it, you may be surprised that it’s not just an empty belly. 

What does feeling satisfied or content feel like in your body? Notice your energy levels. 

I invite you to get curious and interested in what your body is willing to share. After years of dieting, we turn away from our body’s signals and turn toward rules, lists and calorie trackers. We both know this doesn’t work. The research just confirms our own intuition. 

Done with dieting? Yet, wondering why your relationship with food hasn't improved?

Let’s chat if you’re so done with dieting. You know diets don’t work. You are tired of sacrificing and restricting. You know that it’s just not worth it.

Would you like to feel peaceful around food and your body? That’s what I wanted most. I wanted to just relax around food and appreciate my body’s strength. I also wondered if maybe, someday, I could even love my body. Imagine that?! 

When I recognized that dieting was getting in my way of feeling peaceful around food, I felt like I was walking into unchartered territory. Dieting was all I knew, but I didn’t want to do it. I no longer wanted to diet and restrict what I ate. Yet, my relationship with food and my body wasn’t getting any better. I was still overeating. I was still feeling guilty. I was still worried about gaining weight. Doesn’t sound so peaceful, does it? 

Can you see yourself in that uncharted territory with food? I found the hardest part about being in this place was that I was constantly questioning myself. Could I trust myself to stay in control around food? Did I always need the security of a diet plan? Was I eating the right thing? 

Here’s the thing. Dieting habits lingers. We so dutifully follow certain rules when we were trying to lose weight. When we stop dieting, the rules don’t just disappear. Instead, they stick around. A part of us, possibly without realizing it, still tries to follow these rules that are so ingrained in us. 

There are some common dieting symptoms that I’ve noticed with my clients. Check these out. They may give you a good idea if you may still be dieting without realizing it. 

1. You’re always thinking about food and when you will eat again. You’re searching for recipes and talking about what you just ate or plan to eat with friends and coworkers. 

2. Before you eat, you consider if you “should be eating that”. Should you be hungry? Should you eat that piece of cake? Should you have the stir fry or the cheeseburger? Food decisions are made from your head and not from your body.   

3. You’re trying to “be good” by not eating certain foods or not eating during certain times of the day. You try to not eat before 12pm or after 7pm. You try to eat only 3 meals a day or just 2 meals a day or 3 meals a day and 2 snacks a day. 

4. You plan for big meals or certain food treats by limiting other meals or increasing exercise. You plan to burn off that dessert with a spin class, long run or extra time in the gym. You’ll skip breakfast for lunch out even though you’re hungry.  Or, you’ll eat a small meal in anticipation for a big one even when your body wanted more food at the time. 

5. You’re counting, either in your head or on an app how many points, grams or calories you’ve just eaten. You’re budgeting for how much more you can eat. 

Considering these symptoms for yourself can help you create more awareness around your relationship with food. When you realize that old patterns may be holding you back, you can let them go. We can’t let go of something we don’t realize we’re holding onto. 

If dieting is still lingering in your relationship with food and you’re interested in finding a way to a peaceful place, check out The Connection Experiment. This 14-day online program offers you concrete practices on listening to your intuitive body’s wisdom and ultimately, feel relaxed around food. 

You may feel like you’re in uncharted territory now. But you don’t need to be there for long. The practice of connecting with your body is simpler than you may think. I discuss this at length in Hungry: Trust Your Body and Free Your Mind around Food. Check out a copy for yourself! 

And lastly. Let me offer you ONE simple thing that I find so helpful. When you feel uncertain and are questioning how to make food choices, take a few moments and become aware of your breathing. Feel your breath. Watch it. Listen to it. Your breath is a concrete physical experience that can calm and center you. Let your breath remind you that you’ve got this. 

With love and connection~ 

Tara