It's Okay to Eat This. I've Had a Bad Day!

Does the following sound familiar?

“Screw it! I’m going to eat whatever I want. I’ve had a bad day!”

If you can relate to this, it’s completely understandable. It’s how diet culture has conditioned us to think.

Special Circumstances Only
Diet culture tells us we’re only allowed to eat certain foods under special circumstances.

It makes us believe it’s okay to eat cake at a birthday party but not on a regular ol’ Tuesday.

It drives us to think we can eat whatever we want on vacation as long as we get back on track once we’re home.

It tells us we can eat "bad" foods on the weekend, yet they are off-limits on weekdays.

It grants us permission to order dessert when celebrating a special occasion but not on an ordinary night out.

It gives us a free pass to eat forbidden foods on holidays but no other time of the year.

It causes us to believe we only deserve to eat what we want when we’re suffering, like after a bad day. 

And, it's all a bunch of B.S. The truth is:

You have the right to eat whatever you desire today—and every day of the year.

You don’t need a special reason, other than it’s what you want.

Diet Mentality vs. Non-Diet Mentality
If you feel the need to justify your food choices, you’re likely operating from a deeply ingrained diet mentality—one that includes a lot of rules and beliefs regarding what’s okay and not okay when it comes to eating.

Your experience is much different than if you’re operating from a non-diet mentality—that is, if you’re eating intuitively.

If you’re an Intuitive Eater, you truly know you have unconditional permission to eat whatever you want, whenever you want (of course, depending on what food is accessible to you).

You don’t feel the need to give yourself special permission to eat certain foods during certain times because you know you can eat them anytime they’re available.

If you want to move toward greater peace, ease and freedom with food, you can start by replacing any justifications, excuses or conditions for your eating with “It’s okay to eat this because it’s what I want.

I Now Eat Xmas Cookies Guilt-Free. And Stopped Researching Diets.

What’s your relationship like with holiday eating?

Do you love all the holiday fare yet feel overwhelmed by anxiety, stress, guilt or shame for eating in ways you typically don’t? 

At night, do you lie in bed resolving to start a new diet and exercise program in January?

Do you wish you could enjoy the holiday season without being distracted by all the food noise in your head? 

If so, you’re not alone—and it doesn’t have to be this way.

My clients have discovered that after working for a while on divesting from diet culture and eating more intuitively, their experience with holiday eating is much different than years prior. 

Over the years, their comments have sounded like this...

Zero Strings Attached
“I used to give myself a free pass to eat anything I wanted during the holidays. It wasn’t really free, however, as I believed I had to pay the price come January 1 by going on another diet and working out more. It’s so liberating to be able to enjoy all my holiday favorites with zero strings attached.”

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Stopped Stuffing Myself
“Since I’m no longer planning to cut out carbs in January, I no longer feel the need to stuff myself with sweets before they are off-limits.”

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No Looming Threat
“From Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day, I felt like I was engaging in one long Last Supper before my next diet started. The physical discomfort I felt from eating every meal as if it was going to be my last one convinced me all the more that I needed to get back on track in the new year. 

Thank goodness I now know it was the looming threat of another diet that was causing my scarcity-driven Last Supper eating. Without another diet around the corner, I'm now able to eat in a much more satisfying way.

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More Present and Engaged
“Once I started giving myself unconditional permission to eat whatever I want any day of the year, I stopped feeling obsessed with all the holiday food. I still love making it and eating it but I no longer think about it all the time. I'm now much more present for my loved ones and more engaged in other aspects of the season.” 

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Feel a Sense of Ease
“I used to go into the holiday season feeling deprived from my latest diet. As a result, I felt out of control with all that good food. It was like I had found water after being lost in the desert for months. I couldn’t get enough of it. Once I understood it was the dieting, not a lack of self-control, that caused me to eat in a binge-y way, I stopped restricting and eventually started feeling a sense of ease and peace with food."

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No Longer Feel Bad
“I still sometimes eat until I’m super full because the food is so delicious! The big difference is that I don’t feel bad about it anymore and I don’t feel like I have to make up for it.”

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Relief to Stop Researching
“In years past, I always spent New Year’s Day researching detox and diet plans. It’s a relief to know that this year I won’t be wasting my money on an expensive cleanse package or my time trying to learn the rules of a new diet program.”

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There's No Guilt
“My holiday eating is so much more enjoyable now that I no longer feel guilty for eating a bunch of Christmas cookies.”

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A Priceless Gift
Of course, the shift to more peaceful, pleasurable holiday eating doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time to move away from diet culture toward a more intuitive relationship with food and your body.

Most people, including me, have found that with patience, practice and perseverance, the food stuff gets a little easier with each passing year.

To be able to eat with ease and gusto during the holiday season, and all year round, is a priceless gift—but even more so, it’s an inherent human right—that everyone deserves, including you.

How I Quit Obsessing About Food—And Got My Life Back.

When I was in college, I went to an aerobics class that was held in the basement of some random office building near campus.

I was able to attend for free in exchange for arriving early to set the room up for class, which meant pushing all the desks, chairs and trashcans out of the way so there was plenty of space for leg kicks and grapevines.

Right next to the building was a tiny cookie shop that baked the most delicious, ginormous cookies. You could smell them baking from blocks away. I was very fond of the double chocolate chip ones.

While sweating away under the fluorescent lights in that low-ceiling makeshift aerobics studio, I fantasized about sinking my teeth into one of those chewy, gooey delights—a big no-no on my fat-free diet.

Distracted by my food fantasies, I was often sidestepping to the right when everyone else was moving to the left. 

A Major Distraction
I can recall many times when my obsession with food, especially my forbidden foods, prevented me from being fully engaged in my life and present for those around me.

I remember being distracted at a bridal shower by the chocolate layer cake I so badly wanted but wouldn’t let myself have because it would have blown my calorie count for the day.

I spent numerous work meetings preoccupied with the muffins and bagels on the conference table that were off-limits because they didn’t fit into my idea of a healthy diet.

At parties, I barely recalled conversations with friends because my mind was on the pizza box, cheese platter, chip bowl or brownie plate—all “illegal” foods.

Constant State of Deprivation
I thought about food ALL THE TIME. It consumed my life.

Back then, I didn’t understand that the reason I spent so much time, energy and headspace thinking about food was because I was living in a constant state of deprivation.

As a result of all my food rules and restrictions, I incessantly thought about what I could eat, should eat, shouldn’t eat and really wanted to eat.

Unconditional Permission to Eat
When I finally stopped trying to micromanage my diet and force my body to be a size it was never meant to be, my preoccupation with food eventually went away (along with many of the other harmful side effects of dieting).

By slowly learning how to eat intuitively, which included giving myself unconditional permission to eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, food took a balanced place in my life.

When my deprivation ended, my obsession ended.

The intensity, anxiety, stress and shame I once experienced with food were replaced with a sense of ease, peace, expansiveness and freedom.

Of course, none of this happened overnight. It took time for me to break up with diet culture, ditch my food rules and trust my body again. Instead of putting all my time and energy into depriving myself, I put it into healing my disordered eating. 

As a result, I opened up so much more space in my life for far more important, meaningful and fun things than obsessing about food.