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. 

When Did Food Become Complicated for You?

Recently, I was talking with some friends and family members about what our favorite meal was when we were kids.

Mine was spaghetti.

Specifically, spaghetti with only butter and Parmesan cheese.

I vividly recall eating this combo at one of our family’s favorite restaurants, Spaghetti Works, where it was called “Hot Naked.”

When ordering, I was too embarrassed to say “naked” so I would shyly point to it on the menu as my cheeks burned bright red. My mortification, however, did not stop me from ordering my beloved dish.

In addition to those buttery noodles, I loved many different foods, from pepperoni pizza and buttermilk pancakes to sloppy joes and peanut-butter-and-pickle sandwiches. And, of course, I relished anything sweet.

Food was easy back then.

I ate it and moved on.

After all, I had far more exciting things to focus on, like riding bikes and playing hide-and-seek with my neighborhood friends.

When Food Became Complicated
I sometimes reflect on when food started to become complicated for me.

While I can’t pinpoint an exact moment, I do recall starting to view food differently when I was around 11 or 12 years old and feeling terribly awkward in my rapidly changing pubescent body.

One memory is of my best friend and I making these giant chef salads loaded with iceberg lettuce, diced turkey, shredded cheddar, herb-seasoned croutons and low-cal ranch dressing. As we dug in, we’d pat ourselves on the back for making something healthy and hopefully slenderizing.

I remember another moment around this time when, as I reached for a chocolate-fudge brownie at a family reunion, an older boy shouted across the crowded kitchen, “Once on the lips, forever on the hips!”

With my shoulders slumped, head down and cheeks burning with shame and humiliation, I turned away without saying a word and headed to a quiet corner to eat my brownie alone because who would want to be watched doing something seemingly bad?

As I entered high school, I started getting more deeply entrenched in diet culture, from drinking diet soda and replacing meals with SlimFast shakes to burning calories in aerobics classes.

For a short while, I doubled down on these efforts believing that if I lost a lot of weight my ex-boyfriend would regret dumping me and beg me to take him back.

Even More Complicated
In my later teens, my dad was diagnosed with heart disease and our kitchen became fat-free practically overnight. At that time, even almonds and avocados were off-limits.

From Snackwell’s chocolate-chip cookies and non-fat lemon yogurt to blueberry bagels with fat-free cream cheese, I continued to eat fat-free throughout college because I was taught doing so was the ticket to good health and a thin body.

Shortly after moving from Omaha to San Francisco a few years after graduating, I started restricting my eating further.

My list of food rules grew longer and more complicated. Being hyper-vigilant with my eating gave me the illusion of control in an environment where I felt like a complete fish out of water.

Hitting Rock Bottom
My struggle with food and my weight went on for years until I finally hit rock bottom.

I didn’t like the person I had become (frankly, neither did the people closest to me). And I no longer wanted to waste my life trying to have a body I was never meant to have.

With the help of some very wise guides, I came to understand that I can trust my body to tell me what it needs and to weigh what it’s meant to weigh—just as I used to do long ago before diet culture eroded this trust.

I returned to making food decisions based on my body’s cues and satisfaction, including how foods tasted and felt in my body. No longer were my choices driven by food rules, good and bad lists, and how something might impact my weight.

I started regularly eating all my favorite foods again instead of restricting then bingeing on them as I did during my dieting days.

And I felt a sense of freedom with food that I hadn’t felt since I was a young girl.

What About You?
We come into this world knowing how to eat intuitively.

Sadly, for many reasons, we start to disconnect from our instincts and internal cues and instead start following external rules that, for many, result in a disordered relationship with food and their body.

When did food start becoming complicated for you?

Can you remember a time when food was not an issue? If so, how did it feel?

If you were to decide tomorrow that you’re finally done with being at war with food and your body, what steps would you take next?

It’s completely understandable if you feel some ambivalence about stopping dieting and being so tightly regimented with food and your body. Loosening the reins can feel both exciting and scary.

Perhaps a first step might just be imagining what would be possible for you and your life if food was no longer complicated.

Chocolate No Longer Calls to Me All Day Long; I Don't Even Think About It!

My clients are often surprised—if not shocked—to discover they have forgotten about a food that once felt like it had so much power over them.

It sounds something like this:

• I can’t believe I forgot about the cookies in my cupboard!

• My favorite chips went stale before I finished them. That’s a first!

• The chocolate in my pantry no longer calls for me all day long; I don’t even think about it!

• I can’t believe the bread went moldy. It’s never lasted long enough to do that before.

• I was so surprised to find a half-eaten candy bar in my bag that I bought a few weeks ago.
  

This doesn’t happen because my clients are just really forgetful people.

It happens because they started giving themselves unconditional permission to eat.

How Food Loses Its Power
Feeling obsessed with or controlled by food is not a sign of weakness or a lack of willpower and self-discipline. It’s a natural outcome of dieting and deprivation.

When you give yourself unconditional permission to eat what you want when you want (assuming you have access to it), food—especially your forbidden foods—loses its power.

The more you eat a forbidden food and trust that you can have it when you want it, the more its allure and charge wears off.

The food becomes neutral. It’s no longer a big deal.

You enjoy it when you want it and forget about it when you don’t.

Mels's Brownie Story
Here's how my client Mel describes her experience...

"In the past, if my partner made a pan of brownies, I wouldn't have been able to concentrate on work knowing they were on the counter. In fact, I'd sneak into the kitchen multiple times a day to shave a little off the row hoping no one would notice.

Now that I'm letting myself eat sweets whenever I want them and without telling myself I'm being bad or that I have to make up for it by going on a diet or working out more, I don't even think about the brownies until I'm ready to enjoy some dessert with my family.

The experience is so much more satisfying because I no longer feel obsessed, powerless and out of control."

It Will Never Work for Me
It’s completely understandable if you have doubts that this could ever be true for you, especially if you have a long history of dieting and a long list of forbidden foods, food rules and food fears.

My new clients look at me in disbelief when I share stories like these with them. They can’t imagine it for themselves.

Inevitably, as they make peace with food and trust nothing is off-limits, they are pleasantly surprised that they, too, no longer feel preoccupied with, distracted by or controlled by food.

My clients don’t have any magical powers.

What they do have is a deep desire to have a more liberating, satisfying and peaceful relationship with food. If they can achieve this, so can you.