episode 150: how to eat anything you want and never say “i can’t have that in the house” again
Today is episode 150 of The Diet Diaries. Seems like an important milestone but I honestly didn’t realize it until I was recording!
One of the MOST common fears I hear from people around food is the “I can’t have that in the house” or “I can’t stop eating sugar” story. So with Halloween and the holidays coming up, we needed an episode to address how to stop feeling controlled by food and work on binge eating recovery.
And how do you do that? By giving yourself unconditional permission to eat what you want.
I think that statement strikes fear into the heart of a lot of people—fear of binging, of feeling out of control, of not being able to stop, of gaining weight.
I get it. 10000%.
That’s why I did today’s episode. To address all of those fears and why they are valid. And also to talk through what unconditional permission means (it’s not what you think) and the skills to take action on it.
Here are some of the skills I talk through in today’s episode:
Why unconditional permission is the only way to feel at ease around food
Guidelines for how to eat foods that make you feel stressed
The challenge with hyperpalatable foods and how to include them in your day to day diet stress free
Exactly how to stop feeling like you “can’t have that in the house”
How all of this plays a huge role in binge eating recovery
This blog post offers more skills for how to get started with binge eating recovery. And episodes 126 and 144 of The Diet Diaries dive into the all or nothing thinking we have around food and how that impacts binge eating recovery as well.
Watch this episode on YouTube.
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Welcome to the Diet Diaries, a podcast where we have candid, heartfelt conversations that will help you figure out what, why and how to eat so you can feel amazing in your body, because it's time to break the all-or-nothing mindset of yo-yo dieting, food obsession and feeling ruled by the scale. I'm your host, body image and nutrition coach, Jordana Edelstein. I'm so happy you're here. Hey, friends, it is. I think it's episode 150. I keep forgetting to check. I think it's episode 150, which is actually kind of a big episode. You'd think I would pay attention. But whatever, of the Diet Diaries, I'm recording this one a bit in advance just because of my schedule, and the week before this airs is going to be a guest episode, which, if you haven't listened to that, I encourage you to go listen. It is really really wonderful With a former client of mine, alyssa.
00:58
We worked together and she shares so much of her struggles with this sort of eating and body image and everything that she has been through over the course of her life and where she's at now. It's really really special. I wanted to talk about Halloween because I don't think I did a Halloween episode last year. I think I did the year before. I wanted to talk about not just Halloween this applies to Halloween but really more about the story that we tell ourselves that we are out of control around certain foods, that we have no willpower, that those foods are bad, that if it's in the house I'm going to eat the whole thing. I can't have that in the house. That is probably the language I hear from people most often about certain foods. I can't have that in the house. I can't have that in the house. That is based on our experience. That is a lived experience. That is real. Also, it is a story. We have told ourselves that that is fact because it's the only thing that we know. Why is that? Why has that always been our experience?
02:06
The follow-up to that is I have no willpower, I have no self-control. By definition, I can't do that. That's actually not it. You guys have heard me say this many times before. It's not that you have no willpower, it's not that you have no self-control. It's that you don't have the skills. No one has taught you. No institution or person has taught you the skills. We are innately born with them.
02:31
I do believe that, in just the way that we respond to food but then they're very quickly beaten out of us because of outside influences. What I wanted to talk about is this idea of how do you overcome that, how do you get past that? How do you stop telling yourself the story of I have no control, I can't keep that in the house, because we will often use that as a fix. If someone brings over, you have a party or it's holidays are coming up and there's leftovers, you throw them out, or you tell people don't bring that, or you tell people to bring it home with them. You don't want it in the house. We try to control the situation by eliminating the food from our presence. I don't buy that thing, I don't keep it in the house, I throw it away. And I get that because there is this idea of it's called priming your environment. This is a skill or a tool that we can use to help change our behavior. It's also like are we using the right skill for the right job? Sometimes that skill priming your environment can be super helpful. In other ways, I actually think it can be detrimental Over the long term.
03:47
I do think that this is one of those skills and tools that is not a good match for this particular challenge, because I think that if you always try to control the situation by never having that food around. What happens when it is around? Because that's the thing, it's inevitable. You know it, because when it happens, you eat the whole thing. You feel like shit, and then it reinforces the story. You say to yourself oh, that's why I can't have this around. This is just a random example. Let's say it's holidays are coming up, right, you're hosting or people are coming over and there's leftover dessert. And it's the day after, a day or two after, and you're standing at the kitchen counter eating leftover pie or cake from the box and you're disgusted with yourself and you're like oh my god, this is why I can't have this around, this is what I always do, and you throw it in the garbage.
04:39
The reason you always do that is because you don't have any skills and because you never and you don't have any skills because you Never let yourself have that food around it becomes like this vicious cycle and the only way, the only way to interrupt that, is to give yourself permission to have Some of or one of those foods around. That's the only way, friends. There's no like shortcut, and so Ultimately, in the long run, that is what you need. Otherwise, you're just in this constant state of trying to control everything. Don't bring that over. I don't want that in my house. Don't leave that here. Throw that out. Like that's a shitty way to live. Right to feel like the food is controlling you.
05:28
The only way to develop skills is by exposing yourself to that food, with structure, with boundaries, right? I'm not saying, oh yeah, buy an entire chocolate cake and just throw it in your fridge and, you know, figure it out. No, that's not like that's gonna continue to Perpetuate this story. You need to create structure with it. You need to buy whatever food feels really challenging for you, buy the smallest possible Serving or portion that you can, and even if that means, if it doesn't come in a small serving, buying a bigger thing and I know you don't want to hear this but throwing the rest away so that you only have a small amount. Right, so that it takes away that pressure. It takes away that like oh my god, it's sitting in the cabinet, that feeling where it just like consumes your brain. You know when you're sitting trying to watch a show and then all you can think about is like the leftover, like ice cream in the freezer. You know that If you buy a single serving, it kind of eliminates that and yet it gives you enough to practice skills, to practice having it around right, and those skills are Just before I kind of get into those.
06:29
It's first and foremost, making sure that you're using these foods in the job that they're meant for, which is not to fill hunger, which is not as a snack, which is, for the most part, not to cope with emotions yes, sometimes that's gonna happen. Separate topic it's just for pleasure. It is for pure pleasure and enjoyment. And when you eat food purely for pleasure, you have to make sure that you have set the foundation that you have eaten a nutritious meal before, that you're really not Hungry, right, you're not using this food to fill hunger and that you are paying attention to it.
07:04
How many times have you eaten a dessert while doing something else and suddenly you realize it's gone and you're like you feel like you didn't. You want more and you, the reason you want, part of the reason you want more, one of the reasons is Because you didn't pay attention, so it feels like you didn't even have it right. It's like you were doing something else. You didn't get to enjoy, you didn't get to savor it. So of course you want more. So prioritizing the experience of eating this food is super important. So there's kind of like those three things you want to eat it after you've had a nutritious, satisfying, satiating meal. You want to eat it when you're really not that hungry. You don't want to be stuffed because that doesn't really feel good, but it's not like you couldn't sit there and eat an entire meal. That's not the level of hunger we're looking for. When we have sweets or chips or things like that and you're not grabbing and going right, you're paying attention to this thing, at least when you're practicing Right.
07:55
Obviously, at certain points you're gonna be out with people and you're gonna be having dessert while you're socializing or at a party. You're always gonna be able to sit at your kitchen table and laser focus on it. But to practice the skill you can right, you can create that environment for yourself Absolutely. Does it take effort? Does it take work? Hell yeah, it does. But if you want to stop Be feeling like a prisoner and feeling controlled by whether or not there's a certain food sitting in your house and feeling like you can't Possibly have that around because you're terrified, you're gonna eat an entire cake or pie or pint of ice cream. This is what you have to do, right. You have to put in this work and maybe it sounds like I'm being, I'm gonna say harsh. Only I'm being harsh, but I'm being realistic. You've got to be honest with yourself. Like I, you don't want to live your life feeling trapped by food. You want to be able to make choices and have freedom, and having freedom around food is Having skills. Very simply, that's it.
08:55
So, just to go back to those kind of like the three parameters, you're gonna buy a serving of something that is tough for you. Maybe it's an ice cream bar, maybe it's a single-serve pack of candy, maybe it's one brownie and a bakery, maybe it's a snack-size bag of chips. You can pretty much get most stuff in a single serving. You're going to eat it after you have had a filling meal. You're not gonna eat it as a snack. You're not gonna eat it when you're super hungry. You're not gonna eat it when you're distracted. You're gonna sit at a table. You're gonna put this thing on a napkin or a plate. You're not gonna have distractions around. You're going to pay attention. You're gonna take a bite. You're gonna chew it. You're gonna notice the flavors and the textures. Am I enjoying this? Do I actually even really like this as much as I think I do as a story? I'm telling myself that I do. Maybe you do, maybe you don't.
09:38
Lots of valuable information there. Maybe you're gonna put that thing down in-between bites to give yourself a little bit of a pause. You're gonna take another bite and go through the same process the flavors, the textures. Am I enjoying this? You might realize you only need a couple of bites to get what you need. You might realize you don't even really like it as much as you thought you did. You were just afraid of it. You might realize you love it and wanna eat the whole thing. There's no right or wrong there. There's just uncovering information about the reality of what's going on instead of the story that you have told yourself. This is a life-changing skill. I think this is a life skill in and of itself because, again I said this, the top of the episode, the thing that I hear most often from clients, especially when we start, and just from people like in conversation and like in the background noise, is like I can't have that around, I can't have that in the house. I will eat all of it, right, you know, if you're listening, you know exactly what I'm talking about. I had that story too, and it wasn't until I started practicing these skills and gave myself permission to have these foods outside of a cheat day or outside of a day that I'd already blown it quote unquote did that start to happen? Because here's what's happened If you say to yourself I only have dessert on the weekends, then the weekend rolls around, it's Saturday night and you're like, oh my God, yes, it's dessert night.
11:03
You're super excited, you will eat it, whether or not you want it, because it is your only chance. You will inevitably stuff yourself and eat something past the point of comfort and maybe even to begin with, maybe you're not even in the mood for dessert, but you're gonna have it anyways because you know it's your designated dessert day and you can't have it again for a week. Whereas if you said to yourself, I don't really want dessert today, I can have dessert tomorrow if I want it, you give yourself the space to say like I don't want this right now, I can have it tomorrow. And then tomorrow rolls around. Maybe you want it, maybe you don't, but when you know that you can have it the next day or two days or whatever it is, and you don't put the pressure on yourself to have it right now. You often realize you don't even want it right now.
11:53
Right like this is the cheat day mentality. This is the. I already fucked up the day. I'm just gonna eat everything possible and start over again. You don't even want to be doing that. I can't tell you how many times I would do that. I would quote blow my diet and then bill. You know what? I'm just gonna have pizza for dinner. I'm gonna go out and get ice cream. I'm gonna eat all of Ben's snacks. I'm gonna get chips. I'm gonna stop and get a candy bar because I'm tomorrow, I'll start over and I'll be good. I didn't even want to be eating that stuff, but I put myself in a position where I felt like it was like my only chance, because I knew I didn't have permission to eat at the next day and because I didn't have that permission, I had to do it now, whereas if I had given myself the permission and space to have it the next day, when you know, not in this moment I would have realized I don't want this right now. I'm not enjoying it, I'm too full, I'm stuff I feel gross. So it is that permission alongside the structure that helps you do this right. When you give yourself permission to have the next day To start out, when you're learning the skills, it is alongside that structure that I talked about right after a nutritious meal at a table, not when you're hungry. This is how you start to have food around.
13:02
And the way that this connects back to Halloween is we think we go crazy on Halloween candy, right, it's like we make our kids throw it out. We don't want it around and I get that right. I will say that learning to do this during Halloween, when you have a massive quantities of candy in the house, it's a tougher time to do it. The little fun size bars are great portion sizes, but there's so many of them, so I'm not saying you have to do this like right during Halloween, but if you want to feel, if you want to feel like you are in control, like you get to make the decisions around Halloween and then it's right into the holidays, this is how you do it. Whether you decide to start practicing this now or you do it in a month or two months or whenever, this is how you do it.
13:46
The time is going to pass anyway. So I can't even believe that I'm sitting here talking about Halloween again and thinking about how I did the nourishing notes going to the holidays, which is like kind of had a deal deal with, like all the stress on holiday eating and fear of weight gain and Lack of schedules and routine. I can't believe that was almost a year ago. The time passes, guys. So we're going to roll around. It's going to be this time next year.
14:08
You're going to be feeling the same way unless you sit down and take the time to practice and learn these skills. Otherwise you are going to feel Trapped in, controlled by food for the rest of your life. It reminds me I'm sure so many of you seen this that sex in the city episode. Or Miranda has the cake and she throws it in the garbage and then she goes back and eats it from the garbage and then she has to put the dish soap on top of it so that she stops eating it. Right, it's hysterical and funny and so relatable because so many of us have been through that. But let's be honest you really want to be the person for the rest of our life who has to squirt dish soap on food in the garbage so you don't eat it.
14:44
That's a really shitty feeling to feel like you are that Powerless around food. And it's not that, it's just that you don't have the skills and you have made that food Like the focus of everything right, because you've restricted it so much that when it's around it, just you can't think about anything else. This is such an important skill, I really would say like One of the most important ones Learning the skills around how to pay attention to these foods that are hard for you and giving yourself permission to have them. And again, I think when people here giving yourself permission, that means because, like in the world of intuitive eating, that does mean that you want to go out and get by twenty five cupcakes and eat them. Great, I don't advocate for that because ultimately that makes me feel really shitty. I think you can get to the same place that way and for some people that works, but there's a lot of fear around that and it's not the only way. There's many ways into the same end results, and so to me, giving yourself permission doesn't mean, yeah, just go have as much of you want, whatever you want, all the time, every day. It's giving yourself permission that, when you want it, you are going to eat it in this structured way.
16:05
Because With these foods, they're all hyper palatable foods that we struggle with. No one struggles with over eating fruit or chicken or broccoli, or like vegetables, right, it's the hyper palatable stuff, and hyper palatable means these perfect combinations of carbs and fats that just lights up our brain. Right, they are designed to make us to want to eat more. That's how these manufacturers make money. These foods are hard to stop eating, and so that is why we have to really use our skills.
16:36
When you have the skills in place a hundred percent, you can do it. But if you are eating this food when you're hungry, if you're eating this food when you're stressed out and emotional, if you're eating this food when you're not pay attention One hundred percent, you're going to overeat them. Every time. When you do the work, when you put the skills in place and you stop labeling them as bad Related to this, but kind of could be a whole episode on its own you can make your own autonomous choices. You are not controlled by the food. You get to decide. Okay, I think I covered everything. Thanks for listening, thank you for being here and yeah, more next week.
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