The Food Therapist

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Time to Have The Talk with Yourself

Hit the pause button on your regularly scheduled life for a few moments and let’s get right into it. Let me ask you something: How do you talk to yourself when it comes to food and your body? Better question: Would you let anyone else speak to you that way? What about when you happen to overdo it on sweets or comfort foods, or anything, for that matter? Do you tend to think of your eating habits as good or bad, virtuous or naughty? Better question: Do you think of yourself in those absolute terms based on what or how much you eat?

Like most complicated relationships, our connection with food is seriously layered, and it’s tied to what is arguably the most complex bond of all: the one we have with ourselves. Anyone who has been in a grown-ass romantic relationship knows that the more intimately you know someone, the more clearly you see his or her flaws. It’s easy to love someone when things are ultrasmooth. Ride-or-die love is different: It’s choosing to love and be committed to the person, despite his or her faults. That can be scary (and challenging). I’m not talking about quirky faux flaws that aren’t really deficits (like being a neat freak or a bed hog); I’m talking about the messier stuff, like the way your loved one acts when he or she is under enormous pressure or feeling particularly down. Depending on you and your significant other, seeing that ungraceful, possibly disappointing, twisty stuff can be a total deal-breaker.

With respect to our relationship with ourselves, we don’t really have that luxury. We can’t simply peace out (it’s not you, it’s me–style) when we overeat or aren’t thrilled with our bods. Instead, we tend to put ourselves in the doghouse when we’d be so much better off approaching those disappointments compassionately, just like we do when our favorite people let us down. In my mind, ride-or-die love in a healthy, sustainable relationship means two imperfect people refusing to give up on each other. It’s a pretty amazing thing we do, not only for romantic partners, but also for our BFFs and other people we care about and believe in. So why is it that we rarely afford ourselves the same tolerance and TLC, especially when it comes to eating and our bodies? Ideally, we should all be striving for that kind of bond and ability to accept imperfections with ourselves, too—not only because it feels better, but also because it’s part of the secret sauce that helps us close the intention-action gap between wanting to eat healthier and making consciously healthy choices on the daily. So imagine taking a vow to make that same commitment to yourself: on bloated days and skinny-jean days; after a particularly indulgent month and post–sugar cleanse, too. This doesn’t mean you have to love your bad habits or even your cellulite for that matter, but you do need to accept that they are a part of you and your story (at least for now). It sounds touchy-feely, I know, but stay with me. Ironically, once you accept yourself this way, without the shame and negativity that fogs up your perspective mirror, then you can figure out your roadblocks and start working on stuff that’s actually in your power to improve. As a starting point, it’s wise to examine how well you tune in to and treat yourself on a day-to-day basis—how well you listen to your wants, figure out your needs, and dish out self-compassion, all of which affect the quality of your relationship with yourself.

You’re probably thinking, this all sounds fine, but what does it have to do with food? Well, that care (or lack thereof) also influences your relationship with food, playing a central role in what, why, and how much you eat, and how you feel about it. The fact is, the foods we choose and the way we eat are very much tied to the way we think about our bodies (for instance, My stomach is gross or I hate my thighs) and the way we speak to ourselves (I have no self-control or I’m such a sloth), especially when we stray from our good intentions. Same thing goes for the way we understand our food histories (including ghosts of diets past). Having a healthy relationship with food means being on our own team—for real, though, not just when we’re at our fittest and most together.

What I’ve found, again and again, in working with my clients is that approaching food relationships this way, and accepting our food-related fumbles without the typical shame spiral, allows us to identify and really get to work on overcoming the obstacles holding us back from making solid food choices consistently, day in and day out. This is major, because before you can change your food behavior, you’ve got to be willing to confront why you’re not already practicing the healthy habits you want. Over the years, in my private nutrition-counseling practice, I’ve seen clusters of patterns that reflect why clients weren’t applying the food behaviors they aimed to carry out, as well as how and when they were veering off course. The most common obstacles include having trust issues related to food, being a pleaser (as in: caving to other people’s food choices in order to keep the peace), having a go-big-or-go-home mindset when it comes to dining, craving a bit too much control around food, being hot and cold with noshing habits, and using food as a vehicle to amplify good feelings and temporarily forget about bad ones. When I work with clients, we always start out by exploring their specific eating obstacles and tendencies. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do here—only, in this case, you’ll do a self-compassionate deep dive on yourself.

It’s time, then, to DTR (define the relationship). Anyone who has ever teetered in the uncomfy are-we-exclusive gray area while dating can agree that it’s best to approach the talk as straightforwardly as humanly possible, because quite frankly, it’s important to know where you stand. The same is true of your relationship with food. As psychologist Kelly McGonigal puts it in The Willpower Instinct, “The best way to improve self-control is to understand how and why you lose control.” That’s what I’m talking about here: In order to change your eating behavior, you’ll need to zoom in on where you are now and explore how you got here. As with any relationship, it can be difficult to confront your emotional baggage and missteps along the way, but remember: The goal isn’t to punish yourself for these missteps, but to understand how, when, and why you’ve ditched your long-term goals for your more immediate wants; this is the crucial first step to closing the gap between your intentions and actions. To set the wheels of change in motion, I developed the following DTR quiz that will help you investigate the underpinnings of your relationship with food and what’s been holding you back.

Once you complete this quiz, there’s a good chance you’ll identify with a couple of different obstacle types. That’s normal—it’s part of what makes you unique. The aim of exploring the patterns found in each of those obstacle categories is to spark some introspection about why you’ve been making the food choices you have. In doing so, you can start recognizing patterns that don’t work for you or that may be standing in your way of making healthy changes that last. It’s almost like once you start thinking about your “problematic tendencies” without the accompanying scary music, dealing with your eating-related baggage doesn’t feel so intimidating, and you can focus your energy on gathering strategies to help you deal. (I want to make something crystal clear, though: I am not talking about eating disorders here; I’m talking about the everyday issues we all have with food.)

Without further ado, let’s dive in.

If you chose two or more from any of these obstacle patterns, read all the corresponding analyses that apply to you, below. This will give you some insights into why you’ve been struggling with the food issues you have. Hey, there’s no judgment here! We all have issues—and our own unique combos of them—so the challenge is to understand them, find tools to cope, and learn to live with them in a healthy way that doesn’t suck to maintain. It’s possible, I promise.

TRUST ISSUES

You don’t always trust yourself around food. Maybe you don’t keep certain foods like sweets or chips at home because you’re afraid you’ll eat them all. Or maybe you dread family-style meals because you usually leave them feeling stuffed beyond reason. Like many of us, you probably learned to associate food with comfort and rewards as a kid—thanks to ice cream cones after a bad day and pizza for celebrations—and now it’s your go-to for both. At the root of these issues is the fact that you may not trust your inner system of checks and balances; in other words, you may be out of touch with your body’s hunger and satiety signals.

You may even be what I call a perma-dieter: individuals who have a history of trying lots of different diets, many of which were restrictive and unsustainable. The cycle goes something like this: they followed the strict guidelines initially, making some weight-loss progress, but eventually fell off the plan hard, reversing the progress they made. At that point, feeling terrible about themselves but determined to do better, they began the cycle again with another unsustainable diet. And so on and so forth, reinforcing the ultimate disservice: mistrust in their own food judgment and self-control. In fact, research shows that many perpetual dieters are somewhat desensitized to their internal fullness signals; as a result, their food behavior is often driven by external or environmental forces. This may sound like a stormy forecast for the future, but it really doesn’t have to be (for real).

THE PLEASER TRAP

Like a mirror, you tend to reflect the behaviors of the people around you (in general, but especially with food). When it comes to food, this means you often let other people drive your choices. You may think you’re being agreeable or go-with-the-flow but if we’re being honest, you’re also habitually relinquishing control of what you put in your body. You’re definitely not alone. A pair of studies published in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology found that people with a strong desire to please others and maintain social harmony eat more when they believe their dining companion wants them to.

The trouble is, you’re the third wheel in your relationship with food. Having this profile makes it endlessly challenging to stand up to inadvertent sabotage and food pushers who, for whatever reason, want you to eat more or indulge in certain things. Plus, when you constantly cater to what other people want you to eat, it’s hard to know what you actually want and need. This may add to your own stress and frustration. It’s time to realize that putting yourself first in this way doesn’t make you high maintenance. You’ll need to challenge this notion in order to get the results you crave.

FEAR OF THE MUNDANE

You’re somewhat of a maximalist, with a go-big-or-go-home mindset. You probably work hard, deal with a lot of pressure (at work, home, or somewhere else), and food is one of the main ways you treat yourself—by ordering the most decadent thing on the menu or by indulging in foods that may not be healthy but give you a major pleasure rush. With some of my clients, this mentality is a huge part of how they move through the world and connect with other people. So the idea of having to reel in your carefree and adventurous culinary spirit may feel like an assault to your identity. I get that—really, I do. You may even be worried that if people start seeing you eating more healthfully, you’ll get unwanted attention for that—and worse, if you don’t stick with it, everyone will know.

The truth is, you may be overly invested in food as a source of pleasure and reward, whether it’s because you’re not getting pleasure in other ways or your high stress load makes you crave not just the taste of decadent food, but also the temporary soothing effect it can have. Behavioral scientists acknowledge that a major stimulus for noshing isn’t actually hunger, but the anticipated pleasure of enjoying highly palatable foods. This may be especially true for you, and even more so during stressful times. After all, increased cortisol exposure from chronic stress can amp up the brain’s reward system, making the drive for these super-palatable foods even stronger. The problem isn’t that you love delicious food—that’s actually fantastic