Once on Your Lips... When Food Became Complicated.

Recently, I was talking with some family members about our favorite meal 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 requesting my beloved dish.

In addition to those buttery noodles, I loved many different foods, from pepperoni pizza and sloppy joes to banana pancakes 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 me 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 your lips, forever on your 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 seen 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 internal cues and personal preferences, 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 struggling 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.

I Tried to Eat Perfectly. Diet Culture Demanded It.

Recently, I shared how I used to be a chronic overeater and that I still sometimes eat until I’m uncomfortably full.

Thankfully, this doesn’t bother me much anymore as I’ve stopped trying to be a perfect eater. 

Things were much different when I was dieting. 

No Wiggle Room
I was devastated whenever I felt I messed up with my eating. There wasn’t any wiggle room or gray area. I was either eating right or I was eating wrong.

Diet culture, with its black-and-white, all-or-nothing approach, teaches us that to be successful, we must follow its rules and binaries perfectly. Wellness culture often does this, too.

Food is either good or bad, healthy or unhealthy, clean or toxic, fattening or slimming. 

You’re either on the wagon or off it. If you fall off, it’s your fault. 

Rather than blaming diet and wellness cultures’ unrealistic and unsustainable standards, you are blamed for not having enough willpower, discipline and self-control.

I certainly bought into all of this.

Thrived on Perfection
As someone with perfectionistic tendencies, I was especially susceptible to the gold-star behaviors diet and wellness cultures demand.  

I thrived on following the rules, doing it right, being good, earning a perfect score. 

I relished the sense of achievement I felt at bedtime when I thought I had eaten perfectly all day. 

I patted myself on the back for staying on track by eating the right food in the right amount at the right time. 

Naturally, I also loathed the sense of failure I felt when I believed I had eaten imperfectly. 

A “bad” choice would completely derail my day. My mood would turn dark, and I’d become preoccupied with how I would make up for it, which usually meant eating less and exercising more.

I took a lot of pride in being a good eater, a healthy eater, a disciplined eater—all traits our society puts on a pedestal. 

I thought eating perfectly made me a better person (another lie I regrettably believed).

In reality, it just made me miserable and intolerable to myself and those closest to me. 

While outsiders praised my eating, my loved ones had to deal with all the tiresome crap that came along with my rigid food rules and relentless pursuit to eat perfectly.

Permission to Be Human
In order to heal my disordered relationship with food, I needed to learn how to stop viewing it through the perfectionistic, black-and-white, good-or-bad lens I had been taught.

I also needed to relearn how to trust myself, my body’s internal cues and my instincts instead of following external sources and rules regarding the “right” way to eat.

When I threw away all the “eat this, not that” lists and started making eating decisions based on what tastes good and feels good in my body, I became a much more flexible, relaxed and peaceful eater.

Instead of striving to be perfect, I gave myself permission to be human, one who most of the time eats until they’re comfortably full and sometimes eats until they’re stuffed.

The Deeper Work
More than anything, I had to do the deeper work of understanding what drove my desire to achieve the perfect diet and the perfect body. 

To truly change, I had to examine the roots of my perfectionism and anti-fat bias, challenge our culture’s body ideals, and question what being healthy truly means.

None of this happened easily or quickly nor have I reached a final destination (I'm not sure there is one). It's an ongoing process but one that's so worth it.

I Wanted to Stop Overeating. My Solution Was the Problem.

Not long ago, I came across some journaling I had written years prior.

One of my journal entries included a list of things I wanted to change about myself. At the top of my list was: stop overeating.

At the time, I was frustrated by how often I ate until I was stuffed. This mostly happened at dinner. I’d be “good” all day and then blow it at night. 

Repeatedly eating until I was uncomfortably full not only caused me physical discomfort but also a lot of emotional distress. Feeling the aching pain of my straining stomach as I washed dishes triggered feelings of anger, regret, guilt and shame.

My Solution Was the Problem
For the rest of the night, I’d beat myself up, endlessly ruminating on my lack of self-control.

Why couldn’t I get it together and stop overeating? What was wrong with me?!

As I got ready for bed, I’d promise myself I wouldn’t do it again and devise a plan to put an end to it, everything from using a smaller plate to forgoing seconds. 

However, because my plans were driven by my diet mentality, including my restrictive approach to eating, they failed to change anything. I’d still end almost every dinner uncomfortably full and disappointed in myself.

What I didn’t understand at the time was that my attempts to eat less were driving my need to eat more. My solution was the problem!

Unmet Needs
There are always very valid reasons why we do what we do with food. More often than not, we’re trying to take care of unmet needs. 

When I learned to be curious about what needs I was trying to fulfill when I continued to eat past comfortable fullness, things began to shift for me.

I came to understand that my tendency to override my fullness cues was primarily driven by my very human need for nourishment, satisfaction and pleasure.

1/ Need for Nourishment
Although I thought I was being “good” with my eating throughout the day, the reality was that I wasn’t eating enough out of fear of weight gain. 

My nighttime overeating wasn’t due to a lack of willpower or self-discipline. It was my very wise body’s attempt to get its nourishment needs met, to make up for my daytime deprivation and protect itself from future food scarcity, something it had come to expect.

I was stuck in an exhausting cycle of starting every morning with the intent to be "good"—that is, eat very little—to compensate for the amount I ate the night before. Of course, this plan always backfired come dinnertime.

2/ Need for Satisfaction and Pleasure
Because I was so focused on eating low-calorie and “clean,” I pretty much ate the same “safe” foods every day. While I didn’t dislike what I was eating, my rigid diet lacked variety, novelty and deeply satisfying, pleasurable foods.

Satisfaction and pleasure are essential components of the eating experience and when these are missing, it’s natural to seek more food, even if you’re not hungry. 

I wasn’t ignoring my fullness signals because I was out of control with my eating. I kept eating because, in addition to making up for my undereating throughout the day, my bored taste buds were desperately and unsuccessfully searching for the satisfaction and pleasure we humans are naturally wired to pursue.

As I started to fully nourish my body and enjoy a wider range of pleasurable, satisfying foods (including my once-forbidden foods), my chronic overeating eventually subsided. I no longer ate every dinner as if it was my Last Supper. 

Still Stuffed Sometimes
This doesn’t mean I never eat until I’m stuffed. I absolutely do! 

Normal eating includes sometimes eating past comfortable fullness. In fact, I just did it a few nights ago.

The difference is that now when I find myself uncomfortably full, I’m able to compassionately identify the needs I was trying to take care of rather than ruthlessly chastise myself.

The other night, I was really tired. It felt easier to keep eating my dinner than to muster up the energy required to get up from the table and clean the kitchen. By continuing to eat, I was preserving my energy and honoring my need for rest.

Sometimes, I keep eating because the meal is so delicious I don’t want the pleasure to end. This can be particularly true if, for whatever reason, I haven’t experienced much pleasure lately. In this case, I intentionally prioritize my need for pleasure and am okay with feeling some stomach discomfort.

Other times, I find myself eating when I'm no longer hungry to avoid wasting food. This usually happens when it seems like there’s not enough food remaining to warrant saving it for leftovers. 

I grew up in a clean-your-plate household with depression-era parents so understandably food was rarely wasted. Occasionally, my need to honor this deeply instilled value outweighs my physical comfort.

Tending to Your Needs
From undereating, food restrictions and a pleasure deficiency to fatigue, stress, busyness and distraction, there are many different reasons why you, like me, may find yourself eating past the point of comfortable fullness.

When you gain a better understanding of the unmet needs driving your overeating, you can put your attention toward tending to these needs instead of focusing on controlling your food as diet culture teaches us to do.

Thankfully, unlike the days when I wrote that journal entry, these days when I do experience the uncomfortable sensation of being stuffed, I don’t dwell on it.

Instead, I briefly reflect on the needs I was trying to take care of, make myself as comfortable as possible (e.g., put on loose clothes, go on a gentle walk, take an antacid, etc.) and then just move on.