Becoming a Food Anthropologist Helped End My Binge Eating

When I used to binge on peanut-butter chocolate-chunk cookies while hiding in my dark kitchen late at night, my internal dialogue afterward sounded something like this:

“I’m so disgusting. I have no self-control. My willpower sucks. I can’t be trusted to have cookies in the house. I should know better by now. Why can’t I eat like a normal person? Starting tomorrow, no more sugar; I'm addicted!”

These voices in my head were anything but helpful, especially since I would find myself back in the same place doing the same thing again just a few days later.

Unable to take this torturous binge-repent-repeat cycle anymore, I reached out for help. A very wise teacher taught me that I had a choice: I could either ban the cookies or ban the voices.

Since I loved the cookies and hated the voices, the decision was pretty easy—even though it seemed like an impossible feat considering how ingrained in my brain the voices were.

A Powerful Ally Voice
Making peace with food and your body requires silencing the voices in your head that are constantly critiquing, criticizing and condemning your eating.

Replacing these disempowering, unhelpful voices with empowering, supportive voices is key for reclaiming the Intuitive Eater within you.

One of the ally voices identified in Intuitive Eating that my clients and I really gravitate toward is the Food Anthropologist.

The Food Anthropologist is a neutral observer of your thoughts and actions.

It doesn’t make any judgments or emotionally react. Instead, it witnesses what’s going on from a place of pure objectivity.

Unlike your internal Food Police that dictate if you’re good or bad based on what or how you ate, the Food Anthropologist simply states the facts. It sounds like this:

• I ate six cookies at 10:30 p.m. and experienced stomach pain and feelings of guilt, regret and shame.
  

• I skipped lunch, which led to strong sugar cravings at 3 p.m.
  

• My eating felt out of control with all the different food options at the party.
  

• The uncomfortable pressure in my stomach indicated I was full, yet I continued eating. I was angry at myself for overeating.
  

• When I felt anxious yesterday, I ate a pint of ice cream while watching TV.

Distant Perspective, Deeper Connection
The Food Anthropologist voice gives you much-needed distant perspective. Yet, it also helps you stay in touch with your physical and psychological cues by eliminating all the noise that typically disrupts this connection and clouds your thinking.

When coupled with curiosity, the Food Anthropologist helps you expand your self-awareness and empowers you to better understand and release beliefs and behaviors that are no longer serving you.

Not a Lack of Willpower
When I became an objective observer of my binge-repent-repeat cycle, I was able to see clearly what was driving my cookie binges. It didn’t have anything to do with a lack of discipline or willpower, a character flaw or a sugar addiction.

Instead, I discovered my binge eating was driven by multiple factors including a restrictive diet, rigid food rules, a false persona, perfectionism and a pleasure deficiency. By addressing the root causes of my behavior and amplifying my ally voices, my binge eating eventually stopped.

If the loudest voice in your head is a critical one, it can take time to shift to a neutral, nonjudgmental voice like the Food Anthropologist. If you would like help identifying and strengthening your ally voices, give me a shout.

What's Your Eating Personality?

What’s your eating personality?

Are you a Careful Planner, Unconscious Eater or Professional Dieter?  

Perhaps you’ve been all of these at some point. This isn’t unusual as your eating patterns can shift depending upon what’s going on in your life.

If you’d like to return to the Intuitive Eater you came into this world as, it’s helpful to understand what your predominant eating style is.

The Unconscious Eater
Let’s take a look at the Unconscious Eater. This eating style is rooted in a lack of attention, awareness and attunement, and can take many different forms. Following are three ways it has shown up in my life. 

1/ Refuse-Not Unconscious Eater
When I worked in the corporate world, I’d mindlessly eat whatever food came into the office whether it was pizza a sales rep brought for a lunchtime presentation, mini-chocolate bars from the candy jar, leftover cookies from an afternoon meeting, or bagels that had been sitting in the kitchen for eight hours.

While there’s nothing wrong with eating any of these foods, I rarely ate them because I was hungry or truly wanted them. Instead, I was vulnerable to their mere presence, not attuned to my body’s needs, and unable to refuse free food.

This behavior showed up outside the office as well, whether it was with party fare, holiday food gifts or grocery store samples.

2/ Distracted Unconscious Eater
I used to be embarrassed if anyone used my computer because of the crumb-covered keyboard and sticky keys. If this sounds like your computer, it’s a sure sign you’re a distracted diner, too.

A Distracted Unconscious Eater typically eats while multitasking whether it’s responding to emails, scrolling through social media, driving to work or texting with friends.

Perhaps you feel there’s no time to stop and just eat, or that it’s more productive to be doing another activity while eating, or that just eating is boring.

I’m definitely not saying you should never enjoy a movie while eating popcorn or takeout! However, if you regularly eat while distracted, you’re likely to derive less pleasure and satisfaction from your food and more likely to eat past comfortable fullness.

3/ Waste-Not Unconscious Eater
I grew up in a Clean Your Plate Club and continue to struggle sometimes with this hardwired habit.

The fact that someone would actually choose to leave food on his or her plate or throw away perfectly good food can still astound me today despite all the work I’ve done with identifying my attunement disruptors.

If you’re a Waste-Not Unconscious Eater, you believe it’s better to finish something even if you’re full rather than toss it or save the last few bites. If you’re a parent or partner, you likely clean the remaining food off your children’s or partner’s plates, too.

The challenge with this eating personality is that you prioritize the value of food over your body, which can lead to chronic overconsumption and subsequent discomfort.

Understanding Your Eating Personality
There are other types of Unconscious Eaters, such as the Chaotic Unconscious Eater and the Emotional Unconscious Eater, that you might relate to more strongly.

Having a better understanding of your eating personality, whether it's an Unconscious Eater or Professional Dieter, can be very insightful and helpful as you work toward shedding the beliefs and behaviors that disconnect you from your body’s wisdom, cues and needs.


Source: These eating personalities were created by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch, the originators of Intuitive Eating and authors of Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program that Works.

What to Do When Someone is Policing Your Eating

Do you ever feel like you’re being patrolled by the food police, whether it’s a family member, partner, friend or co-worker?

Food policing sounds something like:

• Should you really be eating that?

• Gosh, you're eating again?

• Do you really need more?

• You sure can put it away!

• Don’t you know how bad that is for you?

• Wow! You must really be hungry!

• Once on your lips, forever on your hips.

• Are you really going to eat all of that?

• Looks like you'll need to hit the gym tomorrow.

• Someone's being naughty!

If you’ve ever been the victim of food policing (like my brownie shaming and dinner party incidents), you know it’s never helpful. More often than not, it leaves you feeling humiliated, guilty, ashamed, angry, resentful or rebellious—or all of the above!

Regardless of the food cop’s intentions, you have the right to eat whatever you want—whenever, wherever and however you want it—without having someone negatively comment on, criticize, judge or question your choices.

Set Your Boundaries
When the food police show up, it’s important to stand up for yourself by setting and protecting your boundaries. How you do so will naturally depend on the comment, the commenter and the situation, however, here are some responses to consider.

• I know you mean well, but your comments are not helpful.

• What I eat is truly none of your business.

• I trust myself to give my body what it needs and not be influenced by other people’s views.

• Please don’t make comments about my eating.

• Yes, I am going to eat it and I won’t stand for being shamed about it.

• What led you to think I want you to police my eating? Please don't do it again.

• You mind your own plate and I'll mind mine.

• You’re out of line. It’s absolutely not okay to comment on my food choices.

• Yes, and I'm going to savor every single bite.

• Say nothing, blow the food cop a kiss, then walk away to enjoy your food in peace.

Guilty of Food Policing?
Perhaps you’re guilty of policing other people’s food choices. I'm sorry to say I’ve done it myself in the past and have worked hard to change my ways.

Not only is it important to set your own boundaries, it’s equally important to respect other people’s boundaries, too.

If you catch yourself stepping into the role of the food police, hit the brakes. Should a comment slip out, immediately apologize.

Remembering how it feels to be on the receiving end of an unsolicited food comment will help you think twice before you open your mouth.

Your Internal Food Police
In addition to external food police, many of us struggle with internal food police. These are the voices in your head that tell you that you’re “good” or “bad” based on what or how you ate.

Your food police try to enforce the unreasonable rules diet culture has created, and make you feel guilty and ashamed about your food choices.

In order to make peace with food, you must fire your internal food police by challenging your beliefs and rules and removing any moralism and judgment surrounding food. Doing so is a critical step toward reclaiming the Intuitive Eater within you.