I Agonized Over Every Food Decision

Recently, I was reflecting on a cough drop conundrum I experienced many years ago.

I had a nasty cold and was kneeling on the floor of my neighborhood pharmacy analyzing the back of the cough drop packages to determine which one had the highest-quality ingredients and lowest amount of sugar. 

Despite it being a holistic pharmacy, none of their cough drops perfectly met my criteria so I dragged myself a few blocks uphill to check out the offerings at a more mainstream pharmacy. Unsurprisingly, they didn’t have what I wanted either.

I wasted hours that day going to multiple stores in search of the “healthiest” cough drops—time that would have been far better spent resting in bed.

Hyper-Fixated on Quality
When I was entrenched in diet and wellness cultures, not only was I obsessed with the number of calories I ate, I was also hyper-fixated on the quality of the food I consumed.

While I had long been interested in healthy eating, it wasn't until I began training to become a health coach that my interest in healthy eating escalated to a point where I agonized over the purity of nearly every single morsel I put in my mouth.

Agonized Over Every Decision
My cough drop incident stands out to me as it epitomizes how extreme my behavior had become.

At the time, however, I couldn’t see it. 

Preoccupied with eating perfectly, I couldn’t see how disordered my relationship with food was and how it was impacting my overall wellbeing, including how overwhelmed I was by everyday decisions. 

Should I buy the local cow-milk yogurt or the mass-produced soy yogurt? 

Should I get the expensive gluten-free bread from the freezer section or the cheaper whole-wheat bread fresh from the bakery in town? 

Should I go for the wilting bunch of locally grown kale or the perkier kale that was packaged in a plastic bag and shipped from another country?

From green juices and protein bars to hummus and spaghetti sauce, I’d take so much time scrutinizing every label and sweating every detail that my boyfriend refused to go shopping with me. 

More Rules and Restrictions
My obsession with eating clean and maintaining my reputation as a healthy eater added another layer of rules and restrictions on top of the already long list of food rules I followed in an attempt to shrink my body. 

I’d snub my nose at salmon that wasn’t wild, apples that weren't farm fresh, and tomatoes that were out of season.

If an almond butter had added oils or sugar, it stayed on the shelf. I wouldn’t touch strawberries that weren’t organic. I turned my back on anything made with refined flour.

Most regrettably, I shunned family favorites and food traditions if they contained “bad” ingredients.

Harming My Health
While I didn’t know it at the time, I was struggling with orthorexia—an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating.

I believed my high standards and food rules were improving my wellbeing when they were actually harming my physical, mental, emotional and social health. 

Naturally, my rigid rules turned me into a rigid person.

As more and more foods became demonized and off-limits, eating in an environment where I wouldn’t have control of my options became extremely difficult. 

I feared going to restaurants and dinner parties. Work lunches, happy hours, birthday celebrations and wedding receptions caused me anxiety. Traveling to new locales became stressful. 

I was no longer the flexible, spontaneous and carefree eater I used to be.

Instead, I was wasting an inordinate amount of time, energy, money and headspace doing what our diet and wellness cultures told me was the healthy, correct thing to do.

Healthy Relationship with Food
Thankfully, with the help of some wise guides, I was finally able to see how disordered my relationship with food had become. 

I came to understand that healthy eating, first and foremost, means having a healthy relationship with food.

To me, that means one that’s easygoing, flexible, balanced, satisfying, peaceful and intuitive.

Of course, while I no longer have food rules, I still have some food preferences.

However, I no longer stress out or feel guilty if I’m unable to eat exactly what I want. I just eat and move on. 

And, wow, has this made my eating—and my life—so much easier and so much more enjoyable.

If you relate to any of my story, I encourage you to seek support from a anti-diet, weight-neutral practitioner, whether it’s a therapist, nutritionist, coach or counselor. I'm here for you if need me.

What I Ate When My Heart Was Broken

Many years ago, I went through a devasting breakup. I felt like my heart had been ripped out and drop-kicked to the moon.

I was flattened by a level of sadness and depression I had never experienced before. I cried for weeks. My body felt weighed down by grief.

As a result, I lost much of my appetite and my desire to cook. 

My partner and I loved cooking together and the thought of doing it solo was just too painful. 

Very little sounded appealing and I couldn’t stomach anything fresh. 

The only foods that felt tolerable and manageable were buttered pasta and peanut-butter toast, plus banana bread muffins and chocolate chip cookies from a local bakery.

For weeks, these foods comforted me when little else could. They helped me survive one of the hardest, darkest times of my life. 

What I Needed
Despite being deeply entrenched in diet culture and obsessed with controlling my weight at the time, which sadly played a role in the breakup, I’m grateful I let myself eat foods I typically restricted.

Of course, there was a part of me—my inner Food Police—that made me feel bad about my eating. However, it wasn’t as strong as the part of me that desperately wanted to ease my suffering. 

Although my chosen foods didn’t erase my sadness or grief, they did help sustain me. They gave me the emotional comfort and physical energy I needed to make it through each day. 

Demonized by Diet Culture
Despite its tremendous power to soothe, diet culture has demonized comfort food. 

It has taught us to feel bad, guilty, weak or ashamed when we turn to it to navigate tough times. 

As a result, we often feel we have to justify our desires, hide our eating, and make up for our “food sins.”

Nothing could be further from the truth. 

Rightful Coping Tool
Turning to food to self-soothe is a natural human behavior, one we do from the day we’re born.

Its ability to soothe our mind, body, heart and soul is something to embrace and celebrate. 

Providing comfort is just one of the many roles it plays in our lives, one of the many ways it meets our needs, and one of the many gifts it gives us.

For many of us, food is an easily accessible coping mechanism—one that has a rightful place in our emotional coping toolkit.

Compassion and Curiosity
My “heartbreak diet” didn’t last forever. I eventually added in more foods and made my way back to cooking. 

I’ve had much tougher, sadder times since that breakup and it’s been interesting to see how each experience has impacted my eating.

Because I’ve worked hard to make peace with food and my body—something that was spurred on by that breakup—I’m now able to observe what I’m experiencing with compassion and curiosity rather than criticism and judgment.

And I appreciate all the more the power of food to comfort. 

I Have a Love-Hate Relationship With Food

How would you describe your relationship with food?

When I ask people this question, one of the most frequent answers I get is “I have a love-hate relationship with food.”

Some other common responses include:

• Bad

• Complicated

• Obsessive

• Unhealthy

• Stressful

• Guilt-ridden

• Difficult

• All-or-nothing

• Controlling

• Compulsive

• Anxiety-filled

• Unsatisfying

• Negative

• Judgmental

• Fearful

• Punitive

Do any of these descriptors resonate with you?

I See It Differently Now
Many years ago, when I was restricting my eating in an effort to lose weight and be a "clean eater," I probably would have described my relationship with food as good, healthy, disciplined. 

As I was so entrenched in diet and wellness cultures, I couldn’t see how disordered my eating had become. I thought I was being good, doing the right thing. 

This belief was often reinforced by many of the people around me, who often praised my eating. I don’t blame them; we live in a culture that normalizes and celebrates disordered eating. 

Ironically, I also considered myself to be a passionate foodie even though I rarely ate anything that wasn't on my diet-approved safe list. Instead, I took a lot of joy in watching others consume the foods I was excited about it.

Looking back now, I would describe my relationship with food as all-consuming, hypervigilant, calculated, rigid, black-and-white, moralistic, fraught, tense, isolating and utterly exhausting. 

I feel sad and regretful when I reflect on that time, and also incredibly grateful I got out of such an awful relationship.

Of course, some aspects of it were pleasurable, at least for brief moments until I reached the point of uncomfortable fullness (overeating is a natural response to food deprivation), and before my inner Food Police started shouting at me (“You were so bad! You need to make up for it!).

What Do You Want?
In addition to asking folks how they would describe their relationship with food, I also like to ask what type of relationship they would like to have.

Easy, guilt-free, peaceful, positive, pleasurable and neutral are just a few of the words that come to mind.

"I just want food to be food" is a common refrain.

When you reflect on this question, what comes up for you? 

And what’s standing in between where you are now and where you would like to be?