Once I Open the Bag, I Can't Stop!

Ever since she was a kid, Kendra loved barbecue potato chips. They reminded her of summer pool parties, lakeside picnics and backyard cookouts.

When she began dieting in her 20s, she rarely let herself eat them. Her beloved salty snacks had been put on her “bad” foods list.

However, making the chips a forbidden food backfired. Depriving herself of them only intensified her cravings.

Soon they became one of Kendra's trigger foods. Once she started crunching away on them, she couldn’t stop.

When she would break down and finally eat the chips, her eating felt out of control. She ate with a sense of urgency, barely even tasting them.

Halfway through the bag, she’d tell herself, “I’ve come this far, I might as well keep going since I’m never letting myself have these again!”

As she licked the barbecue seasoning off her fingers, Kendra would be overcome with tremendous guilt and shame.

These feelings, coupled with the overeating, provided her with false evidence that she simply couldn’t be trusted with the chips. She vowed to never let them cross her lips again.

But she couldn’t stop thinking about them!

The Habituation Effect
Feeling obsessed with your forbidden foods is a natural outcome of dieting and deprivation. Telling yourself you can’t have something often makes you want it even more.

When you make foods off limits, whether it’s chocolate, ice cream, bread, chips or fries, it elevates their desirability, reward value and power.

In order to make peace with the chips and stop her restrict-binge-repent-repeat cycle, Kendra needed to experience the habituation effect.

Habituation means the more you eat a particular food, the less enticing it becomes.

As its novelty and allure wears off, the food becomes neutral. It’s no longer a big deal. You desire it less. (You’ve probably experienced this with leftovers.)

Forbidden-food rules, food restriction and dieting prevent habituation. Lack of habituation, combined with the fear you'll never be able to eat a certain food again, commonly results in intense cravings, overeating and binge eating.

Unconditional Permission to Eat
In the past, Kendra would only allow herself to eat barbecue chips about once a month since she always ended up losing control and overdoing it.

In order to habituate to the chips, she started to eat them every day, sometimes a few times a day.

At first, Kendra was scared to have the chips around all the time. As she feared, she did continue to overeat them for a while. However, although she didn’t trust herself yet, she did trust the process and stuck with it.

By giving herself unconditional permission to enjoy the chips whenever she wanted and however much she wanted, Kendra was able to neutralize her relationship with them.

Eventually, her desire for the chips diminished. Sometimes she completely forgot they were in her cupboard! When she did want them, she was able to eat an amount that felt just right, completely guilt-free.

Encouraged by the outcome, Kendra slowly started eating her other forbidden foods, gradually rebuilding her self-trust while enjoying a more peaceful, flexible and relaxed relationship with food.

Nourishing My Soul in Jordan

I just returned from traveling around Jordan for a few weeks.

It was a very memorable adventure, especially hiking in the prehistoric city of Petra, one of the world’s most famous archaeological sites.

The act of travel feeds my soul on such a deep level that food often becomes a secondary form of nourishment.

This also happens when I’m immersed in other pleasurable pursuits, such as reading a captivating book, strolling in the park or losing myself in a creative project.

Lack of Soul Food
When you don't regularly engage in soul-satisfying endeavors—whether it’s traveling, singing, dancing, drawing, gardening, volunteering or communing with Mother Nature—your life can become pleasure deficient.

As a result, you can become over-reliant on food to fulfill your inherent desire and need for pleasure.

Of course, food should be a tremendous source of pleasure. Problems can arise, however, when it becomes your only source of pleasure.

If you struggle with food obsession, cravings, emotional eating or overeating, consider if your life is lacking "soul food." 

Jot down a list of everything that feeds your soul and gives you genuine pleasure, then reflect on how frequently you engage with each item listed. If rarely, consider what needs to change so you’re experiencing more pleasure in your daily life.

Although there are many reasons for food preoccupation, cravings, emotional eating and overeating, once you start nourishing your soul with more pleasurable pursuits—the things that make you feel truly alive, energized and free—you may discover you rely less on food to enrich your life.

This has been true for me and for many of my clients. It certainly can be for you, too.

How to Make Up for Eating Too Much Halloween Candy

With bowls and bags of Halloween candy scattered around the office and home, it’s easy to eat way more sugar than you typically would.

For many of us, eating episodes like this are considered a food sin and often lead to a make-up mentality that sounds something like this:

To make up for being bad, I will…

• skip breakfast and lunch tomorrow.

• cut carbs and work out extra hard all week.

• go on a 10-day detox diet.

• not eat sugar for the next month.

This penance approach frequently results in a vicious cycle of restrict-binge-repent-repeat. It’s ineffective, physically and psychologically damaging, and causes a lot of unnecessary suffering.

The key to avoiding this painful cycle is to stop believing you have to make up for your eating decisions—and stop making a fix-it plan.

Instead, when you feel like you’ve committed a “food transgression,” remind yourself that it's normal to overeat sometimes—then move on with your life.

Rather than feeling guilty, beating yourself up, and shifting into make-up mentality, simply resume your daily self-care practices.

And listen to your body. It will tell you what it needs.

For example, you may wake up tomorrow and find your appetite is smaller than usual. So eat a smaller breakfast.

Or, you may find you’re hungry for your usual breakfast or something completely different. Go for whatever sounds the most nourishing and satisfying.

Don't deprive or punish yourself and your body because you feel you ate badly. Doing so always backfires.

By avoiding the make-up mentality, you’ll experience a greater sense of ease and peace with food and your body.