Principle 4: Challenge the Food Police

Chapter 8 of the book Intuitive Eating.

Scream a loud "NO" to thoughts in your head that declare you're "good" for eating under 1000 calories or "bad" because you ate a piece of cake. The food police monitor the unreasonable rules that dieting has created. The police station is housed deep in your psyche and its loudspeaker shouts negative barbs, hopeless phrases, and guilt-provoking indictments. Chasing the food police away is a critical step in returning to intuitive eating.

There is more than one voice in your head though and here are some examples.

The food police have some common rules to judge your eating. Here they are:
1. Don't eat at night
2. Better not eat that bagel too many carbs
3. You didn't excercise today better not eat dinner
4. It's not time to eat yet - don't have that snack
5. You ate too much
This talk hurts you because it keeps food and your body at war. It never helps you!
The nutrition informant sounds like this:
1. Check those fat grams, anything above 1 gram is unacceptable
2. Don't eat foods with added sweeteners
This talk hurts you when it colludes with the food police. It operates under the guise of health but it's promoting an unconscious diet.
The diet rebel sounds like this:
1. You're not going to get me to eat that plain broiled chicken!
2. I'll show you, you think I should lose 5 pounds huh - I'll put on 10
3. Let's see how many cookies I can stuff in before mom gets home
4. I can't wait til my husband goes out of town so I can eat whatever I want.

Now there are ways to replace these voices (you'll have to read the book)!

Here are a few examples of process thinking:

1. This was a rough week. But I learned some new things about myself that will help me make changes in the future.
2. My weight loss seems to come in spurts. Now and then I even gain a little but it's all part of the process. Our bodies do not behave like machines with linear results.
3. I ate more than I wanted to at the restaurant tonight, especially dessert. But I learned that giving myself permission to eat dessert took away the urgency to have sweets again. Usually I would have binged when I got home, alone.

SELF AWARENESS is the ultimate weapon against the food police.

Live Healthy at thinchic.com!