Do you ever feel like you have a love/hate relationship with food? You love the taste of it and sometimes find it enjoyable. It’s there for you when you need it and want it. And, it can make you feel really good physically!
On the flip side, you hate it! It’s something you can’t get off your mind, creates a lot of stress and you constantly feel like you have to resist it. When you lose the fight and can’t resist it anymore, you beat yourself up for overindulging.
Deep down you knew the food wasn’t going to make you feel better or comfort you, but for some reason you ate it anyways. You might say you’ve lost your motivation, or if you just had a little more willpower you could have been strong enough to not binge eat. Chances are there is more to the story!
When we feel like we’re lacking willpower or discipline around food, it can lead to feeling out of control with our food choices. That can show up by binge eating, stress eating or emotional eating.
Initially people think accountability will help them stay on track, which can be helpful, but it doesn’t always address the root of the issue. What happens when your accountability partner goes away? In the work I do with my clients, we look at slip-ups and falling off track as a symptom there is something emotional happening.
When we binge eat, emotionally eat or stress eat, we’re typically going through this unconscious cycle that doesn’t have anything to do with self-discipline or willpower.
Source: Ali Shapiro, Truce with Food®
I’m going to focus on the trigger, since that’s what typically trips off this cycle. There are four common triggers that lead people to eat, which are feeling:
I like to use the acronym TAIL, to help remember what they are.
When we eat, it isn’t the trigger itself that starts this cycle. We perceive the feeling is “bad”, so we gear up in an effort to not choose the wrong thing. We also don’t like feeling discomfort, so we turn to food as a way to avoid the uncomfortable feelings. Part of the reason that happens is because we don’t actually know what’s happening beneath the surface.
So let’s break down each trigger a bit more:
To help reduce some of the guilt and shame after you eat out of alignment with your goals, take a moment to pause. Reflect back when you had food noise or had a “hard” or “bad” eating moment. What was happening when you went off track? Were any of the TAIL emotions present? You don’t want to look at the circumstances and what was happening. Instead, reflect and see what was being triggered in you when you went off track with your eating. It’s more of an internal focus, instead of external.
What we want to see by doing this exercise is there isn’t usually one big event that leads us to eat. It’s typically a buildup of multiple events we may not realize even triggered us.
When we don’t know why we fall off track, or why we can be disciplined in other areas of life, but not around food, that’s when we feel out of control with food. You likely fill in the gap with ‘what’s wrong with me?’ or ‘what am I doing wrong?’ However, what if it isn’t about you at all, and the approach is what leaves you powerless?
Reflect: What do I love about this approach? What is important to me about doing it? What is no longer serving me?
Gaining the clarity of an accurate root cause of why you fall off track and learning how to resolve the root triggers leads to feeling in “control” of food for the long-term. When you can accurately uncover why your falling off track makes sense, so much shifts!
Here’s a hint: when you fall off track with your eating and food feels out of control, it’s really about lacking the safety of belonging somewhere. That’s why trying harder with food doesn’t do the trick in the long run. This may sound abstract at first, but it’s clearly laid out in the Truce with Food program and once you see it, it’s something you won’t be able to unsee.
It’s a process that becomes a practice, which will lead to feeling in control and having the ability to holistically care for yourself from a nourishing place (versus shame-based motivation).
When we look at emotional eating as a sign to bring curiosity to what’s happening, it will give you hope, control and confidence that you’re more than capable of resolving your emotional eating triggers. If you don’t know how to do that yet, it’s OK! Be gentle with yourself because many other professionals don’t even know how to go there, so it isn’t common practice yet.
Over time, you can restore the self-trust that has dwindled through years of falling off track. The more self-trust you have, the less you’ll believe there’s a perfect food or exercise plan you haven’t discovered yet.
Reflect: What do I make it mean about me when I’m off track with my eating? What if I wasn’t striving for perfection? What would I choose?
Clarity and awareness are really powerful in creating a more balanced relationship with food so you can move to a more neutral space instead of staying in the love/hate pattern. The goal is to no longer have to resist food or feel controlled by it. Getting to a place where you have the power and can choose to eat what you want when you want it is freeing and possible!
If you’re curious about how the process works so you can finally feel in control of your eating, check out the “Healthy Relationship with Food Masterclass.” You’ll discover the 5-step process that will help you end self-sabotage with food, clear up mental chatter around food, and feel more comfortable and confident in your body!
About Laura:
Laura B. Folkes is a national board certified health and wellness coach and holds a certification from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition (IIN) and the NBHWC. She has supported over 130 clients who know what they should be eating but have a hard time sticking to it by helping them identify the familiar patterns keeping them stuck so they can radically transform their relationship with food.
Laura is a certified facilitator of the research-based Truce with Food® process, which helps clients achieve sustainable results by getting to the bottom of why they fall off track and aren’t able to remain consistent. She’s also the creator of the self-paced course, “Behind Your Cravings.”
After successfully losing 60 pounds and working through her own emotional relationship with food, Laura’s mission became helping others get to the bottom of their self-sabotaging patterns.
Laura coaches clients one-on-one, in small groups, runs workshops, speaks at summits and conferences, and has been featured in Voyage Chicago. Laura can be contacted at https://laurabfolkes.com or [email protected]
