Intuitive Eating Principle 3: Make Peace with Food

The third principle of Intuitive Eating is Make Peace with Food. I’ve found that this principle is also a challenge for many of my clients because it involves giving yourself unconditional permission to eat all foods. Yes, you read that correctly: I mean ALL foods. An important step in making peace with food is taking words like “good”, “bad”, “healthy”, and “unhealthy” out of your vocabulary when talking and thinking about food. This black and white, binary thinking only sets us up for feelings of guilt and deprivation, which we know can kick off the Dieting Merry-Go-Round or binge-restrict cycle. Giving yourself to permission to eat “forbidden foods” can feel a little bit scary and chaotic at first, but after time that feeling will pass and you’ll treat them just like anything else you eat. When we talk about healing your relationship with food, making peace with food is at the core!

The Big Red Button

We’ve discussed previously how physical deprivation (especially through dieting) can set us up to crave different foods, but the same thing can happen with psychological deprivation as well. In their book Intuitive Eating (affiliate link), Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch describe “The Deprivation Setup” or what I like to call the “Big Red Button Effect”. I’m sure you’ve seen this bit play out in your favorite childhood cartoon, but I think it’s a perfect analogy for the effect dieting and restriction have on our thoughts. The main character doesn’t know why, but is told that they can’t press the Big Red Button. Soon, all they can think about is the Big Red Button until they finally get to press it.

The same concept is often seen when telling ourselves we can’t have certain foods or certain quantities of food. “When you rigidly limit the amount of food you are allowed to eat, it usually sets you up to crave larger quantities of that very food (Intuitive Eating, 2012).” It makes this food seem special, which heightens our desire for it.

When working with clients as they make peace with food, I sometimes share my personal experience with the Big Red Button Effect. The Big Red Button for me: potato chips. I used to be OBSESSED with potato chips. I felt like I couldn’t keep them in my apartment because I would eat an entire bag of Lays or a sleeve of Pringles at a time. I chalked it up to these foods being “hyper-palatable” and “addictive” thanks to the food companies wanting us to eat (and therefore buy) more of their product. However, I slowly started to connect the dots that any time I tried to restrict my chip intake further, I would always end up feeling out of control and like I couldn’t stop eating them. I would go to parties and spend the night hanging out with the bowl of chips. I’d buy a bag as a “treat” and end up eating almost the entire thing in one sitting. The more I tried not to eat them, the more I would eat. Here I was, a (almost) Registered Dietitian, addicted to chips. So what did I do?

I ate the dang chips. I said SCREW IT, if I want chips, I’m just going to freaking eat the chips. And that’s what I did. For two weeks I had chips every. single. day. But you know what happened the third week? I didn’t really want the chips. I knew they were there, and that I could have them if I wanted them, but I honestly didn’t.

The Habituation Effect

My experience with potato chips really showed me the power of giving myself unconditional permission to eat all foods, which is a major component of making peace with food. Chips aren’t good or bad, they’re just chips. By allowing myself to have them, it took their power away. I now keep chips in the pantry at all times and enjoy some whenever I feel like it, but I’m not eating bags at a time. My body trusts that if it wants a salty, crunchy snack, it’s going to get it!

To me, this is a really good example of something important that happens when we take food off of a pedestal and allow ourselves to eat the things we typically think of as “bad”: habituation. Habituation can explain why foods become less enticing the more often we eat them. Think about eating leftovers – you’re typically sick of the same meal over and over by about day two or three. That’s habituation. Psychologist Daniel Gilbert explains this phenomenon well, “Wonderful things are especially wonderful the first time they happen, but their wonderfulness wanes with repetition.” Research has shown that we can habituate to a wide variety of foods, including ones that are typically considered “hyper-palatable”. Giving yourself unconditional permission to eat helps with this habituation process. The novelty of eating certain foods will wane over time.

Five Steps to Make Peace with Food

Making peace with food sounds good in theory, but how do we actually do it? I’m going to outline a few steps below, but I want you to remember that it’s ok to do things as you feel comfortable with them – there’s no rush! This process takes time, and jumping in before you’re ready and feel like you can trust the process may end up backfiring. Before starting to make peace with food, I highly recommend working on consistently honoring your hunger as a first step. If you’re over-hungry, you’re bound to overeat even if you intend to have this be a mindful process.

1. Make a list of the foods that are most appealing to you or you feel most out of control around. This may be a wide variety of foods, and not just ones we would consider sweets or snacks.
2. Put a checkmark next to the foods that you allow yourself to eat, and circle the ones that you’ve been restricting or telling yourself you can’t have or need to “watch your portion”.
3. Choose a food that you’ve circled from this list that you’d like to make peace with first. I sometimes recommend choosing something you would consider “easy” to start. Go to the store and buy this food or order it when you are out to eat.
4. As you’re eating the food, ask yourself if it is as good as you imagined. Really pay attention to the taste, texture, and how it makes you feel. If you do really enjoy it, continue to give yourself permission to buy or order it.
5. Keep enough of the food on hand so that it will be there when you want it. For some foods, that may not be possible or seem little scary, so another option would be to start with ordering it at a restaurant whenever you like.

Eventually, you may notice that you don’t want this food as often as before or you don’t need as much to feel satisfied. Once you’ve reached that point with the food you first selected, continue this process with each food on your list. Your experience with each food will likely be different, but if you approach this process with curiosity, you will discover what you really enjoy eating. You may also find that these previously feared foods don’t hold as much power over you as you thought.

Seek Support

Making peace with food can sometimes be a challenging, scary process. If you feel like you could use some support, I recommend working with a registered dietitian who is also well-versed in Intuitive Eating or a Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor. I’m happy to help you with this part of your journey if you have any questions or feel like it’s too tough to do alone. Reach out to me here or fill out an Intuitive Eating Coaching application.

Mindfully yours,
Sam