115. Back To Basics - Principle 4 Challenge the food police

Today in my back to basics series I’m talking about intuitive eating principle 4, challenge the food police. 

The food police? Who are they?

You know those voices in your head that tell you you’ve eaten too much, you shouldn’t eat something because it’s bad for you, or that you can eat now because you’ve been to the gym….. that’s the food police.

And we want them gone! 

In this episode I’ll help you to understand those thoughts, and give you tips for how to change them.

Transcript

A quick heads up before you start reading..... My transcriptions are automatically generated. I do not type them manually. For this reason there may be errors, incorrect words, bad spelling, bad grammar, and other things that just seem a little 'off'. You'll still be able to understand what is being said though, so please just ignore that and enjoy the episode.


[00:00:00] 

Hello, welcome back to my Back to Basics series for intuitive eating. In this episode, I'm going to walk you through one of the 10 principles of intuitive eating. I'm going to help you understand it a little bit more. I'm going to give you some thoughts that you can take away and mull over so you can figure out how the principle applies to you.

This episode forms part of a series, so keep listening if you want to, but if you've just found this you can keep listening if you want to, but to get the most out of it, I'd suggest you go back and start at the beginning. 

In this episode, we are talking about intuitive eating, principle four, challenge the food police. 

The who? 

In principle one, we talked about rejecting diet mentality,

and I talked to you about where diet culture is, and hopefully now, now you've had a few [00:01:00] days to think about it, you're starting to see it around you, to spot it as you go about your day and to understand the nonsense that it is. 

However, if you've been subject to diet culture for a very long time and all these messages have been chipping away at you for a long time, then they will all sink in and they will take hold and they create the beliefs that we have around food. 

So, messages like, you can only eat bread once a day, you cannot have Greek yogurt because it's fattening, you should not eat a whole pizza, even if you're really hungry and you're enjoying it and it's got a heap of great stuff on top of it, no, no, whole pizza, bad.

That all stems from diet culture. They're all rules that have been made up by diet companies somewhere along the line. Diet companies spread the message. That these things are bad for [00:02:00] us. And in one way, shape or form, it gets into our heads and it lifts their rent free for many, many years after. And this is how we end up with food rules.

And it's not just explicitly about what type of food you're allowed. It's also messaging about what exercise you need to do, how much exercise you should do, and how you should exercise to be able to eat more food, essentially. The guilt that comes up around food ends up being voices in our heads and they end up being these niggling thoughts that anytime you even contemplate going somewhere near food that is supposedly not good for you or not good for your diet, then you end up with this horrible voice in your head that tells you you shouldn't eat it, and it tells you, you have to make up for it after. 

And these [00:03:00] thoughts in your head are what we call the food police in intuitive eating. And let me tell you, those food police are mean.

Those voices, a little voice that tells you how many calories is in the donut you're about to eat. Food police. 

The voice in your head that comes out in your exercise class, telling you that you can now go and have something to eat because you've burnt off some calories. Food police. 

And that voice on a Monday morning, telling you you've had one hell of a weekend, you've eaten far too much, you've drank too much alcohol, you better cut back this week, the diet starts today. Food Police. Food Police. Food Police. 

Do you know where the Food Police come from? It comes from all the magazine companies, with their messages all over the front covers, [00:04:00] criticizing celebrities.

That have gained weight, or lost weight, or aged, or just somehow changed. And what you don't realise, is that these messages are there in a much more subtle form all the time too. So, they're on the magazine covers, when you've got titles like, 5 healthy snacks to have in your lunchbox this week, or, slim down in 14 days for Christmas, that sort of thing.

It's all messages that we're taking in all the time. By these magazine advertising, by these food police, the advertising slogans, the TV messaging, all that sort of thing.

There is a company that makes crisps and they did a recent advertising campaign that basically said their crisps were not as low in calories as they would [00:05:00] like them to be, but they're lower than the others. So that makes them okay to eat. 

I mean, that's blatant, right? That's blatant dieting messaging. But there really are more subtle ways of making you feel good about your food choices or bad about your food choices.

Messaging on food packaging. If you take a look at it, will say things like only X amount of calories, or it will say low fat, low sugar, um, high fiber, or the traffic light signals that's on the front of packaging are designed to make you make healthier choices. 

That's just some of the most common ways that you'll see this messaging, but it all creates this thought in your mind that you're being better by choosing that food above another food. It puts food on a moral standing. [00:06:00] 

Then there are all the influencers, right? All the companies that are on social media, the celebs on social media telling you about detoxing and cleansing and lifestyle changes. 

All the people around you, too, that say things like " You shouldn't really eat that". Or, "How can you eat that?"

Or they somehow swing it around and they say something like, "I couldn't possibly eat that. No. It's far too many calories for me". Or something like, "No, no. I'm slimming down. I'm going on holiday soon". Or even worse, "Oh, you're so good. You can just eat what you want. I wish I was like that". 

Well, be like that then. Be like that. Be an intuitive eater. Eat what you want. That is the answer, is it not? 

Even though they're talking about themselves, and what they've actually done is put [00:07:00] those food police thoughts right into your brain for you to mull over in some kind of weird reverse psychology. And now, they are making you feel bad for their thoughts around food.

And here is the worst of all the food police, in my honest opinion. The What I Eat In A Day posts. Ugh. You know those posts where people say what they've eaten during the day, or in the past week, they share photos and they make it feel like that's what you should eat in a day too. Here is what I eat, therefore that is what you should eat too, is the message.

But actually, what they're showing you is just the highlights reel of their day or their week. They are showing you what they're choosing to show you. They will not be showing you all the little snacks and the bits and pieces around those meals. that they have eaten. They will not show you the meals that they wouldn't consider to be typically [00:08:00] healthy.

They're just showing you what they want you to see. 

And so this is the thing, this is what I want you to remember. Guilt. Guilt is for people who steal, who lie, who murder, that sort of thing. Guilt is not something that has a place in and around food. You should not be feeling guilty for eating. 

But the food police, they make sure you do feel guilty.

They're like judge and jury. They come in, they scrutinize everything you eat. Every time we put a full food rule in place, we give them power. Every time we decide that we are not going to eat after a certain time in the evening, we're not going to eat at a certain time of day, we are only going to have this amount of calories,

or we're no longer going to eat this food group, it's putting a rule in place that the food police can then come in and enforce. 

They're not helpful. They don't [00:09:00] give you any kind of assistance. Our good old local Bobby's on the street, you'd like to think if you went out and you talked to them and you asked them for some help, for some assistance, that you would get some assistance.

But the food police, no, no, they are a different kettle of fish. They are not there to help you. They are there to criticize you. They are there to judge you, and they are there to make you feel bad. 

So now is the time to turn that around. Get really interested in your thoughts. Be really interested in where they come from and why you think them.

They might derive from rules on diet plans or old things that your consultant used to say.

It might be old family stuff, messaging from your parents maybe about how much chocolate you're allowed to eat or how you shouldn't leave the table until you've finished your meal, that sort of thing. 

There might be other reasons for you, but get curious about these thoughts, and [00:10:00] also be kind to yourself in those thoughts too.

Turn it around and make it a compassionate voice. Say, I know, right now I think I'm not allowed to have another piece of toast. But actually, that's what I need. That's what I need to feel satisfied. To make me feel like I've had a good breakfast. To make me feel like I can get through this afternoon.

Whatever it is, give yourself a compassionate voice. Tell yourself it's okay to have that thing. And if you do go ahead, or when you do go ahead and eat that food, that you've been telling yourself you shouldn't eat, and afterwards you feel awful for it, again, have some compassion. 

Change your thought process.

You can acknowledge it. You can say, okay, I don't feel good right now, but this feeling is temporary. 

Give it an hour, I'll be feeling fine again. 

There is nothing to be gained from beating [00:11:00] yourself up because you're feeling physically rubbish after eating food. You've done it, you can't change it. You just need to accept it, acknowledge it and let it pass. 

You really can't do much about the magazines and the people around you that are talking about food and guilt and making you feel bad about things, but you can change thoughts in your head.

You can change the way you think about food. 

You can choose to enjoy it. You can choose to feel the satisfaction and the pleasure in food. You can choose to honour your hunger. 

You can choose your behaviour after you've eaten. You can turn your thoughts around. Even if you catch yourself with a negative thought, you can turn that around and replace it with a more compassionate one.

So, to hell with those food police! Do not give them the power or the control. 

Can you imagine if we managed to shut out all those messages? The diet companies, the magazines, the [00:12:00] newspapers, the adverts, the food packaging, the influencers. Imagine if you could just make it all stop. 

So today, I would like you to start to notice these messages and these thoughts. 

Take note of when they come up, take note of what foods they relate to, and how they make you feel, because to become aware of them is a step in the right direction.

If you would like me to help you work through this, then I would really love to have a call with you. You can have a free 30 minute session with me. We can talk about how you feel about food. I can give you some tips to help you get started straight away. And then we can look at some options that might help you with me going forward.

So if you would like to book that session, just find the link. It's in the show notes and I look forward to meeting you.