Making Scary Foods Less Scary
Coming from diet culture, we all have been in contact with food labeled bad and forbidden, or we have dubbed them as such. With this, you may still be scared to be around that food or to have it in your home. The purpose of this blog post is to give a reason for how to reintroduce these scary foods back into your life without fear of overeating or binging on the food. We are going to talk about how to make scary foods less scary and how to reintroduce them into your life.
What are Scary Foods?
Scary foods are the foods that our society and diet culture have deemed as bad or unhealthy. “Junk food” or “snack foods” are usually under the category of bad foods and could be your scary foods. Scary foods can be more personal than the broad spectrum of junk foods. It could be a food you used to eat as a comfort food, but it may have led to binge eating that one food and caused you to overeat. When I was going through the dieting phase/ED, anything that was sweet or a dessert item was scary for me because I thought that if I even ate one, I would gain [blank] amount of weight and would not be able to live my dream of being a model. With the Intuitive Eating approach, not every food becomes safe territory like magic. Everything regarded in diet culture and the dieting mentality takes time to reconnect to and rebuild trust. Just as in rebuilding body trust and trust in yourself that you will know when your body is full or showing signs of fullness; similarly, you will have to learn how to interact with foods that used to be scary for you.
How to Make Scary Food Not So Scary
Now, I want you to think of a single food item you used to deem off-limits. You do not have to reintroduce every scary food back into your life at once; that would be overload and a potential trigger for a binge. If I were to think of a food that used to be scary for me, it would be Tate’s Chocolate Chip Cookies. Before I started my journey with intuitive eating, I would, without thinking, eat both sleeves of cookies in a single sitting. I usually do this while bored, trying to find something to watch on a streaming service or writing notes from an assigned reading for class. There are a few things that I have learned from Robin’s Intuitive Eating sessions on the fullness that have helped me cope with my scary foods. One helpful thing she advises is to keep scary food readily available in your home. This way, if you are craving food, you can eat it. Food will begin to lose its sense of desire and lustfulness because you will have it around more, and it will not seem as precious because of the readily available amount. This is habituation; exposing yourself to foods that have been forbidden previously, and the food losing its novelty. I started to implement this with Tate’s Cookies, I would have five bags around my apartment, and when I craved one, I would have a cookie; but I would acknowledge my hunger and focus on enjoying and savoring the food. I found myself actually enjoying the snack more than I had before and wouldn’t eat so many of them at once anymore!
Coming out of diet culture can be scary when it comes to reintroducing foods that used to be off-limits. Making food off-limits because of whatever label that diet culture or the media have given it, does not mean that it is terrible and should be banned from your life. Intuitive Eating is learning to eat with intention, reconnecting your hunger cues, and focusing on satisfaction. If you have questions about Intuitive Eating, please message Robin Harris through email at robin@bodypositiveacupuncture.com to schedule a workshop. I look forward to more posts like these, which will dive into different areas of intuitive eating!