Recognising Your Own Food Rules and Restrictions
Food rules and restrictions can be very very sneaky.
There’s a bit of a misconception that restriction means not eating, or only eating teeny tiny amounts. However there can be lots of different ways that food rules and restrictions work their way into our lives and the way we approach food, which can have a significant impact on our relationship with food and mental health.
The first step to overcoming these rules and restrictions is to bring awareness to the fact that they are there. Once you have recognised them, you can consciously work on challenging your beliefs and habits around these (if needed, with the support and guidance of a nutrition professional!), and find more freedom and peace with food.
Here is some ways that food rules and restrictions may manifest:
Calorie restriction.
Setting yourself a limit on how many calories you are ‘allowed’ to eat in a day, or per meal or snack. This may also apply to limits on how many grams of certain macronutrients (carbohydrates, protein or fat) you allow yourself per day, meal or snack.
2. Restrictions around times you can eat.
Only allowing yourself to eat at or before/after certain times of the day. For example, I can only eat lunch after 12pm, even if I am hungry earlier. Or, I can’t eat any later than 7pm, or I have to wait X hours between meals or snacks before eating again.
3. Compensating for food intake.
This may look like ‘making up’ for eating more or eating certain foods by exercising, going for extra walks or restricting/reducing your food intake at other meals or snacks, or the following days. For example, skipping meals or eating less during the day if you know you will be going out for dinner that day. Or not allowing yourself to eat certain things or amounts if you haven’t exercised as much as you think you ‘should’ have.
4. Hoarding food.
The most common form of food hoarding is in the form of ‘saving’ calories for later in the day. It may also look like physically hoarding foods by saving them until another day - for example, having a huge draw of snacks that just keeps piling up and up, but never actually eating them!
5. Fear foods.
Avoiding certain foods because of fear and anxiety associated with eating them, or seeing them as ‘bad’ foods. NOTE that this does not include foods avoided for medical reasons, like allergies.
This may manifest in always needing to cook separate food to the rest of your family or not being able to eat in social settings or out at restaurants, or feeling very stressed and anxious when you do.
6. Food comparison.
Comparing your own food intake or food choices to those around you, which may be friends and family, or people on social media. For example, feeling like you eat ‘too much’ because another family member has a smaller portion. Or feeling guilty about eating, or not allowing yourself to eat, because someone else isn’t. It can also look like questioning your food choices because of people on social media’s food posts or ‘what I eat in a day’ videos, or trying to copy these.
7. Volume eating.
Filling up on very high volume, high fibre and low calorie foods, or diet foods, but avoiding more energy dense foods. For examples, using lots of diet products like sugar free syrups, sweeteners diet drinks and protein bars. Or very large quantities of vegetables added to meals, often in replacement of more energy dense food groups, such as complex carbohydrates (rice, pasta, bread etc).
8. Limits around portion or number of foods.
Only allowing yourself certain portion sizes or a limited serving per day/week of certain foods or food groups. For example, not allowing yourself to have more than the packaging writes to be ‘one serve’, or only allowing yourself to eat bread once per day, or no more than one banana per day.
9. Strict planning.
Having to plan out all of your food in advance, not being able to deviate from this, or feeling very stressed and anxious if your food plans do change.
10. Fear of the unknown.
Only being able to eat food where you know the exact ingredients, and/or calories, weight of the serving Sie or macros of the food, or feeling very stressed and anxious about eating foods where you don’t know these things.
Can any of the above things be ‘healthy’?
It’s important to NOTE: Not all of the above behaviours are necessarily ‘bad’ and show an unhealthy relationship with food. This is really important to remember. In fact, sometimes they CAN actually be helpful or even medically necessary for certain people or in certain situations, for example someone who is type 1 diabetic may weigh and carb count all their food in order to dose their insulin accurately, or someone who may have a weight loss goal for their health may be looking at adding in more lower energy and higher volume foods to help increase the nutrient density, yet reduce the caloric density of their diet. Or an athlete competing in body building may choose to weigh and count all their food in order to help them reach their performance and competition goals…
Remember that the important thing is not the WHAT, but the WHY and HOW it’s affecting you and your mindset and relationship with food.
Are you able to enjoy food?
Are you feeling stressed and anxious around food, especially when things don’t go exactly the way that you had planned?
Are you able to fully participate in life, including social events?
Are you able to be flexible and spontaneous?
Are you content and happy with your relationship with food?
If you are happy with your answers to those questions, then all the power to you!! Keep it up!
However, if you aren’t, then perhaps it’s time to rethink whether these beliefs and behaviours are truly serving you, and start working towards actively challenging these rules and restrictions, in order to overcome them and find more freedom and peace with food, and ultimately, improve your relationship with food and yourself!
If this is something you would like help and support with, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me and book in for a one-on-one consult.
