Today we continue our Intuitive Eating series with Intuitive Eating Principle 4 – Challenge the Food Police.
In case you missed it:
- What is Intuitive Eating?
- Intuitive Eating Principle 1: Reject the Diet Mentality
- Intuitive Eating in Real Life: Principle 1
- Intuitive Eating Principle 2: Honor Your Hunger
- Intuitive Eating in Real Life: Principle 2
- Intuitive Eating Principle 3: Make Peace with Food
- Intuitive Eating in Real Life: Principle 3
The 4th Edition of the Intuitive Eating book came out June 23, 2020!
Intuitive Eating Principle 4 – Challenge the Food Police
The snapshot of Intuitive Eating Principle 4 – Challenge the Food Police is: “Scream a loud “No” to thoughts in your head that declare you’re “good” for eating minimal calories or “bad” because you ate a piece of chocolate cake. The Food Police monitor the unreasonable rules that dieting has created. The police station is housed deep in your psyche and its loudspeaker shouts negative barbs, hopeless phrases, and guilt-provoking indictments. Chasing the Food Police away is a critical step in returning to Intuitive Eating.”
This Principle is very closely tied to Principle 1: Reject the Diet Mentality in that both of these principles can be difficult for people as these thoughts and ideas around dieting have been ingrained in us for so long.
If you find that you’ve been struggling or even going backwards in this journey right now, that is OKAY and completely normal. This is NOT a 10-step linear process. Be kind with yourself and try to see what you can learn from this experience and these feelings that you are having. They are helping you work towards becoming an Intuitive Eater once again.
The authors of Intuitive Eating describe the Food Police as, “a strong voice that’s developed through dieting. It’s your inner judge and jury that determine if you are doing “good” or “bad.” The Food Police is the sum of all your dieting and food rules, and gets stronger with each diet.”
What People Are Saying About Intuitive Eating
I recently went through this exercise with a new client, asking what food rules or thoughts she has around food. Without hesitation, she named off five before I said that was enough, let’s start there.
These Food Police thoughts included, “Processed foods are toxic” and “Fruit is good but shouldn’t be eaten first” and “Sugar is addicting.” I am sure we can all relate to these thoughts and have many other examples.
There are some great exercises in the Intuitive Eating Workbook in this chapter. Examine your beliefs about food and your body. Reflect upon where these beliefs came from and how they affect your thoughts and behaviors. This can be really eye opening for people as these Food Police thoughts often go unnoticed and unquestioned in our own minds.
What Food Police thoughts do you have on repeat in your head? How are these thoughts serving you? How are they affecting how you feel and think about food and therefore how you feel and think about yourself when you choose to eat or not eat those foods? What would it be like to let go of just ONE food rule?
And one of the people in my online Intuitive Eating Group had this to say about the Food Police:
“Noticing the food police has been a big change for me. That has always been an automated voice and I just listened…until I hit food rebellion! Now I can think about what’s going on when I’m considering what I want to eat. I challenge them with the thought from the book “I can eat whatever I like” and that helps remind me I am in control, not the food police. That quells the urge to rebel and overeat. It has been an amazing experience to feel so free of the rules. Still scary sometimes but definitely a positive change.”
Additional Resource
I recently listened to this Ten Percent Happier podcast episode where one of the authors of Intuitive Eating, Evelyn Tribole, discusses Intuitive Eating and it was GREAT! I think this could be a great starting point for people interested in learning more about IE and hearing straight from one of the authors how to think about this process and the principles of IE.
JOIN MY INTUITIVE EATING SUPPORT GROUP FOR WOMEN
If you have been following along on this Intuitive Eating journey with me or hearing about Intuitive Eating elsewhere and wanting to learn more, or you’ve been doing some learning on your own and are ready to have the support of others on the journey with you, I have the perfect resource for you:
A 12-week small group coaching experience to help you heal your relationship with food and your body, ditch dieting for good, get back to trusting yourself around food AND enjoying the foods you actually like!
Group will be held live via online video >> Thursdays at 6:00pm CST (recordings will be sent out if you are unable to attend live). The group runs quarterly. FULL DETAILS HERE.
REMINDER
This blog and Instagram series I am doing is not meant to be a replacement for reading the Intuitive Eating book or working through the Intuitive Eating Workbook. Rather it’s to provide an overview of the Intuitive Eating concept and principles to bring more awareness to the fact that there is an alternative to dieting and restricting.
As always, if you need additional guidance and support via individual nutrition coaching or counseling, please reach out or join one of my Intuitive Eating small group coaching cohorts.
