Help - I can’t stop eating the biscuits!

I hope you’re all either enjoying the sunshine or successfully keeping cool!

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been deep in doing research - interviewing people to understand their eating and exercise behaviour, and what makes it hard for them to change. I love this stuff: it genuinely feels like a privilege to hear people’s stories. It also makes me even more inspired to create something to help them!

During these interviews, I’ve heard one problem come up SO many times - it’s often something along the lines of:

“I’m fine as long as there are no snacks in the house or around me. If they’re there, I eat them. Once I open a packet of biscuits/chocolate/crisps, I end up finishing them. Once I’ve started being naughty, I might as well carry on”.

This is something I hear a lot - in the office, or when talking to friends and family. People say “oh don’t put those near me, I’ll just eat them all”. Often people set up ways to avoid this situation - they often just don’t choose to have snacks in the house. However, it’s hard to strictly control the environment around us all the time - at some point, we’re going to encounter these kinds of foods. When we do, this feeling of being out of control can be horrible. 

It’s made me reflect on my own experience. I have definitely had times in my life when I felt unable to resist sweet treats. When I was on a diet (or a “healthy eating kick”), I’d not buy them, or buy “healthy snacks” instead, and make sure I always had some with me. Then, when I “broke” and ate something (like when there were donuts or cake in the office), I’d go mad and eat loads of it - because it felt like my only opportunity before being “good” again. 

These days, this just doesn’t really happen to me. We have plenty of biscuits and chocolate in the house - sometimes I’ll fancy some of it, and I’ll have a bit - but I don’t then feel the need to eat all of it. In fact, my husband sometimes gets annoyed that I leave chocolate around uneaten!

Unconditional permission to eat

You might be thinking “wow Rosie that’s some impressive self control!” - but it’s actually quite the opposite: it’s about unconditional permission to eat. As long as you have rules about which foods are “bad” and should be avoided, you’ll always feel (even unconsciously) like you’re depriving yourself of them. This leads to you feeling those uncontrollable cravings for them, and when you finally give in, you go into “last supper” mode and binge a lot of it. We also often choose to “rebel” against the rules we set for ourselves - this rebelling feels like a great way to “treat” ourselves, but also to feel more in control. 

This unconditional permission to eat is a core principle of intuitive eating. It’s about making peace with food - letting go of what’s “forbidden” and other food rules we might set for ourselves.  It feels counter-intuitive, as we’ve always been taught to restrict these foods and that they are bad - but maybe this is why so many of us feel like we can’t resist them? 

For me, it was about allowing myself to eat things like chocolate and biscuits, when I wanted them - rather than seeing them as only a “treat” or to be eaten rarely. This was in addition to making sure I was eating enough the rest of the time - choosing my portion sizes based on how hungry I felt, not by what it said on the packet (or the calorie count in My Fitness Pal). I was initially fearful that I would eat the WORLD - but it didn’t really happen. Occasionally I still overeat some snacks (particularly if they’re seriously delicious), but it’s rare, and I don’t feel guilty when it happens. It’s been quite freeing to know that I can have sweet things around me and not consume all of it, and not be filled with guilt about eating it.

So take some time to think about what foods you tend to feel “uncontrollable” around - and how you might be labelling or restricting those foods. Maybe try letting go of some of the rules you set yourself, and see how it affects how you feel about those foods. If (after a period of adjustment) you still feel out of control around them: maybe you’re just hungry?! I’ll share more in future posts about listening to that hunger and making sure you’re honouring it - but always, always, feed your body when it asks for it 💜

Interested in feeling effortlessly healthy?

If you’d like some support in looking after your body, rather than fighting it, I’m currently offering health coaching to help you with just that. I can help you to make sustainable changes, so that “healthy” is just a thing that you do, rather than feeling like a constant battle which fills you with dread and guilt. Get some more info and sign up here.