3 Ways to Come to Peace with Unconditional Permission to Eat

One of the biggest concerns I hear from clients starting the intuitive eating journey is that they will go “overboard with the sweets.”

It makes sense that you may feel this way too, especially if you are a chronic dieter. You have been restricting carbohydrates and sweets for years, maybe even decades and your mind has been programmed to think that they are “bad” for you.

So, in an effort to be “good”, you restrict them to the best of your ability, until you can’t resist any longer and you make a deal with yourself, “I’ll only have one,” which leads to many or the whole box. Then you promise to NEVER eat them again.

So, when the idea of intuitive eating was presented to you with the concept of “give yourself unconditional permission to eat what you desire when you are hungry,” this sounded too good to be true. But who are you to argue? You jump right in. And now you find yourself all the way at the other extreme of ‘carbohydrate land’ eating past the point of fullness.

There are 3 points I’d like to make here to help you be at peace with unconditional permission to eat:

1. Find the Middle Ground

Whenever you restrict something all the way in one direction and then release that restriction, it will boomerang all the way to the other direction. This means if you’ve restricted chocolate or pizza and haven’t had it in years, and now you release that restriction and allow yourself to eat it, you are likely going to eat a lot of it because you haven’t had it in so long. It’s like a pendulum, when pulled in one direction and then you let it go, it swings all the way to the opposite end.

Or, as a seesaw; visualize restriction and deprivation at the highest point (that’s you sitting on the seesaw up in the air!). Then you let the restriction go all at once, and bam, the seesaw hits the ground (and your bottom took a big hit!)

This is absolutely ‘normal’. This won’t last forever. You will return to a middle ground after a while. At some point, you will say to yourself “okay, tastes nice but I don’t feel the need to have it every day anymore. I can have it any time I desire.”

2. Check in with Your Body

Part of becoming attuned to your inner body wisdom means being mindful of how you feel while eating and after eating certain foods. So, pay attention to how you feel when you are eating an overabundance of sweets. Do you feel energized, sluggish, low energy, or tired? Do you have indigestion, bloat, etc.? You will find that after a while your body will tell you what it wants, and often that is lighter foods because it makes you feel so much better.

3. Your Taste May Change

When you allow all foods into your world again, you will begin to identify your true food preferences. You may think you cannot live without those chocolate kisses, but now that you aren’t restricting them, you find that you don’t actually enjoy them. Or, you do still like them, but a few really hits the spot.

Giving yourself unconditional permission to eat is scary for those working on diet recovery. Push through your fear, you’ll love it on the other side.

Need support? Join us in the Intuitive Eating for a Diet Free Life Facebook group.