If you have been trying to diet for any length of time or experience any degree of disordered eating, you likely have a number of food rules that you follow, whether you are conscious of them or not. Creating food rules is an anxiety and fear-driven way to try and “manage” one’s eating. If you follow your food rules (however arbitrary they may be), you are doing “well'” with your eating and your anxiety is minimal. If you break any of the food rules, you “messed up,” ate “badly,” “cheated,” and/or experience guilt and anxiety.

Examples of food rules include the following:

• Only eating dessert once a week on your “cheat day”
• Excluding entire food groups
• Only eating what you measured/planned even if you are still hungry
• Refusing to eat what other people prepare (out of anxiety / not being able to control or know for sure what’s in the food)
• Only eating ____ calories per day and obsessively tracking this
• Only consuming dessert if you plan to “work it off” later
• Only eating at set times, even when you are hungry at other times

Of course, it is helpful to have some structure to our eating. I generally eat at similar times each day and have other intuitive, broad patterns to my eating. I would consider this normal, and also helpful so that we are not constantly “starting from scratch” completely wondering how and what and when we are going to eat each day. In addition, some people follow certain “rules” for medical/health reasons that are not rooted in fear or anxiety – for example, a type 1 diabetic counting her carbs, or someone mindfully avoiding less sugar right before bed because she knows she is prone to not being able to sleep otherwise.

What I am talking about in this post is when we have rules we can (or feel we can) NEVER break (unless it is an actual allergy, legitimate medical reason, religious purpose, etc.) and feel ANXIETY and GUILT when we break them. Rules that impede our social relationships, dominate way too much mental brain space, dictate our emotional state, and cause us to behave in unhealthy ways – such as waking up extra early to “burn off” the cupcake we ate last night, refusing to eat the salad at the restaurant because they forgot to leave the dressing on the side, avoiding travel due to the frequency we would have to eat out, or turning down an impromptu ice cream date with a friend because we didn’t “account” for the extra calories.

I find an exercise in Carolyn Costin and Gwen Scubert Grabb’s book, 8 Keys to Recovery from an Eating Disorder Workbook helpful in bringing more awareness to any food rules we may have.

Consider asking yourself the following questions with as much honesty as you can:

What is an example of one of my food rules?

Why do I follow this rule?

How and when did I come up with this rule?

Do I plan on following this rule for the rest of my life?

What happens if I break the rule? How do I feel? What do I do? 

Is this rule rooted in fact or fear?

How does following this rule affect my relationships?

Would I tell someone else to follow this rule? Why or why not?

Does this rule allow for flexibility? (i.e., travel, being sick, special occasions)

What do I gain by following this rule?

What am I giving up by following this rule? 

What would it take for me to give up this rule?

*Adapted from 8 Keys to Recovery from an Eating Disorder Workbook (pages 128-129).

Since food rules are a strategy we may use to minimize fear, guilt, and anxiety, working on giving them up will almost certainly bring up intense guilt and anxiety in the short-term, making it hard to heal and find freedom from them. Effectively finding freedom from food rules involves growing in your ability to tolerate distressing and uncomfortable feelings, and finding alternative/healthier ways to cope with your emotions (i.e., ways other than restricting intake, exercising more, creating new food rules, etc.). A concept on therapeutic surrender in a book I am reading highlights this idea well. *(The book is on more general anxiety/compulsivity, so the brackets include what I have added to apply this concept more specifically to food rules and eating disorder behaviors):

“Therapeutic surrender requires that you make a distinction between what you reject and what you allow. It means rejecting the option to end your discomfort with another dose of [food rules or disordered eating behaviors.]. And it means surrendering to the feelings of anxiety, distress, guilt, and frustration that arise when you forgo [your food rules and disordered eating behaviors]. It entails allowing the feelings and thoughts while rejecting and refusing to do what the feelings and thoughts are telling you to do. It means acknowledging the anxious bullies in your mind but not letting them bully you into [following your food rules and disordered eating behaviors].” // Needing to Know For Sure, pg. 122.

So I ask again: what are you giving up by following your food rules, and what would it take for you to reject them and refuse to do what the anxious and guilty feelings and thoughts are telling you to do when you start to break them?

How can you start to bring greater awareness to your food rules and get the help and support you need to reject them and to tolerate the distressing feelings that will inevitably come up?

Today’s food for thought!