We have all likely noticed from experience that when something we want or need is in short supply, or even perceived to be in short supply, we can become anxious or obsessive in our thinking about the thing that is limited (or perceived to be limited). This can apply to many areas of our lives, whether it is money, time, relationships, food, clothing, or other material items.

I know for me, I find myself struggling with this a lot in the area of time. I tend to too often live in this perpetual “emergency, fight-or-flight state” of feeling like I don’t have enough time, even though there is generally plenty of time to do the things that I want or at least need to do. When I feel like time is in short supply I end up feeling anxious and obsessive about time. This leads to unpleasant side effects like jam-packing my days, running through the day at too fast a pace, and a lack of margin, rest, and presence. When I was studying for my RD exam, I perceived and experienced such scarcity of time (whether that was self-induced or not is another question…) that even when I had a bit of time to rest on the weekends it was hard for me to fully rest and relax because I was anxiously and obsessively worrying about the lack of adequate time to rest!

This type of thinking is what can be thought of as a scarcity mindset. A scarcity mindset is when you are experiencing or perceiving a lack of something, leading to obsessive thinking about the thing that is limited (in actuality or in your perception). While time is one of the biggest ways I experience this now, I certainly used to experience this a lot with FOOD and still can from time to time (albeit in more normal and at times, unavoidable ways).

As I have briefly alluded to, scarcity of a resource/item/anything can be “actual” or “perceived” (aka self-imposed feelings of scarcity when no such scarcity exists). Let’s think about food. You have likely very tangibly experienced physical scarcity of food at one time or another, whether that is short-term (such as going out hiking for the afternoon and not packing quite enough snacks for the tail end of the hike, and thus getting very hungry the last few miles of the route to the point where all you can think about is what you are going to eat when you get off the trail) or long-term (such as being a college student and not having quite enough money each week to buy the amount of food you need to have on hand to feel physically satisfied). There can also be emotional scarcity of food – for example, maybe you as a college student do have enough money to buy enough food to meet your physical nutritional needs, but you are unable to buy the foods you most enjoy and find satisfying, leading to feelings of emotional deprivation.

For the rest of this blog post I am going to focus on the more self-imposed kind of food restriction that is common with eating disorders or any degree or instance of disordered eating. With any form of self-imposed food restriction, we are likely experiencing both physical and emotional scarcity or deprivation, leading to obsessive thinking about food (or the specific food(s) we are restricting). This is how I like to think of what I call the “cycle of restriction”:

As an example, let’s think about a delicious chocolate chip birthday cake you are making for your daughter’s birthday. During the afternoon when you are baking the cake, you allow yourself to enjoy all the pleasant aromas of the cake but you plan ahead that you are NOT going to have any cake for dessert – after all, you are already having a “big dinner” and what are the odds you actually stop at one piece?? (Says your mind). You beautifully frost and decorate the cake, being oh-so-careful not to have one taste of frosting lest your whole eating plan for the day be blown. (!). Once dessert rolls around, you find yourself struggling to be as present as you would like as everyone else is enjoying birthday cake and you are mentally obsessing over whether you should have a piece or not. You would really like a piece… but that would be “bad” and “blowing” your diet… and you know from previous experience that you can’t control yourself around dessert anyway… so no cake for you!! Later that evening when you are cleaning up, you allow yourself one tiny piece of cake – just to test it, of course! And it is so good! So good you keep eating more and more, feeling out of control – as you certainly won’t be allowed to have this food again, so you must frantically eat it while you have already “transgressed” and slipped up! Eating more cake than you planned, you now feel intense feelings of guilt and shame – Clearly this is more evidence that I cannot control myself around this food. Everyone else has better self-control than me so they are fine to eat it. Now I need to get this cake out of my house IMMEDIATELY so I don’t eat anymore and make sure I spend extra time at the gym tomorrow to “burn it off.” Next time I will have better self-control and not allow myself one bite of cake. 

Thus the cycle of restriction continues!

OR you can experience what I have labeled in the diagram “Obsession Land,” which is very common in anorexia nervosa or other degrees of restrictive disordered eating behaviors. With AN, for example, you may stay in the state of restriction for a Very. Long. Time. You may even justify your restriction by convincing yourself that you don’t even like certain foods or that they are clearly overly harmful to your health. This prolonged form of restriction (whether of any specific food(s) or entire food groups) leads to even greater physical, emotional, and social consequences as we may then avoid social gatherings where the off-limits foods may be present, expend an inordinate amount of time thinking about food, and suffer severe physical consequences. You will either continue to suffer from these health-deteriorating effects, merge into a more binge-purge relationship with food, or (*hopefully!*) enter recovery and begin to experience freedom and peace with food, thus getting OFF the cycle of restriction once and for all!

One clear and fascinating example of what happens when we restrict food for too long is in what is known as the Minnesota Starvation Experiment, conducted by Ancel Keys et al in 1950. With so many experiencing starvation during WWII, Keys sought to understand more deeply the physical and psychological effects of starvation as well as gain insight into the best ways to go about re-feeding starved individuals. While this experiment would be considered unethical to conduct under today’s standards, it provides very helpful insights into understanding more what goes on for individuals suffering from restrictive eating disorders / disordered eating. Keys recruited 36 healthy men to participate in his year-long study. After the initial control period, the men were put on a starvation diet to reflect the conditions of war-torn Europe. During this starvation period, the men lost an average of 25% of their body weight and experienced severe psychological and physical symptoms. Participants became much more preoccupied and obsessive with food – for example, engaging in increased conversation centered around food, dreaming about food, developing new habits such as reading cookbooks and collecting recipes, licking their plates clean, defensively guarding their food with their elbows at mealtimes, scavenging through garbage to find food, and cutting up their food into tiny pieces. The men experienced headaches, increased anxiety and depression, increased GI symptoms, increased social isolation, increased body image concerns and obsessive exercise, and other physical symptoms such as hair loss and cold intolerance. During the rehabilitation phase, participants experienced binge eating symptoms and difficulty reading their hunger signals.

I relate to this study a lot, as when I was stuck in “Obsession Land” with my eating disorder I had many of the same symptoms, becoming very neurotic about what I would eat and how much, obsessively reading cookbooks at night with recipes that I would never actually make, obsessively exercising, feeling cold all the time, and more. The worst part is, when you are stuck in Obsession Land, you often don’t even realize you are there, making it hard to “get help” for a problem you aren’t even aware of (and, on the contrary, aggressively try to protect).

Whether you are experiencing a full-blown eating disorder like I did and like the men in the study basically unintentionally ended up experiencing too, or are struggling with a chaotic relationship with food that is marked by fluctuations of rigidity and feelings of being out-of-control that is all too common in our society, know that you CAN find freedom and peace with food! Here are a couple of possible steps to take to help grow in experiencing a more joyful, abundant relationship with food:

• • Buy a food that you consider “off-limits” and allow yourself to have it everyday. For example, do you love ice cream but never allow yourself to buy it if it’s not a special occasion? I suggest buying a carton and having a bowl every night! Better yet, have some for an afternoon snack! The key here is to mentally commit to the idea that you CAN HAVE IT ANY TIME YOU WANT. If you continue to think that it will soon be off-limits again or that you need to compensate via food restriction or increased exercise you will continue to stay stuck in obsession and the cycle of restriction. (Note: sometimes if you have restricted a food for a long time, you may need to experience a period of “overeating” the food in order for your body and mind to feel calm and safe around the food, truly knowing that it will not be intentionally restricted again in the future. This is a normal part of recovery).
  • Make a plan for managing feelings of guilt in a healthier way. When you are in a calm, centered place it can be helpful to make a plan for what you will do (or what you would like to do) in the future if you feel guilty for eating something you feel you shouldn’t eat or are struggling to accept that it is okay to eat. For example, if you try the idea above you may indeed feel very intense feelings of guilt for eating the ice cream. Instead of restricting it the next day, over-exercising, purging, etc. what is a healthy way you can cope with these feelings of guilt? Can you plan NOW that you will instead try to lie down and read a book or call a trusted friend? Learning to cope with and tolerate unpleasant feelings in a healthy way is an important part of growing in your relationship with food and in your emotional health more broadly.

Pursuing satisfaction and contentment in eating is the crux of healthy eating. When we mindfully allow ourselves to consistently enjoy a balanced, fun, and flavorful array of foods, we are able to experience both DELIGHT in food in a healthy way and the FREEDOM and SPACE to engage our mental and physical energy on the things that matter most in life!