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.