IT'S CALLED FOOD FREEDOM NOT FOOD CONTROL

"I just need to control myself around food"

That is one of the most common things I hear from women who are struggling with post restriction binge eating.

It typically goes a little something like this...

We will be going about our day when something happens. We might feel stressed, anxious or sad and we end up eating something we said we weren't going to eat. Perhaps sugar or carbs of some kind.

Once we've realized we've broken a "food rule" we typically feel bad about ourselves and say "to hell with it" lets just eat all of things now, because we can start our diet again tomorrow (or Monday).

We prime ourselves to use all of our willpower to never let any "slip ups" happen again. We tell ourselves we will control ourselves so hard, we'll stick to our diet perfectly, we will finally lose the weight and everything will be okay.

Except it never really happens, does it? At least not for long.

If you're honest with yourself, you can see that every time you tightly grip onto restriction and control around food it's only a matter of time before you rebound in the other direction..., binge eating again.

This is the restrict-binge or diet-binge cycle,

or what some might refer to as Yo-Yo Dieting,

or "being on or off the wagon".

There is no amount of willpower or self control that will make this stop.

You can not control your way to Food Freedom. It's not called Food Control for a reason.

Think of someone you know who doesn't binge eat, who seems to have a pretty "normal" relationship with food, who can eat what they want, when they want and it's not really a big deal. They can casually have nachos and not feel like a disgusting pig and punish themselves with salad for the next week.

The difference between you and them is not willpower. They haven't developed the ability to ferociously fight the urge to eat an entire pizza in one sitting and that's why they stop at a few slices. Hell no.

***They are not trying to control themselves at all.***

And thank god because if Food Freedom mean't living in a constant state of fighting urges and controlling yourself at every meal, that wouldn't feel much like freedom at all. It would actually be exhausting.

So if it's not willpower and control what is it?

What's the difference between a "binge eater" and a "normal eater".

Well..., It's a function of a different mindset and way of thinking.

Anyone caught up in the diet-binge cycle is operating from the Diet Mentality which includes a set of beliefs, ideal and rules around food that have power over how we feel about our self.

Until we change what is going on in our mind, we can not change what is on our plate.