Bravespace Nutrition

If you are feeling fearful and don’t feel like you can trust yourself around foods that contain sugar, your instinct might be to eliminate it. ⁣⁣

It’s gone now so I can’t eat it. Problem solved. Right? No, not so much. ⁣⁣

Cutting foods out of your diet is a great way to increase food obsessions, bingeing, irritation, and anxiety. So the short-term relief of not having foods that contain sugar, while it sometimes may feel like a reprieve, does not last. ⁣⁣

You will eat sugar again and the feeling you had before won’t have gone away and it will be amplified now. In fact, it’s common to feel even more out of control around sugar post sugar restriction or as some call it “sugar detox”.⁣⁣

So, my friends, the resolution to feeling out of control around food and sugar is not to eliminate it. Why? ⁣⁣

Because it is unsustainable, it does not help address the underlying root causes of your feelings around food, and it will amplify your fears/ obsessions/feeling out of control around sugary foods. ⁣⁣

But you know what does help? Permission. Permission to have foods that contain sugar, permission to not restrict, permission to get the support from a non-diet health practitioner that can help you through this process because it can feel scary. ⁣

I understand that it feels hard to create peace with food. You are surrounded by messages everyday that tell you that food and your body cannot be trusted. So of course if cookies feel like foods that you might binge on (or a different type of the food), it would be expected that you might jump to the conclusion that it’s the cookie’s fault, your fault or sugar’s fault.

But this would not solve the root cause of the issue at hand: restriction. The mere act of restriction can lead to bingeing/overeating and cutting foods out entirely (barring any diagnosed allergies) will lead to obsessive foods thoughts and feelings of hopelessness/feeling out of control.

By giving yourself full permission overtime to eat all foods(including those with sugar!) the foods that you once feared or felt out of control around become quite neutral. This means that you can have them around the house and forget they exist and then remember them when you notice you want something sweet.

It is through creating peace with food (what some call “legalizing foods”) that you begin to experience freedom from feeling like food is taking over your life.