Welcome back to Rebuilding Trust With Your Body, I’m Katy Harvey your host. Today’s episode is about one of the most common questions I get asked, and I’m really excited to dig into it with you. We are going to be talking about the fear of wasting food. 

You know that moment when you’re eating, and you realize you are comfortably full and satisfied, but there’s only a couple bites of food left on your plate, and you think, “I might as well finish it.” 

Perhaps you’ve been at an expensive restaurant and the food is SO GOOD and you’re full, but you want to keep eating because it won’t be as delicious as leftovers, and heck you paid good money for it.

Maybe this summer you’ve been on vacation and you’re at a restaurant in another state or another country, and you’re not going to be coming back here any time soon, and you can’t take the leftovers with you because you don’t have anywhere to store them or heat them up in your hotel room, so you feel like you need to eat all of the yummy food on your plate.

This might show up in everyday life for you too. Perhaps you’re eating dinner and there’s a few bites left and you can hear your mom or dad in the back of your mind telling you that there’s starving children in Africa, and you’d better finish what’s on your plate. And maybe you feel like you have to choke down that salad because the lettuce or the veggies on it are going to spoil if you don’t eat them today and you don’t want to throw that money down the drain.

There are so many ways this fear of wasting food shows up for us, and it can really interfere with being able to listen to your body and honor what your body needs, even when you’re trying really hard to eat intuitively. 

Today’s the day you resign from the Clean Your Plate Club, and I’m going to show you how to work through this discomfort. 

One quick housekeeping announcement:

If you are listening to this the week it comes out, there are a few days left for you to snag the 4th of July holiday deal on my brand new Food Freedom Summer Bundle. I’ve put together some incredible resources to help you heat up your intuitive eating journey this summer like summer sidewalk. It’s got masterclasses, scripts for talking to your doctor, my summer body image toolkit, a guided meditation, meal and snack ideas and more! It’s like a beach bag packed with everything you need for a delightful and satisfying day at the beach. We’ve got some summer strategies for gentle nutrition, ways to navigate doctor’s visits so you can take care of your health, body image tools for shorts and swimsuit season, and in celebration of the 4th of July this past week, you can get it for only $44. All you have to do is email or DM me the word FREEDOM and I’ll send you the link. I’ve also put it in the shownotes for this episode so you can find it easily. Go check it out – it’s easily worth a couple hundred bucks and at $44 you’re getting a steal of a deal! I mean, the month’s worth of dinner menus alone is worth it in my book. I love it when someone plans my meals and sends me recipes! Grab the Food Freedom Summer Bundle, I promise you won’t be disappointed. 

Before we dive back into our main topic for today, you know what time it is…We’ve got some Wellness Woo to talk about. 

Wellness Woo is the stuff that diet and wellness culture tells us we should do in the name of health, but it’s really based on pseudoscience, exaggerated claims, or just nonsense. 

Today’s Wellness Woo is: Candida overgrowth

My sources for this were the CDC webpage on Candidasis, Christy Harrison’s book The Wellness Trap, and her podcast episode 291, as well as an article on sciencebasedmedicine.org by Steven Novella.

There’s a lot of claims out there that a huge percentage of people are out there walking around with candida overgrowth in their body, and that candida feed on sugar so therefore we should be avoiding sugar. 

What’s up with this and is there any truth to it?

First of all, what is candida? It’s a fungus, and when there’s an overgrowth it can become an infection called Candidasis. 

• Many types of Candida live naturally in parts of the body and only cause symptoms if too much grows (i.e., vaginal yeast infections).

Everyone has Candida on their skin and in parts of their body (like the mouth, throat, gut, and vagina). Candida only causes symptoms and infections if it grows out of control.

Vaginal candidiasis (yeast infections) are one of the most common fungal infections. Candida can also overgrow in the mouth or throat (thrush) or in the esophagus (the tube leading from the throat into the gut).

Invasive candidiasis occurs among hospitalized patients when Candida infects the internal organs like the kidney or brain or the bloodstream (also called candidemia). The symptoms and severity of infection are very different compared to the more common candidiasis of the vagina, mouth, throat, and esophagus. Generally, healthy people are not at risk for invasive candidiasis. My mom had a really severe case of this at the end of her life and it was absolutely miserable. She had undergone chemotherapy and got thrush in her mouth and esophagus and she could hardly talk or swallow. It was awful and really hard to treat, even with medication. 

Candidiasis can be treated with different types of antifungal medications. Healthy people who aren’t immunocompromised rarely develop this type of infection. 

So, while Candidiasis is a real medical diagnosis, the way it has been presented in pop culture is basically a made up version of it. 

The pseudoscience version of Candidiasis took off when a doctor named William Crook wrote a book called The Yeast Connection, in which he made claims such as yeast causing fatigue, exhaustion, and psoriasis. This is a common thread in these wellness woo made up illnesses, where they’ll attribute a lot of really generic symptoms, that could be related to many things, that you can’t really prove what’s causing it or not, and they’ll use it as one of the symptoms of the fake illness.

In the alternative medicine would you’ll hear a lot about candida hypersensitivity, which has not been scientifically proven to be a legitimate thing. There are alternative medicine practitioners out there making claims such as cancer is actually an advanced form of candida overgrowth (which is NOT supported by science), and that candida overgrowth is the “root cause” of hundreds of problems in the body. You can see here that they are preying on people’s lack of medical training, their fear (any time you use the C word – cancer – it catches people’s attention) and this phrase “root cause” you’ll hear a LOT in Wellness Woo. 

How convenient that it’s the alleged root cause of hundreds of problems in the body…I wonder who stems to profit off that claim???

As pointed out in the Science Based Medicine article, fake illnesses often call for fake treatments. That are usually expensive, and of course aren’t going to be covered by insurance. 

The American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology released a statement saying that  candida hypersensitivity is speculative and unproven and that elements of the proposed treatment program are potentially dangerous.

What’s tricky in this discussion, as it is with most pseudoscience, is that candidiasis is real. It causes vaginal yeast infections (hello ladies, not fun if you’ve ever had one of these, right?), and it can cause nipple yeast infections when you’re breastfeeding – I had that with my youngest and it hurts like hell. So yes, candidiasis is real. But this idea that we all are walking around with “candida hypersensitivity” that needs to be treated with supplements and a low sugar diet is nonsense. 

Candida hypersensitivity is wellness woo. 

If you have an example of Wellness Woo that you want to share, send it to me at rebuildingtrustwithyourbody@gmail.com. 

Ok, that’s enough of that. Moving on to today’s main topic…How to let go of your fear of wasting food.

Essentially what we are going to do here today is some belief shifting. We are going to name your old beliefs, the ones that are getting in your way and holding you back, and we are going to shift those beliefs to ways of thinking and approaching your eating that are more helpful and productive (not to mention FREEING) for you. 

How many times have you been told something like:

• You have to finish your veggies before you can have dessert.
• There are starving children in Africa who would love to have that food.
• You’re wasting money if you throw that food out.
• Good job for cleaning your plate!
• That meal was expensive, you’d better eat it.

These comments basically teach you to not listen to your body. Perhaps you’re eating your meal and you’re getting close to being full, and it would be really satisfying to have a few bites of dessert as the last part of your meal – BUT if you were raised to believe that you couldn’t have dessert until you finished your meat, or you finished your veggies, then you might feel compelled to finish what’s on your plate before you let yourself have dessert, and then you’re overfull after dessert because you were overriding those signals to earn the dessert at the end. And by golly, by the time you earned it you’re definitely going to eat all of it.

And then there’s the “starving children in Africa” comment that just doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Those starving children would also probably love to have clean water and electricity, and we’re not telling ourselves we have to guzzle water or leave the lights on just because these poor people in 3rd world countries don’t have that privilege, right? It’s nonsense. 

What you do or don’t eat today for dinner has nothing to do with what starving people in another country are eating.

I get that our parents and grandparents wanted us to be grateful for what we have, and to not be wasteful. It helps to put these things in context. Chances are, depending on how old you are, your parents, grandparents or great-grandparents lived through the Great Depression when there literally wasn’t enough food to eat. Of course you wouldn’t waste food when it was available in that situation. Whichever generation in your family lived through that era, they then raised the next generation in your family, and these beliefs got handed down along with these ridiculous sayings. 

We aren’t living in the Great Depression. Yes, food insecurity is still very real. And if you don’t have sufficient access to food, there are resources out there, and if you need help connecting with those resources please reach out to me. I feel really passionate about this. 

For those of you who aren’t living with food insecurity, then we need to work on letting go of the “you have to eat it now while it’s available” belief. Food will be available to you later. Your brain and body need to know and trust that, and you do that by proving it to yourself, which we’ll talk more about in a minute. 

The other old belief that we are going to shift is the “wasteful” belief. This is that thought that goes through your mind that you should eat the rest of what’s on your plate because it would be wasteful to throw it out, or that it’s not enough to be worth saving for later, or that it won’t be as good the second time around. It’s also the belief that you should eat something that’s in your fridge or pantry just because it’s there and it’s going to spoil if you don’t eat it, and therefore shame on you if you bought something that you didn’t consume. 

The reality of being a human with food security, especially as an intuitive eater, is that some degree food waste is normal. Of course we don’t want you throwing out ridiculous amounts of food because you bought a bunch of stuff without having a plan for how you’d be using it, or you were making impulse purchases at the grocery store or farmer’s market. We also don’t want to be putting so much food on our plates at meals that we are wildly overestimating what we can eat, or ordering astronomical amounts of food at restaurants that are completely misaligned with our body’s needs. I’m not saying that you should be extra and reckless with your food purchasing, cooking or ordering. I’m just saying that you have to get comfortable with food waste being part of having a normal relationship with food.

Let’s recap the old beliefs that we are shifting and letting go of:

1. You must earn certain foods, such as dessert, by eating other foods such as vegetables
2. There are starving children in Africa
3. It’s wasteful to throw food away

Now we get to call in and embrace some new beliefs. There are 3 that I want you to practice and integrate into your thinking and into your relationship with food.

1) Food Waste is NORMAL 

We are human beings, not robots, and there is no way for us to know exactly how much food to put on our plates at every single meal or snack, every single day of our lives. There will be days that you finish what’s on your plate and want more, because what you initially portioned wasn’t enough. There will also be days where you don’t finish what was on your plate because you portioned more than you actually needed. 

If you are actually listening to your body, this is going to happen, and we have to normalize it. You do not need to stop eating when you’re still hungry just because the food on your plate is gone. Get more food, or add something else to your meal. On the flip side, you do not need to finish what’s on your plate just because it’s there. 

The longer you practice intuitive eating, the more accurate you’ll get at portioning your food. You’ll also find it easier to order at restaurants because you’ll have a sense for how much food you need. For example, recently I stopped for lunch at this diner with Trevor and the boys when we were on a road trip, and I ordered a quesadilla off the appetizer menu even though I knew it was going to be huge, even though I wasn’t super hungry, but I ordered it anyway because it was exactly what sounded good, and I was fully prepared to leave behind what I didn’t want because we were traveling and leftovers wouldn’t have done me any good. There are also times where I’m at a place like Chick Fil A and I might just get the sandwich instead of the combo meal because I know that I’m only hungry enough for the sandwich and not the whole shebang, so I don’t end up eating waffle fries just because they came with my meal when I might not have even wanted them in the first place. Maybe if I wanted a fry or two I could grab one from Trevor or my kids. My point here is that you’ll get better at honing in on the amount of food you need the more you practice this, AND you’ll get more comfortable with not eating everything you ordered or put on your plate as you can see that listening to your body is the ultimate goal.

If you continue to view the money spent on food as your determining factor, you’re going to stay stuck feeling like you’re wasting money every time you don’t finish your food. Here’s something to consider: that meal cost you the same amount whether you eat all of it or part of it. Forcing yourself to eat food you’re not hungry for is wasteful in its own regard. You don’t have to use your body as a trash can.

2) Routinely Leaving Food Behind is a Positive Sign You’re Eating Intuitively

The other day I was eating a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, and I usually finish my oatmeal most mornings. On this particular day, however, I noticed I was full, and I stopped with probably 2-3 bites left. No big deal, I just rinsed it down the garbage disposal and put my bowl in the dishwasher. 

One of my clients sent me this picture the other day of a dessert she was eating, and there was probably about ¼ of the piece of dessert left on her plate. She was so excited because it was a big deal to let herself eat dessert in the first place. We had worked on that for a long time, because dessert felt so “bad” and off-limits to her. (EXPAND)

I saw this thing on social media the other day where it said something to the effect of “signs you live with an intuitive eater” and it was pictures of little bits of food left (EXPLAIN). 

This is what I’m talking about. When you’re eating intuitively, you’re not letting the size of a package or plate determine how much you eat. The other day I dumped probably the last 2 ounces out of a can of hard seltzer that I was drinking. I had simply had enough. I didn’t have to force down those last few sips. Same with coffee. When my stomach says we’re done, I regret it if I drink the rest of the cup. It doesn’t feel good to override our body’s signals. 

There’s something really empowering about listening to your body and honoring your fullness, knowing that it’s a GOOD SIGN when there’s sometimes a little bit of food left and you choose to stop eating.

As you are practicing this, you may find that there are other things holding you back from stopping when you are full. This fear of wasting food is one of the most common ones that I hear from my clients and people in my FB group, but often times if we go deeper there are other reasons that you sometimes want to keep eating past the point of comfortable fullness, and it’s worth exploring those. I recently did a podcast episode about that topic, it’s episode #133 called What to do if You’re Full but Want to Keep Eating. I’ll link to it in the show notes and you can listen to it after this one.

3) You Get to Prove to Yourself that You Can Trust Your Body

What I mean by this is that when you start practicing “wasting” food, your brain is going to start to see that nothing bad happens to you. In fact, some wonderful things will start to happen. You’ll feel more empowered, more physically comfortable because you’re listening to your body, and you’ll feel free from the constraints of these rules about food waste that you’ve been holding onto. 

You’ll start to realize and believe that whether or not you finish your chicken or your green beans, or that bowl of ice cream, it all has no impact on other people, certainly no impact on people on the other side of the world. You polishing off that burrito didn’t save some poor person in Africa. If you care so deeply about food insecurity there are many ways to donate your time, resources or money to that cause. Cleaning your plate is not one of them.

What’s ironic is that you’ll also start to find that in some ways you have LESS food waste as part of this process as you stop buying things at the grocery store just because you think you should, like that bunch of celery, or the bag of spinach that you didn’t actually want. You’ll be able to trust yourself to eat the things you’re buying, because you’re buying things you actually want. It’s funny how you naturally will use the produce you buy when it’s not coming from a place of “should” and the pressure to eat it along with the shame if it goes bad and you have to toss it out. 

It’s also funny how a pan of brownies might get halfway eaten, and then go stale because you’ve lost interest, and you pitch the rest without second-guessing yourself.

This is what’s possible when you overcome your fear of food waste. It takes your freedom with food and your ability to eat intuitively to the next level. 

So let’s recap those old beliefs that we are shifting one more time:

4. You must earn certain foods, such as dessert, by eating other foods such as vegetables
5. There are starving children in Africa
6. It’s wasteful to throw food away

And now let’s recap the new thoughts we are calling in:

1. Food waste is normal
2. Routinely Leaving Food Behind is a Positive Sign You’re Eating Intuitively
3. You Get to Prove to Yourself that You Can Trust Your Body

That’s all for today. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Don’t forget to check out the Food Freedom Summer Bundle with all sorts of goodies for your intuitive eating journey this summer – everything from body image, to nutrition, to dinner menus – it’s all waiting for you and you get instant access to it all. You can email or DM me the word FREEDOM for the link or find it in the shownotes. 

In case nobody has told you today – you are worthy just as you are. We’ll talk again soon.

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