Welcome back to Rebuilding Trust With Your Body, I’m Katy Harvey your host. We need to have a heart-to-heart today in this episode. If you’ve ever hidden food wrappers or candy wrappers in the trash, because you want to hide the evidence of what you’ve eaten, this conversation is for you. (And even if you haven’t struggled with hiding the evidence in particular, you still need to hear this because it’s a conversation about your relationship with food, and about shame and guilt and judgment.)
This is especially relevant here right after Halloween, when you might have had a big influx of candy in your house, or at work – whether you bought it for trick-or-treaters, or your kids came home from trick-or-treating with a bunch of candy, or your coworkers are bringing in loads of candy to the office to get rid of it. I have been talking to SO MANY of you who are eating candy, and feeling so much guilt and shame about it that you’re hiding the wrappers so nobody knows how much of it you ate.
You might have also done this with other food. Maybe you hit the drive thru when you’re out running errands, or on your way home from work, and you’re downing some fries, or a cheeseburger, or an ice cream, or a pastry from the Starbucks drive thru – and you don’t want your partner or your family to know you did this, so you pull over somewhere to throw away the trash before you get home.
So in this episode we’re going to dig into this, and talk about it. We’re going to bring this thing you feel so much shame about into the light and normalize the struggle, and talk about how to begin navigating things differently.
Really quick, I want to share a super sweet and kind review that I got from one of you on Apple Podcasts:
“Katy has changed my entire perspective on intuitive eating. She is clear, down to earth, wise and funny at times. I especially appreciated this episode where she defines the difference between impulsive eating and intuitive eating, but also says honestly that the process takes time. I wish I’d know all this when I started the IE process. She has given me hope.” – ACSings
Thank you SO MUCH for these kind words, it seriously means the world to me. You guys are the reason I do this podcast, and being able to give people clarity, direction, and HOPE is exactly what I am aiming to do here. I read all of your reviews, and they not only inspire me to keep going, but I also use your feedback to come up with ideas and topics for the show, and to talk about the things that resonate most with you and light you up.
The other thing is, rating and reviewing this podcast helps it to reach more people. As a podcaster, I can tell you that this really does make a big difference and when you take the time to rate and review a show it helps us to grow and get discovered by more listeners. So if you haven’t done so yet, I would be deeply grateful if you’d take 30 seconds to leave a quick review on whatever platform you’re listening. I’d love to shout you out and read your review in a future episode! Thank you again for doing this – it matters not just to me in terms of your feedback, but in terms of growing the podcast and being able to help as many people as possible be able to rebuild trust with themselves and their bodies. You guys are the best and I love you so much.
Before we dive 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: Arbonne 30 day reset – s/o to Eva
- What is Arbonne
- MLM, and you already know how I feel about that. It’s a predatory business model that preys on women in particular, and promises riches but the cold hard truth is that most people lose money when they join an MLM. It’s very similar to dieting in terms of how it’s sold on lies and false promises to women.
- A lot of MLM’s are pedaling Wellness Woo, and they’re using people with zero health training or credentials to do it. So any time I hear about a company that’s structured this way there’s red flags all over the place to me.
- Arbonne was founded in 1980 by a guy who worked in the skincare industry, and he started this company to sell vegan skincare, and now they also sell cosmetics and nutrition.
- MLM, and you already know how I feel about that. It’s a predatory business model that preys on women in particular, and promises riches but the cold hard truth is that most people lose money when they join an MLM. It’s very similar to dieting in terms of how it’s sold on lies and false promises to women.
- What is their 30 day reset
- Well if you go to their website the headline is “30 days to healthy living” which feels like a lofty promise. You then click a button that says “get my set” so right away we’re buying products – and what they’re selling you for this 30 day program costs $534.
- It includes a bunch of supplements (which are in and of themselves wellness woo), detox teas (also wellness woo), shakes that you’re supposed to replace your meals with, “fizz sticks” which are just things you add to your water (also wellness woo), cleanses (which is just an expensive word for laxative and diarrhea), and greens powders (also wellness woo)
- They claim that: People who have completed our program have reported feeling better overall, establishing and reestablishing healthier habits for life, and feeling proud of their choice to practice total body self-care in the form of clean, vegan nutrition and nutrient-dense foods.
- If we analyze what you’d actually be ingesting during these 30 days, it comes nowhere near meeting your nutritional needs or setting you up for a lifetime of healthy habits. It’s like throwing your money down the toilet.
- Well if you go to their website the headline is “30 days to healthy living” which feels like a lofty promise. You then click a button that says “get my set” so right away we’re buying products – and what they’re selling you for this 30 day program costs $534.
- Share Eva’s insights
- She found their protein powders to be good tasting
- When she became more exposed to their business model and the problems w/ the MLM business structure.
- It’s very expensive, even if you like some of the products
- “They’re good at covering their asses legally”
- Sold as reset for your gut, inflammation, headaches – “when you’re done in 30 days you’ll reintegrate the foods”; they encourage you to reduce/eliminate certain foods and ingredients.
- “Let’s face it, most people who join want to lose weight.” Initial high when you’re on a program.
- Tipping point = when I started IE and allowing body to fall into it’s natural weight, and seeing how restrictive and rigid this program is.
- She found their protein powders to be good tasting
- Why it’s Woo – it’s just a bunch of expensive forms of wellness woo all packaged into this “program”
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…What to do if you’ve been hiding food or candy wrappers in the trash because you’re so ashamed you ate it and you don’t want anyone to see the evidence.
Why Do We Sneak Food?
Let’s step back and think about why you’re sneaking the food in the first place. It’s about the shame we feel about eating it. If you didn’t feel any shame, there would be no reason to sneak it. You’d just eat it out in the open, without worrying who saw you.
Sometimes the shame is about our own internal judgment about the food itself. We’re doing something like getting a burger from a drive thru, or we’re grabbing a few pieces of candy, and we feel like we are doing something “bad” by eating an “unhealthy” food.
Other times, however, it’s not so much our own judgment about the food itself, but rather it’s about the judgment we fear from others. You might be worried that if your husband or your coworkers see you eating a fun sized Snickers bar that they’re going to think, “She shouldn’t be eating that. She’s already too heavy,” or, “That’s bad for her health.”
We often fear that judgment for good reason. A lot of times, we have some degree of evidence that others in our lives are indeed thinking those things, because they’ve said it to us.
(As a side note, this is also where parents often make the mistake of setting their kids up to sneak food. We’ll say something to our kids like, “You don’t need to be eating all that junk,” or, “You can only have 1 piece of your Halloween candy per day,” and then a couple weeks later we find a bunch of empty wrappers hidden under their bed or in their closet. The kids learn to avoid the judgment and punishment by sneaking. I bet that a lot of you listening can relate to this being done to you as a kid. And if you’re a parent, I want you to consider if you’ve been giving this message to your kids, or if you’ve found evidence that they’re sneaking food and to compassionately consider if there are messages you’ve sent that may have led to this behavior. Don’t’ shame yourself if this is the case – it’s simply data for us to use to help you foster a healthier more positive relationship with food for your kids and yourself. These are things we can fix once we’re aware of them.)
So, we sneak because of shame and judgment or fear of judgment. We also sneak when we still have food rules that are stuck in our minds. If you have a rule that you shouldn’t be eating sugar, and you eat a bunch of candy, then sometimes hiding the wrappers is a way of getting rid of your own evidence of this shameful thing, or so that others don’t’ see it and call you out on being hypocritical.
The food rules and labeling food as “unhealthy/off limits” sets us up with that psychology of restriction and deprivation, that only makes us want it more. It leads to increased cravings and, often, a sense of rebellion around food.
The Shame Loop
Then what ends up happening is we’re in this shame loop where you are sneaking and hiding food, which fuels the feelings of shame, then you try to avoid or limit the food in order to “be good,” which increases your cravings and desire for it, you end up giving in and eating it (in which case you’re also more likely to go overboard because of the shame and deprivation), and you feel guilty and ashamed and the cycle keeps repeating itself.
Most of you are making the mistake of trying to break out of this cycle by avoiding the food you feel guilty about, limiting the food and trying to control how much of it you eat, earning the food through exercise, or compensating for it by eating less. What does all of this represent? You guessed it – the diet mentality.
Instead of breaking out of the cycle through control and restriction, we’re going to break out of this cycle in a different way.
Melting the Shame and Creating Guilt-Free Eating
This starts by giving yourself permission to enjoy the foods that you like, the foods that you want, and the foods that you crave. Here is where we can use those skills and principles of intuitive eating in order to do this.
Principle 3 of intuitive eating is called “Make Peace With Food,” and in my work with clients, what I see over and over again is that this is one of the hardest things for you to truly do.
Making peace with food goes beyond simply giving yourself permission to eat it. That’s where most of you are stopping. You’re letting yourself eat the candy, the pizza, the fast food – and these other things that you’re still feeling guilty and ashamed about eating.
That’s not “peace with food.”
YES, giving yourself permission to eat all types of food, without any food being off-limits is an imperative part of the process of making peace with food. But you can’t stop there (or you’ll stay stuck in this shame cycle with food forever – and it will interfere with you actually being able to eat intuitively).
Making peace with food also means that you’re doing the mental mindset work to neutralize your judgments about the food in the first place.
I spent 6 years in college studying nutrition. I have a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in dietetics and nutrition. And I can tell you without any hesitation in my soul that there is no food on this planet that is inherently good or bad.
If I, as someone with extensive knowledge and training in nutrition can believe that – so can you.
Am I suggesting that nutrition doesn’t matter, or that we should just think of all foods as being nutritionally equal and not worry about it at all? No. Absolutely not.
What I am saying is that all foods are MORALLY equal, and that the nutritional differences in food are a necessary, wonderful and beneficial thing for your body.
We need different foods to contain different nutrients. And it’s great that different foods have different tastes and textures. Different foods also give us different types of energy, and do different things in our bodies.
So just like I wouldn’t recommend that you only eat candy or fast food all day every day, I also wouldn’t recommend that you only eat apples, kale or broccoli all day every day. We NEED variety, and your eating doesn’t have to look a certain way in order for it to meet your nutritional needs.
When you can neutralize your judgments about food, and start to think of food more factually, it is going to begin melting the shame you feel about eating certain foods. This is one of the main things that I work on with clients that helps them to find deep, true and lasting peace with food. That’s how we create not just the freedom to say YES when you want to eat some candy, but also the freedom to say NO when it’s not actually what your body wants or needs.
Releasing the Wrapper Shame
I want you to make a pledge right now that the next time you have a food wrapper and you’re feeling that twinge of shame (or maybe an avalanche of shame), and your instinct is to hide the wrapper like you just robbed a bank and you’re trying to get away with a crime – I want you to pledge that you are going to throw away the wrappers just like you would a Kleenex or any other piece of trash.
You don’t need to hide it. Dispose of your wrappers openly. Acknowledge that eating and enjoying food, and fueling your body, and honoring your cravings is a normal and natural part of being a human being.
Spoiler alert – just like how we explain to little kids that everyone poops, I also want you to remind yourself that everyone eats. And just because you think that others around you are eating so “healthy” and they’re so perfect with food, you have no idea what they might be eating in secret when nobody is looking. After over a decade of working with humans just like you, I can tell you with absolute certainty that you’d be shocked at how many people in your everyday life are struggling with food and you’d never know it. It can happen to anyone – even your neighbors, your sister, your best friend, your doctor, your kid’s first grade teacher, your accountant, your pastor. Nobody is immune from diet culture. It happens to people from all walks of life, all ages, all genders.
So next time you’re feeling shame about eating something, remind yourself that everyone eats, and a lot of people struggle in their relationship with food.
I’ll also offer you this perspective shift: Sometimes it’s freeing to others when they see you unapologetically eating pizza, or some candy, or grabbing fast food for lunch. It helps to normalize it to see that others eat these foods freely and without shame.
Even if it feels uncomfortable to you, and you still have that internal shame about it, disposing of your wrappers openly is not only chipping away at your own shame, but it might also be helping others. (And sure, there might be people who are being judgy about it – but that’s a reflection of their own issues, not yours. You get to hand that back to them and let them hold it.)
Not only do I encourage you to dispose of wrappers openly, but I also challenge you to allow yourself to be seen eating the food too. You don’t have to secretly eat in your car, or late at night after everyone else has gone to bed, or hiding in your office with the door shut at work.
Try this experiment: Eat your food AS IF you don’t have any shame about it. As uncomfortable as this might be at first, most people find that after they have done this a few times they start to feel more comfortable and empowered.
Wrapping Up
As we wrap up here, I want to really challenge you to be curious about the shame that you’re feeling when you eat or when you are hiding food wrappers, and to see if you can identify where it’s coming from. Is it about your own food and body shame? Your judgments about the food itself? The judgment you fear or that you’ve gotten from others? You might also journal about what you’re afraid others would think if they saw you eating that food or if they saw your wrappers.
I also want you to be curious whether part of the reason you’re feeling compelled to hide the evidence is because you binged, or you ate it compulsively, or you ate at a time you feel you shouldn’t have been eating. If there are these types of behaviors going on, that’s an additional piece of the puzzle we’d want to address.
To recap really quickly, we covered:
- Why we sneak food
- The shame loop
- Melting the shame and creating guilt-free eating
- Releasing the wrapper shame
If you have thoughts or questions about this episode that you want to chat about or that you’d like to share, my inbox is always open. That includes my email inbox (katy@katyharvey.net), and my DM inbox on FB and IG. I love hearing from you and being able to go deeper on these topics.
In case nobody has told you today – you are worthy just as you are. We’ll talk again soon.
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