Welcome back to Rebuilding Trust With Your Body, I’m Katy Harvey your host. Today on the show we are going to talk about why you’re revenge eating now that you’re not dieting.
“You told yourself you were done dieting.”
- “No more rules.”
- “No more tracking.”
- “No more guilt.”
And suddenly it feels like all you do is eat and think about food:
- constantly thinking about “fun foods” you want to eat, or that you’re planning to eat later
- eating past fullness because “I can now”
- buying foods you used to forbid
- eating like it’s your last chance even though you technically have permission now
- Ordering the most indulgent thing on the menu just because you can
And now, understandably, you’re feeling panicked that intuitive eating is turning into “eat whatever whenever.”
This is a really common detour that people accidentally go through on the IE journey…
I call it “revenge eating” and it’s the rebound reaction your brain and body have after feeling deprived, controlled, or restricted for a long time. It’s a really normal, natural and understandable response – but we don’t want to stay stuck at this detour. We want to notice it and get back on the road to true IE where you have genuine peace with food and you’re in sync with your body.
I also have a free guide that is going to help you with this. It’s called How to Stop Thinking About Food All Day, and it walks you through 5 specific strategies that you can apply that will help quiet those food thoughts and food noise – everything from how to approach food at the beginning of the day, what to do when those 3pm cravings or 9pm cravings hit, how to respond to the weight panic that sets in if you feel like you’ve been eating too much, and more. It’s one of my favorite resources. Grab it at the link in the show notes or nondietacademy.com/food.
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: The term “root cause.”
There’s a chiropractor who calls himself Dr. Autoimmune (not real doctors!!) who sells a “root cause power pack” of supplements on his website for $385 and claims that all autoimmune issues are caused by gut issues.
So we’re assuming that everybody has the same “root cause” that’s seeing this guy? That seems weird….and false…that would be like everyone who shows up at the doctor with a cough having the same “root cause” – when some people have a cold, some people have influenza, some people have pneumonia, some people might be choking on something, some people have lung cancer…
And these wellness people like chiropractors, naturopaths and functional health providers (including integrative medicine practitioners) like to act like real doctors aren’t trained to find and treat the root cause of your illness, or that they’re keeping it from you, or that they’re too dumb to know what it is. You want to now what’s interesting though? Regular doctors aren’t personally profiting off selling you supplements and expensive tests that insurance doesn’t cover because they’re not evidence based. These woo quacks convince you that they have the secret answer and the magic solution – that they just so happen to sell you for a profit, that isn’t regulated by the FDA, and that they can’t prove whether it’s working or not beyond a placebo effect.
The term root cause really just means what’s your diagnosis at the end of the day. The diagnosis is the root cause. When you have a correct diagnosis, you can get the correct treatment…and guess what? Most of these alternative health people are just using that term to scam you for their own profit. I can promise you that your real doctor is looking for the “root cause” of your illness and will diagnose and treat it appropriately. If you don’t feel like you’re getting a proper diagnosis from your doctor, go see another real doctor for a second opinion – but hear me loud and clear when I tell you that the functional medicine pipeline to wellness woo is like a fast track into pseudoscience and snake oil. Please don’t fall for it.
If you have an example of Wellness Woo that you want to share, DM it to me.
Ok, that’s enough of that. Moving on to today’s main topic…Why You’re Revenge Eating Now That You’re Not Dieting (And How to Fix This)
Your brain doesn’t trust the permission yet
- Dieting implanted scarcity into your brain.
- Your brain learned food could be taken away at any moment.
- So when permission finally appears, your brain goes: “Quick. Eat it now before the rules come back.”
Examples:
- finishing the whole sleeve because tomorrow “might be healthy again”
- eating treats faster or more intensely
- obsession with previously forbidden foods
Analogy:
It’s like someone escaping a famine and then feeling weird around buffets. It makes total sense. Or if you’ve been under water holding your breath…
Mental restriction still impacts your brain the same as actual restriction
When you’re thinking things like:
- “I’m allowed to eat it…but I shouldn’t.”
- “I can have cookies…but only two.”
- “I’m doing intuitive eating…but trying not to gain weight.”
That’s still diet mentality. You cannot heal from restriction while secretly trying to maintain restriction that’s just less extreme. You’re also undoing:
- years of chronic dieting
- under-eating
- skipping meals
- “being good”
- high protein + low carb wellness culture nonsense
- appetite dysregulation from deprivation
Rebellion Against Boundaries
We need to separate out restriction vs having boundaries with food, because they’re not the same thing and a lot of you are treating it like it is.
The Mistake People Make
People panic during revenge eating and run BACK to control. Examples:
- food rules
- “reset”
- clean eating
- portion control plans
- trying to “do intuitive eating” perfectly
- compensating after overeating
You end up in that cycle:
Restriction → rebellion → guilt → control → more rebellion.
People think the rebellion is the problem. The restriction is usually the spark, and that’s where we need to break out of the cycle.
So How Do You Fix It?
Step 1: Normalize the backlash instead of catastrophizing it
- This phase is common.
- Temporary intensity does not equal permanent chaos.
- Your relationship with food settles when your nervous system believes food is truly available.
- Your body calms down when it stops feeling threatened with restriction and punishment looming on the horizon.
Step 2: Consistent nourishment
- eating enough
- regular meals/snacks
- Combining carb, protein, fat, fiber
- Carbs in particular matter!! (This is the part everyone wants to skip)
- satisfaction matters
- not “earning” food
IE vs impulsive eating.
Keep in mind that intuitive eating is not “whatever sounds good in the moment no matter how I feel afterward, just because I’m allowed to eat the thing that sounded good.” It’s learning to care about BOTH satisfaction AND how your body feels.
Step 3: Stop treating fullness like a morality test
A lot of people in the revenge eating phase aren’t judging the food as much as good/bad anymore, but they are judging themselves for how much they’re eating.
Remember to be gentle with yourself:
- fullness cues may be unreliable initially
- stopping perfectly satisfied every time is unrealistic
- overeating sometimes is part of learning
Eating past fullness is a learning opportunity if you allow it to be. You don’t learn when you’re in shame, or if you’re sticking your head in the sand and pretending that overeating is fine because you’re not restricting yourself anymore.
Step 4: Build food trust through repetition
Here’s what I mean by that:
- keeping foods in the house
- regular exposure
- reducing emotional charge
- “decharming” foods
The goal is not to white-knuckle yourself around cookies. The goal is for cookies to become emotionally boring sometimes. (tell the Whataburger story)
The Hard Truth
A lot of people say they want food freedom, but what they actually want is to stop obsessing about food while still controlling their weight.
Part of healing is tolerating the uncertainty that your body may not end up looking exactly how your eating disorder or diet mentality wanted it to, or in the way that society says is the most acceptable or beautiful.
Wrapping Up
Grab my “how to stop thinking about food all day” guide. It’s going to show you a structure for how to approach food that doesn’t turn into rebellion, revenge eating or impulsivity. It will allow those food thoughts to quiet down, so that you can listen to your body like you’re trying so hard to do.
In case nobody has told you today – you are worthy just as you are. We’ll talk again soon.
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