Food guilt is incredibly common.  You’ve likely experienced it many times before, perhaps even daily.  It may happen so often that you’ve accepted it as a normal part of life.  It comes up in conversation as naturally as the weather…”The weather is so pleasant! I ate a cookie last night and now I feel guilty.”

But ask yourself this: when’s the last time you felt guilty about what you were eating and it actually motivated you in a positive way?  Food guilt is never helpful and only keeps you stuck in the same extreme cycle of restriction and chaos with food.  It encourages an all or nothing mentality with food where you eat none of it or all of it.  When you do eat all of it, the guilt sets in and you vow to never eat it again.  But then you do and the cycle continues.

You’re NOT (!!!) the problem.  The problem is food guilt and it’s what’s making you miserable.

While you may think that the answer to food guilt is more self-control, willpower or self-discipline, it’s totally not.  There’s a lot of power in permission: permission to eat, permission to feel satisfied and permission to enjoy foods you love.

food guilt

Something really amazing happens when you strip way food rules and just allow yourself to eat.  While it may feel impossible at first, it’s absolutely possible to naturally self-moderate food without a list of rules.