FEAR OF FOOD?!?!

FOF usually is an acronym for fear of failure however here I am going to address fear of FOOD. Sounds crazy doesn’t it, who would be afraid of food?? Anyone with a life threatening food allergy. Anyone who has battled with an eating disorder. If you have had an eating disorder you will likely always have a little bit different relationship with food, even years after “recovery”. Being in this particular group myself, I understand that I don’t have the physical part of my eating disorder(very low body weight), but I will always have the mental/emotional aspect of it. It doesn’t just go away.

When I was in my young teens in the thick of my anorexia, and again in my early 20’s during a relapse I had legit fear of some foods. At that time, 1980’s(yes I had the big hair too), fat was the villain, anyone remember Snackwells?!  I would strive for no more than 10 g of fat a day and everything was low fat or fat free.Bowl of cereal with skim milk for breakfast,  apple and rice cake for lunch, salad with low fat dressing for dinner.  Things have really changed over the years and in the last 10 years or so carbohydrates became the bad guy, and keto is “the solution”.

I did my first Whole 30 food elimination challenge about 5-6 years ago and went Paleo after that. For anyone not familiar with this way of eating, grains and dairy are the “bad guys” and you eat mostly healthy fats, protein and veggies. There is inherently nothing wrong with eating just fats, protein and veggies every day all day, it’s a really healthy way of living. The problem comes when you start to fear eating anything outside of your defined parameters. The first time I ate oatmeal after “going Paleo” I felt so guilty. REALLY Rebecca, oatmeal?!?!  Yup, I am serious.

Then came the bikini competition prep where my diet was VERY strict. I do really well with clear cut rules but fear going outside of them. I wouldn’t even eat a piece of fruit because it had too many carbs in it.  I really thought my mind was ready to deal with this type of prep but it just lead me to obsessing and fearing food more.

Let’s move on to my food sensitivity testing this year.  Now on my “can’t eat” list are a LOT of my favorite foods including chocolate, coffee, spinach and strawberries. UGH,  now there are more foods to be afraid of. To be clear, I totally understand food allergies and you obviously need to avoid certain foods if you have a food allergy or other health condition preventing you from eating said foods.  I get at least 3-4 emails a day with “eliminate this single food to live longer” or ” this one hidden food that will let you drop 10 lbs this month” in the subject line. More hype, more fear tactics to sell you their products.

I have a love/hate relationship with food/macro tracking and swore I would never do it again after my fitness competition.  I even went as far as paying to have my macros calculated, thinking that would be the piece of the puzzle I was missing to reach my physique goals. I have recently tried tracking again, because I found that I was chronically UNDEReating, but it just doesn’t feel right to me anymore. I can’t live my life entering everything I eat into My Fitness Pal and it just feeds(no pun intended) my obsession with food(click here to see a study related to eating disorders and MFP) .This is a good strategy short term to see where you might be getting too many or too few calories or specific macros but it’s not a long term solution for me.  

After YEARS of listening to so many professionals about what is right for my body, I think it’s time to listen only to the one who knows me best, ME.