“OMG do you know how many calories are in that thing??” – “You can’t eat bread or pasta, it’ll make you fat.” – “You’ll have to push it extra hard in the gym tomorrow, to work that pizza off.” Do any of these statements sound familiar?
Most of us have an inner food critic…. you know that voice in your head that seems to call all the shots on what you eat, when you eat, and how you are going to feel about it afterwards. The voice that is looking at a slice of pizza and adding the calories up before you even take a bite. The voice that is telling you sugar is bad, eating bread is bad and carbs are REALLY bad. The voice that is telling you that if you eat this or that you will have to eat less tomorrow, or run an extra mile or two to work it off.
BUT who gave this inner voice all the power?? OH RIGHT, diet society did. Oh and social media, magazine covers, co-workers, friends and family members, and whoever or whatever else, that seems to have an opinion about food, weight, diets and eating.
It seems that it doesn’t matter where we go, we are constantly bombarded by someone or something, giving us advice on the next “best” diet or food trend to follow. Everyone seems to have an opinion about what is healthy, what isn’t, how we should eat, what we should eat, and when we should eat. We are told we should eat only raw foods, avoid gluten, eating bread will make us fat, bananas have too much sugar, red meat will kill us, don’t eat carbs at night, don’t eat past 7pm, or don’t eat any dairy. BLAH BLAH BLAH.
Talk about an overload of mumbo jumbo!! It’s gets to the point where we don’t know what to believe and what not to believe. We stop trusting our bodies to make a healthy decision about what’s right for us and what isn’t, and allow the “inner critic” and all this unsolicited info to run the show.
This inner food critic is “ruling” us. Controlling our eating decisions and behaviors. Causing us to question everything we eat on a daily basis, and leaving us to feel guilt & shame around food. Ultimately creating an unhealthy, disordered relationship with food and eating.
Through daily practice and patience, we can stand up to our inner critic, and change our internal dialogue. Challenging these thoughts, and creating more space for self-affirming, non-judgmental thoughts. Thoughts that serve us to making the best choices for our body. Which ultimately helps us to take back our power around food, and step towards becoming an empowered eater.