Have you ever been on a diet and found yourself thinking about food even more than usual?
Maybe you’ve tried programs that restrict certain foods or involve counting points, measuring portions, or tracking every bite. Did you notice how these efforts made you feel more obsessed with food rather than indifferent to the foods you were trying to avoid?
There’s a lot of solid science explaining why traditional diets often fail, and it starts with something called the suppression effect.
The Suppression Effect: Why Trying Not to Think About Food Backfires
Try this quick exercise: Do NOT think about purple frogs. Do everything you can to ban all thoughts of purple frogs. Push them out of your head and absolutely do not allow any thoughts about purple frogs to enter your mind.
Now, try NOT thinking about chocolate. Do everything you can to avoid imagining big, melty chunks of chocolate or how it tastes. Do whatever it takes to stop any thoughts of chocolate from entering your mind.
What happened? Did you find yourself thinking about purple frogs or chocolate, even though you were trying not to?
This is exactly how the suppression effect works. When we tell ourselves not to think about something, our brain actually fixates on it more. The mind doesn’t recognize the word “NOT” or “DON’T”; it simply creates an image or thought about the very thing you’re trying to avoid.
How Diets Trigger Obsession with Food
Now, consider what traditional diets ask you to do: They tell you NOT to eat certain foods. Whether it’s carbs, sugar, or entire food groups, the restriction increases your preoccupation with food. The brain becomes hyper-focused on what it’s being told to avoid, which can lead to feelings of obsession and loss of control.
This effect has been well-documented since the 1940s, during the Minnesota Starvation Study. In this study, participants who were put on a restricted diet became increasingly preoccupied with food. Their thoughts, conversations, dreams, and even hobbies started to revolve around eating. Some participants even changed their careers to focus on food, becoming chefs or working in agriculture, all due to their heightened fixation on food.
The Yo-Yo Dieting Cycle: Why Restriction Doesn’t Work
This research highlights a fundamental problem with restrictive diets: they are not sustainable. People can rely on willpower for a short time, but eventually, the mental effort of suppressing thoughts about food becomes too much, and the result is often binge eating, weight regain, and feelings of failure and shame.
When working on issues with weight and food, the goal should be to think about food less, not more.
Breaking Free from the Cycle with Therapy
This is where therapeutic approaches like Rapid Transformational Therapy (RTT), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), and Internal Family Systems (IFS) can make a significant difference. These methods don’t just focus on surface behaviors like eating habits; they address the underlying emotional and psychological drivers of these patterns. Here’s how they can help:
Addressing the Root Cause with RTT:
RTT combines the most effective principles of hypnotherapy, psychotherapy, NLP, and cognitive behavioural therapy to uncover the root cause of your eating issues. It helps you break free from subconscious beliefs and habits that keep you stuck in a cycle of dieting and self-sabotage. By understanding and transforming these core beliefs, you can change your relationship with food in a sustainable way.
Reprocessing Trauma and Emotional Triggers with EMDR:
EMDR is highly effective for processing and resolving traumatic experiences and emotional triggers that can lead to emotional eating or disordered eating patterns. By reprocessing these distressing memories, EMDR helps reduce their emotional charge, freeing you from the need to use food as a coping mechanism.
Understanding and Harmonizing Inner Parts with IFS:
Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy helps you identify and heal the different ‘parts’ of yourself that might be in conflict around food. For example, one part of you might want to eat healthily, while another part seeks comfort in junk food. By understanding and working with these parts, you can create a more harmonious relationship with food and yourself.
Why Addressing the Root Cause Brings Lasting Change
Many people struggle with weight and eating issues because they are dealing with deeper, unresolved emotional conflicts. Food often serves as a coping mechanism for stress, boredom, loneliness, or unresolved trauma. Simply following a diet plan doesn’t address these underlying issues, which is why so many people end up back where they started.
Therapies like RTT, EMDR, and IFS go beyond the surface and work at a deeper level to:
Heal Emotional Wounds: Resolve past traumas and emotional pain that may be driving your relationship with food.
Transform Limiting Beliefs: Change the subconscious beliefs that keep you stuck in unhealthy eating patterns.
Develop a Healthy Relationship with Food: Create a balanced, non-restrictive approach to eating that allows you to enjoy all types of food without guilt or obsession.
Practical Changes You Can Start Today
While deeper therapeutic work can create profound shifts, there are also practical changes you can make right away to start improving your relationship with food:
Practice Mindful Eating: Pay attention to what you’re eating and how it makes you feel. Notice when you’re truly hungry and when you’re eating out of habit, stress, or emotion.
Ditch the Diet Mentality: Instead of focusing on what you can’t have, focus on nourishing your body with foods that make you feel good and energized.
Create Non-Food Coping Strategies: Identify other ways to cope with stress or difficult emotions, such as exercising, journaling, or talking to a friend.
Get Curious, Not Judgmental: When you have a craving or eat more than you intended, get curious about what’s really going on. What are you feeling? What do you really need in that moment?
Seek Professional Support: If you’ve tried everything and still feel stuck, consider one of the therapy types I have described. These approaches can help you get to the root of your eating issues and create lasting change.
Imagine feeling at peace with food, enjoying all types of food in moderation, and no longer being controlled by cravings or restrictive diets. You can have this freedom when you address the deeper causes of your eating patterns.
If this resonates with you, contact me to learn more about how RTT, EMDR, or IFS can help you break free from the cycle of dieting and obsession, and start living a more balanced, fulfilled life. I also help people wanting to successfully apply time-restricted eating protocols to manage their health.
#FoodFreedom #MindfulEating #TherapyForEating #RTT #EMDR #IFS #Wellbeing #BreakTheCycle #HealthyMindset
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