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Last updated on February 22nd, 2024 at 09:01 pm
Mental restriction occurs when you physically allow yourself access to food but experience mental anxiety around it.
You probably know if you are intentionally eating less food or ignoring your hunger. There is physical discomfort when we eat less than what our body needs. But what does it look and feel like to mentally restrict food?
Did you know that mental restriction can be a precursor for overeating or binge eating?
Mental food restriction can look like this:
- Planning to go on a diet tomorrow
- Feeling like you need to walk off a cookie
- Beating yourself up mentally before you even start a meal
Believe it or not, the mental restriction you have around food can have a dramatic physical response in the body.
Let’s explore the sneaky ways that mental food restriction can creep into our day, the physical effect it has on your body, and how to stop mentally restricting food for good!
Examples of Mental Restriction
When the topic of food restriction comes up, most people that feel they are overeating or even binge eating are surprised to learn all of the ways they are restricting their food.
Examples of mental restrictions of food include:
- Measuring out your food instead of letting your body decide how much to eat
- Only eating one serving or one portion of something
- Only allowing yourself to eat “healthy food”
- Not allowing yourself to eat until a certain time of day
- Comparing how much you eat to someone else
- Comparing what type of food you eat to someone else
- Stopping eating before you are full
- Requiring yourself to have hunger pains before eating
- Not keeping foods you enjoy in your house
- Planning a fast after a “cheat day”
- Seeking out zero or low-calorie foods in places of food you want
- Food guilt
- Fear of gaining weight
It’s very important to know that even if you are physically consuming food until you are painfully full, you can still be restricting food mentally!
You will not stop overeating or binge eating until you stop both physical and mental food restriction.
Why Am I Physically Full But Mentally Hungry
Mental hunger comes from mental restriction. Mental food restriction leads to real physical responses in the body. If you are avoiding foods, limiting the amount of food you have, or restricting food altogether you are going to experience mental hunger.
Most of the time mental hunger has very real physical reasons why it happens. For example, you might experience a binge restrict cycle or weight loss rebound.
Mental hunger often feels like:
- Intense cravings for foods with sugar
- Craving foods with fats and oils
- Feeling an intense urge to eat
- Sensations of hunger in your head
- Associating certain activities with food (watching television, games)
You might think mental hunger is all in your head, but it can actually have physical contributors.
For example:
- Our body increases the hormone cortisol which causes us to crave fatty foods when we’re stressed or restricting food.
- A surge of neuropeptide Y in response to food deprivation causes us to crave sugar
- Our body increases salivary amylase in response to certain behaviors and food restriction
What Does Mental Hunger Feel Like
Mental hunger often feels like:
- Repetitive thoughts about food
- Physical hunger pains
- Being frustrated when someone doesn’t finish their “portion”
- Frustration when you eat more than someone else
- Feeling emotionally unsatisfied because you didn’t eat what you truly wanted
- Preparing for a day of restriction
As soon as we begin to experience mental hunger, the body will start to produce physical responses in preparation for food restriction. This will create an intense urge to eat food.
Should You Eat With Mental Hunger
Yes. There are many types of hunger. It is important that you honor all types of hunger if you want to avoid a preoccupation with food and potential binge eating.
If you’re not physically hungry but you want to eat, eat.
However, it’s important to recognize these things when it comes to mental hunger:
- Check your coping strategies for stress. You’re only go-to should not be food.
- Plan for regular meals and snacks the next day, not restriction
- Is there an emotion you need to tend to before you decide to eat?
Eating for mental and emotional reasons is always okay. However, it’s important to check in with yourself and make sure that you have a variety of coping tools for stress and anxiety to ensure eating is not your only way to self-soothe.
Mental Restriction In Intuitive Eating
If you are beginning an intuitive eating journey, physical restriction of food is often easier to break the habit of than mental restriction.
Most people that are new to intuitive eating find themselves simultaneously enjoying the freedom to eat all foods while mentally feeling food guilt.
Physically allowing ourselves access to all foods is often easier than learning to accept our bodies and allow for body changes. This is why we often experience mental restriction of food long after physical restriction in our intuitive eating journey.
We often hold onto the hope that intuitive eating will lead to weight loss well into the intuitive eating journey which disrupts a truly peaceful relationship with food.
How Do I Get Rid Of A Restrictive Mindset Around Food
When people first start to heal their relationship with food, they might think because they are allowing themselves to eat all types of food they are not restricting. This is often not the case. This can lead to binging which will cause you to think you are out of control with food and that eating intuitively will never work.
Here are seven steps to getting rid of mental restrictions around food:
- Identify your food rules. Say them out loud or write them down.
- Address your own internalized fatphobia
- Stop weighing yourself and body checking
- Keep all foods you like in the house
- Stop counting calories
- Respect your body by honoring it
- Create a body positivity journal
A HAES dietitian can help you work through identifying and dismissing a restrictive mindset around food.
It’s important to consider that if you are feeling like mental food restriction is significantly impacting your quality of life, it might be a warning sign of an eating disorder.
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