Understanding “Unconditional Permission to Eat”

One of the most confusing concepts with intuitive eating, in my experience, is “unconditional permission” so I thought I should spend some time explaining what it means to have unconditional permission to eat and why this is so important for your relationship with food. Last week I mentioned unconditional permission briefly as one of the steps to make peace with food, but we need a little deep dive. So that’s what this is!

Our bodies are “rule rebels”.

Ok, so unconditional permission. Let’s dive into this concept together. To start, let’s talk about dieting and the effects of deprivation. Our bodies are, as I like to say, “rule rebels” meaning they push back against any and all rules around food that we give them. Any sense of deprivation either physical deprivation, so physically not getting enough calories, physically not eating enough and getting enough energy, or even (here’s what a lot of people don’t know) psychological and mental deprivation, so even just the thought of going on a diet, or the thoughts you have around food can influence your body feeling deprived. And when our bodies feel and sense that deprivation, they get into protection mode. They say, “I sense either actual starvation (through physical deprivation) or the threat of starvation (through mental deprivation) so I better adjust so that I can stay safe and stay alive. Our bodies don’t know the difference between dieting and starvation so what happens is your drive to eat increases, your desire to exercise decreases to conserve energy, metabolism decreases, you start thinking about food more...not very conducive if you’re trying to diet and not eat as much and exercise more, right?

Essentially, the reason you maybe have struggled to be consistent with dieting comes from your body adapting to keep you safe… it can’t tell the difference between a diet and famine.

So when you set out to diet, you typically set up some rules for yourself with eating, right? You say, “I’m not going to eat carbs, or dessert, or fried foods or I’m not going to eat after 7 PM. I’m going to do intermittent fasting so I’m only going to eat within this time frame. I’m going to do paleo and not eat any sugar. I’m only going to eat “x” carbs, protein, and fat every day. I’m only going to eat “x” number of calories every day.

If you’ve ever set out on any diet or any period of time saying things like this, what do you notice? You crave all of those foods that you said you didn’t want to eat. You especially notice feeling hungry during those times you said you weren’t going to eat, right?

Getting rid of the rules you have with food takes away the sense of deprivation.

So, let me explain what it means to give yourself unconditional permission to eat. Unconditional permission with food takes away the rules with eating. And it takes away the conditions you have around eating, saying things like, “If I have dessert I have to workout especially hard tomorrow”. And by taking away these rules you have with eating, you get rid of that sense of deprivation.

Going back to what we were talking about with deprivation, when your body senses deprivation which comes with having all of these rules with eating that you have, it wants to rebel. Remember, I said your body is a “rule rebel”. It’s going to do everything in it’s power to get you to break those rules. And the main reason is your body wants to feel safe. Your body doesn’t know that food isn’t actually scarce… but that’s what dieting signals.

Unconditional permission takes away the rules with eating so that your body can feel total peace and calm around food. There’s no sense of urgency, no sense of “I’m going to start a diet on Monday so I better eat seconds and dessert and all the carbs and sugar this weekend”. 

But I know myself…I know that if I ate with unconditional permission I’d eat everything in sight!

But, I know what you’re thinking. I know that you’re probably thinking… “If I let myself eat freely, with unconditional permission, without rules, I KNOW that I’d eat absolutely everything in sight. I KNOW that I wouldn’t be able to stop eating from that ½ gallon of ice cream. I KNOW that I’d want to eat french fries and burgers and pasta every single night.” And I know you’re thinking that because I’ve heard that soo often AND I once thought that myself.

I was right there with you… I thought that if I let myself just eat and not worry about what I was eating that I’d never want to eat a healthy food ever again. I thought that all I’d want was all the things I didn’t allow myself to eat.

But, what I experienced and what I’ve seen my clients experience is actually the exact opposite. What actually happens is when you let go of the rules, when you eat with unconditional permission, when you take away the morality around food and say, “I can eat a salad if I want or a sandwich”, you can relax around food and make a conscious decision for yourself. Not influenced by what you think you “should” eat. And you’re able to find that happy grey place. That place where you can say, “you know what, tonight I actually don’t want ice cream...I had it last night and was able to eat it without the urgency that it was the last time I was going to eat it (what’s called “last supper eating”) and tonight, I actually WANT to just have some tea… that’s what sounds good”.

I love that intuitive eating is research-based and has been studied to be an effective approach to feeling calm around food and actually being healthier so I wanted to share a study that was done that helps confirm this concept of “unconditional permission”. This particular one involves ice cream, milkshakes, and college students.

57 college students were made to believe that they were sampling and rating ice cream based on taste when in reality, it was a study to look at exactly what we’ve been talking about here...how diet thinking might affect eating and food intake regulation. So first off, each student was given either one, two, or no milkshakes to enjoy. After that they were asked to taste and rate three flavors of ice cream. They were allowed to have as much or as little ice cream as they wanted, eaten in privacy. Listen to what happened...those students who didn’t diet naturally regulated their eating and ate less ice cream in proportion to the amount of milkshakes consumed. And those who dieted and had restrained eating with food actually had the opposite behavior. Of this group, those who drank two milkshakes actually ate the most ice cream.

What this study shows is all or nothing thinking that comes with dieting. The dieters had the mentality of “well, I’ve already broken my healthy eating streak so I might as well go all out” whereas those who weren’t dieters, who were intuitive eaters, were able to self-regulate. Pretty crazy right! So you see, letting go of food rules, giving yourself unconditional permission with food, actually sets you up for eating a comfortable amount! It doesn’t lead to eating everything in sight like we’re made to believe.

What I hope you’ll get from this is that you can trust yourself around food. The reason you feel so uncontrolled around food isn’t because you don’t have enough rules, it’s because you need to let go of the rules. I know what it’s like to feel like having more and more rules around eating makes you feel safe, but they’re taking you farther and farther away from feeling peace and calm around food.

Action step:

I want to give you a quick action step to start to practice unconditional permission with food. I want you to write down a list of your food rules. And one by one, I want you to challenge those rules. Start to break them. This is the best way to start to practice unconditional permission and be able to really start to eat intuitively.

And then come tell me about your experience over on Instagram (I love connecting with you over there!)

Also, I know how challenging this can be to do on your own… that’s why I created The Nourish Lab, my online intuitive eating community. We go deep into this topic together… COME JOIN US!

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