This was the craziest thing I came to realize during my six-month reset. All those trigger foods I was so afraid of? Some of them aren’t even that good! Just because I like cupcakes doesn’t mean I like all of them. Some cupcakes are just not delicious. Some are dry and tasteless and kinda gross.
Why would I eat something that’s kinda gross?
If it feels like the last cupcake on the planet, that’s why.
When cupcakes are perceived as evil and off limits for ever and ever, any crappy cupcake is better than no cupcake. Who KNOWS when you’ll get another chance to eat one???
But when cupcakes are just neutral inanimate objects without moral implications, there’s no urgency. If it’s a good cupcake, you eat it; if it isn’t, you don’t. Cupcakes aren’t rare. More cupcakes will come around in life. It’s just not a huge deal.
The longer I let myself eat whatever I wanted, guilt-free, the more the realizations piled up:
Not all bread is delicious.
Not all French fries are delicious.
Not all cookies are delicious.
Not all muffins are delicious.
Not all candy is delicious.
These were mind-boggling breakthroughs for me. I’d spent so many years defining myself as someone who “just likes food too much.” But it turns out I just feared food too much.
When you criminalize or deify food, you give it power. When you neutralize food, you take your power back. Not all food is delicious, and there is not a single food in this world capable of the mind control we give it credit for.
Don’t worry if you haven’t experienced this feeling yet — depending on where you are in your intuitive eating journey, you may or may not have gotten to the point where some food is just meh. But the more you eat with complete freedom from shame and judgment, the more you will give your mind and tastebuds the opportunity to reframe your entire approach to food.
The next time you’re faced with a food you fear, try taking a bite, and ask yourself a question: Does it taste good? It might. It might not. The answer isn’t the point; the point is asking the question.
What you do with the answer isn’t the point either. Maybe it tastes great, so you eat it. Maybe it’s great, but you find you’re not in the mood. Maybe you find it’s not very good, so you don’t want it. Maybe you think it’s not that delicious, but you keep eating it anyway — because you’re hungry, because you paid money for it, because it’s someone’s birthday and you need to be polite, because you just feel like it.
There are so many reasons to eat or not eat a particular food at a particular moment, and it’s so much more nuanced than diet culture’s false dichotomy of good foods vs. bad foods. And none of it—none—has any bearing on your worth as a person.
six months to sanity 
THIS! Thank you so much for putting this into words! This is something I’ve struggled with as well and I’ve begun coming to this realization too. It is so important to be able to take power back over food in this way.
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Isn’t it funny (…and kind of depressing…) how we can lose our innate sense of this somewhere along the way? It took me years to get back to where I was as a kid when I ate what I liked and skipped what I didn’t. So simple, and yet so challenging! Thank you so much for your comment!
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Thank you so much for your encouragement and sharing with us.
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My pleasure as always! Thank you so much for reading!
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I still find this particularly difficult – I’m very indiscriminate with food, if I generally like it then it has to taste really horrible before I won’t eat it. I still have to learn not to eat things that are there if they taste just ok. I must raise my standards! Thanks for talking about this.
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I’m like that with pizza! Even like weird gas station pizza that I KNOW is an affront to the entire history of Italy, I’ll be like “mmmmm, get in my belly.” Ha! But I think it’s okay to eat stuff that’s just okay. For me, the pressure to make “good choices” is way too diet-y and stressful, so I just strive to make choices. Any choices! All choices are good choices, because that’s what keeps me in the driver’s seat and away from auto-pilot eating. Thank you so much for your comment! ❤
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Wow, I had noticed some foods weren’t as nice as others of the same type, but didn’t really think about it – I just ate them anyway, and then felt worse about myself because I didn’t even enjoy it. You’ve certainly got me thinking now! Thank you.
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It’s so funny, isn’t it? I mean…I like movies, but I don’t like ALL movies. I like music, but I don’t like ALL music. Of course!! And yet with food, we lose track of all that somehow. The more present and aware we are when we eat, the more we can tune into the foods we truly enjoy — and the foods that make us go “ehhhh, no thanks. I think I’d rather have something else instead.” It’s been an eye-opening realization for me, and I hope it helps you too! Thank you so much for reading!
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The best blog I’ve ever read in terms of giving practical, inspiring, realistic advice. I think maybe cause you too have been a binge eater you know the real feelings and struggles that arise, you’re 6 month before and after blog was spot on for how I used to eat “before”. Your advice is so meaningful because it’s emotional and intuitive and teaches me to love my body and treat it like a friend. And also to stop seeing junk food as an enemy! And to relax around it. I’ve read a lot of blogs about this subject as Ive tried to heal myself from binge eating and yours is the best. It combines so many elements that I like from other blogs but in one and I like that it’s not overly nutrition based or logic based or emotion based but a mixture of it all. I am so happy you post and that I discovered them. I love reading these and they really help a lot. Thank you !!!!
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Thank you so so so much, Kelly! I’m mortified that this response is so late, but I just needed to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your kind words. I’m just finding my way back after a stressful few months with a new baby, and this was the most wonderful welcome-back gift. I hope you are doing GREAT and most importantly, treating your body like the best friend it truly is. Thank you for reading and commenting here…it means the world to me ❤
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