Does it ever feel like you spend all day obsessing over what you eat?
It could be from all those years dieting and an unhealthy relationship with food.
Why dieting can make you feel obsessed with food
Here are some of the ways dieting can end up making you feel more obsessed with food:
Promotes an overall culture of “perfection”
Diet culture promotes developing a “healthy obsession” with eating right and exercising.
Programs like 75 hard and others that promote strict rules, hard workouts, and total commitment really lend themselves to this obsession with health.
It can leave you feeling like you need to put all your attention and focus on your health goals in order to be successful. And any mistake means the program didn’t really count so you need to start over.
Restricts a basic need
When you’re dieting, you’re restricting a basic need for your body. The human body will always need food for energy, body maintenance, and everything you do.
Instead of food, let’s think of water for a second. Imagine a day when you’ve been out and haven’t had a chance to drink anything. When you’re so thirsty while being out on a hot day, what are you thinking about? Most likely getting something to drink to satisfy your thirst.
And once you get something to drink, you likely chug it until you’ve quenched your thirst.
Or when you’re really tired, you’re probably looking forward to taking a nap or being able to sleep at night.
It’s normal to think about a basic need that hasn’t been met. So when you’re restricting your food, it’s normal to think about food.
Brings in scarcity
Dieting can create a sense of scarcity with food and the feel of food being in short supply because it’s limited in how you’re approaching food. Which can leave you thinking about food more often and feeling obsessed with food.
When something is in short supply, it’s natural to want it more. That’s the reason marketers use this as a technique to get people to buy more. That marketing phrase “only available for a limited time or limited quantities” is used to get people to want to purchase more at a specific time.
That effect applies when you’re limiting your food and why it can feel like dieting makes you want food more.
Decreases self trust
Half of those dieting tips really just teach you not to trust yourself around food.
Have you heard you shouldn’t keep the “bad” foods in the house so they don’t tempt you? The subtle message of that is you can’t trust yourself to keep any off limits food in the house without overeating.
And when you expect yourself to overeat, you’re much more likely to overeat the food and feel obsessed with food.
How to stop obsessing over food
Healing your relationship with food is what you need to focus on if you want to stop obsessing over food.
To do this you’ll want to learn to approach food and health in general with:
- Practices that build self trust
- A self care framework that doesn’t force strict rules (such as intuitive eating)
- Start with building a more neutral relationship with food and eventually positive
- Focus on how movement makes your body feel over a perfect workout
I want to include that sometimes obsessing over food can result from an eating disorder. If stress or worrying over food is impacting your life or health, finding a health professional team that treats eating disorders is recommended. Find resources for eating disorder support here.