This is an episode of Crush It Mondays.  Each week, I’ll bring to you an inspiring message, habit, or contemplation to get your week off to a powerful start.  In this week’s episode, I want to talk about food guilt.

When I started organizing my thoughts for this podcast, I thought it would be quick and easy.  Boy was I wrong!  I have my own thoughts on food guilt, but I like to do research and there are tons of articles out there on this subject.  The question I could not find the answer to is where food guilt comes from?

How many of you have eaten something and felt guilty about it?  I thought that everyone has food guilt, but I realized that some people actually do not feel guilty about eating.  One of my biggest guilt triggers is around alcohol. I noticed that if I cut way back on drinking, then I don't feel guilty in the morning about it.  But if I'm drinking several times a week, my first thought in the morning is self-flagellation around drinking.  Another guilt-trigger for me is around eating things like french fries or processed foods.  I told my husband about how I wake up feeling less guilty if I am drinking less alcohol and how I don't really feel different in terms of energy level or health when I don't drink (I rarely have more than 2 drinks), but I feel less guilty when I don't drink.

He said, "You feel guilty about eating and drinking?"  I discovered he rarely experienced food guilt.  The next instance was a conversation with my dad. I was telling him about my observation with myself and he also told me he never feels guilty about eating or drinking.  This was fascinating to me because I thought that food guilt was normal, and trust me, after I did some research, I found out that it is typically more common in women (in fact, over 75% of women experience food guilt) and it's also common in men.

So why do most of us have this relationship with food?  Here are some thoughts - and if you have more to add, I'd love to hear yours as well.  Feel free to leave a comment on my website under the show notes.

I don't know where this guilt spiral started, but I paid attention to how we simply talk about food or how it is talked about in the media. How many times have you heard things like "sinless chocolate cake," a "guilty pleasure", or "guilt-free comfort food."  Or have heard someone say "I'm going to be bad and have a cupcake."  This type of talk contributes to the problem of assigning a good or bad feeling for our food.  I've struggled with disordered thoughts around food and negative behaviors, especially when I was younger so I think about this stuff a lot.

Step 1. Stop labeling food as good or bad, or using the world guilty with food.  Pay attention to the words you use.

The next reason we feel guilty (at least from my own experience) is we set rules for how we eat and if we break a rule, then we feel bad.  We feel bad because we have broken a commitment to ourself. It's not the food itself, it's the broken commitment and what you think that commitment says about you as a person.  Try to decode why you feel guilty and I bet this will come up.  I don't have an answer about food rules. I think we need to have a general belief system around how we want to eat to thrive. Personally, the guilt comes when I either have rules that are too strict.  It also comes when I break the rule and have a lot of negative self-talk around that.  Can you create more moderate rules around food that give you some wiggle room? I noticed that when I did that, I actually enjoyed the wine I was drinking and didn't wake up with guilt.  Or I truly enjoyed a couple of cookies without remorse.  People that have guilty thoughts or unhealthy feelings toward food probably also have some issues with perfectionism

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The Grow the Good Podcast is produced by Palm Tree Pod Co.