Eat Whatever You Want, Whenever You Want

Eat Whatever You Want, Whenever You Want?

The idea of eating “whatever you want, whenever you want” is an often-discussed topic in the eating disorder recovery space. Some use this directive to encourage people to give up food restriction and food rules, and others speak out against the idea of eating “whatever you want, whenever you want,” saying that it’s unrealistic or will lead to overeating and poor food choices.

This phrase is also (incorrectly) used to describe the popular Intuitive Eating approach, which is much more nuanced than simply “eating whatever you want, whenever you want.” The original philosophy of Intuitive Eating was developed by Evelyn Tripoli and Elise Resh, and the basic premise is that your body knows what foods are best for you and how much you need to eat. So, if you can learn to follow that inner guidance, you’ll eventually be able to eat in a natural way and your body will be at the unique size that’s right for you. Intuitive eating involves tuning in to taste preferences and to how foods make you feel; it’s not just about following every food desire that you have.

If you are unsure if an intuitive approach to eating is right for you, you can listen to Episode 16: Eating Intuitively: Is it Right for You in Recovery from Binge Eating? or read this blog post: Is Intuitive Eating a Remedy for Binge Eating?. Also know that what I talk about in the rest of this post is not meant to be a reflection of the Intuitive Eating philosophy. I only wanted to mention it up front because it’s so strongly linked in many people’s minds to the idea of “eating whatever you want, whenever you want.”

Rethinking the Idea of Eating “Whatever You Want, Whenever You Want.”

Taken at face value, “eating whatever you want, whenever you want” seems to lack sound judgement and wisdom, but I’m going to turn the tables a bit here and say that maybe we should all be eating “whatever we want, whenever we want”…but only if we reinterpret this phrase.

Admittedly, throughout my years of working with binge eaters, I’ve been more on the side of people who say that “eating whatever you want, whenever you want” is unrealistic and can lead to eating an overabundance of highly stimulating, processed food. However, I’ve recently had new insights about this, realizing that I was interpreting this phrase in an overly simplistic way, and realizing it holds more truth than I’ve thought in the past.

Re-Examining the Meaning of “Wants”

As humans, we naturally have many desires and wants, and this is an absolutely normal part of our existence. Much of this wanting is fueled by our primitive brain and its reward/pleasure center, which naturally drives us toward behaviors that are going to keep us alive, help us experience pleasure, and allow us to avoid pain. Eating is a behavior that does all of the above.

Whether or not we struggle with a binge eating habit, we are going to want often and we’re going to want food often, and especially tasty food. It’s simply in our nature, and if we didn’t have this strong desire for food, we might not have survived as a species. Add to that the abundance of highly stimulating foods available to many of us today, and it’s easy to see why our normal cravings for food can get amplified. Some of us have stronger desires than others when it comes to food or other pleasures, and binge eaters have a glitch in this primitive reward system that makes them want massive amounts of food.

Primitive Wanting vs. Truly Wanting

What’s important to know is that having the experience of wanting something in the moment (because of our primitive drives) does not have much to do with what we actually, truly want for our lives.

Wanting is a feeling, a sensation, a type of energy that moves through us…but it is not us.

If we take another look at the phrase, “eat whatever you want, whenever you want,” you can see how this philosophy could potentially be harmful—because we do “want” often and we “want” food often. This can create a dilemma if we are fortunate enough to have access to food often, because even if we’re not actively eating—we may be smelling food, passing by it, seeing others eating it, and viewing advertising for it.

Normal eaters experience this too, but most people aren’t out there eating whatever they see, smell, or think about, or whenever their body creates the sensation of wanting around food. What normal eaters get good at is distinguishing what they actually, truly want from what they feel like they want in the moment.

Basically, a normal eater decides what “wants” to follow and what “wants” not to follow based on balancing their momentary desire for pleasure with their desire to feel good and to be able to function well in the world. A normal eater will certainly choose to eat just for pleasure sometimes and even do this more often than is ideal for health, especially in our modern food environment. But even when they eat purely for pleasure, it does not feel vastly out of line with their true self and the choices they want to be making.

I want or I want

Someone who is not making those conscious choices with food and instead feels driven by their momentary desires and cravings may say: “I eat whatever I want whenever I want.”

But someone who is making those conscious food choices would instead say, “I eat whatever I want, whenever I want.”

The difference is in what word is emphasized. If we emphasize the word I, it changes the whole experience and puts you back in control.

If you are instead focusing on the word want, and you are therefore eating every time you feel “wanting” around food, you are not allowing your true self to choose how you really want to be eating.

For example, your lower brain may want to constantly graze all day, but that doesn’t make you feel good. You realize that you actually feel better and more in touch with your appetite cues when you eat a few nourishing meals plus a couple snacks during the day, at generally the same times. That’s what you want to eat and when you want to eat, so when you eat in that way, you are in fact eating “whatever you want, whenever you want.” You’re making wise choices for yourself, and your additional, excessive wants and primitive brain desires are just along for the ride.

How Do You Handle “Wants” in the Rest of Your Life? 

Think about all of the other things you don’t do (or don’t do exactly when you want to) because your higher brain has greater goals—goals not to go broke, or ruin your relationships, or lose your job. We all disregard momentary desires sometimes for more important wants, and honestly, sometimes we do the opposite in that we disregard our greater goals for some guilty pleasure…and that’s okay too! But it’s about choosing that balance for yourself—by connecting to what you actually want for your life and for your eating, and leaving room for enjoyment too.

This is never about banishing food pleasure, and conversely, it’s also never about trying to convince yourself that you really want to be on a strict eating plan that deprives your body of enough food. If you struggle with wanting to be too restrictive, listen to Episode 49: Can I Use the Brain over Binge Approach to Stick to Strict Eating Plans?

How Much Space Are You Giving Your “Wants”?

As I was thinking about this topic, I ran across an insightful and relevant post—part of which I’m going to share here—from one of my favorite authors and podcast creators, Forrest Hansen. He said…

Much like dishes, laundry, and email, our wants never end. They expand to fill the space they’re allowed. We can never get to the bottom of dishes, laundry, or email. Doing email simply leaves us with more email to do as sending email means receiving more in return. Doing dishes today still means more tomorrow, and unfortunately, I never seem to run out of dirty clothing.

Our wants work the same way. Most people carry around this sense that if they could just get to the bottom of their wants, they’d finally be happy, but the truth is that our wants expand to fill the space they’re allowed. As we satisfy old wants, new ones appear to take their place and even when we’re currently enjoying that thing that we wanted, we can notice ourselves teleporting into the future, anticipating, planning, and desiring some new and slightly better version.

The problem isn’t just that our wants are never ending and constantly expanding, it’s that we can’t solve this problem by abandoning wants altogether. Important boxes must be checked for us to feel fulfilled. There is space for our wants, but the trick is to be thoughtful, not just about what wants we’re filling that space with, but how much space we’re allowing our wants to have. Are they in the passenger’s seat of the car or the driver’s seat?”

I hope that these words from Forrest Hansen and my discussion helps you see that you no longer have to be driven by your wants—in relation to food or anything else in your life—but you can get skilled at determining what you truly desire. You can learn to give yourself ample pleasure when it comes to food, while still not following the endless wants that are part of the human condition.

________________

If you want more help as you navigate this and as you create a way of eating that works for you, you can utilize the following Brain over Binge resources:

One-on-one Coaching – Book a 45-minute private and highly personalized session with Kathryn or Coach Julie. You will learn to change your thinking, uncover what is holding you back, and get on a path to complete freedom from food issues.

Group Coaching – Get help from coach Julie and support from others who are overcoming this habit. Includes a forum that is open 24/7, group coaching calls, mindfulness resources, plus course access.

Brain over Binge Course – Self-paced online lessons (plus an app) for only $18.99/month. Includes over 125 tracks to listen to that give you the information and answers you need as you end binge eating.

Ep. 135: Eat Whatever You Want, Whenever You Want?

I Don’t Know How to Eat!

As you work on ending binge eating, do you find yourself saying, I don’t know how to eat?  Feeling confused about how to approach normal eating might create overwhelm and cause you to want to give up on recovery. Today, I’m going to talk about dropping the I don’t know thoughts around food. I want to help you stop telling yourself that you don’t know how to make eating choices, and help you start feeling more confident in your food decisions.

Why It Feels Like You Don’t Know How to Eat in Binge Eating Recovery

The I don’t know how to eat thoughts likely seem very believable and true right now, but you can learn to overcome them. It’s necessary to overcome them because you will need the essential ability to make food choices throughout your life. Deciding what, when, how, and where to eat is something you will always need to do many times every day. It’s completely understandable if that feels impossible right now, because eating likely has not come naturally to you for a long time. You’ve probably spent months, years, or even decades not only binge eating, but also trying to follow certain diets, or meal plans, or fasting regimens, or specific food rules or requirements.

Restrictive dieting and binge eating can definitely make you lose touch with your innate ability to simply make food decisions that feel right in the moment and then move on with your life. If you’ve followed my blog or podcast, or read my books, you know that in order to recover from binge eating, it’s vital to give up restrictive dieting. However, when you do this and no longer have a “diet” to follow, it can lead to you feeling lost. You may sit down at meals and wonder how much is “normal” or how much is too much, or you may overthink your body’s signals of hunger and fullness. You may worry about certain foods making you gain weight or worry that certain foods might lead to urges to binge. You may even be concerned if you choose healthy foods or turn down unhealthy foods because you want to make sure you’re not depriving yourself. You may feel uneasy about what you see other people eating or not eating, and you may think you simply don’t know when to say yes to food and when to say no.

Added to that, you’ve likely heard a lot of advice about how you should be eating in order to recover from binge eating. There are many different philosophies out there from recovery advocates, and those philosophies don’t always agree. For example, some say that you need to eliminate sugar or other “addicting” foods to recover, and some say you must learn to eat those very same foods in moderation in order to truly recover. The reality is that there is no one right way to eat, but if you’ve spent any amount of time believing in one philosophy, it can be difficult to let it go. You may find yourself questioning if you should be eating completely intuitively, or if you should be measuring your food (or counting your servings or calories) to make sure that you’re getting enough, or if you should be avoiding any sort of measurement or calorie counting. You may question whether you should have a more structured meal plan or eat in a more flexible way, or if you should allow all types of foods, or avoid some specific foods while you get the binge eating habit under control.

Not only do you have this confusion about normal eating, but you also have the reality of dealing with the urges to binge and breaking the binge eating habit itself. (If you are new here, you can get started with breaking the habit by downloading my free PDF, “The Brain over Binge Basics”).

In times of confusion, a very common pattern is for the I don’t know how to eat thoughts to lead to thoughts that say I can’t possibly figure out how to eat, to lead to thoughts that say well, I might as well binge. It’s as if that primitive, habitual part of your brain automatically offers binge eating as a “solution” to not knowing what or how to eat. The binge-encouraging thoughts basically tell you to give up on even trying to determine how to eat and to instead just eat anything and everything. This is a common lower-brain tactic—using a circumstance surrounding food, or a circumstance in your life to rationalize bingeing. My goal is to help you stop believing that there is ever a reason to binge. I know that when you are not experiencing a desire to binge, you can look at this rationalization and see that it simply makes no sense to binge in response to feeling like you don’t know how to eat.

If there is one thing you do know about eating—without any doubt—it’s that binge eating is not how to eat. 

Even if you genuinely feel confused about your food choices, it’s very powerful to realize that there is zero confusion surrounding binge eating—it is extremely harmful to you, and any thought that says it “makes sense” to binge because you don’t know exactly how to eat is absolutely false. You know that a binge is not a good food decision, so start there, and then any food decision you make will be a step in the right direction.

How to Eliminate the I Don’t Know How to Eat Thoughts

Now let’s move on to helping you learn to make food decisions and eliminate the I don’t know thoughts around food. I want you to take a step back and look at food decisions from a bigger picture perspective and realize that it’s a modern thing to have confusion about what or how to eat. In the ancient past, it was simply about what was available, and a lot of times it was simply about survival. Still today, if your situation was completely different—for example if you lived somewhere else or if a natural disaster happened—and food was not plentiful, it would also be about availability and survival.

I mentioned this in Brain over Binge, but as an example from my own life, I think back to going home to the New Orleans area after hurricane Katrina in 2005 to help my family, and food was not readily available, as there were no functioning grocery stores or restaurants for many miles. There were some wonderful volunteers and organizations that provided free meals, and in this situation, there were no food decisions to be made. We ate what we were so graciously provided. You may be able to find related examples in your own life, when there were simply no choices, and when there wasn’t any self-doubt about food. I think it’s helpful to remember that you have that ability inside of yourself to eat without confusion. It may only come out in certain situations, but it is there. The problem is that all of the food options available in your life today and all of the advice that you’ve heard over time is getting in the way of this ability to simply eat.

I’m not saying that plentiful choices are to blame, or that the solution is to avoid giving yourself options. I believe the solution is in your own thinking. You can have many choices, and still have a mindset that does not promote self-doubt and confusion. You can learn to make decisions and move on, for example, like when you were a childthink back to when you were outside playing and you got hungry and therefore came inside to eat. You likely just picked out something quickly, ate to satisfy your hunger (and enjoyed the food), and then got back to playing without any overthinking whatsoever.

I realize that, as a child, you may not have always made great choices about what to eat. Kids tend to be very pleasure-seeking, and it may have been the cookies that were most appealing to you. Your choices as an adult will be different of course, but you can still approach those choices with the same certainty and confidence, and then you can get back to living afterward. The difference between you now and the child in my example is that you started having I don’t know thoughts. Even if you can’t relate to this example and you think there was never a time in your life when you had the inherent ability to make food decisions, I want you to think about the multitude of other decisions that you’re able to make in your life that don’t have anything to do with food. You make decisions at work, in your education, about your kids, your relationships, your home, and even about mundane everyday choices that come with functioning in the world. Even if you need some practice in the area of food decisions, you can learn from your ability to choose in other parts of your life.

When you start to hear those I don’t know thoughts, I want you to just acknowledge them; but tell yourself that you’re going to make a decision anyway. Also remind yourself that any decision you make is much better than deciding to binge, and any decision is also better than staying stuck in indecision. You basically want to start exercising your decision-making muscle, even if it feels weak right now. Gently challenge yourself to choose what you are going to eat, fully acknowledging that there is no “right” choice, and that you’re simply doing the best you can in the moment. Tell yourself that at your next meal or snack, you may choose differently, and that’s okay. Tell yourself that this is just one food decision of countless food decisions that you’ll make throughout your life and that it does not have to be perfect. Aim for decisions that feel good enough. Tell yourself that you’re simply going to choose, you’re going to eat, and then you’re going to move on.

This does not mean you’ll just be choosing on a whim all of the time, although you certainly can. I know you’re an intelligent person who knows a lot about yourself and who also knows a lot about nutrition. You can take that into account, and also consider the situation when making a choice. For example, you may make some food decisions simply for convenience because that’s what you need in your life at that time, and that’s okay. That may mean you’ll be eating less-healthy foods in those moments, but you have other priorities in your life, and there is no need to feel guilty about that. At other times, you may decide to spend the extra time or money to give yourself more nourishing foods, because that’s what you feel is best at that point, and that’s okay too.

As you make decisions that feel good enough, you can get feedback from your body, and you can make adjustments over timewithout all of the self-doubt. If you like your reasons for your food decisions, that’s all that matters. When you know there is not some “ideal” way to eat that’s out there somewhere, it’s easier to deal with the daily reality of making everyday choices. Your choices teach you things that you can use to improve your decision-making abilities in the future. In other words, you learn from every decision that you make.

After you make any decision about food, and eat the food, it’s helpful to redirect your focus onto something else in your life. Think again about the child who gets back to playing after stopping to refuel. Redirecting helps train your brain to see that eating is just eating, and it does not have to consume so much of your brain space. The more you practice deciding imperfectly, and the more you stop giving attention to the thoughts that say you don’t know, the more confident you will become at choosing the foods, and the amounts, and the eating times that feel right for you. Then, those I don’t know thoughts can simply fade away.

______________

You can find a deeper discussion of this topic in the Brain over Binge course, in the Q&A track titled “I feel like I don’t know how to eat.” The course is only $18.99 per month (cancel anytime) and includes over 90 Q&A tracks, 8 extensive lessons, worksheets, and other resources.

In addition to the course, you can also get group coaching or one-on-one coaching for personalized support.