Diet Rules in Disguise: Why Healthy Diet Principles Can Actually Risk Unhealthy Eating Behaviors

Healthy Rules, or for some: food rules in disguise. Something like drinking at least 8 glasses of water a day or eating less processed foods is an amazing tip for our health. But for some people, even such can be very problematic…

Restrictive living can be painful. Have you ever wanted to eat something sweet while going to the movies, but you were on a diet? Went out to dinner and only the salad menu was what you were allowed to choose from? There are good rules and necessary rules, and then there is the latter – being only allowed to eat salad. 

In the past, when I was trying overcoming binge-eating and bulimia, I was faced with many healthy rules that confused me even more. Rules that were supposed to make things easier but somehow had the opposite effect. Because rules, even healthy ones, are not made for people who already suffer from unhealthy eating habits (it is important to mention that these were all rules I found on the internet. No health professional or doctor recommended them to me personally).

Today I want to list a few of them and their possible effects (I'm writing this as someone who was caught in a diet mentality and couldn't control when or how much they ate, these rules may work perfectly for a healthy person who has no diet thoughts). And give you an alternative. Things that worked for me instead.

1. Eating mindfully & slowly.

I am someone who likes to eat in bed, in front of the TV and that super fast. I always joke that as a kid, I had to be quick when I wanted to get something to eat because I grew up with two big brothers. So I've always been a fast eater, even before I developed an eating disorder at the age of 22. When I was trying to recover from it, I forced myself to eat slowly. To chew x times and stop eating in bed or on the couch. I tried to sit at the table without listening to a podcast, watching a show or anything like that. No distractions to eat mindfully. It didn't work. I felt unsatisfied and wanted to eat or snack more soon after.

2. Only eating when I was hungry and giving my hunger a number from a hunger scale.

Since I hadn't felt real, natural hunger for years, I was absolutely clueless as to whether it was real hunger or not. If I wanted to eat something but didn't almost "faint", I wasn't sure if I should eat or not. Am I eating out of hunger to increase my energy, or do I just want to snack? I didn't know. I never did the hunger scale thing because I didn't find it helpful not to eat if my hunger number wasn't "high" enough. It felt like I was only allowed to eat if my hunger was at least at a five or six (on a scale of 1, not hungry, to 10, extremely hungry). It felt like another restrictive rule.

3. Food Combining

I only tried it once or twice and stopped a few days later. For me, it made everything worse. I wanted to eat a combination that I was not allowed to eat. It made me compulsively crave the food I wanted to eat. To a point where my meal didn't even satisfy me because all I could think about was the other food. Eventually, I would overeat or even choose something even more processed or fattening. To me it was restrictive and had no benefits. 

4. Trying to cut out binge foods (or all processed foods, sugar, etc.)

Oh, how many times I tried to resist the forbidden. The problem was that I would always go to the extreme. I was either eating way too much, overeating, or trying to cut out processed foods completely. I couldn't find a balance, and that made it impossible for me not to binge on the food I didn't allow myself to eat. The problem here wasn't the actual food, but the fact that I wasn't allowing myself to have it. The restriction. While not eating 10 donuts a day is great and healthy advice, it didn't work for me at the time.

5. Not leaving too much time between meals so as not to get too hungry and then potentially eat too much.

Something that certainly works for some people, but was very problematic for me personally. Having eaten after diet plans for years, I had to learn to trust my own hunger. Build confidence to make my own choices. Eating by the clock made it seem impossible to learn to do that. The same was the case for intermittent fasting, something I’ve tried to lose weight though.

☞ So why do rules simply not work for someone who suffers from a diet mentality or worse, an eating disorder? The answer is: rules aren't natural. Even the healthy ones. They made me pay more attention to how I eat and made me think about my eating all the time. But the goal was not to pay attention to every bite or be conscious of everything I was eating. The goal was to eat what made me feel good and satisfied. That seemed impossible. 

When I followed healthy rules, I felt bad because I didn't feel full, yet I followed everything that seemed healthy. If even that didn't help, what did, I thought. I was confused and that led me to crave even more junk and processed food.

But why should I mind not having chewed 30 times or eating late at night? After all, if it doesn't make me feel physically bad, it's fine. Now I don't think about any of that. There is not a single rule I follow. I trust myself. I now eat what I want, when I want. Whether it's a salad at 11pm or cheesy fries for breakfast. I'm going to eat it!

So the only advice I would take to heart is to be free to eat whatever I want, give myself time and see how I feel physically when I eat the food I choose.