**_✿ ❀ How to Deal With BIG, Bad Food Guilt ✿ ❀_*

 Do the Food Police in your head ever get loud?

I have Food Guilt. I have the voice of the Food Police ready to count calories, measure food, weigh my choices.But earlier this week I read a blog post by Tina from Carrots N Cake and I was so inspired by when Tina wrote that she had a moment where she decided to put the Food Guilt down and just enjoy the food because it was good. Wow.

It made me think about one of my all-time favorite/helpful books, Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch. I ‘think’ I practice Intuitive Eating, but I still have a long way to go. I am making progress: This morning I was sitting with my cat, listening to her purr, and thinking about how I don’t have to have the Food Guilt. I really like healthy foods. I can eat anything (ice cream, pizza, donuts, whatever), but I choose not to eat the foods that my body rejects. (I have celiac disease and within a few minutes of eating anything containing gluten like regular bread or pasta, I begin to have the most horrible, uncontrollable gas and bloating.) I used to think, a few bites won’t hurt, but a few bites do hurt. For me, I either get gassy or go to a binge (which brings on more hurt).

Bottom line: I don’t want to feel bad, so I decided that while I can eat anything, I don’t want to eat some things. The Food Police and Food Guilt can talk for hours, but I don’t have to listen. The only thing I need to listen to is my body. If it’s craving something, then I can eat it. I don’t have to weigh, measure, obsess. My body tells me what it needs, I just need to listen. And then the Food Guilt evaporates.

The most helpful take-away I got from the book Intuitive Eating is to challenge the Food Police. I extrapolate this Food Police idea to include the Size Police, Calorie Police, Scale Police, Fat Talk Police, Comparing-Myself-to-Everyone Police. All of these police forces bombard my daily thoughts. I hear echoes of these thoughts when I talk with girlfriends. I see images that trigger these forces on TV and in magazines. I feel the pressure of these forces when I am stressed. However, since reading (and re-reading) Intuitive Eating, I am more aware of these forces and am better able to combat them.