How do you have self-control with food? Why, of course, do it! Right?

Wrong. You’ve heard of Do It, Nike, Michael Jordan, etc. 

Strangely enough, this type of thinking causes people to misunderstand their food struggles.

Have you ever stopped dieting or eating healthy and then mentally labeled yourself as “lazy”?

This is one of the biggest problems I see as an Eating Disorder Therapist in the San Jose Bay Area …

The fact is, many people do not know how to have self-control with food.

True, there are good strategies on how to have self-control with food, such as:

1. Drink Water. Thirst is often confused with hunger or food cravings. …
2. Eat More Protein. Eating more protein may reduce your appetite and keep you from overeating. 
3. Distance Yourself From the Craving.
4. Plan Your Meals.
5. Avoid Getting Extremely Hungry. 
6. Fight Stress. 
7. Take Spinach Extract. 
8. Practice Mindful Eating.

But notice something: Don’t all these strategies require willpower?

Willpower is essential, don’t get me wrong.

However, to think willpower = food control is making things too simple. 

Many struggle with motivation and relying solely on willpower can be exhausting. Food journaling aids in weight management, self-awareness, and mindful eating.

The Eating Enlightenment Food Journal App on IOS and Android is user-friendly, customizable, and motivational. Download it today and experience its transformative impact.

How To Have Self-Control With Food It’s more than willpower. Let’s start from the beginning.

Our society has associated willpower with success. 

• If you are successful at work, you must have HIGH willpower.
• On the other hand, if you are unsuccessful at work, you must have LOW willpower.

And these labels apply to your health, too.

If you fail at food, if you are obese, if you are anxious around food …

Well, guess what?

Your willpower must be low. 

Below, you can see how people erroneously blame themselves for willpower when many other factors are at play, such as deprivation.

• If you fail to eat the right type of foods for the whole 30 days, then your willpower is low.
• If you try the ‘’o sugar, no carb diet and fail, it’s because your willpower is low.

And if your willpower is low, then YOU must be a failure.

The problem stems from an incorrect view of willpower. When thinking about how to have self-control with food, it’s vitally important to step back and take a different perspective.

Let me give you a quick analogy, okay?

Our society views willpower like air.

Are you breathing right now? Yes, of course. There is an infinite supply of air around you.

Just like you always have enough air around you …

People mistakenly think you always have enough willpower, too.

I know that I have deeply embedded beliefs that if I am not being productive (like typing up these blog articles), then I am lazy and bad and should be ashamed of myself.

Back in the day, I would emotionally eat and smoke marijuana every day. I would then mentally label myself as a failure.

But truth be told, willpower runs out!

Willpower isn’t like air; willpower isn’t like a battery that runs out by noon!

Many people reading this profoundly believe that their willpower failures are evidence they are lazy.

Is this you? Please email me or comment.

Willpower is much more like my old laptop’s battery.

Here’s a quick laptop on my old laptop.

I’m sure you remember those old laptops when the battery would run out every 60 minutes.

I swear, my laptop was even worse.

I would take it fully charged to study at the library. And then I would I
would sit down and turn on my laptop.

I’d set everything up,, bt then my computI’dwould start dimming automatically.

Confused, I would remember … My battery only lasted 20 minutes!!!

The same is true of willpower. It only lasts a few hours, and then it’s gone!

So imagine being at the library when your coarser dies…

Would you then blame yourself?

Would you call yourself lazy, unmotivated, stupid, etc? No! Of course not.

You’d say …

“Duhhhh…”

I need a charger!

Okay, let’s you decide on the “solution h” re. I dug into willpowerlet’seally shift your thinking.

The proper solution just isn’t as sextypically perceived, but I want to change that.

How to have self-coisn’t with food … from willpower to self-care

God, self-care?

“I don’t have time for self-care!!!”

Here, however, is one practical exercise that can help” ydon’tift out thinking you don’t “have enough time for self-care:

Believe just real quick …

How much time do you spend not eating or eating emotionally?

To be clear, I’m talking about any form of binging, including stress eating.

• eating
• drinking
• shopping
• social media
• television

Come up with how much time you spend. I’ll wait 🙂

Because the next mentality (or #Enlightenment, as I like to say) I’llfully will shift you big time.

What if binge behavior was a form of self-care?

What if all the time you spend binge eating was your brain and body shutting down from all the willpower you just exerted?

Do you see how your body and brain are FORCING you to binge eat to take care of yourself?

You keep exerting all that willpower by giving yourself a break.

It catches up to you.

Some wise person once said this to this effect:

1. Thoughts lead to feelings,
2. Feelings to actions,
3. Actions to habits,
4. Habits into lifestyle,
5. Lifestyle into character.

So, the way forward to a healthy life is not through willpower. This is a critical part of the entire Intuitive Eating movement.

Because willpower often leads to a dead battery!

Because there will always be those times when you fail.

There will always be those times when you come home completely exhausted, and your willpower battery is dead.

What then?

If you’re relying on willpower, you’re toast.

But by doing something else entirely …

Sometimes you’re fun, something you want to do, and something easy …

It is finding stress relief techniques that keep your battery full!

Self-care is how you have self-control with food.

You can successfully do one tiny behavior—just one tiny behavior to take care of yourself better.

If you can do one self-care strategy, then you can do another. This is how to learn to be relaxed and calm down when stressed.

What does this mean?

You change one lil’ tiny, easy behavior at a time.

So it’s progress, not perfection.

You can take any old random habit, like water. Say you’re drinking water every morning for a week.

Make this new habit at the same time each day, and then make sure you feel good afterward (even if it’s just a flash of pride).

Be consistent with your new habits instead of beating yourself up for lacking willpower.

You’ll find that as you embrace self-care, your binge and out-of-control behavior goes down.

Let me know. I’ll start a small self-care habit.