How To Keep "Trigger" Foods In The House Without Losing Control

I used to be the kind of person who could not control myself with certain foods or snacks in the house .

I could not be trusted around cake or cookies or chocolate , and if you're someone who feels the same way , if you don't feel like you can bring snacks into your home because you need to finish it overnight , or if the second that you start eating something , it's like a switch turns on in your mind and you have to finish it , then this episode is for you .

Today , we're talking about how to start trusting yourself around your trigger foods so that you can keep them in your home without guilt or anxiety . Let's get into it . So let's bring it back to when my struggles with food started , when I was around 16 years old .

If you don't know my story , then go back to episode one , because that's where I really deep dive into my history with disordered eating and body image issues . Now I talk about how I was a synchronized swimmer and so my image of what a ideal body was was skewed at a very young age . I also grew up as someone who really loved sweet food .

I loved chocolate . I ate Nutella for breakfast and I love my family so much , but I got teased because of it . I got teased because I had a really big sweet tooth and so I developed this kind of shame around my eating habits to a point that I started to feel like I needed to hide certain things .

So I started putting chocolate chip bags under my bed and I would hide chocolate from my family and I honestly developed a lot of embarrassment , a lot of shame around my eating habits and the things that I like to eat , and because of that I started craving those foods more .

I had so much shame and guilt around those foods that it's like I started putting them up on a pedestal While I was swimming and I was training 25 hours a week . It wasn't that big of a deal because I really could just eat what I wanted . I was training so hard that food was fuel .

But when I retired from the sport around 16 years old , I started to be a lot more conscious of how I was eating and I had had a lot of comments made , as I was going into my last year of swimming , of people saying like , if you keep eating the way that you're eating now , you're going to gain so much weight when you stop training , as if gaining weight

was the worst thing in the world . So I already had a very skewed image of what a body should look like and I had internalized weight bias because of the way that I was raised and just culture in general , like it doesn't take much to see the fat stigma that is going on in our society .

But then I also had this increased awareness that there was something wrong with the way that I was eating . So in my last year of training I started trying to make changes and that's when I started going on the internet and trying to learn more about nutrition . But when I was learning about nutrition , really all I was doing was getting deeper in diet culture .

So I started doing the low carb and trying to swap things that I loved , like chocolate and sweets , for quote unquote healthier alternatives . Now , for those two years after I had stopped swimming before I went to university , I still lived at my parents house .

Therefore , they had pretty much full control of what was bought and what was in the house , and both of my parents are intuitive eaters and most of the people in my family are intuitive eaters , and so they never felt the need to keep certain foods out of the house .

But I was internally really struggling with my own relationship with food because I was under eating and I was afraid of eating carbs and eating sugar , and so internally , I was going through all of that mental turmoil while being at home , having all of these foods available to me , and I also had all of the shame wrapped up around my eating .

So all of this just was a perfect recipe for disordered eating . Because what I would do is , if I was in front of other people , if I was in front of my family or in front of friends , I would try to eat quote unquote very healthy and very normally .

So it was mostly salads and low carb things and I wouldn't really eat potatoes and bread and it was all of the healthy stuff . And then , because I had so much shame around my eating habits when I was alone , when no one was watching me . So I remember more specifically , I was in college what we call sage up in Montreal .

It's like this weird phase of schooling between high school and university , and so I had classes in the morning and then I would go home in the afternoon and then I would coach , because I was a sink row coach .

I would coach at night , and so during that afternoon break I would go home and no one would be home , and that would be the time that I would binge on food . I would binge on the things that my mom would buy and all of those snacks and those sweets that I couldn't control myself around .

And I would do the same thing at night when everyone had gone to bed . I just remember , every Tuesday I coached at the pool , and every Tuesday I would get to work and I would be so stuffed and so uncomfortable because of how much I had eaten earlier that day . Of course , at the time I didn't realize why I was doing it .

I didn't understand my relationship with food . I didn't understand the mistakes I was making that was leading me to binge . So I would just blame myself for a lack of willpower and self control .

You know , the classic things that we've been taught are the reason why we struggle with our eating habits , which really aren't the case , but I did not know better at the time . Now fast forward to university .

This was the first time that I was living alone , which meant that I had control over what I was keeping in the house , and this is where my disordered eating patterns really took a turn , because now not only was I able to control what I was bringing into the house or not which means that I wasn't buying snacks and I wasn't buying sugary foods and I wasn't

buying carbs and things like that but on top of it , that's when I got my Fitbit .

So I was hyper vigilant of the calories I was burning and the calories I was eating , because I was tracking everything into my fitness pal and because I was so dedicated to losing weight and looking a certain way and being quote unquote healthy , because at the time , my definition of healthy was completely skewed and it was based off of what I was seeing on

social media .

And now I know that my social media was filled with people who themselves are struggling with eating disorders and disordered eating , and this could be a conversation for another day , but I just want to mention that if you're following people on Instagram who are promoting this perfect way of eating , who are spending like seven days at the gym and making you feel

bad , like you are not doing enough and like you are not healthy enough , then those people are usually struggling with their own relationship with food , so they're not usually the best people to take advice from .

But again , at the time I didn't know any of this , and so my version of healthy was you only eat nutrient dense foods , you only eat healthy foods , and so I wouldn't keep any of those kinds of snacks in the house .

And on top of that , I had this belief that I couldn't be trusted with those foods , because whenever I would go to a party and they had chips , I would binge on them .

Or whenever I would go to an event and they had like a sweets table or a big goods table , I would fill my plate up and I would eat so much to a point that I was uncomfortable and I felt sick .

And so if I felt that way when I was going out to places , I obviously didn't want to bring those foods into my own home and feel that way and I would hear this advice from people online of just like , keep foods out of the house out of sight , out of mind . It makes sense intellectually .

So I thought if I don't see those foods , if I don't have them at home , then I cannot eat them . Therefore I won't want them . And I thought that my cravings for those foods would go away and I would trust myself more around these foods . Of course , I now know that that was not the case .

What would happen instead is that when I would inevitably be exposed to those foods because , whether you like it or not , we live in a society where those foods are going to be present in your life at some point or another either you go to a birthday party or a wedding or a social event , or just your friend's house for a casual dinner party those foods ,

those chips , those baked goods , those things that you can't control yourself around . And I'm you can't see me behind my mic , but I have like quotation marks with my hands because that's just a belief .

It is a belief that you've told yourself so many times that it really feels true to you and I know that it feels true to you that you cannot control yourself around those foods and you may believe that there is something wrong with you because you can see other people doing it .

You can see other people just having the one slice of cake and not needing to go back for more . Or you can see other people just eating a couple of handful of chips and then walking away . And yet for you , you hyper fixate on those foods and maybe before going to a social event you're already worried about what kind of foods are going to be there .

You're worried about losing control . Maybe you even hold yourself back from going to social events because you're afraid of losing control . Maybe you're on a really rigid diet or weight loss plan and you don't want to ruin it , and so it affects your social life . I know that was the case for me .

I can't even tell you the amount of barbecues or nights at the restaurant that I didn't go to because I had so much anxiety around food and my body and that felt just so important to me that it clouded me from what life is actually about , what I truly wanted to do with my life and the things I wanted to experience .

So this episode is not so that you can trust yourself around .

Your quote unquote trigger foods at home , so that you can bring a box of chipahoy cookies in your home and not eat an entire sleeve or even the entire box in the matter of a couple of days , so that you can even forget about snacks being in your pantry , like that was such a big deal when I healed my relationship with food .

Is letting food go bad because I forgot that they were there , letting things go stale because I forgot that I had bought chips and they were kind of just laying in my pantry .

Because when you can trust yourself around food and you can start bringing those foods in your home , when you have a healthy relationship with food , they no longer feel like they control your life and their top of the mind all the time . So this episode is going to help you do that .

But it's also so that those foods don't feel so empowering over you , so that you don't feel like those foods have control over you and they stop you from living your life , going to the barbecues or going to the parties and going to the dinner parties where there's going to be those kinds of foods , and so that you're not fixated on them .

You can go to those events and you can be part of the conversations and you can enjoy your time there without being so afraid of either one losing control or trying to exert so much willpower the entire time and then going home and binging on those foods

anyways . So today I'm going to teach you one of the many processes that I teach inside Food Freedom Academy that will help you start feeling in control and trusting of yourself around your quote-unquote trigger food . And as you listen to this , I encourage you to try to hold back those thoughts .

That might go well , that is so nice for her , but it's not possible for me , or I have tried so many things before and I am just broken , or there's something wrong with me .

I just urge you to try to be mindful of those thoughts , because it is so easy to let those thoughts win and it's honestly it's easier to feel like there's something wrong and broken with us because we won't actually take the steps needed to fix it .

But I'll give you example of two of the clients that I had inside the academy , one of which had been dieting for over 40 years and one of the foods that she could not trust herself around was cupcakes , and she posted a picture of a box of you know , those like mini cupcakes that have sprinkles that you can find at the grocery stores and she posted a

picture in our private Facebook group and wrote that her husband brought this bag of cupcakes home for her oldest granddaughter . Normally she'd eat several in one sitting and have a stomach ache , but now she only ate one . They've been there since Monday and that was a week ago .

And because she knows that this food is not forbidden , it's not bad and we're going to talk about it in today's process , then she doesn't feel the need to eat it all and to get it out of the house . Another example was another one of my clients inside the academy . Her quote unquote trigger or weak food was praline pecans .

You know those pecans that are like coated in sugar . They're just absolutely delicious and they sell this big box at Costco and because she has kids and a husband , that box would end up in the house from time to time and she would eat it within two to three days .

And she posted a picture of this same box because we went through a process together and I gave her some exercises and some tips on how to start re-abituating herself to this food and not making it so special in her mind .

And she posted a picture of the box of pecans and it was still halfway full and she said hashtag , when everyone has heard me talk about these nuts , the praline pecans . I bought these on March 22nd and they're still in the house . Usually they're gone in a day or two at most .

Now , these women are not coaches , they're not me , they're not someone who does this for a living . They are people who were in their 40s and 50s and had a long history of dieting under their belt , and if they can do it , so can you , alright . So what is this process that is going to help you develop that trust in yourself ?

Now , there's a whole different side of this , which is on the psychological side , which I talk in the Academy , but today we're going to focus on a process that's a little bit more tactical , so let's get into it .

Before we do , though , make sure that you have somewhere that you can take some notes whether that is a notepad or the notes app on your phone that you're not multitasking .

So , if you are multitasking , come back to me and let's get into it , because this is probably one of my favorite processes and it is so incredibly impactful , and that process is called systematic habituation .

Now , one of the most common myths and misconceptions and misinformation that is perpetuated by diet culture is that the more you avoid a food , the less you'll crave it .

And if you operate under that belief , I have so much understanding for you and I know what it's like , because chances are that you are still , either consciously or subconsciously , ingrained in diet culture . So your social media , the emails that you get , they kind of all perpetuate the same kind of beliefs and advice .

But I want you to ask yourself and let's just take your past and your history as a point of reference in all the times that you have done a diet or you followed a rule , you tried to cut out certain foods . Take one food , for example , that you feel like you really cannot trust yourself around . I'll take .

For me it was sweets , just like any kind of baked goods cookies , candy , brownies , you name it and I want you to choose that food in your head for yourself Now , in the past , when you have tried to cut that food out , if you were able to resist for a couple of days , or maybe even a couple of weeks , if this was one of your first diet attempts , that's

usually normal , because we can rely on willpower , which is a short-term resource that is exhaustible for a temporary period of time .

But I want you to really reflect on your past and remember if , after a short-term period of restricting , those cravings for that food came back and they actually became worse and more frequent and almost feeling uncontrollable , did you start thinking about those foods more , those foods that you told yourself that you can't have ?

If you operate under the belief that the less I have this food , the less I crave it , then it is so important to just challenge intellectually that belief based on your past . Is it true that when I cut out certain foods , I stop craving them permanently ?

Or do I stop craving them , maybe temporarily , before those cravings come back and they come back with a vengeance and I start to think about those foods obsessively until eventually I do have those foods because maybe I go to a social event or maybe I am exposed to that food outside of my own control .

So maybe you're not bringing that food into your home , but you find it in another environment and you cannot control yourself around it . And then you reinforce the belief that I can't trust myself around this food . I should cut it out , because once I start eating I can't stop .

The reality is that there's nothing wrong with you , that you're not addicted to food . You're not broken . You're not lacking willpower . The reality is science . Research shows that the more you're exposed to a certain food , the less appealing it becomes . Habituation isn't just limited to food , though . We habituate to things that we get exposed to more regularly .

I want you to think of the first time that your partner or ex-partner said I love you to you , and you probably remember every single detail , I absolutely do . When Luke and I said I love you to one another for the first time , it was Christmas Eve . It was the first time I had met his family and we were lying in bed and I had a stomach ache .

So he wrapped me up in my heat blanket and made me a tea and he was just kind of holding me and just saying the story . I still have butterflies and we said I love you to one another for the first time and it felt really special and I remember every detail . I remember how I felt .

I remember feeling it throughout my entire body and even though I still love him more every single day , we've said I love you to one another so many times we say it multiple times a day that it doesn't have the same kind of effect . I don't feel it all throughout my body , and that is a perfect example of habituation . Think of it in another example .

You don't think of yourself as having a certain smell , right , but other people in your life . I'm not saying you're smelly , that's not what I'm saying . But you know how some people ? You're around them and they just have a distinct smell to them . Maybe it's their laundry detergent that they use or their shampoo .

You just can tell when you're wearing either their piece of clothing or you can . You can tell when they're in the room , but you wouldn't know that yourself because you're around your smell all the time that your senses don't pick up on them anymore . That's another example of habituation , and the exact same phenomenon happens with food .

The reason why you feel like certain foods have such a control over you is simply because you're not habituated to it .

Maybe on one side you are physically restricting those foods , so you're not keeping them in your house and , of course , when you are exposed to them in the outside world , then because you're not habituated to them and because they're still so special in your mind .

For example , for me , when I was in university and I was struggling with disordered eating , that food was pizza for me , so I wouldn't allow myself to have pizza , and I can remember that I was part of a dodgeball team and every time we would go out for a team dinner and we would order pizza , I would overeat and I would binge because I was not habituated

to that food yet . It was super special in my mind and in my mind it was like oh , now is your time to have pizza , because you're not going to have it for maybe the next couple of weeks or even the next couple of months , so of course , might as well eat as much as I can now .

So either you're physically restricting the food or you're not habituated , in the sense that you still don't feel at peace with that food . So you might be physically eating the food , but you feel mentally restricted , you're guilting yourself , you feel bad , you feel like you're doing something wrong , and so you're still not habituated .

That's a really big mistake that I see people making when they're working on their intuitive eating journey on their own , and maybe they don't have the advice or the outside perspective is they think I'm eating these foods all the time and I still feel out of control and it's because they haven't addressed the mental piece of it , which is almost more important than

the physical piece of it . So how do you get habituated to a food ? One big mistake that people make is they try to bring all of these foods back in at the same time , so not just working on one food at a time , but working on several different trigger foods at the same time .

And they don't do it gradually , they do it all at once and it feels very overwhelming and it turns into a binge and then it reinforces the belief that I can't be trusted around this food . This doesn't work for me . I'm broken . I'm the person for who I can't intuitively eat and I need to diet and I need the rules . And the problem isn't you .

The problem is just the approach that you're taking or you're not having the right guidance as you're doing it . So systematic habituation emphasis on systematic is a psychological concept and technique that involves gradually exposing you to the food in a systematic and controlled manner to reduce your emotional response or sensitivity to it . So let's break it down .

If you're taking notes , now is the time . There's four big pieces to it . Number one is gradual exposure to challenging foods . So this is where we help you expose yourself to foods that you might have fear or anxiety around .

In a gradual and structured manner , this exposure typically starts with less anxiety provoking foods and progresses to those that are more challenging or fear inducing . So you don't want to start with that food that literally makes your entire body tense up and anxiety .

The goal is to create as many positive experiences with food as possible so that , as you're having these positive and empowering experiences with food , you're at the same time empowering your belief that you can trust yourself around food , that these foods aren't scary , that there isn't something evil or addictive about these foods , and understanding that it is your

mentality and your behaviors around these foods that triggered this sense of loss of control . So , like I said , you do not want to start with your scariest food and I have a process that I work with with my clients where you make a list and then you work through systematically through it .

But the first step is gradual exposure , then the second one is repeated encounters . So exposure to these foods or eating situations needs to be repeated over time . You don't just do it with a food once and then expect yourself to be habituated to it . It might take several times , it might take a handful or even two handful of times .

There isn't a set amount of exposures that will mean that you're habituated to it . It's going to depend on your history , your mindset around that food , and so that's why working with a coach to help you understand when you really do feel safe and secure with that food and when it's a good time to move on to a different food .

The third piece is to do systematic habituation in a controlled and supportive environment . Exposure to these foods needs to happen in an environment where you feel safe , you feel at peace . One of my clients was telling me about how she tried systematic habituation in the past with a food which was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich .

But she did it when she was in the presence of someone in her life who triggers her disordered eating , and so she did not feel safe , she did not feel at peace and she ended up overeating . And then , when we worked together and I gave her tips and strategies and she did it in a safe and supportive environment she felt great .

She was able to eat the food , enjoy the food , not overeat the food , feel good , feel at peace , and that created that positive experience with that food which reinforced oh , I can eat a peanut butter jelly sandwich without overeating and losing control . There isn't something wrong with me .

The goal is I want you to think about having two jars one of negative experiences with the food and one of a positive experience with the food .

Whatever food you might be thinking of right now maybe it's Oreos or donuts or chips your jar of negative experiences is probably very heavy and every time that you binge or overeat , you put an extra token into that negative experience jar .

So , of course , that jar is so heavy and has so much weight that you have developed a belief that you will only ever have negative experiences around that food , you will only ever binge and you cannot control yourself around that food .

So the goal is to start giving you evidence and giving you positive experiences with that food so that your second jar starts to feel heavier and start to have more weight and you can develop a new belief and a new mindset around that food .

So the environment and the support that you get as you're learning to cope effectively with any discomfort or emotions or anxiety that would arise as you expose yourself to that food is crucial .

And then the last piece is response modification . So that's where you might be encouraged , you might be guided to modify your typical responses to challenging foods , so this could include reframing your thoughts .

So we have a five step process called the self coaching model that helps you do that , avoiding self criticism and learning how to eat mindfully , without judgment . So , just to recap , the four steps of systematic habituation is gradual exposure , repeated encounters , controlled and supportive environment and response modification .

And this is how you get to a point where foods don't feel like they go into two categories of good or bad , or healthy or unhealthy , or trustworthy and untrustworthy , whatever that dichotomy might be in your mind .

It's so that you can get to a point where you can bring food into your house without being afraid that once you start eating , you won't be able to stop being able to have a bag of chips in your pantry that you forget about , or have a slice of cheesecake that your mom gave you for Thanksgiving that you eat one or two bites a day and finish after an

entire week of being in your fridge or keeping a box of cookies in your pantry , whether it's for you or for your partner or for your kids , and just feeling trusting of yourself around it . That's really what food freedom is about . We have this misconception that food freedom means that you eat anything and everything at all times .

But the truth is that the only way for you to get to a point where you make healthy and nutritious decisions because you want to not because you feel pressured to or one diet tells you to do it or you have external rules , but because you genuinely want to the only way to get to that point where you feel normal quote unquote normal around food and you can

eat foods that nourish your body while also being able to have the cheesecake or the cookies or the chips or those foods that are simply there to nourish your soul and taste good and be enjoyable , to have that balance that most people talk about and that moderation that most people talk about .

The only way to do that is to stop putting certain foods on a pedestal to heal your relationship with food , to heal your thoughts , your behaviors , your emotions , your mindset around those foods .

Because as long as we struggle with a fraught relationship with food , with a complex and complicated way of relating to food , then we're always going to feel like it's a war , we're always going to feel in this like all or nothing battleground , and it is very hard to ever start having consistent healthy habits when that piece is not in place .

So systematic habituation is just one of those tools that are going to help you do that . So systematic habituation is just one of the many tools that I teach inside the academy that are going to help you start making progress towards having a healthy relationship with food , so that you can develop and sustain healthy habits .

So you know that this podcast is about doing . It's not just about mindlessly consuming content , because , if I know you and I know my audience and I know my community pretty well you are good at consuming content . You are good at listening to the podcast and watching the videos and reading the books . But we're here to help you apply what you learn .

So I'm going to give you a piece of homework to do , and if you are serious about having a healthier relationship with food , then I strongly encourage that you do this .

So what I want you to do is take out a piece of paper and I want you to write down all of the foods that you feel out of control around , all of the foods that give you anxiety , that you feel like , once you start eating , you can't stop . And this list might be long , it might be short , don't judge Right .

Let's remove the judgment and the self-criticism and the shame and let's look at it as if you're a scientist and you're doing an experiment . So I want you to write down all of those foods .

And the next thing that I want you to do is maybe on like the second half of the page , so maybe on the left hand side you write the foods and then you do a second column on the right hand side and I want you to write down your thoughts and your behaviors around these foods .

So , for example , if I were to go back to my pizza history , I would write down that pizza's a food I can't control myself around . And what were my behaviors ? Well , I don't eat them unless I'm in a social setting . I don't eat pizza unless I am drinking alcohol . So I don't drink anymore .

But back in university I did and I would only allow myself to eat pizza as my drunk food , because that's when my guilt and my shame and my internal food police wasn't as loud , so I was able to eat it quote unquote guilt free , and then I would have all the guilt the next morning . But those were my behaviors around this food .

And then my thoughts around this food was that it's fattening , it's going to make me fat , it's unhealthy , right , like all of these negative and false beliefs that I had around this food , it's bad .

So I want you to start by just doing this exercise , because awareness is the first step to change before we can even start moving on to taking actions towards making that change .

So , to recap , I want you to , on the left hand side , write all of the foods that you don't trust yourself around and that you feel like you have no control or self willpower , or all of the things on the left hand side , and then on the right , what are your thoughts and what are your behaviors around that food ? Easy enough .

Next , the last thing , part of your homework is once you've done that , I want you to take a picture of either your notes app where you did it or the piece of paper where you wrote it down , and I want you to send me a picture for accountability .

You can send it to me over on Instagram by DM , so you can find me at Sabrina dot . Mania dot . Health , and I will respond to you and I'll help you work through it so that you can start habituating yourself to these foods .

So send me that DM , and I hope that this episode was really valuable for you and , if it was , share it with someone that you know . Make sure to subscribe to the show so that you don't miss any of our new episodes , and I'm so thankful for you for listening .

If no one has told you today , you matter , you're amazing , you're capable of change and I will see you next week .