Foreign. Hey, friend. Welcome back to Body and Belonging. This is the podcast where we break free from food guilt. We calm down our bodies and the food noise, and we rediscover joy at the table. I'm Jamie Withrow. I'm a registered dietitian, a mama to three. And each week we explore the deeper reasons why we struggle with food and why we have such a hard time feeling like we belong in our bodies. I blend gentle nutrition with nervous system awareness, and I teach you biblically rooted health principles to move you away from dieting and restriction and into care and nourishment. So grab a seat at the table and let's dive in. Today we are talking about food guilt. Why is it keeping you stuck and what to do instead? So this is something that so many women carry every single day. Guilt about what they ate. The sinking feeling after eating something you think you shouldn't have eaten. Usually there's a mental replay. Shame the promise to compensate tomorrow or make up for it tomorrow with more movement, or the often impulsive desire to restrict food for the rest of the day. I can't eat another sweet thing because I blew it this morning. And for a lot of people, guilt feels productive. Like if you make yourself feel bad again, maybe you'll finally change. Maybe you feel that if you don't punish yourself, you're going to keep repeating your poor food choices just over and over again. You're going to let yourself go. Or there's a fear that you'll no longer be motivated to change and live off of Oreos and energy drinks the rest of your life if you don't get it together and shame yourself into better behavior. Those are obvious examples. But sometimes it's sneaky. Sometimes food guilt is the thing actually stopping you from meal planning because it won't be good enough, so why even try? It's like guilt avoidance, right? The guilt of it not being perfect stops you from starting this all or nothing thinking is just your attempt at avoiding the guilt. But what if food guilt is actually one of the biggest things keeping you stuck and keeping you in patterns of repetition and reinforcement? And that's what we get to dive into today and make sure you stay until the end, because I will be sharing a shift with you that can begin changing your relationship with food more than a new set of rules or a new meal plan ever could. So as we dive in, I want to start with why this matters. And it all has to do with brain science and your brain's reaction to shame and self condemnation in a nutshell your upper brain, with all of its beautiful creativity and problem solving and executive function and motivation, that whole upper brain section dials back when we feel shame and embarrassment. Basically, when you're in a stress response, that part of your brain dials down. And the lower part of your brain, the more survival part of your brain dials up. And this part of your brain is seeking comfort and trying to feel better as soon as possible. So this matters in the world of food guilt, because if you are trying to shame yourself and guilt yourself into better behavior, it won't last long. It's only going to lead to impulsive decisions, which, by the way, is often a trauma response. It's a fight response of I gotta fix this right now. Or it's a freeze response of I'm stuck and I'm shut down and I don't know where to begin or what my next step is. So some other ways that food guilt can show up in your thought life would be thoughts like, I was doing so good until I ate that, or the thought, I have no self control, I have a piece and five minutes later I'm having two more. What gives? Or I'll start over tomorrow. Or I just need a better plan. Maybe you notice you beat yourself up for eating past full at dinner when you have heartburn 30 minutes later, or for having an afternoon snack that turns into an afternoon meal. Maybe you think sugar is your addiction and because of that you feel anxious when anything with refined sugar is in your house. And so then you try to keep sweets out of your house, but then you overeat sweets at social events and you take that as more evidence that you must have a sugar addiction, and then you reinforce that belief. Or maybe it's more subtle. Maybe it's anxiety before or after eating out at a restaurant or a potluck or a friend's social gathering where you're not in control of the food. Maybe it's the need to earn your calories or burn off your calories. The constant evaluating. Was that healthy enough? Did I eat too much? Was that too processed? Was I too emotional while I ate it? And if this sounds exhausting, it's because it is. The amount of your mental bandwidth going to thoughts about food and thoughts about your body keeps increasing and increasing. And here's the consequence. Eventually, food stops feeling simple. Food stops feeling intuitive. Hunger starts to feel unsafe. Movement starts to feel like punishment. It all starts to feel heavy. So here's what's important to understand. Remember, the guilt feels productive, but it does not create change. Guilt might create a small dose of short term motivation because temporarily the discomfort of change is less uncomfortable than the discomfort of the guilt. But guilt doesn't create change because your decision made while guilty. And usually it's a decision like I'm going to throw out all the candy or I'm going to buy every veggie in the store or I'm going to order some expensive piece of workout equipment. Guilt doesn't create change because you're changing from fear. The moment the guilt lifts, maybe with one to two days of better behavior, the scale moving, a pound, a compliment from a stranger. The moment the guilt lifts, we slip back to the level of our habits. And I see this in my clients all the time. See, we never fall to the level of our intentions. We always fall to the level of our habits. Do you see the pattern when you try to change because of discomfort, because of guilt, because of fear? The change stops once the discomfort and the fear lifts, even just a little. And then you feel more guilt and more self condemnation for your inconsistency or your inability to stay on track. And you re enter the crazy cycle. You re enter in an attempt at behavior change that's probably stricter, harsher. And the cycle continues. And every time the cycle repeats, you lose confidence in yourself, the shame grows louder and you reinforce the faulty beliefs at the root of your identity. Friend, you are made for more than a vicious cycle of eating, gaining, guilting, stressing, restricting and binging on repeat. So let's talk about how to off ramp from this cycle. And we don't actually make change at the behavior level. We have to interrupt the pattern at the level of the thoughts and the food guilt. Remember, behavior is downstream from your thoughts, which is downstream from your beliefs and your identity. Which is why this all matters so much. This foundation and this belonging and this identity thing that I keep talking about. This is why it matters so much. Because your beliefs and your identity flows down to your thoughts and then your thoughts flow down to your behavior. And what we aren't aware of, especially in our self talk and in our dialogue with ourselves, when we're not aware of the patterns there, we certainly don't have authority over them. So let me tell you first what we are not going to do. We are not going to moralize your eating. Let's just decide right now that we're done with that and I'm going to prove it to you in the next minute. Is food good or bad? Is a food good or bad? Can a Coca Cola could be life saving to an individual in a hypoglycemic episode. And a red pepper could be dangerous to somebody who has a reaction to nightshade vegetables. And having a slice of cheesecake at a birthday party could be a huge step of faith for someone recovering from an eating disorder, whereas saying no to the exact same slice of cheesecake could be obedience to somebody relearning to take their frustrating feelings to Jesus instead of to the refrigerator at 11pm A saturated fat like coconut oil will build a toddler's brain in the best way and help them focus, whereas excess saturated fat can be hurtful to somebody with high triglyceride levels. It's simply not that simple. So let's just stop moralizing our eating. Also, what we're not going to do is label you good or bad based on what you ate. And let's test the gospel here. Does eating good make you worthy? You would say, no, I'm worthy because Christ says I am. Because his sacrifice was full and complete and it is finished. So if eating good doesn't make you worthy, then eating bad can't make you unworthy. See, we need to unattach from the morality complex we have around food. It's too heavy of a burden for you to carry each day. But Jamie, I hear you asking, what about conviction? Well, let's talk about it, because I agree it's a super important part of the conversation. Food guilt is not automatically conviction. And here is the litmus test. Romans 2:4 says that it is the kindness of God that leads you to repentance. And other versions use the word gentleness of God that leads you to repentance. Grace of God that leads you to repentance. So three lovely words there. Kindness, gentleness, grace that tells me if the voice in your head isn't kind, isn't gentle, isn't filled with grace, it's not the Lord's voice. And then in John 16:8 we read, when he has come, speaking of the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit has come, he will convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. That tells us that the Holy Spirit brings the conviction he will convict. So if the voice in your head, first of all isn't the Lord's voice, maybe the voice in your head is an aunt who said, are you sure you should be eating that? Or a mom who said, you've had enough, or someone else who said that has too much sugar. If it's not gentle, grace filled and kind, it's not the Lord's voice. And if it's somebody else's voice, then it's obviously not the Lord's voice. Like, you can take that back to the Lord and test it. So I don't want you to confuse conviction with food, guilt or condemnation. See, the voice of the Holy Spirit is gentle. You're going to feel it in your heart, in your spirit, in your gut. However the Lord speaks to you, it's a prompting from within that lines up with the word of God. It brings clarity. Conviction brings clarity. Conviction is firm but kind. Conviction means you clearly see you were in the wrong and you clearly see what is right. It drives you towards the Lord. It drives you towards helpful people. It invites you into reliance. It pulls you away from self sufficiency. Shame and guilt and condemnation, on the other hand, are paralyzing. Shame says isolate. Figure it out yourself. You should know better by now. It tells you to hide. It thrives in self sufficiency. Do you see the difference? The Lord isn't bullying you into health and neither should you. So what do we do instead? We practice awareness without accusation. That means when you overeat emotionally, eat or feel uncomfortable in your body instead of immediately spiraling into shame. And I know that's hard because it's a habitual nervous system response, start with just a moment of pause. Because honesty is so, so key. And that's usually the opposite of what our flesh wants. Our flesh wants to hide. We want to cover it up. We want to ignore it. That's the voice of a shame. So the three steps here to practice awareness without accusation, and this is what I promised you at the beginning is number one, notice it. Get honest and clear. These thoughts that you have been thinking about yourself, this dialogue that you've been having with yourself, sometimes it's ugly. You would never speak that way to a friend. But honesty has got to come before change and transformation. So get honest. That's step number one. Step number two, write it down. And I actually encourage a food thought journal. It can be on your phone or a little notebook, but jot down what you are telling yourself whenever you are feeling anxious or stressed about food or about your body. This makes it more tangible. Once you have a name for what you are feeling, once you actually put that on paper or in your phone or wherever it may be, it actually gives your brain a sense of relief. You're gonna get a little dose of dopamine from your brain out of gratitude. Your brain is saying, oh, I was trying to get you to pay attention to that. I was trying to get you to notice that so? Step number two is write it down. Step three is get curious and reflect. I would encourage you to ask yourself a helpful question. What was happening? Was I overwhelmed? Did I skip meals earlier? Was I emotionally exhausted? Was I avoiding something? Did I need comfort? What did I need? Because understanding creates compassion, and compassion gives margin for real change. Compassion and curiosity goes back to the brain science. It keeps you in your big, beautiful, amazing brain. Your prefrontal cortex, your frontal lobe, all those areas where you can access problem solving and intention and creativity and joy and delight and desire. And with that, with your whole brain online and with this curious energy towards yourself, you will have such an easier time deciding on your next step. So maybe after these three steps, you can challenge the guilt with a fact. For example, if the thought is, I overate, that's so bad. You can challenge that with the fact that one snack does not determine your outcomes. That's based on cumulative intake over days and weeks. Not a single meal or snack. Or maybe if the impulsive thought is, I ruined my diet by eating that donut and having that latte, I might as well keep eating poorly for the rest of the day and really enjoy my day. But the fact is, each new meal is an opportunity to nourish your body and getting back to an eating routine that aligns with your goals, a quicker recovery is the best way to move forward. Or maybe the thought is, I didn't work out today, so I don't deserve this large dinner. The fact is, food is nourishment and fuel. It's not a reward you have to earn. Your body needs energy and calories and carbs every day just to function, regardless of your activity level. Maybe you can challenge the guilt with Scripture, e.g. romans 8. 1. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. Or you can choose not to continue to dwell on a thought because it is 100% true, or it isn't honorable, or it isn't lovely, or it isn't excellent, or it isn't worthy of praise. That's in Philippians 4. 8. Now you could consider, how would I talk to a kid who is having this struggle? Or how would I talk to a dear friend who has beaten herself up about her body? Would you give them more empathy than you're giving to yourself in this moment? Probably. Or you can reframe that thought into an intention to help you better prepare for this vulnerable situation in the future. Say self, I didn't prepare well today. I worked through lunch instead of taking a break. I thought it would save me time, but my afternoon energy crash proved that wrong. Let me decide right now what I will pack for lunch tomorrow, or what my backup plan will be if I don't have one. That's problem solving with your big, beautiful brain. See, it's only after this connection to yourself and this honesty with yourself and this curiosity towards yourself that you're able to discern in partnership with the Holy Spirit, what's true and what's not true in these thoughts. And yes, there may be room here for repentance or behavior change, but that comes after the connection, not before. You need the Lord to discern what needs your attention. What's the voice of the enemy? And this whole process could take a few seconds. It could take a few minutes. It could be done in your head. It could be journaled out in paper. It could be worked through in a counselor's office or in a dietitian's office. But then you walk forward without continuing the punishment. If the sun sets you free, you are free indeed. That's John 8:36. Walk forward, my friend. So I want you to try these three steps in the week ahead and then ask yourself after a couple days, what's going well? What's still hard? What patterns am I noticing? We're patterned people. You will see patterns, I guarantee it. Ask yourself, do I have more peace and joy, or was there more negativity and sadness? You'll likely find that there's a little sadness and grief in the moment, but you process that much more quickly than the sadness that comes with constant self condemnation. Ask yourself in which scenario this old approach or this new approach, is God more glorified? This shift can begin changing your relationship with food more than any meal plan or another set of rules ever could. So we're going to end there today. And if this episode resonated with you, make sure you're following the show. Because next week we're going to talk about body image. And what does scripture actually say about food and your body? Body? I think it'll surprise you. And if you want deeper support and tools and connection, join my email list through the link in the show notes. You don't need more shame. You need compassion, understanding, curiosity and truth to set you free. I'll see you in the next episode. Sam.