Food Habituation: The Case for Eating Whatever You Want
Written by Isabel Vasquez, RD, LDN
Have you ever avoided keeping a specific food in the house out of fear you’ll eat the whole package in one sitting? Many people avoid keeping chips, cake, cookies, or ice cream around for this very reason.
But what if I told you that keeping these foods around could actually heal your relationship with them?
When we’re entrenched in diet culture, we hinder our bodies’ natural processes from happening.
We abide by a diet’s rules or we pick up on food rules learned from diet culture, forbidding certain foods. Then, we claim we “can’t control ourselves” around these foods and end up fearing them.
We think the issue is the food itself and that the solution is simply to avoid it. We end up depriving ourselves of foods we really enjoy! Or we don’t give ourselves the chance to neutrally observe whether or not we even like the food.
So, how can you break this cycle? Food habituation!
What Is Food Habituation?
Merriam Webster defines habituation as a “decrease in responsiveness upon repeated exposure to a stimulus.”
Think about getting notifications on your phone. Let’s say you have a daily reminder set. You probably pay attention to the notification the first few days, but by the end of the first or second week, you may be completely tuning out that notification.
When it comes to food, habituation can allow you to heal a fractured relationship with food. Upon repeated exposure to a stimulus–in this case, food–you will have a decrease in responsiveness–obsessive thoughts or cravings. When you repeatedly allow yourself to have your fear foods, you can decrease the power they have over you.
And research backs this. The authors of Intuitive Eating say, “Research shows that people will tire of eating the same kind of food - it’s called habituation.”
Think about leftovers. They usually become less appealing after a couple days. We’ve lost interest in them. That’s habituation!
This is the reason why allowing yourself unconditional permission to eat is so central to finding food freedom. Taking an “all foods fit” approach to nutrition allows you to experience food habituation.
When you let go of the rules you’ve picked up from diet culture that limit what and how much you can eat, you can finally lean in to your preferences.
You can stop fighting your cravings for ice cream, cake, carbs, and pizza.
You can stop limiting your energy intake and start lovingly responding to your body's cues.
You can have a well-rounded, satisfying meal instead of filling up on low-calorie, unexciting diet foods.
Believe it or not, allowing yourself to eat these foods will actually reduce the power they hold over you. It may seem counterintuitive but it’s true!
How Does Food Habituation Impact Your Relationship With Food?
You will stop fearing forbidden foods
As you now know, food habituation requires eating the foods you have forbidden yourself from having in order to repair your relationship with them. By eating these foods on a regular basis, over time, you can reduce the power they have over you.
Habituation is also a key part of overcoming fear foods for those with eating disorders. Fear foods are those that the eating disorder has deemed “unhealthy” or “harmful” for some reason, usually because they are high in calories, sugar, or fat.
Exposure to fear foods causes the anxiety response to initially increase, but over time it decreases. Your body and mind learn that the food does not have to be met with fear. It doesn’t happen immediately, but with repeated exposures habituation starts to take effect.
You will stop being obsessed with food
Food obsession is often driven by restriction of the quantity or types of food you eat. It’s common for those actively dieting or engaged in eating disorder behaviors to have unrelenting thoughts about the foods they’ve cut out or about food in general.
Experiencing food habituation by allowing yourself to eat all foods without restriction allows your body to get the food it wants and needs and your mind to move on. Food becomes just another part of your day, not something that takes up all your mental space.
You will have a better relationship with food
A common fear amongst new intuitive eaters is “If I let myself eat whatever I want whenever I want, I’ll just eat *insert forbidden food* all day everyday!” But the truth is, that food would get old anyway.
Because of habituation, that food would become less satisfying and your body would signal to you that it wants more variety.
When you take forbidden foods off of a pedestal, you may even learn that you don’t truly like all of them. Getting rid of the guilt allows you to make a neutral decision on what actually satisfies you.
You will have renewed trust in your body
Following a diet’s rules and restrictions totally disconnects you from your body. You are not clued in to what your body wants or needs. Instead, you prioritize what the diet says you should have.
When you allow your body to receive the nourishment it desires, you take a huge step towards building body trust.
You begin to trust that your body is protecting you. You begin to trust that you can eat the foods you’ve restricted and your body will tell you when it has had enough. And your body begins to trust that you have its back and will give it the nourishment it wants and needs.
How to Practice Food Habituation
Stock up on the foods you usually avoid
To practice food habituation, you’ll need to be presented with your forbidden foods. Rather than avoiding them, buy that bag of chips or pint of ice cream. Keep it around and see how you feel.
Are you constantly thinking about the food? What thoughts do come up for you? How does it feel in your body?
When you feel ready, let yourself eat the food and enjoy it! Food is meant to give us pleasure. That pleasure helps us survive. If it wasn’t pleasurable, we might not be driven to keep eating and we need food to survive.
Remember, even though it may feel scary, it is perfectly normal to eat these foods. And eating them can help heal your relationship with them.
Be present with your food
It may help to get rid of unnecessary distractions and tune in to your experience of eating the food. This can help increase satisfaction and ultimately help you connect more with your body.
So, consider the sensory experience of eating. How does the food taste? What is its texture? What is its temperature?
Be patient with yourself
Food habituation is a process. It won’t be accomplished in one meal. Give yourself grace and be patient with yourself.
We can be so hard on ourselves. And diet culture promotes such black-and-white thinking around food and health. In reality, there’s a lot of nuance and gray area.
No one can guarantee how long it will take you to experience food habituation. There’s so many factors that might influence it–your dieting history, malnourishment, taste preferences, stress, and more.
That being said, being patient with yourself and trusting your body through the journey can make it way more rewarding and enjoyable.
Common Hurdles
Backing out before habituation happens
When you start this journey, it can be scary. You may fear that you’ll gain a lot of weight (which is possible and may need to be processed more deeply). You may fear that you’ll never stop feeling out of control around a particular food. You may fear you’ll be binge eating the food every day. You may fear that you’ll never eat a vegetable again.
Sometimes, these fears can cause people to jump ship before habituation fully takes place.
If you start restricting food again, mentally or physically, it might hinder you from experiencing the peace that comes with food habituation.
Give yourself grace. This process takes time and patience. It takes some sitting in the suck and processing uncomfortable feelings. It may bring up a lot of anxieties and fears around your eating habits and body image.
If you’re looking for a supportive community, the Chula Club Nutrition Coaching Program is full of other Latinas working to improve their health without dieting or centering weight loss.
Ongoing internal judgment around your food choices
Sometimes, restriction is not just physical, but mental. You may let yourself eat the cake, but berate yourself internally for eating it. Decades of conditioning from diet culture can do that to us.
Part of the journey is making peace with all foods. It’s reducing the guilt and shame we feel for finding pleasure from food and eating foods diet culture deems “unhealthy”. Just because the diet says it’s off limits doesn’t mean you have to believe that.
When that internal judgment is present, it can hinder your ability to find satisfaction from the food. It creates a subtle scarcity. You may have subconscious thoughts like “I better enjoy this all now because tomorrow I won’t be having more” or “This is so bad for me I have to be good and stop eating it”. These thoughts promote scarcity that can lead to a deprivation-driven response.
Medical conditions that warrant restriction
Certain medical conditions can be managed through nutrition. While we always focus on what you can add to your plate to promote health, limiting certain types of foods might be medically necessary or at least recommended.
It may not even be that you need to do so for a chronic health condition, but it may be that you’re lactose intolerant. Even though you love ice cream, having it might result in super uncomfortable symptoms.
Ultimately, you have body autonomy and you get to decide what is best for your overall health.
Finding a balance of satisfaction and health-promotion can take practice, but it’s often the best combo for a sustainable, enjoyable relationship with food in the long term.
Final Thoughts
If you really want to allow yourself to eat a piece of cake without fearing that you’re going to eat the entire thing, the key is giving yourself unconditional permission to eat. Eat the cake! And eat it again. This promotes food habituation, which can help you stop fearing your favorite foods.
For more support, we offer a 3-part masterclass on intuitive eating to help you improve your relationship with food, your body, and movement.
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