“I just need to have more willpower.”
“I just need to stop binging on “bad” foods.”

I often hear these sorts of things from clients when we first meet. The message we hear in the culture around us is that if we just try harder and have more discipline than we can resist temptation and be successful.

But what if it wasn’t a willpower issue? What if it wasn’t your fault? What if you didn’t actually need to try harder?

When you tell yourself you can’t have something, suddenly that thing gets power and the more you want it. This is scarcity. You might not have literal scarcity (as in you have immediate access to food), but if you are labeling certain foods as “bad” and trying to avoid them, you are creating emotional scarcity.

Eating allllll the cookies isn’t a willpower issue, it’s a control/scarcity issue. When you take morality out of food and it become neutral, the reactivity you feel goes away. (Note: we aren't saying that broccoli and ice cream are nutritionally equivalent, but they are morally equivalent.)

This removal of scarcity falls under the intuitive eating principle "Make peace with food" aka "full permission." It can be one of the more tricky principles to work though, so if trying this on your own sounds daunting, or if you've tried unsuccessfully before, reach out! I would love to be a support!