This past week I attended a webinar presented by intuitive eating co-creator Evelyn Tribole on the topic of food addiction.
Evelyn Tribole is simply wonderful, btw.
One idea from the talk really stayed with me because it put language to something I see in my office all the time.
Let me show you what I mean.
A moment from my office earlier this year
A client once looked at me and said:
“I think I’m addicted to carbs.”
She explained that she could be “good” all day. But when work was over...
She’d get home, start eating, and suddenly it felt like the brakes were gone. Bread, cereal, crackers, whatever was in the kitchen.
Afterward she felt embarrassed.
“If I could just stop eating those foods,” she said, “everything would be fine.”
Instead of focusing on the bread, I asked her a different question.
“Walk me through what you ate earlier in the day.”
She paused and started thinking.
Breakfast had been coffee
Lunch was a salad with chicken
Then there was a long stretch of the afternoon where she was busy and didn’t eat again until dinner.
By the time she got home, she was starving.
And suddenly the pattern made a lot more sense.
The part people often miss
When the body hasn’t had enough food during the day (even a perceived restriction), the brain naturally becomes more focused on food.
This isn’t because something is wrong with you (it’s just your biology).
Research consistently shows that restrictive dieting and fasting increase the risk of binge eating and loss-of-control eating (PMIDs: 40848277, 39426909, 34800913, 26094791).
When food has been restricted (physically or mentally), the brain tends to do two things:
pay more attention to that food
feel a stronger urge to eat it when it’s available
In other words, what people often interpret as “addiction” can actually be a protective response. The body is trying to make sure it gets enough energy!
What actually makes foods like Oreos hard to stop eating?
You’ve probably heard the message:
Certain foods are engineered to make you lose control.
But the research on eating behavior is more nuanced.
One of the strongest predictors of binge eating and feeling “out of control” around food isn’t the ingredients.
Instead of eliminating bread or cereal, we worked on:
Eating enough earlier in the day.
Adding balanced meals she actually looked forward to eating.
Better meal timing to be sure her brain was getting enough energy consistently.
This allows a lot of food noise to quiet down. Not because you removed bread, but because you removed the restriction of it.
Something to consider
If certain foods feel “impossible to stop,” it’s worth asking a different question.
Not: “Why can’t I control myself?”
But: “Am I getting enough food earlier in the day (that I actually enjoy eating)?”
You might be surprised how often the answer to that question is really: no.
If this topic resonates with you and you’re tired of feeling stuck in cycles of restriction and overeating, this is exactly the kind of work I help clients untangle.
P.S. TL;DR: The foods people feel most out of control around are often the ones they’ve spent the most time trying not to eat. The first fix is making sure you’re actually getting enough food earlier in the day.
P.P.S. Drop-in office hours are here! Each month will focus on a specific topic. You can show up even if you are a client, if you were a past client, or if you have never met me in life! Super casual. You can register by clicking the image below:
