2 find your core beliefs

The most important part of healing your relationship with food is recognizing the psychological issues you may have with eating. In the first chapter, we discussed diet culture and its negative influence. Now let’s talk about how to set the stage for true change to happen.

The first step is looking within and understanding your psychological relationship with food and your body. A lot of books and experts won’t touch this subject because it can be really messy and unpleasant, and it doesn’t end in a set promised goal of pounds lost or the perfect “bikini body.” But the truth is that chronic dieting and poor body image are symptoms of something deeper that needs to be hauled up and explored. We aren’t born hating our bodies. That’s a learned behavior. We learn to starve ourselves and hate what we see in the mirror. It’s time to unlearn that shit because nobody deserves to live their life like that.

Being bound up by the past and by feelings you’re not acknowledging can keep you from moving forward and living your best life. Although it can be tough to face what’s really going on inside of you, only by unpacking the feelings and origins behind your eating behavior will you be able to take the next step toward wellness and make meaningful, lasting change to your diet and in your life. Remember: You want to live in the present and be present for your life and the people you love.

So, what’s the secret? Understanding your core beliefs.

WHAT ARE CORE BELIEFS?

Core beliefs are internalized messages or truths that we hold very close to our hearts. They determine how we see ourselves in the world and how we perceive the world around us, and they shape our sense of self-worth and our life decisions. In other words, your core beliefs are pretty damn important to your emotional health, especially if you’re trying to heal your relationship with food and your body.

Core beliefs start young. This is normal—we’re not born with beliefs, we’re taught them. As impressionable children, we believe anything and everything that’s told to us or modeled for us by an authority figure.

Core beliefs can be positive. For example, if your grandfather told you that you were smart as a child, and if over time, this was reinforced and you came to believe it was true, that core belief would engage whenever you needed it. For instance, when you were anxious about an exam or a project, you might have tapped into your core belief to remind yourself that you were capable. It’s like a pocket of confidence you carry around everywhere you go. Yay for positive core beliefs!

When it comes to our bodies, positive core beliefs are validating and inspiring. Even if the core beliefs are superficial like “I have beautiful skin” or “I have amazing stamina,” they can go a long way in making us feel good about ourselves and giving us confidence. When faced with a new fad diet that is selling you vitamin supplements for better skin, you can always say, “Nah, I already have beautiful skin. No, thanks.” We like positive core beliefs, but unfortunately, the everyday world of marketing wants to undermine them by selling us fear and negativity about ourselves.

So it will come as no surprise that core beliefs can also be negative—and the negative ones are so much stickier than the positives. If you grow up being told by a parent, relative, or someone you know (or don’t know) that your body doesn’t fit, that’s it’s too big, or that you’re not good enough, you’ll probably believe it eventually. Why? Remember what Julia Roberts said in Pretty Woman? “The bad stuff is easier to believe.” She’s right. If someone—or even you—tells you something negative enough times, you’re going to start taking it as the truth. It’s called negative bias, and you can blame evolution. In the Stone Age, if we heard about something bad happening, our brains would tune out other stuff in order to focus on getting us away from the perceived danger. Over time, we became more aware of negative things as preemptive measures against harm. Unfortunately, today we don’t need negative bias as much to survive, but its remnants exist. Hence we believe bad things easily and they tend to overshadow the good.

It happens to everyone. If I get sixty compliments on social media and one shitty rude comment from some idiot, that rude one is the only one I focus on. Well, until I remember my own advice. But still, focusing more on the negative is totally normal.

If you’re a chronic dieter (or even if you’re not), you probably feel bad about some part of your body. You might habitually criticize yourself and your diet. The key word is “habitually.” You might be doing all of this subconsciously many times a day, but what’s actually happening is the manifestation of your negative core beliefs. They bubble up into the nasty things we tell ourselves about our bodies and about the foods we eat—it’s like a movie reel on repeat. You can be the smartest, most accomplished person in the world and still have these horrible thoughts about yourself. Not only that, but negative core beliefs tend to keep us in the past, all wrapped up in beliefs that aren’t necessarily even true, and unable to move forward with happiness and freedom in our bodies and in eating.

When we experience stress or change in our lives, our negative core beliefs can be triggered. For someone with negative core beliefs about themself, a trigger event such as weight gain, a week in which you feel as though your diet isn’t the greatest, or a clothes shopping trip can revive those negative core beliefs that might have been lying dormant. You might start believing crap: that you’re lesser because you can’t fit into that bikini you want or that you’re weak because you gained so much weight during your vacation.

If you think about these statements, you may realize—correctly, I should add—that they’re completely untrue. But most of us don’t take the time to reason with ourselves. Instead, we play our movie again and again in our mind: a repeat of those same shitty things about ourselves, to ourselves. If that reel is negative, it can chip away at your self-esteem and happiness. Many of us even bury these thoughts and let them occur subconsciously because it’s a lot easier to let the movie play, underneath everything, unchallenged and unchecked.

You may not be entirely aware of just how many negative core beliefs are actually impacting your choices, thoughts, and behaviors around food. They may be why:

All of that is fucking bullshit.

You don’t deserve any of that garbage. Your body is perfect the way it is, and it deserves to take up space. It deserves respect. After all, it’s working hard to keep you alive and doing what you do, every day. Plus, it’s uniquely yours. Stand up for it, because nobody else can. Nobody (and no body) in the world deserves to be punished for eating. I don’t give a crap if you’ve eaten cake or vegetables, it’s all GOOD. And you should be enjoying it.

We’ll get to that, but first, we need to identify those negative core beliefs so we can oust them for good. They’re trolls, just lying in wait, coiled up and ready to pounce. Calling out these little shits is the first step in eradicating them. Let’s go.

DITCHING THE TROLLS

Negative core beliefs sell us the fallacy that we’re broken in some way and will never be good enough, and this causes us to continually punish ourselves physically and emotionally in an attempt to repent for and fix what you think is wrong. It’s like we’re constantly trying to push a boulder up a hill and it continues to roll on top of us again and again. Not okay! Even if you reach your goal, be it weight loss or anything else, you might not find satisfaction and peace, because deep inside you still believe you’re not good enough. There’s that boulder again. Ouch.

Until you shine a light on your negative core beliefs, they will continue to roll on top of you and hold you back. The only way to address them is to expose them. Remember, other people don’t get to define who you are. That’s your job. So whatever ideas you’ve been handed about yourself need to be inspected. Sit with them and acknowledge them. This might be uncomfortable (and it probably will be) because our first instinct may be to hide those feelings away in a box and tape the lid shut. But hold steady. Keep that box open and you will truly see where your feelings are coming from. Only then can you disable the power of your negative core beliefs and keep the positive ones.

This process can be painful and can cause all kinds of emotions. Seriously, it can really suck. But it’s a necessary exercise in order for you to move forward. And if you find this at all triggering, there’s no harm (and often a lot of good!) that can come from talking with a qualified professional therapist. Don’t be afraid to find someone who will walk with you through this and give you the support that you need.

In the exercise below, I’ve listed the five most common negative core beliefs people have around weight, food, and eating and illustrated them with examples from my practice. But before each scenario, I’ve asked some important questions that I want you to answer about your relationship with food and your body.

The intention here is to get you to think about your own core beliefs and then turn the negatives into positives. It’s a three-step process: The first step is calling out what our negative core beliefs are. This takes their power away. It’s like realizing that the person who has been trolling you online is actually not that scary in real life. Once you realize who they are, you’re so much more able to ignore them and anything they say to you. The second step is challenging the belief, then flipping it into a positive. This will change that movie reel of yours into a story with good, encouraging messages… all day long.

Okay, let’s get started.

Question #1: What were you taught about food and weight when you were growing up?

Can you remember any messages you received about your body and your weight when you were a child? Maybe it’s that moment when your mom put you on a scale at eight years old and told you that you weighed too much. Or when those asshole kids at school bullied you for being different or bigger than everyone else. What did this tell you about food and weight? That your body wasn’t good enough? That diets are a necessary way of life in order to conform and be accepted? That thin is perfect? Really think about your answer. Write it down if you want.

Core belief #1: Thin = lovable. Thin = attractive.

For many people, this core belief forms at an early age. But the first messages we receive about our bodies and food aren’t always overtly communicated. For one client of mine, her parents modeled their beliefs for her: “My parents were always on a diet, and it made me feel like I had to measure up physically at all times. I mean, if they considered themselves to be fat, what did they think of me? I never wanted to find out. At fifty-six years old, I still feel that pressure, even though both my parents are in their nineties. Somewhere inside of me I feel like I’d still be a disappointment to them if I slip and gain weight.”

This is called “transgenerational transmission,” which means that the beliefs and rules and culture of the family come down through generations, and they can be really tough to shift. Even though it wasn’t their intention, my client’s parents reinforced the message that fat was unacceptable, that gaining weight was akin to being a bad person or a weak person. My client absorbed this, and as a result, she became a chronic dieter at a very young age in order to keep herself in her parents’ good graces. Subconsciously, even well into adulthood, she felt as though she owed it to the family to conform and her diet mind-set became a negative core belief.

We don’t even have to be subjected to continual negative talk about our bodies or diet in order to form a negative core belief. A one-off comment can turn into a little demon that we fixate on and allow to warp our relationship with food and ourselves for years to come. Like my client whose teacher made a rude, inappropriate, offhand comment about how she wouldn’t be able to fit behind her desk at school. Now every time she sits at a desk or a seat on an airplane or in a movie theater, she’s reminded of that remark. Even though in her rational mind as an adult she knew that the teacher’s comment was about the teacher, not her, she still internalized her anger and it continued to prevent her from making meaningful changes to her lifestyle and eating habits.

Growing up in an environment where our natural cues are questioned, belittled, and suppressed can also have damaging results. One client’s story always stands out for me: “I was on the swim team in high school, so I was always hungry. When I would reach for seconds at the dinner table, my mom would always make a comment about how I didn’t need the extra food. I think I’ve always believed that she’d rather I starved than be fat. And that her love was obviously conditional on how I looked. I think that’s why I’ve starved my own body for the past thirty years.”

Here was an active and healthy young woman who was taught to question her natural hunger cues but also equate them with her worthiness to be loved. The message was very clear: “Your body is wrong. If you listen to it, you will become fat and unlovable.” The truth is that our natural cues are what keep us alive and thriving in whatever environment we end up in. We’re supposed to eat when we’re hungry; it’s a natural physiological reaction and suppressing that urge can be dangerous.

These stories encapsulate how experiences from our childhood can warp our mind-set and push us to create unhealthy narratives that we continue to replay in our minds. We walk through life telling ourselves, “I am unattractive unless I’m thin” and “I’m not lovable unless I look a certain way.” It doesn’t matter that we intellectually know that these statements are untrue. In the end, we create rules and expectations that are unrealistic and unhealthy, like being hypervigilant about our eating habits and our weight, chronic dieting, having a poor self-image, and feeling guilt and shame around eating.

For all of these clients, their negative core belief was that if they weren’t thin, they were unlovable and unattractive. Does any of this resonate with your answer to question #1? If so, it’s time for step two.

Question whether this core belief is true.

Ask yourself if you believe that your weight determines your worthiness. If the answer is yes, try to remember whose voice you hear telling you this untruth. Did this core belief actually come from you or is it somebody else’s opinion that you’ve assumed for yourself? Ask this negative core belief for proof. What makes you believe that it is really true?

Now that we have that settled, on to step three.

Flip your negative core belief into a positive.

For example, you might say, “Everybody is inherently worthy of love and affection, regardless of how they look.” Or, “Nobody gives a shit about how much I weigh. It’s irrelevant to who I am as a person, a friend, a partner, and a parent.”

Now prove that this new, positive core belief is true. For example, write down evidence of what makes you worthy of love and happiness. What do you do for others? Why do others love you? How do you support your kids, your friends? What do you contribute to people’s lives? These can be things like being there for someone when they need you, or being aware of injustice in the community and trying to right it. Listing the evidence to back this up strengthens the belief and weakens the negative one so you can truly pitch it into the trash where it belongs. What are you finding?

Question #2: Do you consistently use food to cope with emotions, particularly negative ones?

If so, where did this come from? What do you eat during these moments? What impact do these eating behaviors have on your emotional state? Were you ever punished or rewarded with food, and how do you feel this has impacted you? This is a tough one. Take your time answering.

Core belief #2: Food = safety. Food = love.

Humans have a much more complex relationship with food than, say, animals, who only eat to survive. We enjoy an epic cake on a birthday, not because we are hungry, but because celebrating with food is fun. But the flip side is, we also use food to soothe, to manage our emotions, and even to reward ourselves.

I had a client who came to me for weight-loss counseling. At fifty-two years of age, he had a thing for orange Tang drink crystals and drank liters of Tang every day. “I can’t stop drinking it,” he said. “My dad used to give it to us kids when we were young, especially at celebrations and when we did something he was proud of. He died when I was eleven, but I still remember the happiness that came with that Tang.” My client was self-aware enough to recognize the emotions driving him to drinks liters of this stuff. He was trying to recapture something that was gone—his father’s love—and who could blame him? After experiencing loss at such a young age, he was doing anything he could to hold on to memories of his father.

Another client of mine grew up in a family in which her parents constantly fought and her sisters always got into fistfights. At seven years old, she didn’t have the maturity or coping skills to deal with all this conflict, so when the fighting began, she’d grab a bag of chips and sequester herself in the attic. She was out of harm’s way with yummy food, and she felt safe.

As an adult, she employed the exact same coping mechanism: Whenever she felt anxious or unsafe, she’d retreat to a quiet place with a bag of chips. Again, who could blame her? It worked when she was a child; why shouldn’t it as an adult? But the consequences of this habit caught up with her. She gained a lot of weight and her health was beginning to suffer.

In both my clients’ cases, there’s a scientific reason for their behavior: serotonin. Affectionately called “the happy chemical,” serotonin is a neurotransmitter that’s mostly made in the gut. When we eat, especially large amounts of food, serotonin is released; it makes us feel full and lifts our mood. This would be great if everyone was eating salads and vegetables and getting a serotonin high. Unfortunately, studies have found a correlation between being upset and getting a high after reaching for “unhealthy foods” like carbohydrates, sugar, and anything we would deem junk food or comfort food. Over time, we associate these foods with safety and happiness and use them as a way to numb our emotions, especially when we face tough situations.

All of us engage in emotional eating at some point, which is completely normal and definitely nothing to worry about, as long as you have—and use—other coping mechanisms. Having your mother’s chicken soup while you’re sick or enjoying ice cream after a bad breakup makes us human. It’s a complex relationship, but it pains me to see clients who use food to protect themselves and find safety from the situations that life sometimes throws at us. At the end of the day, food should help us feel nourished, energized, and ready to take on the world. It shouldn’t be used repeatedly to help us feel safe and protected from the world. Which brings us to step two.

Question whether this core belief is true.

Do you believe your food replaces love? Do you believe you’re not worthy of love from other sources? Does food make you safe? Do you have the power to get through the tough situations that pop up in life?

Flip your negative core belief into a positive.

For example, “Food is food, and it doesn’t love me back. That’s okay, though, because I sure as hell am loved by actual people. And food doesn’t make me any safer. I’m capable of using other skills and supports to create a safe place for myself without food.”

Why do you know that this new, positive core belief is true? Remember, articulating the reasons why will reinforce the belief. It might take some reminding, but you’ll get there. In the meantime, know that you are loved and safe.

Question #3: Do you think you’ll be a different or better person once you lose weight?

Do you believe that you’re worthy of health and happiness? Ask yourself where this idea comes from. Don’t be afraid to be honest with your answer. We’re going beyond the superficial here.

Core belief #3: Thin = worthy. Thin = a better life.

Of all the core beliefs, this is a hard one to dismantle because we see it and experience it everywhere—influencers on social media, advertisements, and celebrities hawking fitness products keep telling us what a “normal” body should look like and that being thin is better. So I understand friends, family, and clients fantasizing about being thin because they see it as a way of becoming a better person and as a transformation for their lives. The problem is that it’s just not true.

Dayna was a mom of four kids who came to me for weight-loss counseling. She had a history of trying to change her eating habits, but as she told me, she was “never able to keep it going.” She told me that because of her kids’ busy schedules, her husband’s food preferences (he hated certain vegetables and fish, so she didn’t make those things), and her own job demands, she just couldn’t “stay on track.” And in our sessions, she continually spoke about weight loss as though it would make everything in her life fall into place. If only.

What I was hearing was that Dayna always put herself last—everyone’s wants and needs were more important than hers. The actor Teri Hatcher called this the “burnt toast syndrome.” People, especially mothers, give everyone else the perfectly toasted pieces of bread, leaving the burned, less desirable pieces for themselves so as not to inconvenience anyone else. They don’t believe they are worth the effort of making another, unburned piece of toast for themselves. Their core belief is that they’re not worthy of health and happiness; they’re not important but everyone around them is. Dayna felt guilty for putting her needs first, so she sabotaged her efforts to change her eating habits over and over again, and when she inevitably failed to achieve them, she felt even more unworthy.

Having damaged self-worth is an issue in a lot of respects, but in terms of eating and body image, it can have a serious impact. People whose core beliefs include worthlessness are more likely to suffer from eating disorders, speak harshly to themselves, punish themselves unnecessarily, and experience excessive guilt and shame, especially when they feel as though they’ve made a mistake.

I’ve had to work hard to convince clients like Dayna that accepting their own worth and putting themselves as a priority is the first step toward change. And beyond that, to convince them that weight loss or weight gain is only one part—a very small part—of their success story, that being thin is not going to make them a better mother or husband or help them get the corner office or a nicer car or their dream job. All losing weight does is change how we look. It doesn’t heal a bad relationship with food or with your body, and it doesn’t turn you into someone else. You’ll still have most if not all of the same problems, the same life, the same family. You’ll just be thinner. And being thinner doesn’t automatically equip you to deal with life any better. You are more than just the sum of your parts.

For any meaningful change to occur in your life, you need to believe and understand you are worthy of that change. If you hold the negative core belief that you’re not worthy because you’re not thin, it will be tough to achieve or sustain any sort of behavior change that leads to weight loss because you’ll be continually going back to the habits that support that negative belief. It’s also important to acknowledge that if you lose weight, your life will still be mostly the same. Magical unicorns and a whole new, sparkling life aren’t going to jump out from behind the bathroom wall when the scale finally reads that certain number. Many things in our lives can be changed, but weight loss won’t do that work for us.

Question whether this core belief is true.

Do you believe that losing weight will make you a better person and more worthy of respect and love? Do you think weight loss will change your life? How and why? What evidence can you find?

Flip your negative core belief into a positive.

Tell yourself, “How I look has no bearing on who I am as a person. I’m worthy of all good things, regardless of what I weigh.” Think about someone you know and love. Would you not like them as a person as much if they gained weight? You probably would never dream of doing that. So, why do you believe it to be true for yourself?

Now list the reasons that this new, positive core belief is true. What does this tell you?

Question #4: Do you trust yourself to make good food choices?

If not, why? Where did this come from? When you were younger, did you choose what you ate or did others? And to what degree? Examine your level of self-trust around food and evaluate the impact of this on your core beliefs. Now that you’re an adult, who makes your food choices? Do you feel you have control over what you eat or does someone/something else? Interesting, right?

Core belief #4: I can’t be trusted and neither can my body.

This is one of the more common issues my clients have, and it often stems from the negative core belief that there is something wrong with their moral compass or their body. Wellness culture has had an enormous role in creating a lack of trust in our bodies. The messaging of the wellness industry has reinforced the idea that we are broken and we need to buy their cure to fix us. When we buy into this as truth, we experience something called learned helplessness, a psychological state in which we accept a perceived lack of control instead of fighting against it.

My client David grew up in a house where sweets were locked up, and seconds at meals were forbidden. Every food in the fridge was monitored and accounted for, and his parents would dish out each meal and snack for him up until David was a preteen. It’s just the way it was in his house.

When David came to see me, he was struggling with overeating and the feeling that he had no control over his appetite or food intake. He constantly felt as though he had to limit his portions, and tightly schedule every meal and snack. This was obviously because of the way he had grown up, but as an adult, he was unable to trust himself to buy and eat appropriate amounts of food and to eat freely without a schedule. He seemed constantly at odds with what his body was asking him for because he just couldn’t reconcile that with his need to control everything he ate.

People who grow up with parents who felt as though they had to control every morsel of food in the house, including how much their kids ate at meals, sometimes didn’t have the chance to learn what we call self-regulation. This means that as children, they relied on others to tell them what and when to eat, and as adults, they struggle to learn self-regulation because they were taught—either directly or indirectly—that they couldn’t be trusted around food. This was David’s main issue—his parents never let him develop his self-regulatory skills in terms of food choices and appetite, and the feeling that he couldn’t trust his body’s cues or his food choices became a negative core belief that was impacting his life greatly as an adult.

If your negative core belief is that your body can’t be trusted to tell you what it wants, to show you when it’s hungry and full, and to signal when it’s satisfied, it’s very difficult to reject diet culture. If you don’t trust your body, it seems like a very big leap to stop dieting and even believe that you can eat normally without tracking and worrying about everything you put into your mouth. Together, we can change that.

Question whether this core belief is true.

Do you believe that wellness, diet culture, and others know more about your body than you do? Do you believe that you have no self-control or willpower? That your body can’t be trusted, or that if you give it some slack, it will betray you? Or, that giving over the control of your body to a diet or schedule is going to help make everything right? What backs this up? I’ll wait.

Flip your negative core belief into a positive.

For example, “I know what’s best for my body, and my body knows what’s best for it. In the past, it was the diets that failed me; I didn’t fail the diets.” Can you think of some reasons this is true? Remember, after dismantling the negative core belief, you need to bolster your positive replacement. And we definitely don’t want to see this troll rearing its head again.

Question #5: Do you moralize your eating habits and food in general?

This is a biggie for me, just take the title of my book. Do you categorize food as good and bad, right or wrong? Do you categorize your food choices and behaviors as good and bad? What does perfection mean to you in terms of what you eat and your body? Where did these notions originate? Looking at them now, note your perceptions.

Core belief #5: I am my diet.

It’s trendy to categorize food as good and bad or use the word “clean” to describe your diet or food choices. This is language that’s often used by wellness influencers and companies, but ironically, it reinforces the common negative core belief that you are your diet.

So many of my clients tell me that they’ve been bad with their eating.

Alex was a young woman who came to me for some diet tweaks. Everything was going well in our session, but I noticed that she constantly made references to food and eating as being good, eating clean, or cheating. I pick that stuff up immediately in a client’s talk because it’s a dead giveaway that they have their wires crossed. And by wires, I mean the food wire and the morality wire.

When clients like Alex moralize their food, they’re commenting on how they view themselves. And although it’s usually off-the-cuff, it’s an underhanded way of saying that what they’ve done is shameful. It’s a short jump from “These Doritos are bad” to “I’m bad because I ate these Doritos.”

The problem is that using morally charged expressions to describe your diet can breed guilt and shame. The terms are often used interchangeably, and while they can both apply to how somebody reacts to food, these emotions are actually different. Guilt is feeling remorse for an action that you believe is wrong. For example, “I feel guilty because I ate that cake.” Sure, you might feel physically crappy because you’ve eaten too much, but to feel guilty because you’ve broken the rules perpetuates the idea that food is right or wrong. Shame is how we feel about ourselves after doing something that we feel is wrong. For example, “I am bad because I ate that cake.” When we feel shame, we’re feeling judgment about who we are as a person.

You may even say these things to yourself in your head multiple times a day without realizing it. By doing that, you’re living by your core belief: You’re not a good person if you don’t eat the way you think you’re supposed to. This can have a negative impact on your food choices and your mood, not to mention your feelings about your overall self-worth.

Food and morality aren’t strangers. We’ve long associated pure and natural foods with superiority. Diet and wellness cultures elicit a fervor that mimics religion among some people, who shun “demons” (often sugar or gluten) and worship purity, which ostensibly comes from “clean eating.” Followers feel as though they’re part of a bigger cause and governed by doctrines that often become their identities. And the “I am my diet” core belief often goes hand in hand with the “I need to be perfect or I’m a failure” core belief. They’re like best friends.

With Alex, this couldn’t have been more true. Her drive for perfection in her work (just made partner at her firm!) and her personal life (had the BEST boyfriend ever!) was also reflected in her eating habits. I could almost feel her disgust with herself as she described how she went to a barbecue with her boyfriend the weekend before our session and cheated on her diet by eating an entire bowl of Chicago-style popcorn. She felt dirty and like a failure that she had been unable to resist that bowl of ultradeliciousness, so much so that she looked like she wanted to jump out of her skin. Instead, she talked about eating extra-clean for the week, not eating any sugar at all, and going to Whole Foods and buying bottles of green juice that she’d bring for her lunches.

Her compulsion to jump back from eating “unclean” food as though she had just touched a hot stove was concerning to me. It looked as though Alex was going down the path toward orthorexia, an eating disorder that involves an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating. The food must be good and your habits must be perfect, or you’re a failure. One of my favorite sayings is, “In nutrition, there is no such thing as perfection.” And I truly believe that with all my heart.

Just for a moment, consider what it would feel like to let go of the goal of eating “perfectly.” Whatever perfection means to you, ask yourself if it would make you happy? Would it be sustainable? Are you miserable trying to achieve it?

Question whether this core belief is true.

Do you believe that who you are as a person is determined by what you eat? That people who don’t eat clean or eat healthy foods are somehow lesser? Think about what proof you have that this is true. What’s really behind your thinking?

Flip your negative core belief into a positive.

Try telling yourself, “What I eat has nothing to do with who I am as a person. Morality-based terms for food are irrelevant and damaging to my relationship with food and with myself.”

Again, list the evidence that supports this new, positive core belief to strengthen your resolve and kick that negative one to the curb. How do you feel? Better, I hope!

ROUTING THE REST

There are many other negative core beliefs out there. They can be like whack-a-moles! To discover all your core beliefs, you’ll have to probe your feelings in each food-related situation—like a kid who keeps asking “But why?”—until you arrive at your answer. You might “why” yourself almost to oblivion, but that’s okay. Keep asking until you come down to the truth.

Then you’ll need to explore and evaluate (and reevaluate) that statement with a string of related questions. Let’s use a common trigger event as an example.

watch out:

for “should.”

“Should” is a red flag word. When we say the word “should,” we are using judgment to motivate ourselves to be something different. For example, “I should be thinner. I should be able to handle this way of eating.” When was the last time being judged resulted in positive, lasting change? Yeah, probably never. By should-ing ourselves, we are breaking our spirit.

Think about how often you tell yourself you should do or be something different. Then ask yourself why you’re feeling that way. And who says? Is the voice you’re hearing yours or somebody else’s? List the reasons why they get a say in who you are and how you behave. Are they legitimate reasons?

Remember: You don’t owe your life and well-being to anyone but yourself. If you don’t fit somebody else’s vision for you, they can piss right off. Nobody has any right to tell you how to be, how to look, and how to feel.

You go out for dinner with friends and end up overeating and feeling guilty, but your friends are all enjoying their food. The core belief here is: “I should feel guilty about eating the wrong things in the wrong amounts.” Now start questioning that belief. That might go something like this:

Q: Why do you feel guilty about eating certain foods?

A: Because they’re bad for me.

Q: Do you think that’s really the case? Are certain foods going to ruin your health if you enjoy them occasionally?

A: Well, I know that they’re not healthy to eat all of the time.

Q: But you don’t eat them all of the time, and even if you did, what do you think would happen?

A: I’m afraid of gaining weight.

Q: Okay, so you’re afraid. What is it about gaining weight that’s making you afraid?

A: Because I’ll get fat and feel like a failure.

Q: Is that a rational belief? Do you really think it’s possible that you will gain weight from one meal or by eating certain foods some of the time? And does weight gain equal failure?

A: Well, probably not.

Q: How is this belief impacting your quality of life?

A: It’s making me anxious and distracting me from important things, like time with friends and family.

Q: Do you truly believe that how you look determines what sort of person you are, or is that somebody else’s idea?

A: I guess I don’t really believe that my weight and appearance say who I am as a person. But my mom was always dieting in front of me and I think I just grew up thinking that eating unhealthy food and gaining weight makes me less of a person. At least, my mom was always making it seems as though that was the case.

Q: And what do you have to gain if you allow yourself to reject what’s essentially your mother’s old core belief and shed the guilt of enjoying these certain foods?

A: I think it would be a lot more fun and relaxing to be with my friends if I wasn’t obsessing about everything I was ordering and eating.

Q: And do you think you deserve to have that experience?

A: I do.

Q: Okay, so are you ready to rethink your original belief: “I should feel guilty about eating the wrong things in the wrong amounts”?

A: Yes. How about, “Feeling guilty when I eat certain foods really diminishes the pleasure I get from eating and being with my friends. I deserve that pleasure, and there is absolutely no reason why I shouldn’t have it. Even if I gained weight, it would never change who I am as a person.”

There you go. Continue to reinforce this new positive core belief with proof that you gather over time. Repeat it to yourself. Write it down. Live it.

QUIETING THOSE VOICES

Tackling your negative core beliefs is an important step, but you may still have damaging thoughts from time to time. This is totally normal. The harmful self-talk goes hand in hand with negative core beliefs. Just remember that thoughts about yourself that make you feel unworthy, unhappy, shameful, or guilty are bullshit at best and harmful at worst.

Some of the common “thought invaders” my clients often report hearing in their heads are: “I’m so fat.” “I can’t lose weight.” “I have no willpower against food.” If these unwelcome statements enter your mind, ask yourself: If anyone—a friend, your child, your coworker—said this to you, would you agree? Would you say this to someone you care about? The answer is so often no. So what makes it okay for you to say it over and over again, day after day, year after year? Exactly. You don’t deserve this kind of treatment.

It’s time to examine our disdain for “fat” and put it to rest. Why are we so afraid of it? Is that logical? Like Beyoncé’s scale-stepping video, is weaponizing the word “fat” really fair? Is it serving us, and others? This is a systemic issue in our culture that I’m not going to change here, but if you can start to really think about this word and shift your feelings about it, that’s a win in my book.

What I want is for you to learn to slam the window down on these creepy little thoughts every time they try to crawl into your mind. Here are some other ways you can quiet those thoughts.

Working through negative core beliefs is a process that takes time. Keep at it, and don’t give up! We’ve done a lot of work here, and you’ve done great things. Even the act of starting to address these issues, and face them once and for all, is a monumental step in the right direction. Please recognize that and know that this is a road that will lead you to a greater understanding of who you are and why you make the choices you make, think the things you think, and do the things you do. Good or bad, tough or easy, this is valuable information to have. And I commend you for taking this first step.

As we continue along our journey together, if you feel as though you need to revisit this chapter and address your negative core beliefs again, go ahead and do it. My expectation is that you’ll need to refresh and reset your relationship with yourself and with food more than once. And remember: Talking about things can help immensely. Make sure you lean on any supports you have during this time.

In the meantime, let’s move on to the next part of our journey: hunger.