Social Eating Rules

Are Unhelpful Rules Stopping You Having Fun?

As summer fades into autumn, many of us embark on new kinds of social eating. Picnics in the park or drinks & snacks in the garden make way for roast dinners by a pub fireplace, warming Indian meals on a Friday night and work festive meals. 

While, on paper, these seem lovely and fun, many people load up their plates with rules, regulations and judgements. Rules, regulations and judgements feel unbreakable and if they are broken there are complex feelings, such as shame. They are different from general self-care because general self-care is flexible and adaptable and compassionate to different circumstances.

Unhelpful thought processes such as:

• What will my colleagues think about me if I eat this food

  Or 

• I would not eat that in front of my boss 

  Or 

• Girls don’t eat steaks 

  Or 

• Restaurants are not healthy 

  Or 

• Restaurants cook with too much oil

  Or

• I am also going out tomorrow so I have to “be careful” tonight 

  Or 

• I am only allowed dessert if I go to the gym tomorrow 

  Or 

• I should not drink gin without a diet tonic 

These ways of thinking are very unhelpful. To understand this, it can be helpful to think of the “goal” they are trying to achieve. It may feel that they are helping you lose weight, not gain weight, be healthy, appear pleasing and appropriate in front of others, appear polite, keep fit, stick to desired gendered stereotypes and so on… However, in my clinic I see such rules as often resulting in the opposite. If one does not eat right for our needs, appetite and gastronomy (e.g. leaving the table still hungry or unsatisfied), then we are more likely to act out with food later on in the day or week.

I also see in clinic that if one does break a rule but heavily criticizes oneself as a result – I should not have eaten that or I was bad for eating like that – then one is also more likely to act out with food or exercise in a punitive way later on. Plus, eating according to rules is not fun. It can make you overwhelmed with worry and stop you socializing. I always say to my clients that I am sure you have wonderful, creative, intelligent things to say in a social setting but rule-based eating stops you being your whole self. This is boring. 

These rules are therefore not keeping you safe or happy, the body size you were born to have, calm or healthy at all. They are not protective. In fact they stop you connecting to your body (how can you feel and respond to your body’s needs if you are doing so much thinking and criticizing?); they fill you with anxiety and guilt. Disconnection, as well as feeling worried and ashamed, very often result in one being more likely to act out in other unwell ways such as binging, restricting, isolating and so on. 

If you feel that restrictive rule-based behaviours or thought processes may be leading to difficult and unwanted behaviours, have a look at Breaking The Rules Instagram or enquire to see if counselling psychology and or nutritional therapy or if Breaking The Rules Group work may be a helpful way forward.