“Scarcity makes us anxious, abundance allows us to feel calm”

I came across this quote in a book that unfortunately I can’t remember the name of. It is a quote I use often with my clients when explaining why the brain does what it does sometimes with food.

Many people are experiencing this with toilet paper right now, but this fact can have a profound effect on our relationship to some food.

When you tell yourself that you have to stop eating a particular food, let’s go with sweet food, it’s normal human psychology for your brain to become anxious and want you to have as much of that sweet food as you can when it is available.

Not everybody experiences this, but if you know you’re likely to eat the whole block of chocolate when it’s in the house, then part of what is driving that, is your brain’s anxiety about scarcity. Paradoxically, many people don’t keep chocolate in the house because they’re worried they’ll eat it all, but it can be this behaviour that leads to eating all the chocolate when it is available.

Through the intuitive eating process and with learning to how to let go of the need to restrict, time and time again I have clients tell me they bought some chocolate and its now been siting the cupboard for weeks! They know it’s there, they’re just no longer anxious about not having it and they know they can get more whenever they feel like it.

intuitive eating dietitian

If you feel your relationship with food could use some help, or if you would also like to enjoy your food free of guilt, give us a call, or find a non-diet/intuitive eating dietitian near you (just make sure they are HAES®️ aligned).