How to Break Free From All-or-Nothing Thinking About Food

There was a time in my life when I weighed and measured practically everything I ate.

And I mean EVERYTHING.

I was the person using a food scale to measure how many grams of onions I was putting into my homemade tomato sauce.

...because apparently, those extra seven grams of onions were going to make or break my progress. 🙄

I tracked my calories and macros religiously.

I took progress photos and body measurements constantly.

And despite all that effort, I still never felt like my body looked good enough.

Eventually, I got tired of it.

Tired of the rules. Tired of the constant monitoring. Tired of feeling like no matter what I did, it was never enough.

And my response was basically:

F*ck this. I'm done.

No more tracking.

No more weighing and measuring.

No more planning every meal.

I went from preparing practically everything I ate to buying most of my meals out.

I drank more alcohol.

I ate more sweets throughout the day.

And for a while, it felt like freedom.

I wasn't following all those ridiculous rules anymore!

Except...I didn't actually feel very good.

And I started to realize that a lot of my choices weren't driven by what I actually wanted.

They were driven by my desire to do the OPPOSITE of what I didn't want to do anymore.

I didn't want to obsessively plan and prep every meal.

So I stopped planning and prepping altogether.

I didn't want to follow rigid food rules.

So I decided I was just going to eat whatever I felt like eating.

I didn't want to track every calorie.

So I rejected tracking entirely.

It was as though I had decided that if one end of the spectrum wasn't working for me, the only other option was to run as far as possible in the opposite direction.

But here's what eventually clicked for me...

Just because I rejected the extreme version of something, it didn't mean I had to reject the entire idea.

I could care about nutrition without tracking EVERY calorie.

I could plan and prep meals without planning and prepping EVERY meal.

I could pay attention to how much I was eating without weighing EVERY bite, lick, and taste.

In fact, just the other day, I entered my breakfast into MyFitnessPal because I was curious about how much protein, fiber, and roughly how many calories it contained.

And then I went about my day.

I was tracking my food, just like in my onion-weighing days.

But my relationship with tracking was very different.

But there's an even bigger lesson here.

For a long time, I was making decisions based on what I DIDN'T want, rather than what I actually DID want.

And there's an analogy I often use with clients to illustrate this point.

Imagine opening Google Maps and typing in:

"Take me NOT HERE."

Um...okay.

But WHERE do you want to go?

Google Maps can't give you directions to "not here."

It needs a destination.

And that's exactly what I was missing.

I knew I didn't want to go back to the rigid, obsessive relationship I'd developed with food and my body.

But I hadn't really stopped to ask myself:

What DO I want my relationship with food to look like?

What role do I want nutrition to play in my life?

How much time and energy do I actually want to spend thinking about food?

What choices help me feel good physically while still allowing me to enjoy eating and living my life?

Once I had a clearer picture of where I wanted to go, I could start evaluating the different tools and approaches available to me.

Not based on whether they were associated with the version of myself I was trying to leave behind.

But based on whether they could help me get where I actually wanted to go.

And we can apply this same thinking to so many other areas of our lives.

You can reject diet culture without pretending nutrition doesn't matter.

You can reject the idea that your worth depends on your appearance without pretending you don't care how you look.

You can reject perfectionism without giving up on having high standards for yourself.

You can reject hustle culture without expecting everything worth having to come easily.

All-or-nothing thinking convinces us there are only two options.

Either you embrace an idea completely, including its most extreme version...

Or you reject the whole thing.

But those aren't your only choices.

And sometimes, when we're so focused on getting away from something we don't want, we end up making choices that aren't particularly aligned with what we DO want.

So the next time you find yourself wanting to throw an entire idea, method, or approach in the trash because you've had a bad experience with it, consider whether it's the idea itself you're rejecting...

Or just the extreme version of it.

And more importantly, ask yourself:

Am I making this choice because it's moving me toward something I want, or simply because it's moving me away from something I don't?

Because knowing where you DON'T want to go is valuable information.

But eventually, you have to decide where you DO want to go.