You’re trying to eat healthy, you’re following your plan to a T and then your partner or a family member comes home from their grocery shop with a bag full of junk food. Cue: the panic.

Sound familiar? I figured as much. Because this is a comment I hear frequently on my discovery calls with prospective clients. They know it’s not as big of an issue as it seems and that their partner or family member means no harm by it, but why is it so triggering? Why does it induce so much panic?

If this sounds like you, you are certainly not alone. I personally used to struggle with this a ton, especially when I became a Nutritionist. I prided myself on having cupboards that were free of “toxic foods” and only “clean ingredients” and food products. Whenever my previous partner would bring home something I deemed as being “junk food”, I would panic and it would always create a fight. “Why was he trying to self-sabotage me?” is a thought that often crossed my mind. And I mean, how was I possibly to do my kitchen “cribs tour” on Instagram Story if I had a bag of chips in the cupboard?!

In this post, I’m going to explain why this is so triggering for many, how not to panic the next time this happens, and believe it or not, how simply allowing the junk food in the house can actually be working in your favour, rather than against you.

Why You Are Actually Panicking When There’s Junk Food In The House

If you’re panicking the moment junk food enters the house, you’re not alone and you’re not wrong for panicking (well, only slightly – but let me explain).

The way health is taught is heavily influenced by diet culture and an “all or nothing mentality”, which suggests that every morsel of food that goes into your body must be healthy, otherwise, you have no self-control, will power, are unhealthy and have to make a plan to get back on track.

So, of course, the minute junk food enters the house, you’re going to panic. Throw in on top of that, feeling like you can’t resist junk food and the fact that food has become moralized (as in, you are a “good person” if you eat healthy, or “bad” if you eat unhealthy); meaning, the mere thought of someone seeing a bag of chips in your kitchen cupboard when they come over is enough to induce panic.

If this sounds like you and you are struggling with this, I’m going to share some things you can do!

How NOT To Panic If Junk Food Enters The House

1. Get clear on why you feel panicked (and what you think it means about you to have junk food in the house)

After the initial panic, take a breather and consider pulling out your journal to flesh out the answers to some of these questions:

- What emotions came up the minute your partner or family member came home with junk food?
- What do you think will happen if you eat junk food? Where does this belief come from? (i.e. something a parent said in childhood, or that you learned from an educator somewhere down the line?)
- What does it say about you to have junk food in the house, or to be someone that eats junk food? Where does that belief come from?
- Is panicking and stressing about food helping or hindering your efforts to be healthy?
- Do you believe you can still be healthy even if you occasionally eat junk food? Why or why not?

You might find the answers by journaling through these thoughts, or you might find it helpful to work through them with an Intuitive Eating Coach like myself, or a therapist (I recommend BetterHelp – you can save 10% off of your first month by signing up with this link).

**2. Think about it: is “out of sight” really out of mind?**

Often the fear of having junk food is in the house stems from the fear of what our behaviour with the food will be like if it’s in the house. I often hear from people that if it’s in the house, they need to eat it all until it’s gone, otherwise they will continue to be tempted by it.

And so, the common belief becomes “if I have it in the house, i’ll just eat it all” and if it’s out of the house then “out of sight, out of mind”.

This strategy might seem effective, but even if you do keep it out of the house, it doesn’t mean you’re in the clear because you’re essentially creating a narrative in your mind that you can’t be trusted around the specific food.

Well, guess what happens when you go to a party and gathering where the food you’ve forbidden is there (… maybe you already know how this story goes?).

Here’s what happens: because you’ve forbid yourself from having this food, you’ve created a state of deprivation and restriction. When you deprive or restrict yourself from having a specific food, it actually makes you want it more (like when someone says don’t do something, like “don’t look at me – I’m naked” … well, I mean, DON’T YOU JUST. WANNA. LOOK?!). So the intense desire for the food starts to build because it’s the “forbidden fruit” and eventually you can’t resist it anymore so you eat it, almost immediately feel guilty but you’ve already “done damage for the day” so you might as well finish it (also, because you don’t want to drag the “bad eating” into the next day) so you finish the whole thing, likely overeat (“Last Supper”-style), feel sick to your stomach and then angry at yourself, and validate your story that you can’t be trusted around the food and have to keep it out of the house.

But the actual issue isn’t that you can’t be trusted around food – it’s actually rooted in the act of restricting the food to begin with and labeling it as “bad”.

What I’m getting at, is that this strategy to simply keep the foods out of the house is NOT a long-term strategy. If we actually want to be able to feel in control around these foods and “eat in moderation” (whatever that means), we need to go about this a different way – and that way might surprise you.

3. Give yourself permission to enjoy all foods

Okay, so this is going to be much easier said than done but this is the mindset and philosophy we need to go in with if we really want to heal our relationship with food and not get into a big blow-out fight with our partner or family member when they bring home junk food (or what I like to refer to as “fun food”), or fear what will happen when we’re left alone in the same room as these forbidden foods.

When we allow ourselves to have all foods and make them available if we want them, it actually makes you care about them less.

I know that sounds wild, because I truly didn’t think I could be that person that just “forgets” that I have chips in the cupboard or the person that just has a handful of chips and walks away without caring or thinking about it hours after, but it’s true and it’s possible. All of my Intuitive Way For Eating clients have been able to do it as a result of the teachings in the program too.

Because here’s what happens when you allow, rather than forbid foods: You give yourself permission to have chips if you want them, but because they are available (and you don’t feel deprived) and know you can have them whenever you want, you don’t care about them as much. When you check in with your body, you realize the human body doesn’t actually want chips 24/7 and what was previously making you believe that you would want them all the time was the fact that you were depriving yourself, which creates that intense desire for the specific food. You might have them once in a while, but you’re able to self-regulate and enjoy it moderately because again, you know you can have it whenever you want so there isn’t this urgency to overeat.

If your mind is doing that cute little mind-blown emoji thing right now, well, I’m not surprised!

There has been this misperception in the intuitive eating world (which says that all foods fit and to check in with your body as to what it needs) that if you allow yourself to enjoy all foods, and bring them into the house, that you will just eat them all the time and never stop when the reality is actually the opposite.

In fact, just as I’m writing this post, my current partner came home with a bag full of “fun foods” including cookies, a Vietnamese donut, a Banh Mi sandwich and these corn nut things. Old Rach would have freaked out about those foods being in the house, in fear of eating them all and sabotaging my health goals whereas this Intuitive Eating Rach looked at those foods and felt indifferent. In fact, other than the Banh Mi sandwich, I actually have no desire to eat any of those foods because they just don’t excite me. I don’t have to exercise any self-control or will power to keep me from them because I just genuinely don’t want them. And hey, if I did, that would be okay too. I know I would have what I needed and then move on in the next moment.

Next Steps + Where To Go From Here

So while you might have expected this post to share strategies to sit down with your partner/family member and effectively communicate your frustration when they bring home “fun foods”, I hope you can see that this issue goes far beyond that. This also doesn’t mean that you must eat “fun foods” in order to have a healthy relationship with food. It’s simply addressing the fact that our current attitude towards them is what is hurting us and keeping us stuck and until we work on fixing that, we will continue to feel paralyzed and controlled by said foods.

If you’re struggling to understand intuitive eating, trusting your body and still believing that it will lead you astray and cause you to eat unhealthy forever, this would be a good blog post to read where I documented a week in my life of intuitive eating. You will see that while I did enjoy foods like ice-cream and chips, I still eat “healthy” – again, without self-control, willpower, a protocol or diet plan. The body is smart and it will gravitate to the foods that make it feel good.

If you are someone that has been affected by what has been mentioned in this post, including feeling like you can’t trust yourself around food or reacting negatively to “fun food” being brought into the house, here are some things you can do:

Get support in breaking up with food rules and introducing intuitive eating into your life – there are a ton of blog posts on my website that speak to this, or if you are looking for one-on-one support with me, you might be interested in The Intuitive Way For Eating
Practice removing the “all or nothing” mentality – Even just bringing awareness to this in your daily life will help you to start shedding the guilt and shame you experience when you happen to eat “fun foods”. It also makes it less scary when someone happens to bring “fun food” into the house because if you do happen to enjoy it, it’s not the end of the world. That’s the beauty of being out of the “all or nothing” mentality. Remember that no one food has the power to make you healthy, just like no one food has the power to make you unhealthy.
Slowly start to give yourself permission to eat “fun food” – This is something that you can slowly start to do on your own, but I do recommend doing it with the help of a coach (which is what we do in The Intuitive Way For Eating program). Try choosing one food you previously deemed as being “bad” and when you want it, give yourself unconditional permission to enjoy it. It’s super important to incorporate mindful eating strategies while you do this such as eating it at a table, chewing it thoroughly and paying attention to how you feel and the pleasure you’re getting from it when you do this to ensure you’re getting the most out of the experience. Over time, what you may notice is that you can have it in the house without feeling out of control around it, and that if you do happen to enjoy it, you can simply eat it and move on with your life.

If you have any other questions about this or comments, I would love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to leave them in the comments below!

How NOT To Panic When Your Partner or Family Member Brings Home Junk Food