The Midlife Feast
Welcome to The Midlife Feast, the podcast for women who are hungry for more in this season of life. I’m your host, Jenn Salib Huber, dietitian, naturopathic doctor , intuitive eating counsellor and author of Eat to Thrive During Menopause. Each episode “brings to the table” a different perspective, conversation, or experience about life after 40, designed to help you find the "missing ingredient" you need to thrive, not just survive.
The Midlife Feast
#175: Food Guilt in Midlife: Why Your Alarm Keeps Going Off (Even When It’s Just Toast)
What if the loudest voice at your meals isn’t hunger, but an overactive alarm telling you you’re doing it “wrong”? In this episode, I dig into the link between food guilt and relentless food noise, and show how midlife shifts, hormones, sleep, mood, and capacity can crank that alarm even higher. Instead of doubling down on rules, I'll walk you through the 3-step process that replaces food morality with neutrality.
Grab The Food Guilt Decoder here: https://www.menopausenutritionist.ca/FoodGuiltDecoder
Episodes mentiond:
Episode 172: https://themidlifefeast.buzzsprout.com/1851576/episodes/18238090
Episode 151:https://www.buzzsprout.com/1851576/episodes/17038620
What did you think of this episode? Click here and let me know!
📚 I wrote a book! Eat To Thrive During Menopause is out now! Order your copy today and start thriving in midlife.
Looking for more about midlife, menopause nutrition, and intuitive eating? Click here to grab one of my free guides and learn what I've got "on the menu" including my 1:1 and group programs. https://www.easy.link/menopause.nutritionist
Hello friends. Okay, so if you have ever had the thought I shouldn't have eaten that after grabbing something off of a tray or a table, or I blew it because you had an extra cookie or two, or made the promise to be better tomorrow, or told yourself this is why I can't lose weight. This episode is for you. Welcome to the Midlife Feast, the podcast that helps you make sense of your body, your health, and menopause in the messy middle of midlife. I'm Dr. Jen Salie Pieper, intuitive eating dietitian and naturopathic doctor, and author of Eat to Thrive During Menopause. Around here, we don't see midlife and menopause as problems to solve, but as invitations to live with more freedom, trust, and joy. Each week you'll hear real conversations and practical strategies to help you feel like yourself again. Eat without guilt and turn midlife from a season of survival into a season of thriving. I'm so glad you're here. Let's dig in. So this episode is about food guilt. And I'm gonna break that down a little bit, but I feel like I need to give you a little bit of context and background about where this episode came from. So I've talked a little bit before about my podcasting process, in that often the episodes that I have with guests, I know exactly what I want to talk about. My solo episodes, though, often live as a note on my phone that I'm adding to or just kind of letting percolate or ferment or whatever analogy you want to use. And this is definitely one of them. So I need to talk about food noise first before we talk about food guilt. And I want to explain a little bit about how they're related. So, you know how Time magazine and other magazines often have these words of the year or people of the year. If food and nutrition had a word of the year, I think it would be food noise, right? I'm pretty sure that a year ago, that term was not on everyone's radar. But over the course of the last year, it is coming up more and more. And I actually touch on this in episodes 151 and 172, which I'm gonna link to in the show notes. And about a month ago, so I think it was sometime in November, I asked my Instagram community, hey, I'm hearing this a lot. I'm hearing a lot of people talk about food noise. I'm getting a lot of questions about it. How can I help you? What would help it feel easier? What would make the process of eating feel calmer and quieter? And the answer wasn't what I was expecting. Overwhelmingly, dozens of answers came in. I just want to stop feeling guilty. Everything would feel easier if I didn't feel guilty when I ate. Or I feel like I know what I should be eating, but I have a really hard time following the rules that I make for myself. Or somebody said to me just this week, I feel guilty all the time. And I just think I need you to tell me that I'm not doing something wrong. And that, my friends, is the heart of it. Guilt comes from the moralization of our food choices and the belief that good people make good choices, and therefore being bad means that we're making, or if we're making bad choices, it means that we're bad and we're being bad and that we're doing something wrong. So this episode is all about helping you understand food guilt, why it's creating a lot of food noise, and most importantly, how it's actually getting in the way of any goals that you might actually have around food or nutrition. And at the end, we're gonna talk about some of the tips for decoding your food guilt and thoughts in the moment, because this is something that I think we need to start changing in the moment. It's great to listen about it. I hope you're gonna listen to the whole episode. It's great to read about it, and I'm gonna share a new resource with you at the end, but it's something that you need to practice. So I'm gonna give you some really practical tools, but it will be more helpful to you if you get the context first. So I promise not to make this too long, but let's give it a listen, okay? So let's let's chat a little bit about why we feel guilt around food in the first place. And I'm gonna start with an analogy, which listeners, hopefully you're not tired of my analogies yet. But have you ever made toast and maybe stepped away from the toaster for a minute, and then all of a sudden you hear your smoke alarm going off? I used to live in an apartment in university that if we showered for more than five minutes, the smoke alarm would go off. But there was no fire, right? It was just an alarm that was programmed to recognize the possibility of smoke or heat that could potentially indicate a fire. And the same thing is happening when we have these guilt feelings around food. And guilt is an emotion or as a feeling, it's like an internal compass that tells us we've made a choice or we've done something that goes against our own values or maybe external rules like laws. But, you know, for the most part, it's often we feel guilty for doing something that goes against what we believe to be right or true. And that also extends to what we believe other people think is right and true, right? And in this world that we're living in in 2025, but it has been true for as long as I've been alive and a lot longer, we have a moral connection in our society to what bodies look like. And we've maintained that. And many could make the argument that that has strengthened in 2025, and that's not a good thing. So, this moral connection to what our bodies look like, and therefore the food that we eat makes people in larger bodies especially feel like they're doing something wrong. And of course, we know the world makes lots of assumptions about what people in larger bodies eat, but we often just make assumptions about people that aren't true at all. But our brain is like the smoke alarm and it perceives any possible threat to our safety as something it needs to alert us to. So if you're eating a cookie, but you believe, because of the world that we live in and the rules that we've been told, that good people wouldn't even want the cookie. So you're already doing something wrong for having the cookie, let alone having more than one, that alarm is going off a lot. But it's not an actual threat to your safety or your belonging. Or I mean, I'm not I'm not saying it's never a threat, but I'm saying, like, in the in the big picture, are you going to die from having this? Probably not. But this belief system that we have around food and this moralization of food makes it complicated. And then we add in this layer of midlife and menopause where our hormones are shifting, we may not be sleeping well, our mood is up and down, our capacity is challenged. Our smoke alarm might also be maybe misfiring a little bit, is the best way to put it. So we feel this food guilt because of the programming that we've received about what it what we should be doing. There's that word, should. We experience food guilt because of the assumptions and perceptions about what we feel other people will think about us. And it creates a lot of food noise. So food noise, to kind of go back to the beginning, what we were talking about, this food noise is this constant chatter in your brain. Is this good? Is this bad? Should I eat this? Should I not eat this? Should I have fruit by itself? Should I pair it with a protein? Is it too late to have carbs? Is it too early to have carbs? Have I had enough protein? Have I had the right kind? You get the idea. And so all of this guilt that we have is creating this food noise and is keeping us in this loop of trying to follow a set of guidelines, parameters, rules, feeling guilty when we don't, thinking about it all the time, and how can we do better and if we're doing good enough. But that is creating discomfort. And when we have we have this other default programming that is always trying to move us away from pain and discomfort and move us towards pleasure. And that's why this matters, because one of the missing pieces in the whole food guilt, food noise conversation is that food is meant to be pleasurable. We have taste buds for a reason. There is nothing to feel guilty or shameful for if you enjoy eating food. That actually enhances your experience of eating and potentially enhances your nutrition and your health. So when we can let go of the guilt for enjoying food and let go of the moralization of our food choices, it makes food neutrality more accessible, which in turn makes gentle nutrition more accessible. So I'm gonna give you an example. So let's say that you are trying to add more fiber. You're in some stage of midlife, and maybe you've been told your cholesterol is high, or maybe you've heard about the fiber maxing trend, or maybe you're bloated and you're just trying to get some more fiber on your plate. Great, that's a fantastic gentle nutrition goal. But what happens when you don't eat the fiber? When you choose the low fiber option and you feel guilty for not choosing the high fiber option? Or what happens if you just have toast with butter and it's not whole wheat toast and you haven't added a protein, and then you think, oh, my breakfast wasn't good enough? That makes us feel like we've done something wrong and that we're not good enough. And it really adds to the whole messy food noise picture. And so if you have food and nutrition goals, which I think are great, I love talking about food. And I talk a lot about food and nutrition in Eat to Thrive during menopause, probably more than I do anywhere else. Because talking about food is important, but it also requires context. And so when we're talking about food and nutrition goals, but we're not talking about how do we approach them in a neutral, non-moralizing way, I think it makes that food noise louder. And so if you've been around for a while, if whether you've worked with me or you're a longtime listener, or maybe you've just, you know, done some reading or learning about intuitive eating, you've probably heard about this all-or-nothing thinking that keeps us stuck in the diet cycle, which is I have to do this a certain way and I have to do it perfectly. Otherwise, I'm doing something wrong. Or otherwise it's not good enough and I just am gonna start over again. It's that whole, you know, Monday morning mentality of I'm just gonna say screw it on the weekend and I'm just gonna start over. So why understanding where your food guilt is coming from, the food noise that it's creating, all of that matters because if you want to improve your nutrition, you have to improve your relationship with food first. Otherwise, there's a good chance you're just gonna get stuck in this all or nothing thinking that keeps us in this food guilt loop, diet cycle, that whole big messy picture. So I want to give you a few tips that you can start doing right away. If you recognize yourself, if you're listening and you're thinking, oh geez, Jen, get out of my head, then you're gonna want to take note of these or come back and listen to them later. So the first is that if you have a nutrition goal, gentle nutrition goal, movement goal, if you have a goal of any kind, stop making it a rule. Because if you're not breaking a rule, then you're less likely to trigger that food guilt or that that feeling of guilt. In other words, your smoke alarm is less likely to go off, right? So when you find yourself thinking, oh, I'm gonna add fiber to my breakfast every morning, or I'm only going to buy high fiber bread, or I'm only going to have this, or I'm never gonna have that, really pull back and say, hmm, that kind of sounds like a rule. How can I make that an intention so that you don't get caught in that all or nothing trap? The second is to ask yourself, is this act, is this rule or this guideline or even this intention, is this actually true? Is this something that I have to do or should do or want to do? But also, is it somebody else's rule? Which may not be true for you, right? So something that somebody else wants to do may not be something that you want to do or have to do. And it may also never be true. So really taking a moment to think okay, is this true for me? Is this true for everyone? Or has this never been true? And a great example of this is around carbohydrates. And um, the conversations about carbohydrates have not slowed down in 2025, let me tell you that. I am still having daily discussions about how carbs do not cause weight gain, carbohydrates do not cause diabetes. And so if you're trying to be quote unquote good with your carb choices, and you feel guilty when you don't make, quote, good choices, this is a great example of a rule that, if you can undiet that from your brain, will really calm down the food guilt and the food noise. But also, here's one that you can use in the moment. If I didn't feel guilt in this moment for eating this food, what would this moment look like and feel like right now? And I I like this one because guilt and shame are not motivators, they are attunement disruptors, and they make us feel more emotionally dysregulated in the moment. So if you feel guilty for having cookies or white bread or fruit or not enough protein, you are not going to be in a better place to make better decisions. You are going to be in a place where you are moving towards that feeling discomfort or feeling, you know, the not good place of, oh, I blew it again, or why can't I get this right? So if you can, just stopping to say, if this thought or feeling wasn't showing up right now at this dinner, at this snack, at this meal, how would I feel? And for some people, this can be really, really helpful at identifying how those feelings are keeping you stuck. Because the food is pretty neutral. The cookie isn't causing you to feel the guilt. It is the programming that we have around what we should and shouldn't want and do that is leading to the guilt. So if we can put some space and separation between that, then that keeps us out of that guilt, shame loop of I blew it, I'm just gonna start over again. And so if these tools have been, you know, kind of giving you some food for thought. I wanted to share this new little free kind of tool that I put together, partially because it's December and January is coming up, but I also just wanted to make it fun. So I called it the food guilt decoder. So if you can think back to the decoder rings that um we used to get in the boxes of Cracker Jacks, anyone else remember that? Um, back in the 80s. This is a three-step walk you through how to recognize the alarm. So the food guilt alarm, when is that going off? Think of the smoke alarm with the toast, how to decode the patterns. This is the decoder part, um, about where it's showing up. So, what are the patterns that lead to this alarm going off so that you can start to maybe see the patterns that are showing up, and most importantly, how to reset them. So there's a little video option, there's an audio option that you can download to keep on your phone, because remember, this really is something we need to practice in the moment. And there's also a one-page PDF to keep it super simple so that you can have all these different ways to access these tools in the moment. So I hope that as we round out 2025 and head into 2026, that you experience more food peace next year. Many of my guests this year said that freedom was the missing ingredient. And so I think peace and freedom are fantastic antidotes to the food guilt and the food noise that I think have dominated a lot of the conversations this year. And if you're looking for help right now, you're thinking, This is me, I need some help right now. I'm also going to include a link to the Midlife Feast community, which is the group coaching community where we're working through these things all the time. And just this year, one of our feasters said, you know what? I went to a cookie exchange this year, and I didn't have a single moment of food guilt. So please know that freedom from food guilt is possible and it makes everything easier, especially if you're trying to make food and nutrition decisions around midlife and menopause so that you can feel and live your best life. Um so, yeah, so thanks for joining me for this episode. Thanks for joining me this year. This is the last episode of 2025. And I hope to see um all of you in 2026. Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Midlife Feast. If you're ready to take the next step towards thriving in midlife, head to menopause nutritionist.ca to learn more about my one to one and group coaching programs, free resources, and where to get your copy of Eat to Thrive during menopause. And if you've loved today's conversation and found it helpful, please share it with a friend who needs to hear this and leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps so many more people just like you find their way to food freedom and midlife confidence. Until next time, remember, midlife is not the end of the story, it's the feast. Let's savor it together.
