How Childhood Food Lessons Shape Adult Eating

Guilt about leaving food and the urge to eat fast often come from childhood rules and scarcity, not a lack of discipline. We talk through how food stories shape adult eating and how to rebuild trust with hunger, fullness, and choice. 
• how clean your plate rules override hunger and fullness cues 
• why food behaviors are learned survival strategies, not moral failures 
• how food insecurity can show up as rushing, hoarding, overeating, and anxiety 
• dropping good and bad food labels to reduce shame and backlash eating 
• identifying food rules and tracing where they came from 
• reconnecting with hunger and satiety cues using a 1 to 10 scale 
• choosing one calm meal to practice mindful eating and avoid multitasking 
• giving yourself permission to leave a few bites and sit with discomfort 
• building food security with consistent meals, snacks, and reliable foods at home 
• setting respectful boundaries at family gatherings while honoring culture 
I invite you to send me a message, download this episode, share it with a friend. If you want to go over some of these rules with me, I'll be more than happy to do that with you.

Thank you for listening. Please subscribe to this podcast and share with a friend. If you would like to know more about my services, please message at fueledbyleo@gmail.com

My YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0SqBP44jMNYSzlcJjOKJdg

Transcript

Relearning Hunger And Satiety

Scarcity Mindset And Food Anxiety

Drop The Good Bad Food Labels

Practical Steps To Heal Food Rules

Culture Family And Food Boundaries

You Can Rewrite Your Story

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Have you ever felt guilty for leaving food on your plate, even when you're full, or found yourself eating quickly, like the food might disappear? That's not just habit, that's your story. Today we're talking about how our upbringing, whether it was clean your plate, rules, or food insecurity, shapes how we eat today, and more importantly, how we can begin to heal that relationship. Food behaviors are learned, not failures. Early environment might equal survival and adaptation, parental rules, no dessert unless you finish your plate, emotional environment, food used as reward or comfort, cultural values, respect, gratitude, avoiding waste, household structure, structured meals versus chaotic eating. What worked for you as a child may not serve you as an adult, but it made sense at the time. So if we focus on the clean your plate mentality, what happens is that it overrides hunger and fullness cues, creates guilt around leaving food, disconnects from internal regulation. I oftentimes hear my clients say, I can't leave food. It feels wasteful. I eat past fullness without realizing it. And I see this time after time. And I figure, okay, I think it's important to talk about this a little bit more, right? And really understand why it is that we struggle with something that we are hoping to fix in a matter of one session or two sessions. And the reality is that this goes beyond, you know, our our superficial goals. We grew up like this, right? This was our upbringing. And so it's hard to just be like, oh, now that you're working on your nutrition, now that you're working on yourself, this is going to be easy peasy, right? And oftentimes it is not. But the great thing is that once we understand the root cause, right? Once we understand why is why is it that we have these food rules, then we start to heal, then we start to understand our patterns and our behaviors. So we have to refine these, right? And so the way that we do that is we we we don't have to see our bodies as a trash can, right? Like everything goes in it or waste happens, whether it's the in the trash or store us excess energy. Respecting our body is not disrespecting food, right? On the contrary, when we and this is something that I work with my clients, right? And I and I, this is one of the first questions I asked you when we first get together is tell me about when you feel hungry, right? How does that feel like? And how do you feel when you feel satiated? Because these are cues that we have since we are born. And I've done an episode on this specifically where we talk about hunger and satiety cues, right? It's not that we all of a sudden learn these cues, right? We are born with these cues. So if you observe a baby, when the baby's hungry, the baby is going to be signs, it's going to give us signs, right? It's going to give us cues, putting hands in the mouths, smacking lips, right? Looking for something. Those are early cues, right, of hunger. And then of course, if we don't feed the baby, we'll go into full-blown angry, right? The baby's really angry. And now it's hard to like feed the baby because we have to first calm the baby down. And then when the baby's full, right, or satiated, the baby spits out, turns around, falls asleep, or stops eating. Those cues don't go away, right? But because of our environment, ruler rules, whatever it is, we almost don't remember those cues, right? We don't pay attention to those cues. And so we really have to be mindful, right? We really have to understand our bodies and how our bodies feel when we are hungry. Not hungry, right? But when we start to get hungry, and then when we start to feel satiated, right, and content, not overly full, right? There is that medium. And that is so different for every single person. So we cannot say, this is how you feel, right? Or this is how, this is how much food you should have, and that's gonna be enough, because that's not accurate, right? Our activity level is going to matter, different stages in our lives is going to matter. So it's really coming back to our bodies and like really paying attention to those hunger and satiety queues once again, right? That we've had all our lives. It's just that we now we we have to sift through all that noise, right? All those layers that are like for some reason masking them. Then we have food insecurity, right? And scarcity mindset. Patterns that we might see, right, in this case, it's eating quickly, hoarding or hiding food, anxiety if food runs low, overeating when food is available, having that mindset of feast and famine. This is protective response, not lack of discipline. Our bodies remember what our mind is trying to move past. And I've seen this too with clients that grew up really, really poor, or literally not having enough food, worrying about food the next day, or not having enough food, right? So they're hungry all the time. And now as an adult, they have a better job, they don't have scarcity, but because it's such a core memory, it's so traumatic, right, that the brain still remembers that. And so when food is going low, right, or if there's not enough food, that's a trigger, right? And so, yes, oftentimes we don't see that, but because it was so traumatic that that survival instinct kicks in, right? That fight or fly response kicks in. And so we might feel okay, I have to be quickly, right? I don't want the food to run out, or like let me save some food for later, right? Or we need to eat now because we don't know if we're gonna have food, even though we know that we will have food later on, right? But again, these patterns and these behaviors, we don't address them in a matter of a few sessions, right? Honestly, all the topics that I'm talking about today, working with a therapist alongside with a dietitian, right, is so beneficial because we have to find the root cause and we have to find the skills, right, that we can grab, the tools that we can use for when we do find ourselves in these situations. Um and there's many triggers that are going to happen, which is we're gonna go into that in in a little bit, but we have to think about our behaviors, right? And like maybe we struggle with overeating, right? Or eating until we're like just overly full and feeling sick, or we're eating too quickly, right? So figuring out, okay, what why is this happening? Then how did I, how my upbringing affected my relationship with food or how I see food, right? And now that I may be in a safe place, now that I may not have that problem of for scarcity, that now I can begin to understand it and heal, right? But doing it alone sometimes can be really overwhelming. And just feeling it, okay, this is this is something, this is such a really, really long road. So having that support that you need, it's definitely highly recommended. Then we have the middle ground. We all struggle. Even people without food insecurity develop food rules. Perfection doesn't exist. And I think it's important to remember that we have to get out of our vocabulary that there is good and bad foods, right? And this is absolutely something that I teach my clients, something that I teach my interns, is that we really have to not use this terminology, right? Oh, I did good today, or I was bad on the weekend, right? Because then that almost reinforces that cycle of that unhealthy relationship with food, right? Food is just food. There's some foods that we're gonna have sometimes, and there's foods that we need to have on a daily basis, right? But that's okay. We don't need to put these foods into categories because most of the times the foods that we're labeling bad are the foods that we really enjoy, right? And so having those foods that we really enjoy is just going to cause more resentment, more feelings of failure. When we remove that label, right, we almost give ourselves power and we're in control, right, of our food choices versus the the other way around. Different food rules, like I can only eat carbs at certain times, right? Our bodies are going to digest food, right? We're gonna utilize the food as fuel, as storage, but there is not necessarily, right, of course, a few nuances here, but for the overall carbs are gonna we're gonna be fine, right, with the carbs. Um, or I have to earn my food. Having these rules, again, puts another layer of stress on our bodies, which increases cortisol levels, which is like another cascade of issues when we don't follow these rules, right? There shouldn't be these types of rules. We all have a food story, and none of them are perfect. When I think about my upbringing and I think about okay, what were what were the food rules that I had growing up, right? And there were there weren't that many that I can remember. Of course, there were times where my mom would say, you know, you have to finish your food, or you know, you have to eat enough. But another really sticks out, right? We my mom let us eat candy whenever we wanted to, right? Of course, keeping in mind moderation, right? Regulations essentially. But yeah, I don't I don't think I can remember where we were so restrictive, right, or so strict. I think I developed rules as I grew up, right? As I got older. And, you know, there were rules about carbs, or there were rules about, you know, you need to exercise or whatever the case may be. Going into nutrition, it actually helped me to understand food even better, right? And to understand our bodies and nourishment and wellness. And so uh I think, you know, being able to share that knowledge with listeners, with my clients, it's uh it's like another way for me to give back, essentially. So, how can we reframe these rules? How can we make changes to feel more empowered or to not feel so restrictive, or to not feel like you know we are a failure? The first thing is awareness first. You have to identify those food rules. You have to ask ourselves, where did this come from? If you find yourself like just thinking about food and and then thinking about a specific rule or restriction, asking yourself, where did this come from? I've had clients that were following a really restrictive diet, right? For whatever reason, mostly usually for weight loss. And now that we're we're we're at trying to nourish the body, right? Trying to make sure that we're getting enough nutrients in, it's so hard to not go back to those behaviors, right? Of like, what do you mean I need to eat more, right? What do you mean I need to have more XYZ when you know follow these so restrictive and I was barely eating, right? And so changing that mindset is hard, but definitely not impossible. However, the awareness is important, right? We have to be aware of those behaviors and those rules in order for us to be able to make changes. We have to reconnect with our hunger and fullness cues. And that will make such a huge difference, right? Because one, you're gonna be really in tune with your your body. You're going to understand your body more, but it's also going to help you figure out how much, you know, when do I stop eating, right? When it when do I feel that I had enough to eat, right? When do I start eating, right? So there is a hunger and satiety scale, right? And you can Google it. I can also add it into the show notes. And it goes from one to ten. One is the lowest number, right? Like I'm hangry, I'm angry, I haven't had food in days. And 10 is, oh my God, I ate so much that I feel sick, I'm gonna throw up. We wanna be in the middle, right? We wanna start eating at around four or five, right? And then we wanna stop eating around six or seven, right? It is totally okay if at the beginning you're like, I have no idea what that is. Um, I don't know how to measure it, but you have to practice it, right? I do have to say that in order for the, in order for you to truly, truly know your hunger and fullness cues, you have to start with a meal that is not so psychotic, right? If you choose breakfast and breakfast is like madness because you're a parent and you have to take the kids to school and get them ready, most likely this is not gonna happen because you're probably eating and doing other things, right? So you have to choose a meal where at least the environment is in more control and there's not so many things around you, right? Multitasking is not gonna help either because those cues are so subtle that if we're not really paying attention to them, we won't be able to recognize them. And so pick a meal, stick to that meal consistently, and then eventually you're gonna be able to recognize them without having to like be really mindful or really aware of it. Give yourself permission to leave food. Start small, one to two bites, practice sitting with discomfort. This is something that a client of mine talked about in our last session, is that she said, I felt that when I left food on the plate, that it was okay. Nothing happened to me. And that was really empowering, right? Because she was able to do that. I'm sure there was a lot of self-talk. But once that happened, right, and nothing happened because nothing's gonna happen. Uh, that gave her more power, right, to be like, okay, it's totally fine, right? That we're satiated and it's okay to leave food if we're content, right? And then slowly you can change those portions that you're serving yourself, right, to the amount that you feel that you're gonna have. But give yourself permission to do that. It's totally okay. Build food security, keep consistent meals and snacks, have always available foods at home, normalize abundance, right? It's okay. Um, when we go so many hours without food and we're getting hangry, it's hard to not want to eat everything that's around us, but also to eat really fast, right? So again, that survival instinct kicks in. And it's hard to pause and be like, okay, what am I doing? Right? Because at that moment, our survival brain kicks in and our critical brain is like, nope, right now we need to survive. So as we build consistency with our meals and our snacks and we're and we don't get where we're like super hungry or hungry, that even the amounts will change, right? But also knowing that, hey, we have food at home, we have enough food, it's okay, right? If we need to have more food, then we'll just go to the store and have more food or buy more food. We have to normalize that having abundance, right? It's okay too. Slow down the eating, right? Especially for for my clients with scarcity history, right, or food insecurity. Being able to slow down, right, when we eat is so important because that also is going to allow your brain and your body to be like, we're okay, right? We don't have to rush through this meal because we're safe, right? We have enough to eat. And so just allowing your body and your mind to be calm and eat in a calm environment, that's also going to allow your brain to, in your mind to in your body to recognize those satiety cues too. We have to remind ourselves, right, that food is not going anywhere. And we're not competing against anybody for food, and that will help as well. We have to shift our language from I have to finish these to I can eat this later. If I don't finish this and I really like it, I really enjoy it, I can I can save it, right? I can put it in the fridge, and I can have it later if I want to, whether my snack or with my next meal. It's totally okay to do that. So I really encourage you to really think about the food rules, the rules that surround your eating, right, and your food choices, and really understand them and figure out, okay, what are some of those things that I want to change, right, for my own benefit? What are the things that have caused me so much stress, right, and so much overwhelmedness that I want to change? Cultural values around food, respect, gratitude, family play a huge role. Generally showing our patterns, but we have to remember that we can honor our culture and still create new patterns that support our health. Um, I'm Mexican, and so usually in our culture, when someone serves us food, we we have to eat it. And if they serve us more, then we have to eat it. It's just, you know, those those that respect, that gratitude, right? Those cultural values. And so it's definitely harder for my clients that have similar cultural values, right, or that show respect, where to set the boundaries, right? Even myself, when when I used to go to my grandma's house, right, and she would serve me, and she would serve me more. It would be hard for me to be like, my grandma, I I'm okay, right? I'm I had enough, but I can take it home. So it took me a while, right, until I was comfortable enough to say, um, I'm not hungry right now, grandma, but I can take it home, right? I'll have it when I get home or I'll have it for the week. So it's not that it's disrespectful, right? It's that we're also, although we want to honor our culture, right? We also have to honor ourselves and we also have to have those respectful boundaries. And it's I know this is gonna be a really hard one, but I think just starting to recognize that, right? Okay, how do I feel when I go into like family gatherings, right? And where can I make some twigs and changes, right? Can I talk to my family member about it, right? Sometimes you can, sometimes you cannot. Do I, is it something I still want to do, right? Or do I need to detach myself for a moment? Which is also it's also some it's your um your right, right, to do that as well. Your relationship with food didn't happen overnight. And it won't change overnight either. But every time you pause, every time you listen to your body, every time you challenge an old rule, you're rewriting your story. Remember, we talked about finding the rules that surround food, that surround your day your eating behaviors. I invite you to send me a message, download this episode, share it with a friend. If you want to go over some of these rules with me, I'll be more than happy to do that with you. Remember that you have the power to change those rules, and you also have the power to make new rules or no rules at all. Alright, I hope this episode was helpful. I'll see you next time. Take care. Bye bye for now.