The Power Struggle with Food: Why Control Always Backfires | TMOHP Episode 203

Hey everybody. Welcome back to the podcast.

Today I want to talk with you about a question I hear a lot: Why can't I just control my eating? I want to talk about that question and what is actually going on. 

This is one of the most common questions that women bring to me—“Why can't I control my eating? Why can't I stop overeating?” I do get asked—but not nearly as frequently—questions like, “What should I eat?” or “What plan should I follow?” And those questions aren't at the forefront, mainly because so many of you have tried all the things, or you could write a book about what you think you should do.

The problem is, there's a disconnect. It isn't happening. And so the question I hear is: why?

Why can't I control my eating? And this question is especially frustrating because it almost always comes from a woman who controls a lot. She controls her schedule. She controls her to-do list and her output every day. She controls responsibilities. She controls herself all day long.

So when there's this one area—when eating and overeating feels unpredictable or like it's something that is just happening to her, or that changing it is harder than it should be—it’s really off-putting. And almost always, the conclusion this person asking this question has reached is some version of: There must be something wrong with me.

Let's talk about this. I want to describe a really common scene. I think you'll find it familiar.

It's mid-afternoon. You've eaten lunch. You know you ate lunch. You know you're not hungry. And yet there you are—standing in the kitchen again, or the break room, or in front of the vending machine.

You're not confused. You don't think that maybe you need some fuel. You're not unaware of calories or grams of whatever. You're not even enjoying the decision. You're thinking, Why am I doing this? Or maybe it’s already happened and you're thinking, Why did I just do this? I wasn’t even hungry.

Here's the thing: what's usually happening here has nothing to do with actual physical hunger.

This is probably a moment when your brain is tired. Maybe you have been focused—or maybe you've been trying to focus on a million different things—for hours. You've probably been making decisions, lots of decisions, all day long. And I'm betting you haven't had a break, because there wasn't time, or you told yourself you couldn't take the time. Or maybe you planned a break and something interrupted it.

In those moments, food—eating, overeating—becomes the fastest way to change how you feel in the moment. And that's not because you lack control. It's because you've probably been using control all day.

So that moment in the kitchen or in front of the vending machine—trying to control that moment harder, trying to work harder to control that moment—almost always backfires. Because food isn't the real issue here.

Which brings me to something I want to be really clear about. I want to underline it. Imagine me taking a highlighter here and making this bright yellow:

If you're asking, Why can't I control my eating?, it is usually because you are trying to use control to solve something that isn't a control problem. Overeating is not a control problem.

Food, noise, and overeating—they often show up because you're depleted. They show up when you're depleted, or overloaded, or pushing yourself, or when you haven't stopped. And controlling your intake—controlling the food and what you eat—doesn't address any of that.

Let's take another moment that you might recognize. This happens at night.

Okay, the day is finally over. You're done working. You're done handling things. You are done being needed. And for the first time all day, you see the possibility of a break. This is the time for you. And for so many women, this is when eating, and overeating, and emotional eating show up.

This is the moment when women say, Ugh, I do not understand this. I did fine all day. Why does it fall apart at night, every night? Why does it fall apart?

What's actually happening here is that eating—or overeating—is kind of bookmarking the end of the day. It is saying: you're done. You're off the clock now.

Going and getting that snack or that bowl of ice cream becomes a way to mark this transition. It's a release. It's a signal that you don't have to hold it together in the same way that you've been doing all day anymore. You can be done.

And so when that is the scenario, trying to clamp down on your eating here—it often feels really harsh, actually. It often sets you up for rebelling against it. Because there you are, feeling like you can be done. This is your one moment for you. And then trying to clamp down on that? It takes away the only thing that feels like a break.

This is important. There is so much value—there's so much benefit—in starting to understand and tease out these patterns.

Here's another one that I hear all the time. Now, women don't usually say it in very polished kind of language. What they say are things like:

“Oh, I need rules. If I don't have rules, I will just keep eating.”

“I don't trust myself. I need some kind of structure, or else I'm a mess.”

“I have to weigh myself every day. I have to make sure that I'm on track. If I'm left to my own devices, I can't be trusted.”

In other words: I don't feel safe with my eating without control. I don't trust myself with my eating.

And here's something that very often gets missed. This does not mean that you are out of control. This does not mean that what you need is more control around food.

It means that food, and eating, and overeating have become the most reliable tools that you have in certain moments. Maybe for stress relief, or for comfort, or for getting your brain to shut down—to be able to turn off.

So when food and eating are these reliable tools—when that's the case—of course letting go of control feels terrifying. Because it means letting go of coping tools, ways of taking care of yourself, that are kind of, sort of, a little bit working for you.

I want to read something that a client shared. I'm going to read it exactly as she wrote it. She said:

“Before, food was good or bad, and then so was I. Now it's just food. And I'm no longer blaming myself, which is amazing. And I am much more aware of the reasons when I have a desire to eat.”

That shift—from blaming herself to understanding the reasons that she wants to eat, or that she does eat—this is where things start to change.

Not because she suddenly controlled her eating better or her cravings better, but because she stopped fighting the wrong thing.

Food ends up with so much influence in your life for a number of reasons. It can be complicated, but here are two of them:

First, in that moment, food and eating reliably change how you feel. Again, this is a momentary thing, or for a very short time, but it does something. It does kind of work.

Food also ends up so powerful for a second reason, and this is that you have been taught to fight it. You have been taught to fight with your eating and your overeating instead of being taught to understand it.

When eating is the fastest way to shut off your brain, or to take a break, or to feel comfort, or to signal to yourself “I’m done—I get to be done”—and when the only response you have been taught to your eating and your overeating is stop, control it, don’t do this—then food becomes the center of a power struggle.

And when power becomes the focus of your attention—when you're fighting with food—it actually inflates the importance of food. It doesn't reduce it. You actually become more focused on when to eat, and what to eat, and if you can eat, and if you're going to eat anyway, and “Don't push me around, don’t tell me what to do, yes I’m going to eat the donut,” right?

It becomes a power struggle.

Another pattern I see so much of the time is when eating is the only reward.

Many of the women I work with live very obligation-heavy lives. They do what needs to be done. They show up. They take care of people. They handle responsibility. And way too often, very little of their time or their energy or their day is designed around their own pleasure, their own rewards, their own needs—restoring themselves or fueling themselves in ways that have nothing to do with food.

So in those instances, of course food becomes the reward. Not because they’re indulgent—but because there isn’t much else. And using food to fill in those gaps is really, really easy and convenient.

If food is the only thing—or one of the only things—that feels good or relieving, then it’s going to matter a lot. Think about it.

If food is the bright spot in your day… if food is the break… if food and eating are the things that mark the fact that you get to be done, you get to stop—then food and overeating are going to matter a lot.

And again, trying to remove it without adding anything else, or without taking care of why it matters—it doesn’t deflate the influence or the power that food and eating and overeating have in your life.

When you try to take that away and it’s a coping mechanism, it actually increases the power and the focus on food.

So another client said this. She said:

“Now food is no longer such a coping mechanism for me. Feeling full of other things means I can let go of having to always have food.”

I want you to notice what she did not say. She did not say, “Ugh, I have finally learned how to control myself.”

What she said is: food doesn’t have to do that particular job anymore that it was doing.

So if you’ve been stuck asking, Why can’t I control my eating?—I want you to hear this very clearly.

You are not lazy. You are not failing. You are not not trying hard enough.

What you probably are is trying to solve a needs-based problem with control.

And control is always going to lose the fight. In fact, if you think about it, fighting for control of food, and overeating, and what you eat, and when you eat—fighting for control, by definition, makes your relationship with food into a fight. Into a conflict. Into something that you are always going to have to be strong if you want to stay on top of it.

Taking your power back from food doesn’t start with tighter rules. It starts with understanding why food has the power that it has—and then learning how to meet those needs in other ways.

This is where real change begins. And this is where you create the possibility of making lasting peace with food.

In the next episode, we’re going to talk about what you’re actually hungry for in these moments, and what it means to start decoding your hunger in a way that is practical and usable—something that you can really do in real life.

But for now, I want you to just take some time this week and notice what food might be doing for you. Not with judgment. Not because you want to figure out how to control it more.

But just notice what food might be doing for you—with interest, with curiosity.

That’s all for today. I’ll talk to you soon.