Introduction
For many people, food isn’t just fuel it carries meaning. It can be comfort, joy, guilt, control, reward, punishment. If you’ve spent years following diets, fearing certain foods, living by “shoulds” and “shouldn’ts,” or feeling like your worth is tied to your eating choices, you’re not alone.
At Relinquish on the Gold Coast, we see food differently. We believe in food neutrality that no food is inherently shameful or off-limits, and that your relationship with food matters just as much (if not more) than what you eat. This leaves space for nourishment, satisfaction, connection and healing.
This post explores why diet rules can be harmful, what letting go might look and feel like, healing pathways, and how you can begin to shift toward food freedom and trust at your pace, in your body, without guilt or punishment.
What Are Diet Rules And How Do They Hurt?
What we mean by “Diet Rules”
Diet rules are the internal or external demands about how, when, what, and how much someone should eat. Common examples include:
- Avoiding certain foods (e.g. “no sugar,” “no carbs after 6 pm,” “no gluten unless absolutely necessary,” “only low-fat”)
- Judging foods as “good / healthy / clean” versus “bad / junk / forbidden”
- Skipping planned meals, fasting, or “earning” food via exercise
- Compensating for food choices (e.g. “I ate that dessert so I’ll skip breakfast / go for a long run / only eat salad tomorrow / I’ll start my diet on Monday”)
- Rigid portion rules (must only eat ‘x’ grams), calorie counting, or food tracking that feels punitive
- Feeling guilt, shame, or failure if rules are broken
How diet rules often go wrong
- Restriction → craving / binge cycles: Overly strict rules often lead to strong food cravings, feelings of deprivation, or loss of control.
- Guilt & shame: When rules are “broken,” people often feel guilt or shame as if the food choice made them “bad” or defective. That moralising of food harms mental well-being.
- All-or-nothing thinking: Either you’re “on plan” or “off track,” which can make eating feel stressful, judgmental, or fear-based.
- Diet fatigue / weight cycling: Many diets yield short-term results but are hard to maintain; when they end, people often revert to old habits or feel worse. The cycle can erode self-trust.
- Disconnection from body cues: Over time, you may ignore or mistrust hunger, fullness, satisfaction, emotional signals because the external rules override your internal wisdom.
What Letting Go of Diet Rules Looks and Feels Like
Letting go is not about eating without care or being unbalanced. It’s about releasing fear, moral judgement, rigidity, and returning to trust, choice and satisfaction. Here are how some shifts might look:
| Before (Rule-driven) | After (Trust-driven / Freedom-oriented) |
| “I must only eat low-fat / sugar-free / diet versions; otherwise I’m failing.” | Recognising that all foods have value; choosing foods because they taste good, satisfy you, nourish you, fit your life. |
| “If I eat that dessert, I’ll skip meals / over-exercise / punish myself.” | You might have the dessert, notice how you feel, and then continue your meals as usual — without needing to ‘make up’ for it. |
| Skipping meals or delaying eating to avoid calories. | Eating when you are hungry, in amounts that feel satisfying, noticing fullness and stopping when comfortable. |
| Avoiding social eating or feeling shame when eating around others. | Feeling more relaxed, trusting that you can enjoy food socially; less fear that you’ll ‘ruin’ something; less people-pleasing or hiding. |
| Rigid portion / calorie tracking as the main measure of success. | Awareness of how food makes your body feel, how your mood, energy, digestion, social life, satisfaction are impacted; behaviours matter more than numbers. |
Letting go often feels unfamiliar at first. You might feel anxiety, guilt, fear of “over-doing it,” or worry about what others will think. That’s totally normal. It is part of the process of unlearning diet culture and reclaiming your own experience.
Over time, many people report less mental energy spent on food, less shame, more enjoyment, more trust in their body, and less preoccupation with food or weight.
Practical Steps to Healing Your Relationship with Food
Here are strategies to begin shifting, grounded in compassion, curiosity and choice:
1. Identify and notice your food rules
- Reflect on what beliefs or rules you live by regarding food. Are there foods you always avoid, or conditions under which you allow treats?
- Ask: Which rules help me? Which ones cause distress, guilt or shame?
- Journal or write them down; noticing them is the first step to choosing whether or not they still serve you.
2. Give yourself permission
- Permission means you recognise internally that you can choose to eat certain foods, even if your first instinct is to avoid them.
- Start with small “permission experiments”. Consider this phrase “I know I can have it if I want it” followed by “but am I really hungry for it’” OR “but do I really feel like it right now”. Reassure yourself that you can have it anytime and that it’s not going anywhere. Consider choosing a favourite snack, noticing how you feel before, during and after.
- You don’t need to abandon all structure or awareness; but the aim is to reduce fear, guilt and rigid rules.
3. Shift your food language
- Stop using moral language: foods are not “good” or “bad,” nor are you.
- Instead, use language like: “This food is satisfying,” or “I wonder how my body will feel if I try this,” or “I noticed I stopped at comfortable fullness.”
- Reframe slip-ups (if you feel you’ve “over-ate” or “ate too much dessert”) as learning opportunities, not failures.
4. Tune into hunger, fullness & satisfaction
- Regularly check in: are you eating because your body wants nourishment, or because of emotional cues, boredom, cravings, social pressure?
- Eat slowly, notice taste, texture, environment; allow your body to signal fullness; pause; notice how you feel.
- Recognise that satisfaction matters. If something is overly restrictive or tastes unsatisfying, you may overeat later.
5. Practice self-compassion & emotional awareness
- Guilt or shame about eating are emotional responses acknowledge them rather than suppress them.
- Explore other coping options: rest, connection, joyful movement, creative activities, journaling, social support.
- Recognise that healing is non-linear: sometimes old patterns re-appear; that doesn’t mean failure. It means you’re learning.
6. Seek professional support when needed
- If emotional eating, disordered patterns, body image distress or health conditions are something you are managing, a dietitian or mental health professional trained in this area can help.
- Collaboration helps tailor your approach to your preferences, pace, values, medical needs, social context and cultural background.
- Healing with support tends to be safer, more sustainable and more affirming.
How Letting Go Helps in Disordered Eating Recovery & Body Trust
- When diet rules are less rigid, the focus shifts from control to care. You begin to trust your body’s cues, your emotional needs, your satisfaction, which fosters resilience.
- Recovery becomes less about a target weight or rigid plan, and more about what behaviours feel nourishing, sustainable and aligned with your life.
- You often experience more flexibility in social situations, less fear of eating “the wrong thing,” and more confidence in your own choices.
- Letting go of moralising food reduces the mental burden; less energy is spent managing guilt, shame or compensatory behaviours.
- Over time, many find they eat more intuitively, more joyfully, less restrictively and often maintain healthier patterns including better energy, regular eating, improved relationship with food.
What Relinquish Offers on the Gold Coast
At Relinquish, we support people in letting go of diet rules in a safe, inclusive and compassionate way. Our approach includes:
- Hearing your story, your history with diets and food rules, your emotional relationship with food, your values, health context, preferences and lifestyle.
- Exploring which rules are serving you and which are not, and supporting you to gradually experiment with change.
- Facilitating your development of food neutrality, trust, satisfaction, and comfort in eating without guilt or shame.
- Supporting recovery from disordered eating, emotional eating, body image distress, social pressures, cultural beliefs, and the influence of diet culture.
- Collaborating with other care professionals, including mental health, medical, allied health, and NDIS support where needed.
- Emphasising behaviours, well-being, satisfaction, agency above weight or external targets (unless chosen by you and medically warranted).
Conclusion & Call to Action
Letting go of diet rules isn’t always easy, but it can be profoundly freeing. It opens the door to food that nourishes your body, relationships, social life, mood and self-respect rather than guilt, shame or fear.