Remember the days when you could literally eat whatever you wanted? 

Pizza rolls, chicken nuggets, fries, ice cream, Doritos…all the Doritos. 

If you touch any of these things now, it’s a very different situation. Maybe you get bloated. Maybe your weight jumps up for a few days. Maybe you just don’t feel good.

So, if you have a weight loss goal, you feel soooo restricted. Like you can’t have any fun foods or you’re sabotaging your progress. 

This is the big question: Why can’t I eat the foods I used to eat anymore?

This is definitely an “it depends” situation. Because think about it: everyone has their favorite foods they want to be able to eat. Everyone has different life experiences with different medical histories. Everyone has a different way of eating and moving their bodies over the last several years and decades. 

However, I can break down 4 common reasons why you can’t quite eat like you used to:

1. You used to have a more flexible metabolism

Remember the time in your life when you didn’t diet? Before you tried to lose weight or thought about your body size a lot?

It might not have been a long time, but I’m sure you can journey back and remember your middle school, high school, and if you’re lucky maybe some college years too, when you didn’t think about any of these things. 

You ate the foods you wanted. You didn’t track anything. You maintained your weight without thinking about it. Life was good.

And then the dieting happened. Weight Watchers happened. Fill-in-the-blank diet happened. You cut your calories. You lost weight for a while, but it didn’t last very long. 

Wanna know what this did? It down-regulated your metabolic rate. It decreased your ability to burn as many calories in a day as you used to.

This means as soon as you returned to your typical day of eating whatever you wanted – you now just created a calorie surplus. The weight started to come back on. And the question began: “Why can’t I eat like I used to anymore??”

And so the cycle started over. You went back on the diet. You went back to your previous method. You started eating less food and, as a result, you decreased your baseline metabolism. 

Do you see the pattern? Imagine doing this for the last several years, even decades. Your metabolism is OF COURSE not what it used to be. Your metabolism is not as flexible and it simply does not have as much potential to burn more calories.

How can you turn this around? You need to increase your metabolism! 

We help our clients do this by stopping the weight-loss methods that require under-eating. We teach them how to properly fuel their bodies. We teach them how many carbs they need to thrive! All of these things create a flexible metabolism that tolerates fun foods on a regular basis.

2. You used to have a better relationship with food

Ok, let’s journey back again. Remember the days you ate a few slices of pizza and had literally no regrets? 

Did you feel that way the last time you had pizza for dinner? I can guess not. 

This last time, the pizza tasted amazing! You didn’t think about it very much at all, in fact you knew you better have 3+ slices now before the guilt sets in. You’ll start over tomorrow, or on Monday. Can you relate?

And now that you’re thinking about it, you do this with a lot of food. If you have ice cream, or burgers and fries, or anything “bad,” you overdo it. You perceive it as a bad thing and you tune out your satisfaction cues. You eat past the point of fullness. You finish what’s in front of you.

I can bet that in the days before you thought this way about food, you could easily stop yourself when you were satisfied. You could have 2 pieces of pizza and save some for later because you knew you could have some anytime. You could get a scoop of ice cream and share the rest if you felt full. 

Now, that just doesn’t really happen. Your relationship with food has been damaged. You’re a lot less intuitive about your food intake. 

What caused this? Yup. The dieting. The yearssss of intentional weight loss. You’ve cut this connection off for so long because you ate whatever ____ diet told you to do. If you were hungry, you ignored it. If you “fell off the wagon” you knew were being bad so you ignored your fullness cues.

It can be really hard to find those cues again, but our clients do this successfully through blood sugar balance and understanding what their metabolism needs on a daily basis. You can slowly build that trust again with your body.

3. Your gut health has changed

Maybe you feel like you can’t eat whatever you want anymore because your digestion is totally different. A lot of people can relate to this! 

Your bloating, diarrhea/constipation, gas, or any digestive-related system is flared big time if you eat your favorite foods. And these are probably things containing gluten, dairy, sugar, or just highly processed in general. 

This is a super variable situation, but yeah, your gut health changes over the years for so many reasons. Things like:

• Unmanaged stress
• Unaddressed food intolerances or allergies
• Overuse of antibiotics
• Inadequate intake of pre and probiotic foods
• Being too sedentary
• Not getting enough sleep
• Excessive alcohol consumption
• Not eating a diverse enough diet

…can all worsen the state of the microbiome over time.

And this can lead to the question “Why can’t I eat ___ anymore? Why can’t I eat whatever I want??”

Gut health is underrated big time. This is a HUGE influence on our health in general and our direct response to the foods we eat. 

Working with a practitioner to get to the root of your gastrointestinal-related symptoms is an important part of your health journey. The goal shouldn’t necessarily be so that you can eat junk food like you used to as a teen again, but to digest most foods without issue. It’s about your quality of life and being as healthy as you can. 

4. Your daily activity has changed

This one might not be fun to hear, but are you really as active as you used to be? Back when you “ate whatever you wanted” were you also in high school sports or walking across campus all the time? You were waitressing 30+ hours a week on your feet. You were up and doing something all the time. 

Maybe life is a little different now. You work a 9-5. Your step total is maybe 4-5k if you’re lucky. Workouts are the first thing to fall off your to-do list.

You just can’t get away with eating the way you used to eat anymore without gaining weight. And I can totally relate to how it’s a tough transition! You have to put a little bit more thought and planning into your meals for the week because the drive-thru just doesn’t do you any favors anymore.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the big changes you need to make with your eating to stop gaining or start losing weight, our team can help!

Hint: it doesn’t have to include being crazy active again. You can live your life AND have a revved metabolism.

Coach Elle