When you stop obsessing about food, dieting, and swearing off ingredients or entire food groups, it’s amazing how free you will feel when you let go of food rules. There are so many “tricks” to keep you from eating what you really want or crave while you’re chasing some hopeful version of a better, thinner you.

You know all the tricks you’ve heard:

Sip hot broth before a meal to fill up your stomach.
When you’re craving chips, snack on crunchy carrots instead!
Drinking caffeine will help decrease your appetite.

So many ridiculous ideas to keep you from eating when what your body wants IS NOT a damn cup of coffee… it WANTS FOOD! You really want chips, but eat carrots instead. Let me know how that works for you.

There comes a time in everyone’s life where you just have to give a HUGE eye roll to some of these annoying weight loss strategies. Seriously. When you think about it, where did all of this even come from? Why on earth do you want to trick yourself to eat a food that you don’t really want because there is another food you really DO want?

Here are just some foods that come to mind:

Whole Milk

Yup. 100% full fat milk. Milk from a COW (gasp)! Not an almond, a coconut, a grass blade, or whatever they’re using to make alternative milk these days. I used to only drink fat free milk in my coffee or cereal. While I was experimenting with trying new foods I feared, I ordered a coffee and for the first time said “with milk”. Not “with nonfat milk”. I said MILK. Meaning WHOLE MILK. I took one sip of that coffee and couldn’t believe how wonderful it tasted! Full disclosure, I do also buy 1% milk and almond milk. I like making my son smoothies with vanilla almond milk and at home I’m fine with 1% in my coffee. But when I’m buying coffee at Starbucks or Dunkin’, whole milk it is. And I’m not freaked out. If you are lactose intolerant, this is something different entirely and you should be careful about your dairy intake.

Full Fat Yogurt

Fat-free or low-fat yogurt? Ugh. Have you tried FULL FAT yogurt??? So much more satisfying. Creamy and delicious! Not watery and sad.

Chicken Salad

This may seem random but you could think of similar foods. Have you had dry, “healthier” versions of tuna salad instead of tuna salad with MAYO? Have you ordered your fave sandwich and requested “hold the aioli” even though you KNOW it’s what makes the sandwich? Ordered GRILLED chicken when you thought the chicken salad sounded WAY better?

NO. Just…. NO. I mean unless, of course, chicken salad repulses you. That’s a different story. There is nothing wrong with grilled chicken but totally different if you REALLY want chicken salad. If you’re really craving chicken with mayonnaise and then opt for grilled chicken to save yourself from blowing up like a balloon …. this will probably backfire at some point.

Full Fat, REAL Ice Cream

I’ve actually been intuitive about ice cream for years now. But long ago I’d certainly look for lower fat versions or frozen yogurt. Ah, remember when frozen yogurt was all the rage? Lower fat, yes. But just as high in sugar. Not to mention my stomach never felt right after eating frozen yogurt. One thing I noticed is that because I give myself FULL PERMISSION to eat REAL ice cream I am now able to walk into Ben & Jerry’s and ask for a small. When I was restricting and eating all the fake crap, once I finally did eat real ice cream I’d order that “gotta have it”, bucket-size at Cold Stone.

White Bread, White Pasta, WHITE RICE!

Now, while I definitely do enjoy wheat and multigrain breads it’s usually because I found one that I think tastes great. I’m just so fed up with hearing about cauliflower rice, cauliflower pizza crusts, substitute brown rice in your sushi, and eat zoodles instead of noodles. If you have a medical reason to avoid gluten then please, don’t eat gluten. If you don’t have a medical reason to avoid gluten, then why are you eating cauliflower pizza crust? And do we have to eat the whole wheat pasta? Or avoid pasta altogether and eat zucchini disguised as some stringy, green spaghetti? I love cauliflower. I love zucchini. But let’s not call them pasta or rice. They are VEGETABLES.

I want to point out, I am NOT advocating Keto or other diet trends that rely on eating higher fat. Not at all. I’m simply saying that if you’re underwhelmed and unsatisfied with what you’re eating or drinking because it’s some lower fat version of what you really want, this is a form of restriction and denying yourself. You may find if you put whole milk in your coffee that you don’t need that much. A small amount of a full fat food can stretch a longer way than its non-fat counterpart.

I could go on and on with my list of foods we should really be enjoying. The point is that too many of us are sucking the joy out of food because of what diet culture is telling us to do. It’s unavoidable to scroll through our Facebook feed without friends or ads pushing us to eat “skinny” versions of pizza, make fries out of mashed broccoli, eat low-fat versions of appetizers on Super Bowl Sunday … you get the point.

What REAL foods are you excited about? Did you used to eat the FAKE version because you thought you were better off? Do you think you’re better off now eating the REAL DEAL? Tell me in the comments or on my Facebook page!

No More Cauliflower Rice and Faux Pizza Crust