What is Your Eating Personality?
With the end of the year approaching, you might be thinking about setting goals for the new year. Maybe you want to work on your eating habits and build new healthy behaviours. If you’d like to work on eating healthier, I think that’s great! But I also realize that many people don’t know where to begin.
In my opinion, the key to achieving your goals is to first find out what your starting point is and then determine where you’d like to end up. When it comes to healthy eating goals, it’s important to become aware of your personal eating habits. If you don’t know what your individual struggles are, you can’t come up with a plan to address those issues. And if you don’t address the challenges and barriers that are specific to you, how can you achieve your goals?
To help you figure out what your starting point is, I’ve outlined the most common eating personalities below. Each personality faces different struggles and requires work in different areas. Determine your eating personality to see what aspects of your eating habits could use improvement. Read the descriptions below to see which one fits you best. You might find that your eating personality shifts depending on what factors are present in your life (ex: work deadlines, the state of your relationships, the season, etc).
The Careful Clean Eater
The Careful Clean Eater tends to have rigid eating habits. They want to be the “perfect” eater who only eats nutrient-rich foods and shuns foods that are high in fat or sugar. The Careful Clean Eater is vigilant about what foods they put in their body. They carefully plan their meals and snacks, have strict rules about how to prepare food (ex: cooking without oils), and scrutinize food labels when grocery shopping. They also feel guilty when they don’t “eat right”. The Careful Clean Eater might insist that they practice strict eating habits for the sake of health and wellness. However, this eating personality is often motivated by their body image. They might be trying to lose weight or are afraid of putting on weight.
What To Work On
First of all, there’s nothing wrong with being nutrition conscious! However, the Careful Clean Eater can be so rigid with their eating habits that it causes their quality of life to decrease. Grocery shopping, cooking, and eating itself becomes stressful. It can also become very time consuming to anguish over the planning and preparation of every meal and snack. Nutrition is important, but it shouldn’t take over every aspect of your life.
In addition, the Careful Clean Eater often feels that they need to earn the right to eat “junk” foods. The reward for following their food rules is “cheat days”. Often, cheat days involve engaging in binge eating - an eating behaviour that does not contribute to good health. The Careful Clean Eater might also “cave” from time to time and overeat their forbidden foods because the restriction becomes too much.
The Careful Clean Eater should try working on relaxing their food rules for the sake of their mental health and quality of life. Viewing certain foods as forbidden and striving for perfection ultimately leads to unhealthy eating behaviours. Focus on making peace with all types of foods and aim for progress instead of perfection. To help you let go of your rigidity, work on self-compassion and positive self-talk.
The Professional Dieter
The Professional Dieter is often on a diet. And when they’re not on a diet, they’re thinking about the next diet they’d like to start. The Professional Dieter collects diet books, searches the Internet for diet tips, and uses social media for “fitspo”. This eating personality is careful with their eating, but their primary motivation is weight loss rather than health. The Professional Dieter tends to find themself caught in a vicious cycle: diet, lose weight, overeating and binges, gain weight, diet, etc.
What To Work On
Chronic dieting leads to feelings of deprivation, which results in unhealthy eating behaviours. The Professional Dieter often has a “last supper” before they begin a new diet. This is a feast of favourite foods that they know they won’t be able to enjoy while on their diet. Also, when a Professional Dieter eats a forbidden food while on a diet, they tend to end up binge-eating that food, because they know tomorrow they will have to go back on their diet. Even when this eating personality doesn’t eat their forbidden foods, they might end up overeating “safe” foods to satisfy their cravings.
The Professional Dieter is at risk of developing a disordered relationship with food. They might develop food fears or end up hating food. Some Professional Dieters become so frustrated with the cycle of weight loss and weight gain that they adopt disordered behaviours (ex: diet pills, purging) and could eventually develop eating disorders.
If you are a Professional Dieter, work on rejecting the diet mentality. Focus on the way foods taste and how they make your body feel rather than on their calories. Build sustainable eating habits that you can keep up for the rest of your life. Work on showing your body respect, regardless of its size or shape. Trust your body to tell you what it needs rather than relying on the latest diet advice.
The Unconscious Eater
The Unconscious Eater lacks awareness while they are eating. Because of this lack of awareness, you might not have ever realized that you have this eating personality. There are several factors that can cause a person to become disengaged from the eating experience. Different factors are at the core of each personality subtype:
The Chaotic Unconscious Eater
The Chaotic Unconscious Eater has a hectic schedule and is always on the go. Because they’re so busy throughout the day, they tend to go for long periods of time without eating. This eating personality is so focused on moving from one task to the next that they usually don’t feel their hunger until they reach the point of feeling ravenous. If one word could characterize this eating personality, it would be haphazard. The Chaotic Unconscious Eater eats whenever they happen to have a spare moment and they grab whatever is available: food from the vending machine, fast food, etc.
What To Work On
The Chaotic Unconscious Eater is ambitious and hard-working. However, by pushing aside their hunger cues, they become disconnected from the messages their body is sending them. They might feel tired and struggle with low mood. While this is partly due to living a hectic lifestyle, it’s also the side effect of under-nourishing the body. When the Chaotic Unconscious Eater does respond to their hunger, they often make food choices that are energy-dense, but not nutrient-dense. Though they are eating something, they are not providing themself with nourishing food.
This eating personality can benefit from assessing their responsibilities and determining whether they are able to delegate some and let go of others. While productivity has value, so does your health! Set boundaries with others and yourself to ensure you have enough time to pause for meals each day. Even if you don’t have time to sit down for every meal, try to make time to eat one meal a day with awareness. When you’re grabbing food on the go, choose nutrient-dense options over options that only offer energy.
The Refuse-Not Unconscious Eater
This eating personality tends to eat whenever food is present. Whether it’s the candy bowl in the office or doughnuts at meetings, they figure, “It’s there, so why not?” The Refuse-Not Unconscious Eater often finds themself overeating at parties, events, and buffets. They might munch on food absentmindedly and be unaware of how much food they are eating.
What To Work On
The Refuse-Not Unconscious Eater loves food, but they decide to eat based on whether food is near rather than on their levels of hunger or fullness. This eating personality loses awareness of when they are actually hungry and they often push past the point of fullness. The result is chronic overeating, which can negatively impact health over time.
This eating personality should focus on tuning in to their hunger and fullness cues. If there is delicious food around you but you they aren’t hungry, try taking a portion to-go in a container or Ziploc bag. If you aren’t able to do this, remember that there will always be opportunities to eat good food - this won’t be the last one! When you do eat, focus on the experience by truly tasting your food. Pause every few bites to ask yourself if you are still enjoying what you are eating and if you are full.
The Waste-Not Unconscious Eater
This eating personality is a member of the clean plate club. A meal is not finished until their plate is clear. Whenever they dish out food for themselves, the Waste-Not Unconscious Eater needs to finish every bite. They might also feel the need to finish the leftovers from their children or partner.
What To Work On
The Waste-Not Unconscious Eater often ignores their fullness cues, leading to overeating. The desire to not be wasteful is an excellent value to have, however, taking care of your body is also important. Try to find a balance. Start with a smaller amount of food at meals and snacks - you can always go back for more. Leftovers can be saved for another day; you can plan 1 or 2 “leftover days” per week to use them up. If you don’t enjoy leftovers, invest some extra time into weekly meal planning so that you don’t end up buying or cooking more food than you can eat.
The Emotional Unconscious Eater
The Emotional Unconscious Eater uses food as their primary coping mechanism when they experience uncomfortable emotions, especially stress, anger, and sadness. Emotional eating can come in different forms. It might be grabbing a candy bar instead of eating lunch whenever you have a stressful deadline. Or it can be repeated episodes of binge eating.
What To Work On
There are many ways a person can cope with uncomfortable emotions. No one way is any more or less valid than any other. However, leaning on one coping strategy too heavily can be unhealthy. Using food as your primary or sole coping strategy causes chronic overeating. Choosing energy-dense foods that are not nutrient-dense leads to under-nourishment. Your body might feel unwell because it is not receiving the nutrients it needs and you could develop health issues down the line.
The Emotional Unconscious Eater often believes that eating is their problem. But their eating is a symptom of a deeper issue. Food cannot address this issue. The Emotional Unconscious Eater should reach out for support from friends, family, and/or a trained mental health professional. Search for resources and solutions that address the root cause of your emotions. Get into a self-care routine to show yourself love and build your self-esteem.
Now that you know what your starting point is, it’s time to decide where you’d like to end up with your eating habits. As a proponent of Intuitive Eating, I encourage all eating personalities to strive towards becoming more like…
The Intuitive Eater
The Intuitive Eater rejects diet culture and instead makes their eating decisions based on the messages their body sends them. They eat when they experience a moderate level of hunger - versus eating when they are full or experiencing extreme hunger. The Intuitive Eater does not feel guilty for their food choices because they view all foods as morally equal, rather than as “good” or “bad”. They banish the negative voices that make them feel bad about themselves for their eating decisions.
Food choices are made to honor their taste buds as well as their physical health. The Intuitive Eater respects their fullness signals and meets their emotional needs through strategies that don’t involve food. They view healthy behaviours as self-care; healthy eating and exercise are not used as punishment. The Intuitive Eater experiences freedom and inner peace - rather than being at war with food.
If you want to become more like the Intuitive Eater, make an appointment with me! You can book an in-person or virtual appointment here.
Leave a comment below and tell me about your eating personality.
References
Tribole, E., & Resch, E. (2020). Intuitive eating: A revolutionary anti-diet approach. New York: St. Martin's Essentials. pp 32 - 39.