Overcoming a food scarcity mindset
Some time ago, I wrote an article addressing the scarcity mindset around food.
As to this day, it remains my most-read article and still gets views each week, I thought I should address the topic here.
What is a scarcity mindset?
A scarcity mindset is a belief that resources are limited.
It applies to any domain, be it important or frugal topics: food, finance, work, health, housing, happiness, beauty, relationships…
A scarcity mindset is often presented in opposition to an abundance mindset. Which states that everything exists in abundance, whether we know how to access it or not.
How does the scarcity mindset apply to food?
With food, having a scarcity mindset is almost a given following a past of restriction.
If you were restricted in the past - be it by dieting, suffering from an eating disorder or due to financial issues - then somehow, food was actually scarce.
Your body learnt to treat food as a limited resource, which you could not get in abundance.
A particularity of the scarcity mindset, when it relates to food, is how deeply it’s ingrained. As food is vital for our survival, anything threatening our ability to nourish ourselves will persist in us.
Healing a scarcity mindset around food is much trickier than dealing with it around work or happiness.
The issue with a scarcity mindset
The consequence of a scarcity mindset often implies binges, a lack of satisfaction around food and feeding, and a sense of losing control.
If you think a certain type of food is scarce, that you can’t get a lot of it or don’t know when you will be able to access it again, the normal reaction is to binge on it. You just want to eat as much of it as you possibly can, while you can.
This is a fine behaviour when it concerns foods that are truly scarce to you at that moment like specialities when you travel, your grandma’s apple pie, a super fancy food you can barely afford…
The issue arises when you feel this way around supermarket types of food because you’ve restricted them so much.
This leads you to destroy the chocolate bar as soon as you open it, empty the cookie jar instead of getting two, eat the entire piece of cheese (my French soul will forgive you this one), finish the maxi format crisp bag, or eat the peanut butter with the spoon instead of dosing it on your bread.
You feel like you cannot control yourself around food; or at least around certain types of food (i.e. the ones you restrict-ed).
How do you shift a scarcity mindset?
As mentioned above, the opposite of a scarcity mindset is an abundance mindset.
To combat your idea of scarcity, you need to create a sense of abundance.
This starts with removing food restrictions from your life. You cannot heal a scarcity mindset if you keep restricting the food you eat.
It requires giving yourself the right to eat the things you feel like losing control around. The more you do it, the less you will get this feeling of losing control.
It can be scary. If you went through intense or long phases of restriction in the recent past, the first binges might be frightening. But this step is mandatory.
Your body needs to learn that all of these foods are not scarce. Once it understands it can eat them anytime it desires and food is available in abundance, it will heal.
—
I go into much more detail on how to heal a scarcity mindset around food in the original article - but I wanted to touch base on this subject here.
I believe everyone deserves to experience freedom around food.
If that’s already your case then I’m delighted, and hope this reading helps you understand better the people around you who might be going through these challenges.
Fitness tip: Start your training sessions with core stabilisers
As part of your warm-up, try including core stabiliser exercises (and I don’t mean crunches). It’s a great way to warm up your core muscles for the following session, providing more stability to your spine.
This will make you slightly more efficient in your compound lift while reducing your risk of injury.
Among the most common core stabilisers are the Big 3 from Dr Stuart McGill, but there exist many more.
Science highlight: Fighting oxidative stress with your diet
Oxidative stress is responsible for cell damage in the body and is linked to many conditions like cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and heart disease.
Food has an impact on it via the balance of antioxidants (protecting against oxidation) and pro-oxidants (inducing oxidation).
A recent review article has analysed different components of food and oxidative stress.
The main takeaways were:
Consuming antioxidants via food is superior to taking antioxidant supplements - it suggests that loading your diet with foods rich in antioxidants is much more efficient than trying to compensate with supplements.
Processing foods reduces their antioxidant properties - eating as many unprocessed foods as possible is a safer approach to fight oxidative stress.
Animal products are more easily contaminated by pro-oxidant molecules - it might be smart to pay extra attention to the quality of the animal products you consume to avoid introducing unnecessary pro-oxidant molecules in your diet.
Consuming a diet high in antioxidants cannot offset a pro-oxidant lifestyle: smoking, drinking, lack of exercise, poor sleep… The intervention needs to be global.
Oxidative stress and food as medicine, published in Frontiers in Nutrition.
This week's recommendations
Podcast
Bret Contreras on Squats vs. Hip Thrusts for Glute Gains, from the Muscle for Life podcast
Pull Yourself Together: The Best Expert Advice to Make You Feel Incredible, from The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Sunscreen Debate - Are We Blocking Our Way to Better Health?, from The Art of Manliness podcast
Music
Pink - Two Feet
You Will Never Know It - Carpetman
Ache In My Heart - Palaye Royale
Reading
The Man in the High Castle, a book by Philip K. Dick
Nutrition To Support Brain Health & Offset Brain Injuries | Perform With Dr. Andy Galpin, podcast summary from Podcast Notes
Take care,
Roxanne