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Food rule challenge: noticing when your tastebuds get bored.

Disordered eating disconnects you from your body.  It drives you to have as little food (or as little of the “wrong” foods) as possible, which leads to you living a rather distracted life in pursuit of less.

This food rule challenge is to connect you back to your body, instead of you following a preset food rule around a certain food. For this challenge, while eating something you find pleasurable, tune in to when your tastebuds get bored of that food. At some point you will notice the food isn’t tasting as exciting as it did upon first bite.*  It’s the law of diminishing returns…or ummm, the law of diminishing satisfaction. This isn’t about eating x amount of food, it’s instead about reconnecting to how your tastebuds experience food and can help guide you when eating.

Sometimes your tastebuds will get bored before you’ve eaten enough and you will, likely, need to continue eating to find fullness. This may be an occasion when you’re eating a meal you’re really not excited about so your tastebuds are over it before you even take a bite.  Other times you will hit fullness before your tastebuds get bored and you get to decide if you’d like to keep enjoying and end up a bit overly full (totally normal, this was me last night with some battered & fried sesame tofu that was SO good) or save the rest of the meal for another time.

Give it a try! 

*if you are restricting yourself from food you may find your tastebuds feel like they never get bored of food. This is a common side effect of deprivation and something I work with clients on and address in the course + in numerous past blog posts.

16 comments

  1. Love what you said about “your taste buds may be bored before finding fullness.” Such an interesting point to make regarding taste bud satisfaction and hunger/fullness cues…the two will not always like up perfectly and that’s ok!

  2. So NOT the point of this post, but that donut looks perfect! lol

  3. That so happened to me last night when I got full before my tastebuds got board with sweet potato tater tots.  They were SO GOOD & but now I’m not that hungry for breakfast ?. My body is so good at figuring it out without me helping LOL!!

    • When I eat a big meal the night before sometimes at breakfast I’m hungrier than usual, sometimes fuller than usual and sometimes I’m just an average amount of hunger. Different days, different needs. But if I’m fuller than usual and have a smaller breakfast I end up ravenous an hour-ish later, so I usually prefer just to have a typical breakfast :)

  4. that lil baby foot tho <3

  5. This is a great post! I’ve literally never thought about this before, but can think of times (in hindsight!) when enjoying peanut m&ms when my tastebuds totally got bored.

    P.S. can we also eat those little toesies?! So sweet!!

  6. I love your food rule exercises! This is something I need to implement more.

  7. What if your tastebuds are bored because of repetition but you aren’t sure how to switch it up? For example i have had overnight oats for breakfast for a few weeks now and before that I’d gotten really bored of toast and a couple other breakfast type meals. 

    • Sometimes food is boring and some meals really are just fuel. But feeling cravings and then honoring them is wonderful when it happens! Maybe planning a new recipe to try for breakfast each week could be fun – baked oatmeal, meals out, breakfast sandwiches on biscuits/bread/croissants….so many options!

  8. So true that disordered eating disconnects us from our body.  I love how connected you are to your body Kylie, and it definitely teaches me to be totally intuitive about what I want to eat.   Some days donuts sounds good.  I think I need to challenge the food rule in my head of not eating more than one dessert a day until I no longer fear it.   

  9. Wanted to say thank you for this post. Donuts were brought to work today and I remembered your post. I love donuts so much. I never really feel like I get tired of them. I never had a problem with restriction till after I had a baby almost 2 years ago. Today I decided I didn’t want my yogurt for snack and that I would eat a donut instead. I ate every bite except 1 small piece. I used all the mindful eating techniques I know (I’m an RD too). I really didn’t think I would get tired of the taste, but I noticed when I was about two bites away from done that the flavor just wasn’t as strong so I took another bite to be sure and then I was done. It was hard to not just finish it since it was just one bite, but it was also freeing to think “okay, you ate a donut, you didn’t restrict, there are more donuts that you can have tomorrow if you choose to have one.” I feel completely satisfied now and proud that I listened to my body more. Thank you so much. I needed this.

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