How to Rid Yourself of Carb-o-phobia (fear or carbs)

By Natalie Vertoudakis- Registered Psychologist

After finally experiencing successful weight loss and transitioning from a highly fluctuating diet to a portion control, diverse and healthy diet – Patient’s are occasionally plagued by the fearful voice in their mind that tells them “Be careful or you’ll gain it all back”. Often this fear fuels negative automatic thinking or biases our interpretation of ourself (our confidence, ability to maintain weight and our body image), our reactions to food and exercise (our fears and expectations) and our behaviours or choices in response to these fear reaction. When we restrict ourselves of certain foods such as Carbs through avoidance, we essentially FEED our fears and STARVE ourselves from the opportunity to disapprove our negative self-talk. I like to refer to common avoidance of food as Carb-o-phobia. If this sounds familiar, here are some ways to detect when you’re restricting and prevent yourself from falling into an unhealthy relationship with food; 

Carbs aren’t all made equal: 

• In order for you to be convinced of this you will need to brush up your nutritional knowledge about carbohydrates – get familiar with them, we need to familiarise ourselves with the vital benefits of including carbs in our diet, before we can become comfortable consuming them 
• Speak to your Dietitian about your concerns or fears about consuming Carbs. This is an opportunity to learn from a professional in the field and to acknowledge that your fears may not be warranted. 
• Research about the GI (glycaemic index) factor – remind yourself that this index was designed for a reason 

Mind your Language 

• Avoid black and white labels such as “good” or “bad” foods, “high carb” or “low carb”, “fattening”  
• Open your mind to the grey area, we fall victim to self-sabotage when we use these words in hope to NEVER stray from “good” foods – in this way, the only thing we guarantee ourselves is a sense of failure 
• Think of food groups as “often” or “sometimes” foods  
• Avoid referring to food by their Carb or Caloric value – in fact, avoid calorie/carb counting altogether, trust the process and the advice, the outcomes will follow 

Bread-xperiment 

• Now step 3, Experiment, the most important step to prove to yourself that thoughts do not equal facts 
• Experimenting gives us an opportunity to see that avoidance is not the solution, and just like eating 1 vegetable does not result in rapid weight loss – eating 1 form of carbs will not cause rapid weight gain 
• So how do we do this? We start small and work our way up, what carbs are you comfortable consuming right now? Or which are you consuming unknowingly?  
• Start by gradually incorporating Low GI carbs to your everyday diet in the recommended portions 
• Then, allow yourself a portion of a planned carb treat that you enjoy, make it a social event and eliminate the guilt and shame – then monitor the results  
• You may surprise yourself at the end, when you have a chance to see carbs aren’t the enemy nor do they always result in weight gain/regain