Ep #199: When Your Food is Disappointing

Hi! Let’s talk about the times when you’re really looking forward to eating a joy food, or any food for that matter, and you’re really excited about it and then, it’s not so great.

I think this has happened to all of us.

And it’s going to continue to happen.

You’re going to order your favorite meal at a restaurant and for some reason, it won’t be as good as it usually is.

Or you hear that someone is bringing a dessert to a celebration and it sounds amazing but then when you eat it, it’s not. It’s just okay.

You hear everyone rave about a certain food and then when you try it, you don’t think it’s so great.

Sometimes our expectations aren’t met when it comes to the food we’re looking forward to eating.

And we feel disappointed because we were expecting a better experience than we had.

And how you handle this disappointment is important.

Here’s what I see people sometimes do.

They’re disappointed by their food yet they still eat it anyway.

Then, because they’re disappointed that they didn’t get the pleasure they were expecting, they seek out pleasure from another food. Or multiple foods.

It becomes this search for pleasure to overcome the disappointment.

But unfortunately, that search might turn into a binge and might result in continued disappointment.

What if the next food is disappointing? And the next? Then what?

This is what can happen when you don’t just let it go.

When you don’t just let the experience be what it is and move on from it.

So why do you think you aren’t just moving on from it?

One reason might be because you overly restrict yourself.

You rarely allow yourself to eat those foods or foods like it.

So you think this was your one chance for awhile. Or you think that you’re not going to get pleasure like this again for awhile.

So because you’re actually allowing it now, and you’re not going to allow it again, not any time soon, it has to be good now.

And you’re going to make it good by finding something else if this isn’t good.

You think you need to have something else to satisfy you now because again, this is your one chance.

But imagine if you had unlimited chances.

What if it was totally fine that this food wasn’t amazing because you’ll have another food that is soon?

It wouldn’t be such a big deal. There wouldn’t be so much pressure on this food to be amazing.

Because there will be more opportunities in the near future.

When you overly restrict yourself and aren’t allowing yourself to eat the foods you like, there’s more pressure on the food being good than when you can have food like that anytime.

It’s like having a date night with you partner weekly vs once every few months. You’d probably feel more pressure for it to be amazing if you’re only doing it once every few months. It’s rare so it’s gotta be great when you have one.

But if you’re doing it weekly and one date night isn’t amazing because you don’t feel well or your plans don’t work out as you’d hoped, it’s not big deal because there’s another date night coming next week.

So if you’re not being so restrictive with what you’re allowing yourself to eat, there won’t be such a strong need to find something to make it amazing. If it’s not amazing, you’ll soon have something that is.

Another reason might be because this food is supposed to be the best part of your day, your week, or your month.

And if it’s not good, you think you’re missing out on the best pleasure of your day, week, or month.

In your mind, there’s nothing else.

There’s no highly pleasure experiences for you if you’re not experiencing pleasure with this food.

So that’s why you’re on a mission to find a food that will be highly pleasurable.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with being excited about a food.

There’s nothing wrong with food being a highlight.

I get excited about food, and for me, it can be a highlight of an experience.

Like this one time a friend and I went to a cafe to hang out and drink tea and the main reason we chose this particular place was because they supposedly make the best crullers.

If you don’t know what that is, it’s like a twisted, airy donut.

I love donuts but I’ve never been a huge fan of crullers.

But when she said they make the best ones, I was intrigued. I was excited to try it and hopefully have a wonderful experience eating it.

I so wanted it to be amazing. I was excited to try it.

And it wasn’t amazing.

It was just like every other cruller I’ve ever eaten. Not great.

And you know what I didn’t do? I didn’t eat the whole thing. I didn’t finish eating it, hoping it would taste better. It wouldn’t. And I didn’t then go buy something else to make up for it.

I let it go.

And I was able to let it go because 1, there was more eating pleasure coming for me soon. And I’ll tell you, I didn’t have anything planned, but I just believed it was coming.

And 2, because there was other pleasures for me to experience. I so very much enjoyed hanging out with my friend. I actually didn’t really enjoy my tea, and was disappointed about that because when I ordered it I thought it was going to be amazing.

So actually, two disappointments and one great thing.

And my day wasn’t over.

That’s key here.

I intentionally enjoyed myself and had pleasurable moments during my day afterward.

The cruller and the tea weren’t my only opportunities for pleasure. So the fact that I didn’t love them, didn’t matter that much.

There was other opportunities to come.

Something I see showing up often for people who binge is that food is the highlight most of the time.

This happens a lot at nighttime and that’s a common why they don’t want to stop eating.

They look forward to eating their joy food or delicious meal toward the end of the day and once that’s over, in their mind there’s nothing left. The day has peaked and now it’s downhill from there. So they eat to stay at the peak.

But what if there is no peak? What if what you thought was going to be the peak, isn’t?

You have three options.

Go eat more food to try and peak.

Go do something else to peak, which I see a lot of people having a hard time with.

They don’t know what else to do if they’re not eating. They don’t know how else to experience pleasure and what to do with their time so they just eat more.

And the third option is to not seek out a different highly pleasure experience and just allow yourself to feel disappointed with something less pleasurable.

Now, there may also be times when going to do something else that’s pleasurable isn’t an option in that moment. After this, it’s off to work, errands, chores, something not very pleasurable.

And if this is the case, you’re going to allow yourself to feel the disappointment as you move on to your next thing.

Allowing yourself to feel disappointed is going to be useful for you whether you move on to something else that’s highly pleasurable, moderately pleasurable, or not at all pleasurable.

It’s okay to feel disappointed. We all feel it sometimes. It’s a valid feeling to feel when your expectations aren’t met.

You can be disappointed but, you’re not going to stay there too long. Yes you didn’t get the pleasure you were expecting but, more is coming. This isn’t the last opportunity.

So here’s what you’re going to do when a food disappoints you.

If it’s not a meal that’s fueling you, if it’s a joy food you’re eating not for hunger but for enjoyment and pleasure only, stop eating it.

If you’re not enjoying it or experiencing pleasure, there’s no point in eating it.

It’s not going to get better the longer you eat it.

And if it is a fueling meal, if you can get something else, go for it. But if getting something else isn’t an option or an option you want to choose, like if you’re at a restaurant with people and you don’t want to wait for a new meal to be cooked while your co-diners are already eating, then you eat it to satisfy your hunger.

Then comes the thought work.

You allow yourself to feel disappointed. It’s normal to feel this way and you can feel this way.

You give yourself permission to have more food pleasure soon. This isn’t your final opportunity.

You have another way to experience pleasure, like enjoying the company of the people you’re with or enjoying whatever it is that you’re doing after eating. This isn’t your only opportunity for pleasure.

And if you can’t get a different pleasure now, have something else to look forward to later. If not now, later.

And it can be food if you want it to be. Again, looking forward to food isn’t a problem it’s how you react when it doesn’t meet your expectations than can be a problem.

When it comes to continuing to eat after feeling disappointed about a food, what it really comes down to is not wanting to feel disappointment and scarcity of highly pleasurable foods and scarcity of pleasure.

If you’re not giving yourself enough of those, then you’re going to voraciously try to get it when you allow yourself to actually have it.

So allow yourself to eat those foods more and allow yourself to feel how you’re feeling.

Feeling disappointed when a food isn’t what you expected doesn’t have to derail you.

You can let it go and move on if it’s not that big of a deal in your mind.

And it doesn’t have to be.

Okay, have a wonderful week enjoying foods and non-food pleasures and allowing yourself to feel disappointed if you do.

Bye bye.