In early 2019, I sat across from a friend at a Cuban restaurant in Miami Beach. She was interested in joining my group coaching program, but wasn’t sure if she was fully ready to commit. A single follow-up question later, I realized why:

I pointed at the food on our table, and asked if she thought it’d be “off limits” on my program. She said yes.

No wonder she was hesitant!

Who in their right mind would eagerly give up their favorite foods?

Naturally, I spent the next few minutes assuring her she wouldn’t have to deprive herself, and how I encourage my clients to splurge (in moderation) on a regular basis. This makes the dieting process far more tolerable, and their results less difficult to maintain.

We then proceeded to enjoy mojitos, yuca, and ropa vieja without a smidge of guilt—and there’s no reason you can’t do the same if you take the time to understand why you feel guilty for splurging. I would also argue that if you don’t unpack this, you’ll have a hard time:

  • Being fully present in social situations
  • Not losing and gaining the same weight over and over
  • Maintaining your results for a lifetime

So let’s unpack all six reasons you might feel guilty for splurging:

1) You don’t know how weight loss works

It’s not wonder you feel guilty for splurging when you’ve been told:

  • Carbs are fattening
  • Not to eat after 8PM
  • Sugar is stored as fat
  • Your body can’t process “junk food”

The reality is, weight loss comes down to whether or not you’re burning more calories than you take in—not whether you eat carbs after 8PM. This is called a calorie deficit and it’s how all diets produce weight loss (no matter how they’re marketed).

Which means you can enjoy any food (or drink) in moderation and still make progress.

Think of it like budgeting. If you make $4,000 per month, and have $3,200 in living expenses, you still have $800 per month to spend on meals out, shopping, and other non-essentials.

A calorie deficit is very similar. If you need to eat 1,900 calories per day to be in a deficit, and “spend” 1,570 calories on healthy, nutrient-dense foods (your “essentials”), you can still spend 300+ calories on a bag of chips, small bowl of ice cream, or two glasses of wine—all without guilt.

BOTH of these are fair game on my client’s plans

2) You’ve been heavily marketed to

Think about how often you see the phrase “guilt-free” on food labels, magazine covers, online recipes, and TV segments:

  • “Ditch your pie for this guilt-free alternative!”
  • “All the flavor without any of the guilt!
  • “What’s YOUR guilty pleasure at dinner?”
  • “Try this protein cookie! No more guilt!”

I get what they’re (supposedly) going for. They know people feel bad about eating “regular” treats and want to market a healthier alternative.

But all this really does is reaffirm that it’s normal and okay to feel guilty about having regular options (otherwise there wouldn’t be a need for a “guilt-free” alternative)—and I hate that.

So be mindful of how you’re being marketed to, and know that many food and fitness companies use your fear of splurging as a way to line their pockets. I actually just wrote an Instagram post on this:

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A post shared by Sam Forget (@coachsamforget)

3) You don’t monitor your language

Most people agonize over what to eat… but pay little attention to how they talk about what they eat—and this influences decision-making in a major way.

For example, if you order Chinese and call it a “cheat meal,” how are you supposed to be present and enjoy yourself? How are you supposed to not gorge yourself if your usual plan doesn’t allow it?

Simply put, your language can destroy your relationship with food and set you up for a lifetime of setbacks if you don’t make an effort to monitor and improve it. So it’s in your best interest to avoid phrases like:

  • “Cheat days”
  • “I cheated on my diet”
  • “Eating clean”
  • “Eating like crap”
  • “Junk food”
  • “I ate so bad yesterday”
  • “I can’t eat that”
  • “I’m not allowed to eat that”

Because each of every one of these phrases makes it next to impossible to not feel guilty for perfectly human experiences.

4) Your upbringing influenced you

I’ve worked with countless clients whose food guilt is rooted in childhood conditioning. All their lives, a parent or guardian set them up for failure by telling them:

  • To stop eating so much “junk food”
  • To “control themselves” and “have some discipline”
  • To “watch their weight”
  • To stop “pigging out”

Whether or not comments like this were rooted in insecurities, passive aggressiveness, or pure misinformation is a topic out of my scope. What I can comment on, however, is the significance of hearing comments like this for 5, 10, or even 15-20+ years of your life.

There isn’t a tip or trick under the sun that’ll help you work through your food guilt overnight.

In the interest of total transparency, it’ll likely take years of practice, mindfulness, and conscious decisions to splurge (especially when you’re most hesitant to) in order to overcome this level of conditioning—which I’m truly sorry you had to experience.

Overcoming food guilt often requires you to splurge when you’re MOST hesitant to

5) You had a bad coaching experience

The first time I worked with a nutrition coach, I was really locked in for the first few weeks. Then my girlfriend’s birthday rolled around, and I took her out to dinner. I didn’t hit my calorie or macronutrient targets that night, and I didn’t feel bad about it—at first.

The next day, I got an email from him asking me to “hit my targets more consistently.” He didn’t ask why I missed them, or how I felt about the decision. He simply said it needed to get done. You can imagine how bad I felt for “failing,” and how intensely I avoided “off-plan” situations after.

I share this with you to assure you this level of perfection is NOT necessary for fat loss success. Your coach should:

  • Ask how you feel about your splurges (instead of assuming you feel bad for every one)
  • Avoid harmful language (ex. “cheat days” and “junk food”)
  • Encourage you to splurge
  • Offer you a lengthy runway to success (instead of prioritizing rapid scale change)
  • Empower you to succeed when you can’t follow your plan to a T

If they don’t, you might consider addressing this with them or taking your business elsewhere.

6) You follow toxic accounts

I recommend unfollowing any social media accounts that:

  • Blame carbs or sugar or processed food for fat gain
  • Use “guilt-free” in their marketing
  • Use other harmful language (ex. “pigging out” or “eating clean”)
  • Reinforce childhood conditioning
  • Put perfection on a pedestal

Your digital environment matters just as much as your physical and social environments, and it’s (fortunately) easier to control.

Let’s recap all six reasons you might feel guilty for splurging:

  1. You were never taught how weight loss works
  2. You’ve been heavily marketed to
  3. You don’t monitor your language
  4. Your upbringing influenced you
  5. You had a bad coaching experience
  6. You (unknowingly) follow toxic accounts

For what it’s worth, most people’s food guilt is rooted in at least 3-4 of these—so don’t feel like you’re uniquely screwed if most of them resonate with you. You CAN overcome your guilt if you follow the action steps I outlined:

  1. Learn basic nutritional science
  2. Pay attention to how you’re marketed to
  3. Pay attention to how you talk about food
  4. Be incredibly patient with yourself
  5. Thoroughly vet your coaches
  6. Unfollow toxic accounts

You can also use my “bonus” step: the one I personally use to avoid feeling guilty for splurging.

I call it the “Splurge Scale,” and it’s how I weigh the pros of each decision—splurging or not splurging. The reason I don’t say “cons” is because there are none. All you’re doing is choosing between the benefits on the “splurge” side:

  • Enjoying delicious food
  • Making food-based memories
  • Implementing food flexibility
  • Prioritizing mental “breathers”

OR the benefits on the non-splurging side:

  • Making physical progress
  • Having more energy
  • Staying more full
  • Improving digestive health
  • Supporting immune health

Here’s what this looks like in my head:

A few more quick things to note:

1) The definition of a splurge

For some people, the waters get muddy when discussing what a “splurge” really is. Are chicken tacos a splurge? Even though there’s protein? What about diet soda? Even though there aren’t any calories?

This is a great question, and not something I can specifically define without knowing your dieting history, personal hurdles, transformation goals, and more. But if I had to define a “splurge” in general terms, I’d say it’s:

  1. Extremely energy-dense (high calories per bite)
  2. Not nutrient-dense (ex. vitamins and minerals per bite)

Again, this is a general parameter, and the Splurge Scale can be used any time you’re feeling guilty about a decision you’re wresting with.

2) The lack of mutual exclusiveness

The benefits listed on either side of the scale aren’t mutually exclusive.

In other words, you CAN have foods that offer benefits on both sides of the scale. But this is uncommon, relative to the splurges most people feel guilty for (ex. ice cream and chips and cookies)—and these are the splurges I help my clients STOP feeling guilty for enjoying.

3) The delayed effects of “non-splurge” decisions

The reason so many people choose the left side of the scale (splurging) so often is because you experience the upside immediately: the delicious flavor, the dopamine hit from your decision, the feelings of food freedom, etc.

Whereas the righthand side requires some patience. The fat you lose this week is the result of your decision-making from last week. Your energy levels and bowel movements tonight are the result of the decisions you made this morning. The lack of hunger you feel now is because of a decision you made at your last meal.

See where I’m going?

Most people choose immediate gratification any time they don’t stop and think for a minute—which is exactly why I came up with this scale. I want to encourage people to:

  1. Pause and make a conscious decision
  2. NOT feel guilty for any decision they make

And the former allows for the latter.

This video discusses two ways you can practice delayed gratification—by reflecting on the Stanford marshmallow experiment and using the Timer Method—and make better decisions:

Although it’s worth noting that this study didn’t account for race or socioeconomic status, so the results are often taken with a grain of salt.

That said, most would agree that delayed gratification is a high yield focus for people with transformation goals.

Let’s briefly recap (one last time) the six primary sources of food-related guilt:

  1. You were never taught how weight loss works
  2. You’ve been heavily marketed to
  3. You don’t monitor your language
  4. Your upbringing influenced you
  5. You had a bad coaching experience
  6. You (unknowingly) follow toxic accounts

And the fixes:

  1. Learn basic nutritional science
  2. Pay attention to how you’re marketed to
  3. Pay attention to how you talk about food
  4. Be incredibly patient with yourself
  5. Thoroughly vet your coaches
  6. Unfollow toxic accounts
  7. Use the “Splurge Scale” to make conscious decisions

One last thing I’d add is the potential necessity of putting your physical transformation goals on the backburner while prioritizing this mental transformation (of no longer feeling guilty). This is because you’ll often have to “face your fears” and splurge when you’re most hesitant to—and this may eliminate your calorie deficit for the day.

But this is an absolute no-brainer if you have any hopes of eventually undergoing a sustainable transformation. Because your physical results won’t be sustainable if your mental foundation isn’t in a place to support it.