Why Do I Feel Guilty After Eating? A Dietitian Explains How to Ditch Food Guilt

Feeling guilty after eating certain foods like sweets, carbs, snacks, or heavier food is common. This probably happens when trying to eat healthy, but then come face-to-face with a slice of chocolate cake that you can’t resist. Or after a really good day of eating, you end up arm deep in a bag of chips.

Perhaps you’re trying to break free from food rules and allow yourself to eat foods you enjoy so you eat the fries or a piece of chocolate, but the guilt still creeps in. 

Food guilt is often an internalized response of thinking about foods as either good or bad. Feeling of guilt can not only take the pleasure out of eating but may also contribute to a harmful cycle of emotional eating or overeating  followed by regret and anxiety.

One of the first steps to ditching the guilt after eating is understanding that guilt is a byproduct of societal norms of demonizing certain foods rather than a reflection of you, your level of self-control, or your personal choices.

Read on to learn more about the commonly asked question – “why do I feel guilty after eating?” and top tips to stop food guilt.

What is Food Guilt?

Guilt arises when you feel like you’ve done something wrong. Food guilt refers to the feelings of regret and self-blame you may experience after eating something you perceive as unhealthy or indulgent. Or if you eat too much of something.

Food guilt often comes along with other emotions like shame and self-disgust for not having more self-control. You may also feel like you’ve fallen off track from a diet or health goals, leading to a cycle of negative self-talk.

Components of Food Guilt

There are three core components of food guilt: regret, shame and fear.

1. Regret: second-guessing food choices post-consumption.
2. Shame: internalizing this regret as a reflection of personal failure.
3. Fear: anxiety over the consequence of eating certain foods.

When food guilt becomes a recurrent theme in your eating, your self-worth becomes tied to your eating habits. It’s important to remember that there’s nothing wrong with you! 

This mindset is often a result of unrealistic expectations diet culture puts on you to eat perfectly.

This perspective can be empowering and the first step toward developing a healthier relationship with food.

In some cases, persistent food guilt is associated with eating disorders such as binge-eating disorder. According to the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA), binge eating behavior is often “coupled with intense feelings of…guilt”. 

However, feeling guilty after eating doesn’t necessarily indicate an eating disorder and is actually a common experience among most dieters.

Why Feeling Guilty After Eating Is Unproductive

Guilt after eating can create a negative mindset towards food that is counterproductive. The feeling of guilt implies that you’ve done something wrong, but it is so important to remember that there’s not anything wrong with you — often you’ve just set unrealistic expectations for yourself.

Most of the time food choices that lead to feeling guilty after eating are actually a result of normal physiology, such as eating a lot of food that you’ve restricted. This is common in the binge-restrict cycle. It’s not due to a lack of self-control or willpower.

And feeling guilty about eating a food you like doesn’t actually make you change your habits. In fact, shame and guilt around eating can lead to a harmful cycle of restriction or more food rules, which just leads to more guilt when you eventually break down and eat the food. 

This desire for perfectly healthy eating isn’t just unrealistic; it’s unsustainable. And it keeps you stuck in a dieting mentality, which exacerbates the guilt even more. A cycle that never ends!

Top Reasons You Feel Guilty After Eating

Sadly, feeling guilty after eating is super common. It’s become such a normalized feeling that your mom, sister, or friend may say it in passing and you don’t even think twice about it. 

Food guilt usually comes from eating something that you think you shouldn’t because it is unhealthy or will make you gain weight (or keep you from losing weight). But there’s more to the story. 

Below are some of the top reasons why you may feel guilty after eating.

You have underlying food rules and beliefs

You might not even realize it, but you probably believe that you shouldn’t be eating certain foods or live by unspoken rules about when and how much you should eat. 

These rules may be leftover rules from dieting or just things you’ve heard from doctors, friends, family, or social media making you feel like there are certain foods you should or shouldn’t eat.

Common food rules and beliefs that lead to food guilt: 

• Time-bound food rules: don’t eat after 7pm, lunch isn’t until noon, don’t eat after dinner, etc. 
• Negative beliefs about certain foods: carbs cause weight gain, sugar is bad for you, processed foods are unhealthy, certain foods are only for cheat days, etc. 
• Portion size food rules: don’t eat more than the serving size on the package, you must make half your plate vegetables, not leaving food on your plate etc. 
• Positive food beliefs: you must have a certain amount of protein at every meal, all meals should have produce, etc. 
• Other: only eating organic, shopping the perimeter of the grocery store, etc. 

There are endless food rules you may live by and some may be so ingrained in you from childhood that you don’t even realize they’re there. And you may not even follow these food rules anymore but the actually a sign that they still exist or that there are some beliefs to work though.

These beliefs about food affect how you think about food, which then drive your actions that lead to food guilt.

You categorize foods as good or bad

Black-and-white thoughts about food are a common cause of guilt. You might feel good about yourself for eating vegetables but guilty for indulging in a dessert. Or you may feel guilty for not eating vegetables. 

You restrict certain foods

When you ban certain foods from your diet, you’re actually more likely to crave that food because we want what we can’t have. This has been shown over and over again in a variety of studies among both kids and adults. 

Eventually you’ll give into that craving, which almost always leads to feeling guilty after eating the off-limits food. And you may end up stuck in a binge-restrict cycle, which is a common cause of food guilt. 

You eat more than you wanted to

Low calorie diets, WW, macro counting, apps like My Fitness Pal, portion control recommendations may make you feel like you’re only supposed to eat a very specific amount, and any more than that is not OK. 

And when you inevitably eat more than some app (or health coach) told you to eat, guilt follows, even if you’re not uncomfortably full. 

How to Ditch the Guilt Around Eating

While feeling guilty after eating is common, it’s honestly no way to live! It distracts you from living your fullest life and can keep you stuck in a cycle feeling like a failure and trying to fix it with more restriction (which never works long term). 

The good news is, you can ditch the guilt by trading judgment for curiosity to understand the reasons behind your eating habits and finally eat to feel good in your body.

Work on your food beliefs

It’s so important to examine and challenge the thoughts you may have about food. 

By dismantling each belief or food rule and embracing a more nuanced view of nutrition, you can enjoy a variety of foods without feeling guilty.

Start by writing down all of your food rules or beliefs. Then, get curious about where they came from and then think critically about whether or not those beliefs are serving you now. From there you need to work to unlearn each rule or belief. 

Once you dismantle those beliefs you can begin to focus on nourishing your body while enjoying foods you love without guilt.

While you may be able to do this on your own, it can be a challenge. Inside the UNDIET Method I use a strategic 5-step approach to help you let go of every food rule and belief and replace them with more helpful beliefs that will lessen guilt. 

Make sure you’re eating enough

Your body requires adequate energy to function throughout the day. Undereating, especially in the morning can lead to overeating later on, which subsequently may cause feelings of guilt. 

Aim to eat regularly and choose filling and satisfying foods to prevent this cycle. Regular, nourishing meals maintain energy levels and can reduce out-of-control feelings, food cravings, or eating past the point of fullness.

Check and manage triggers

Identify triggers and emotions that lead to food guilt. Social media “what I eat in a day videos” and being around relatives or friends who act as the food police (i.e. police ore comment on your food choices) may make you feel bad about the food you’re eating.

Mute or unfollow accounts that make you feel bad about what you eat and create boundaries around food talk with people in your life.

Stress, boredom and fatigue may also be triggers to eat past the point of comfortable fullness and lead to guilt after eating. Once you’re aware of these behaviors, you can develop strategies to cope with these triggers without using food as the primary comfort.

Lead with kindness and self-compassion

Research shows that self-compassion is positively associated with better diet quality and negatively associated with emotional eating. 

Replace self-criticism with positive self-talk, which can lead to choices that you feel good about. When you treat yourself kindly and with understanding, you’re less likely to experience guilt around eating. 

Work towards body acceptance

Accepting your body is a significant step towards letting go of the guilt associated with eating. Start by respecting your body’s needs rather than blindly following dietary regimens that promise weight loss or perfection.

But body acceptance takes time. To begin your body acceptance journey, you may want to start with body image affirmations which are a useful tool to help you worry less about your body. 

We’ve gathered 40 of our favorite body image affirmations to get you started.

Final Thoughts: Why Do I Feel Guilty After Eating?

Feeling guilty after eating can be distressing, but remember, while food guilt is common, it’s not your fault, and you can let go of it. There are several ways to seek help and support to overcome these feelings.

If you’re ready to ditch the guilt and shame every time you eat a cookie and finally be able to enjoy your favorite foods without stress over how it will impact your weight or your health (while still building healthy habits that last), get started with our Free Training “How to Feel In Control Around All Foods (without diets or willpower).

Inside this training I’ll walk you through my proven method to let go of guilt after eating and finally free up your precious brain space to live a fuller life.