Ever feel like you have to eat something because you might not get it again?

You’re not hungry, but the second you see it—your brain screams, “Don’t miss out!”

That’s food FOMO. And it’s sneaky.

One minute, you’re trying to eat better. The next? You’re finishing dessert you didn’t even want.

There’s a reason panic shows up around food. And it’s not because you’re broken or weak.

It’s because diets have taught you to fear the foods you love.

In today’s episode, I’m teaching you how to shut down food FOMO before it runs the show. Because you can lose weight and enjoy food—without the freakouts.

And it starts here.

Today we're going to talk about fomo, food, fomo, and this is just the fear of missing out on food, and it's that feeling you get when you choose to eat something because you're afraid at the heart of it, I'm never going to get it again, or it'll be a long time before I can have this, or this is the last chance, or if I don't eat this now it'll be a long time before I can have it. So a lot of us have food, fomo, and it can make it hard to decide what to eat in the moment because that desire for the food, it goes b fucking zirk when you have fomo. So before I can tell you how do you navigate fomo, what I want to do is help you understand why we have it. One of the biggest reasons in women is because of past dieting behaviors.  

Anytime you have done diets where that involve a lot of restriction, maybe you have a history of dieting, low carb or you have a history of dieting where you cut out all, remember low fat days, sugar-free days. We as women have a long history of dieting where we cut out a lot of our favorite foods. We were told they were bad, we were told that we are being naughty if we eat them, all of that kind of stuff, our mind. Then whenever you're around the more fun foods and stuff, it triggers this unconscious fear that you are now just one diet away from never being allowed to eat that food again. Now, I know a lot of you go through this inside of no bs. This is one of the reasons why we do the 24 hour plan, because the 24 hour plan's job is to make sure that the foods you really want to include in your life are getting on a plan so that you can follow that and unlearn that the days of foods being taken away are over.  

Now that doesn't mean when you're trying to follow your plan that it's easy. It triggers guilt, it triggers shame, it triggers fear, triggers anxiety because you're used to only thinking of those foods in one way, which is naughty. And so over time, eating them and practicing the four basics alongside them, you will start to notice those anxieties going down because you will start losing weight and you will now have contradictory evidence. Your brain. Sometimes we can't outthink our old beliefs, but what we can do is do new things even though they're hard. Create new evidence like, oh my gosh. For some reason I always thought I had to be keto, but when I started No BS and I started doing the things Corrine said, I am losing weight eating some of the foods I love. I'm just eating them differently now. Then your brain has to come up with new thoughts around those foods because it's like one side of me thinks the only way to lose weight is keto, and the other side of me is like, Hey, I'm watching you lose weight and you're not on the keto.  

So what's right? Then you're pitted with having to form a new belief. So when you have food fomo, it's almost always for women based in some type of very restrictive diet, either where your favorite foods were taken away or Weight Watchers did a number on us for years, the points were just way too low for us. Well, it was great that they said you could eat what you want, but because they gave us so few points and they weren't feeding us enough food, each day you ran out of points for the foods you liked and if you ate something you liked, you couldn't eat enough food for the day in order to feel satisfied. So your body past food restriction, your body remembers that, and so when it comes up on some of the foods that you really like, it can trigger the food fomo and make you crave whatever food that you are restricting or that you have restricted in the past and it can become a vicious cycle of restricting and then undereating restricting, I mean restricting and then overeating, restricting, and then overeating.  

There's just a lot of studies showing that when you have an all or nothing approach to food and eating and you have inflexible diet rules like so many of us have done over the years, it actually leads to increased FOMO and overeating. Our brains don't want to feel restricted and limited. That is why it's important to lose weight without restriction and extreme limitations. We want to have choices. We want to feel like we have some freedom that is so much easier to do. So another reason why FOMO could be happening is if you come from a family where the food was not very available when you were a kid like I did, you may have missed out on a lot of meals, you may have missed out on a lot of things that other kids got to eat, like maybe your parents withheld a lot of candy and a lot of things, and for you if you didn't eat 'em in secret, when you're at a friend's house, if you didn't sneak off and eat daddy's treats, if you didn't get all you can at a meal because your family was really poor and you didn't know when you would get it enough.  

As an adult, this leads to what they call the scarcity mindset, and as an adult, you are still thinking there's not enough to go around At any moment this could go away. If somebody else gets more, then I'm going to miss out, and this can have us even as an adult when we know intellectually better, we can still feel really anxious. It's still bringing up those past memories. If you don't know that about yourself, it's really hard to understand what's happening in that moment. So when you have a scarcity mindset around food, either that there's not going to be enough or that you have to sneak to get the things that were withheld from you as a child, this can also increase FOMO in just everyday situations because you deep down believe you might miss out if you don't eat the food right now and fast.  

And so here are some ways to manage the food fomo because it's a frustrating thing, but there are things that you can do. One of the first and most powerful ones is using your 24 hour plan and stop restricting foods you love. If you are constantly trying to lose weight by taking away things you love, you are actually increasing the triggers for food, fomo for feeling like you're missing out. So rather than making a 24 hour plan that removes things you love, what I would rather you do is I would rather you make a 24 hour plan and put things on there you love, but also put a lot of things on there that are going to be healthier for you. Eat them together. A lot of times, even me, I like having something sweet at night, so very often I eat less dinner so that I can have room.  

Remember they used to say save room for dessert. They did that for a reason. I will eat a little bit of dinner and my vegetables and stuff and I'll also have a little bit of a dessert on the nights that I want it so that I feel like I'm getting all of it. I am getting the pleasure, I am getting the joy. I get to look forward to it. I get to know that I'm nourishing my body, plus I'm also giving it some of the fun things that I love. So rather than focusing on restricting foods and what I should and shouldn't eat and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, have your plan to have foods on there that you also love and that you can look forward to. And then when you are making your plan, remind yourself, I am becoming someone who trusts themselves around all foods right before you eat the food.  

The next big tip is to eat mindfully, is to really savor and enjoy the things you put on your plan. Most of us, we will eat it like we are eating it, like we're being bad. That's called mental restriction. So for some people, the reason why the 24 hour plan backfires on them is because while they're eating the foods they love, they're telling themselves, I shouldn't be eating this. I shouldn't be eating this. The FOMO mindset kicks in. You start eating faster. The next thing you know you've ate past enough, then the shame on eating past enough kicks in and that kickstart your fuck it eating well, I've already messed up, so I might as well. There are so many places to eat mindfully. First, before you eat a food that you enjoy, remind yourself that this is okay. This is never going away again.  

I am learning how to eat this food even if I'm overeating it. This will not be restricted ever again. Start eating if you like. Say, my job is to pay attention to loving it and to any thoughts in my mind. If they come through and say, you shouldn't be having this, just be a gentle reminder and say, that's okay. We're doing something new. I know you think that. I don't blame you for thinking that because we've been on so many diets that said, no, we're learning something new. You have to be with yourself in these moments. Pay attention to your eating. Pay attention for external cues. If you notice your pace going faster, you're not putting your fork down. So like I'm practicing putting my fork down. I don't care if you caught yourself racing and you're almost done, it's never too late. Say like, oops, I meant to eat more slowly this time.  

Let me put the fort down because I just noticed I was racing. I bet I get better at noticing this in the future. Every opportunity is an opportunity to slow yourself down, to really enjoy it and to also let all the mental do-do come up and then talk to yourself while it's coming up. Don't shame yourself. Don't wish those thoughts away. Don't act like that's a burden. This is part of the process. Part of the process of unlearning that type of talk around food is to teach yourself. Now, this is how we are going to talk around food. Trust me, this would be looking at your child and saying, well, you just turned 16. You've watched me drive all your life. Let me throw you behind the wheel of the car, give you the keys. Bye. I'm not even going to show you anything or co ride with you if you wouldn't turn your child loose in a car after watching you for 16 years drive.  

Don't sit there and get mad at your brain for a lifetime of thinking one way about food and now it's like, but I listened to an audio by Corinne. I don't know why you're saying this. We are going to teach our brain how to drive. That's all we're going to do. And then the thing is, you may want to think about your why's. The next time you're experiencing some food fomo and you're like all worried I won't get this again, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I want you to focus on your why's behind why you want to eat, not your whys behind why you want to lose weight. You want to, if your brain is like, oh my God, what if we never get this again? You want to ask yourself, is that the truth? Is there really a risk of me never getting this food ever again?  

Now, if you were in Italy on a once in a lifetime trip, you might say, yes, I really won't ever get this in again. Then you're not overweight because you're eating food you truly won't ever get to experience on a vacation, a real experience. That's when we say like, oh, that makes sense. I'm glad I reasoned this out. But if you're at Baskin Robins and have enough shit fit because you're looking at chocolate chip and it's almost gone in the container and y'all only go to Baskin Robbins once a month and you sit there and think like, oh my God, I'll never get this again, then that's when you say, really, we really never going to get chocolate chip ice cream ever again? Or am I just freaking out and I'm not really that hungry and I won't die if I don't have it? I might feel uncomfortable at best, but I also know I'm really focused this week on losing weight.  

I'm willing to be uncomfortable now so I don't have to be uncomfortable later. That's the kind of conversations we need to be having. And then one of the other unsung heroes of fomo, and I will keep saying this again and again and again is y'all need to eat enough. We need to be nourishing. Our bodies gone. Are there days where women need to starve themselves to lose weight? There is so much research and so much study that you pushing hunger to uncomfortable levels backfires. It is not the way do you really want to teach your body that the only way we lose weight is through starvation? No, you don't. You want to teach your body that. We nourish it, we nourish with rest, we nourish with thoughts. We nourish our feelings. We nourish with food. I eat plenty. So that is why in no bs I teach you that you need to wait for slight hunger.  

And when you're having slight hunger, you should eat so that your body can reestablish trust that when it needs food, food is there. It is the rare occasion that there's not enough food. When you are a chronic dieter who's always pushing hunger and restricting foods, you're teaching your body that when you're hungry, food might not be there. So it really should panic. It really should make up stories like you'll never get it again. This is the last one. Everybody's going to have a good time, but we do not want to put our brains in those positions. So this is how you conquer fomo.