The Bow Always Snaps Back

The bow always snaps back

One of my mentors, Isabel Foxen Duke, is a leader in the Health at Every Size movement who wants to help women stop feeling crazy around food.

Isabel often describes the cycle of dieting/deprivation/restricting and binge eating as a “bow and arrow.” It’s an excellent metaphor for an experience that’s all-too-familiar for so many women—including many of my clients when they first begin working with me.

To paraphrase Isabel’s metaphor… Picture a bow and arrow. When you pull back the arrow—pulling it back, back, back, making the bowstring so tense and taught—that’s when you’re depriving yourself. (“No carbs. No sugar. No chocolate. No dairy. No, no, no!” Etc.)

Sure, you can pull back the arrow. Sure, you can hold it there for a while. But eventually, your arm gets tired. You begin to sweat, tremble, and grow weary. You can’t hold it there forever. You’re only human, after all. Sooner or later, you have to let go.

SHWIIIING! The bowstring snaps back. The arrow flies violently in the opposite direction. The tighter you pulled back that arrow, the farther and faster it’s going to fly in the opposite direction. Now you find yourself eating a lot of calorie dense foods, perhaps binge (or what I like to call reactionary) eating. Things have swung from one extreme to another.

Then you decide, “I have to get things back under control!” and you pull the arrow back again, as tightly as you can. You try to hold it there. But again, you can’t hold it there forever. Eventually is snaps back. The cycle repeats.

Women often want to know, “How I stop binge eating?” or “How can I stop feeling so out of control when it comes to food?”

The answer is… stop pulling the arrow back so tightly. Stop dieting, depriving, and restricting.

This is true when it comes to food—and every other area of life, too.

Tell a teenager, “You can’t date! Forbidden! No!” and what do they do? Sneak out of the house for secret make-out sessions—or more.

Tell yourself, “Work harder! No breaks until you finish the next 20 things on your to-do list!” and then what happens? You desperately crave a mental vacation. Hello, YouTube spiral, watching goofy videos for hours on end.

Human beings crave freedom—not restriction. It’s just how we are wired. We can’t tolerate deprivation for too long. The bow always snaps back. So if you don’t want to experience that snap-back effect, then don’t pull the bowstring so taut to begin with.

Here’s a good place to begin. If you notice yourself craving a particular food, don’t say, “No! I can’t have that.” Instead, say, “I can have that. I can have all of it, if I want to. Or I can have some of it. Or none of it. I can have some right now. Or tomorrow. Or the next day. What feels best? What’s going to help me feel comfortable in my body now—and later, too?”

Shifting from denial to curiosity—“How can I take the best care of myself today?”—can help you release some of the tension in your bow and arrow.

See if you can let your bow and arrow rest lightly in your arms—gently, relaxed, without pulling it so taught—and it will transform the way you eat and feel and live.

xoxo,