Beyond "Keep Your Eyes on Your Own Plate": What Neuroscience Teaches Us About Food Recovery

Why the way we compare ourselves might be the key to lasting healing

Picture this: You're following your Bright Line Eating plan, trying to get back on track after yet another "slip" with sugar yesterday. You walk into the office kitchen and see Sarah from accounting preparing her perfectly portioned mason jar salad—the same thing she's brought every day for the past six months. She looks so calm, so put-together, chatting easily while she arranges her lunch.

Meanwhile, you're white-knuckling it through day one (again), your brain already obsessing over the leftover birthday cake in the break room. Look at her, you think. She's got it all figured out. Six months of perfect eating while I can't even string together two clean days. What's wrong with me? She makes it look so easy...

Or maybe you're in your Weight Watchers meeting, listening to Janet share about her 50-pound loss and how she "just stopped wanting junk food." You nod and smile while internally spiraling: She's obviously got some willpower gene I'm missing. I've been doing this program for two years and I'm still obsessing over food every single day. Everyone else seems to get it except me.

If this sounds familiar, you're not alone. For those of us struggling with food issues, these comparison moments don't just sting—they can send us straight into the shame spiral that leads right back to the behaviors we're trying to heal.

This is exactly why many recovery communities and programs teach us some version of "keep your eyes on your own plate" or "focus on your own program." When comparison feels like torture, avoidance seems like the only sane strategy.

But here's what's fascinating: new research suggests that while this protective approach is crucial for early recovery, it might not be the whole story.

The Plot Twist: Comparison Is Actually Normal (And Necessary)

I know, I know—this feels like heresy if you've been taught that comparison is the enemy, especially when it hurts so much. But stick with me here.

Neuroscientist and trauma therapist Sarah Peyton recently shared some mind-blowing research: comparison is literally how our brains work. It's not a character flaw or a sign we're "doing recovery wrong"—it's how humans make decisions, understand ourselves, and navigate the world.

Think about it: How do you choose which route to take to work? You compare drive times. How do you decide which Netflix show to watch? You compare what appeals to you versus what doesn't. How do you know if you're making progress? Your brain compares where you are now to where you were before.

We're comparing machines. The question isn't whether we'll compare—it's how we compare and whether that comparison helps or hurts us.

When Comparison Becomes Self-Torture

For those of us with food dysfunction, our comparison systems got seriously hijacked somewhere along the way. Maybe it started with being the "problem child" while our sibling was "naturally thin." Maybe it was years of diet culture promising that willpower was all we needed. Maybe it was trauma that left our nervous systems convinced we were fundamentally broken.

Whatever the cause, our natural comparison abilities turned into weapons of self-attack:

• Seeing someone effortlessly refuse dessert → "She has willpower, I'm weak"
• Watching a friend talk casually about forgetting to eat lunch → "Normal people don't obsess over food like I do"
• Hearing someone share about their "easy" 30-day streak → "Everyone else gets this except me"

The common thread? We compare our messy, struggling insides to other people's composed, put-together outsides. And we always lose.

No wonder we need to keep our eyes on our own plates! When comparison feels like evidence that we're fundamentally flawed, avoidance becomes self-preservation.

The Hidden Cost of Comparison Avoidance

But here's where it gets tricky. While avoiding comparison protects us from immediate pain, it can also cut us off from something we desperately need: the reality that everyone struggles, even the people who look like they have it all figured out.

I've heard this over and over: especially in early recovery, we become so convinced that everyone else was naturally "good with food" that we stop talking honestly about our own struggles. We sit in meetings nodding along while internally convinced we are the only one still obsessing, still slipping, still feeling like a fraud.

The problem? This kind of isolation feeds the very shame that drives our food behaviors. When we're convinced we're uniquely broken, every setback becomes evidence that we should just give up.

But what if Sarah from accounting also struggles? What if she's had her own slips that you don't see? What if Janet from Weight Watchers still has days when food feels hard, but the meeting format doesn't create space for that reality?

The Secret Sauce: Seeing Behind the Curtain

This is where Peyton's work gets really interesting. She discusses "unconscious contracts"—the deep-seated agreements we form with ourselves about how to navigate the world. Many of us have contracts around comparison that sound like:

• "I will assume everyone else has it easier than me so I don't get my hopes up"
• "I will never let anyone see me struggle so I don't get rejected"
• "I will always find myself lacking compared to others so I remember to try harder"
• "I will believe that some people are just naturally good with food so I have an excuse when I fail"

These contracts often formed when we were young and needed to make sense of a confusing world. But they can keep us trapped in isolation and shame.

What This Looks Like in Real Life

Let's go back to that office kitchen scenario. Instead of getting hijacked by comparison, what if we could pause and ask ourselves:

• "What story am I telling myself about Sarah right now?"
• "Am I comparing my day one to her day 180?"
• "What if she also has hard days that I just don't see?"
• "What would self-compassion say about where I am right now?"

Maybe we notice: Oh, I'm assuming she's perfect because I need someone to be perfect so I can believe recovery is possible. But I'm also using her "perfection" to beat myself up.

Or perhaps: I'm on day one again, and that's hard. But day one means I'm trying again, and that takes courage.

The difference isn't what we're noticing about others, but how we're interpreting what we see.

The Curated Reality Problem

Here's something crucial: we only see other people's highlight reels, never their behind-the-scenes struggles. That colleague who looks so put-together with food? You don't see her crying in her car after a binge last weekend. That meeting member who shares about her success? You don't hear about the day she ate an entire box of cookies and felt like starting over was impossible.

This isn't anyone's fault—we're not walking around sharing our most vulnerable moments with casual acquaintances. But it means our comparison data is fundamentally skewed. We're comparing our full, messy reality to other people's carefully curated public moments.

The Recovery Stages: A Different Approach

This suggests a more nuanced approach to comparison in recovery:

Early Recovery: The Protection Phase "Keep your eyes on your own plate" becomes essential harm reduction. Your nervous system is raw, your shame is high, and comparison feels like proof that you'll never succeed. Protection first, connection second.

Middle Recovery: The Reality-Testing Phase You start getting curious: What if other people struggle too? What happens when I share honestly with safe people? What stories am I telling myself about others that might not be true?

Later Recovery: The Community Phase You begin to see that everyone's recovery journey has ups and downs. You can be inspired by someone's progress without it meaning you're failing. You can offer hope to someone behind you on the path.

A Different Kind of Recovery Space

Imagine recovery communities where:

• People share both successes AND struggles
• "Good days" and "hard days" are both welcome
• Progress is measured in resilience, not perfection
• Someone's breakthrough doesn't make others feel like failures

This isn't fantasy—it's what happens when we create space for the full human experience of recovery. (Join us in "Where the Magic Happens" to experience it first hand)

None of this requires becoming a comparison expert overnight. Peyton talks about "microseconds of relief"—tiny moments when our nervous system gets a break from its protective vigilance.

Maybe it's one moment when you see someone's success and feel inspired instead of threatened. Maybe it's sharing one honest struggle and realizing you're not alone. Maybe it's catching yourself in a comparison spiral and offering yourself compassion instead of more shame.

These microseconds add up. They become minutes, then hours, then a whole new way of being in the world.

Starting Where You Are

If you're reading this and thinking, 'This sounds nice, but I'm barely holding it together, and everyone else really does seem to have it easier,' that's perfect. Start there. Honor the protection your nervous system is trying to provide.

But maybe also ask yourself:

• What if the people who look "successful" also have struggles I don't see?
• What would it feel like to share one honest thing with one safe person?
• How might my recovery change if I stopped trying to figure it out all alone?

The Bigger Picture

Ultimately, this isn't just about food recovery—it's about belonging to the human community. When we can transform comparison from evidence of our inadequacy into recognition of our shared struggles, everything changes.

Because here's the truth: everyone is figuring it out as they go. The people who look like they have it all together? They're winging it too, just maybe with better PR.

And that kind of reality? It's actually much more hopeful than the myth of effortless success. Because if recovery is a messy, nonlinear, very human process, then you're not doing it wrong—you're doing it exactly like everyone else who's ever healed anything.

Recovery is hard enough without the added burden of thinking you're the only one struggling. If you're dealing with food issues, consider finding support that honors both your need for protection and your need to know you're not alone in this very human journey.