when all else failed, intuitive eating saved my life

an extensive discussion on learning how to eat again, in case diet culture also ruined your relationship with food (join the club)

if you’re even remotely interested in the topic of intuitive eating, it’s safe to assume you’re looking to heal a disordered relationship with food.

to that i say, welcome to the club. there’s many, MANY more us of here than you’d think (or hope) </3

nobody is immune to the extreme influence and deep infiltration that diet culture has on our society. whether we realize it or not, we’re constantly being fed messaging that has us second guessing absolutely every choice we make when it comes to our health. in fact, beyond what we are simply told health is, many of us never realize we’re free to define that for ourselves.

we’re told about countless diet trends that promise we’ll shed “X pounds in X days”, workouts that give us a “flat tummy”, foods that are “superfoods” (great) also foods that are demonized to the degree of being a public enemy (not great). you get the idea.

with all of this external noise, it’s almost guaranteed we lose sight of our intuition. our gut feelings, our cravings, our body’s wants and needs. over time, we learn to fear not only foods, but also changes in our bodies, and of course, not being “healthy” (a concept we all get to discover for ourselves, yet are taught is a cookie cutter, one-size-fits-all idea). along the way, we allow rules guide the way we go about nourishing ourselves, replacing our intuition slips that we once depended on instead.

let’s go get that back, shall we?

time to lose control

for me, the most intimidating aspect of intuitive eating was the immense fear of losing control. i was terrified of the idea that once i “allowed” myself to eat “whatever” i wanted, i’d never be able to stop myself. for so many years, i lived an obedient life. a life one outlined by irrational food rules and fears i created for myself. without realizing it, i started to keep a list of foods that were off limits. the only criteria for this list? every item was one i believed to be unhealthy (spoiler alert: this was diet culture well at work). my list grew and grew and grew, ironically resulting in only had a handful of safe foods i ate.

when we tell ourselves there’s something we can’t have, we’ll simply want it more. we’ll think about it all of the time, excessively. this unattainable thing that we’re reaching for but can never grasp. that’s what having a restrictive relationship with food is like. at my worst, nearly every food under the sun was on my list of foods to avoid. these were foods i could never even think about enjoying. this “off limits” mindset left me subconsciously thinking about these foods quite literally 24/7.

every single day i resisted and shut down my cravings. ignored my rumbling stomach as it begged me to simply eat what i wanted. isn’t it sad that this is what we’re taught being healthy is all about? resisting temptation. how insane.

this is only sustainable until it’s not. until you break.

at the end of the day, we’re all just human. there’s only so much we can suppress until we burst. when we don’t allow ourselves to consume certain foods, they begin to consume us.

for context…

let’s say you never permit yourself to eat brownies, because you’ve been conditioned to believe that they’re unhealthy and will make you gain weight (i feel sick typing something so ridiculous, but bear with me for the sake of the argument). you go weeks, months, YEARS, never having a single bite of a brownie, but you’re always thinking about them in the back of your mind. you praise yourself for being disciplined, when really what you’re doing is self-sabotaging.

then one day, you find yourself in the same room as a tray of freshly baked brownies. you finally break. you tell yourself you’ll have just one. before you realize it, you’ve eaten the entire batch. now you’re feeling physically sick, emotionally burnt out, and mentally defeated. why did this happen, and how can we stop it?

THE WHY:

why did it happen? that’s simple— you’ve created a scarcity mindset around this food. by convincing yourself brownies are off limits, you’re communicating with your mind and body that this food is very rare. once you have access to this food, your body is convinced it has to load up on it, because who knows when you’ll see it again?

*disclaimer*: i can’t speak confidently to binge eating as its own classified eating disorder (my re-feeding process when recovering from anorexia looked a lot like binge eating, but it wasn’t exactly… more on that in another newsletter), but let’s call it a binge for the sake of painting a picture. you binge the entire batch of brownies, because your relationship with food is consumed by a scarcity mindset.

what we see here are two extremes, all or nothing, black and white thinking.

what we’re missing here is balance between the two. so how do we achieve it? this is where intuitive eating comes in.

THE HOW:

intuitive eating. but we need to backtrack a bit. let’s start at the root of it all.