Just Eat It

Now you’re familiarized with the principles of IE I want to share some common ‘road bumps’ or sticking points that people have difficulty putting into place. I’ve asked some of my favourite non-diet friends to share pieces of inspiration and advice to really help you solidify the last little pieces of the IE process, and to refer back to if you need a little refresher without having to re-read the whole book.

Thanks to diet culture, there will always be an allure around weight loss. Just a temptation to try one more diet and then I can nail this intuitive eating business. You might not even be acting on it at all but the mentality, the diet mentality, just that little whisper is there. And that’s pretty normal so give yourself a break. It’s OK to grieve dieting, to let go of what you’ve put so much time, energy, money, and resources towards for so many years; letting go of that is pretty full on!

Give yourself some self-compassion; you’re only human and when you’ve invested so much in this, it’s like a stock market crash! All of a sudden, your stocks aren’t coming to fruition – like you’ve invested in them, and what does that mean? That’s actually a big step when people can kind of move past that, like that’s when life opens really. But that’s the one thing that people have is that grief process or the ‘thin me’ dream, or just the diet mentality hanging around, knocking.

People often say to me, ‘I know diets don’t work for me, I’ve done them so many times, I just know they’re not going to have a different outcome, but if I stop dieting, then I’m letting myself go.’ And there’s a cognitive distortion going on, an all-or-nothing mentality: ‘If I’m not dieting then I’m just this gluttonous sloth sitting on the couch never doing anything again.’ But this misses a lot of nuance and variation; choosing to not diet is a very active process because it’s counter-cultural, and you could be thinking about it every day, multiple times a day. And it’s important to remember it’s a very health-promoting choice, it’s just choosing to live in a way that’s completely different. It sucks because diet culture teaches us ‘if you don’t choose me, then you’re destined for failure’, and again, because it’s counter-cultural it just feels that way, but that’s not accurate. Rejecting diet culture takes a lot of effort but the benefits can be enormous in terms of your mental and physical health, and your relationship to food.

If you identify as plus-sized or fat, it can sometimes feel extra scary to give up pursuing weight loss through dieting. My clients routinely tell me their fears of never finding romantic partners, being ostracized socially, and not being able to participate in the same activities as thin people.

I never try to downplay the effects of fat oppression because they’re unfortunately very real. At the same time, it can also be incredibly liberating to notice the pain we cause ourselves when we implicitly agree with what fat-phobic people say about us. When we agree with people that we’re less worthy than them, the effects of fat oppression can be greatly amplified. When we rise up and gain confidence in ourselves no matter our size, we can adopt a much more resilient, strong posture in the face of negativity.

From that stance, we can also start to notice the places in our lives where we might be making incorrect assumptions about what we can and can’t do as fat people. We can stop artificially limiting ourselves (from things like wearing certain clothes, seeking love, and taking other social risks) and truly start to thrive.

Very often a difficult body-image day is like a little red flag going up that can tell you something more meaningful is going on for you. For the most part, we learn to associate stress in life with our body not being good enough. This can be true even if it is ‘good’ stress, like going on a date with someone you like. You may be excited about the date, and at the same time it may mean a lot to you for it to go well, so that stress manifests into thoughts about body image. For example, if someone didn’t get a great review on an important assignment or in her job, then she might suddenly feel worse about her body, her weight, or her appearance. Or if someone is getting ready to deliver a speech in front of a large group of people and is having a very tough time getting dressed, she may be attributing the stress of wanting to do well at her speech with ‘I have to look perfect’ or ‘I don’t look good enough to do this’. This is very common, but all too often we get lost inside the body-image thoughts and we don’t recognize it is simply a message that something important is going on.

It can help greatly to pause and discover what in fact is truly bothering you. For the example about the stress of going on a date, the deeper issue could be: ‘it’s really important to me that I feel acceptable and treated well on this date’ or ‘clearly I care what this person thinks. That could be a good sign that I might really like him/her!’ By recognizing the deeper message, it is so much easier to turn the negative into a neutral or even a positive mindset. If you’re really struggling even after recognizing the message within your body-image discomfort, try and be very kind to yourself. Wear clothing that feels good on your body as this is critical for not carrying around a reminder all day that you’re feeling uncomfortable in your body. Use things like your favourite-smelling lotion, listen to feel-good music, eat and/or drink comforting foods and beverages like hot tea or a homemade meal to satisfy yourself and demonstrate that even on a tough body-image day, you will not abandon self-kindness. You do not have to be perfect to be worthy, valuable, special, accepted, and respected. Anyone who can’t respect you as you are today, doesn’t deserve your time or energy. Lastly, try to look at yourself beyond your physical appearance. How we speak, listen, show up, relate, teach, care, and behave are great things to turn your attention to when you’re feeling stuck in negative body image.

Letting go of dieting and learning to tune in to and honour your body is a practice. If you’re struggling to stop eating past the point of fullness, there are a few things to consider, experiment with, and practise. Ask yourself if you are eating small amounts or grazing throughout the day, causing primal, desperate hunger at night. Can you create a sense of curiosity around this, instead of judgement, experimenting with different things to see if they help you tune in to your cues? For some, answers about eating beyond fullness lie in simply eating intentional, satisfying meals throughout the day (rather than skipping meals or eating very small amounts) that help to lessen chaos with food later. Can you experiment with reminding yourself that food isn’t scarce and you’ll get what you need? Sometimes eating past fullness is a result of subconscious or conscious fears that food is scarce, leading you to feel compelled to eat beyond full right now. Can you give yourself that unconditional permission to eat and allow yourself to feel secure in food always being there? Experiment non-judgementally with these things in the spirit of curiosity, and you’ll eventually uncover what works best for you. And remember, this is something we’re practising each day, and with time you’ll improve and learn more what is best for you.

Help! I’m still eating past the point of comfortable fullness! (Part 2): Laura

Following on from Paige (above), if you have established that you are giving yourself full unconditional permission and eating intentional and satisfying meals throughout the day, could it be that you are blaming your eating habits for your body not fitting into aesthetic ideals? In other words, do you perceive you are eating ‘too much’ simply because you’re not happy with your body? Judging food choices may be a sign that you have some work to do on body image and internalized fat phobia. Remember that your body knows how to regulate itself without you having to micromanage it. Go back to chapter 5 on body image and revisit the exercises on body neutrality.

Giving yourself permission to give up dieting is a radical and counter-cultural act. Dieting gives you a false sense of control because you are told exactly what, how much, and when to eat. The problem is this is not sustainable and disconnects you from your body’s needs. It is normal to fear that without these rules you will never stop eating; however, our bodies know how to give us the appropriate signals once we have made food available consistently. Hunger and fullness cues can be just as reliable as shivering when you are cold, sweating when you are hot, or feeling your bladder is full. Giving yourself permission to eat foods unconditionally and experience joy and pleasure isn’t a sign of weakness. It doesn’t mean that you are giving up or disregarding your health. Giving permission is a sign of strength and acceptance, and makes more room for you to take care of yourself. By giving yourself permission, you are gaining your inner voice of authority. You are the boss of your body and you know what is best for it.

Will I ever not crave highly palatable foods all the time? If I keep eating what I’m craving I feel like I’m going to eat brownies, ice cream, pizza, etc all the time?

Giving yourself full permission to eat any and all foods at any and all times in any and all amounts is a foundational step in intuitive eating. Additionally, coming to a neutral place with all foods where you don’t see any foods as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ is another foundational step. Moving through these two principles can take a while, so give yourself lots of patience. Any sort of physical, mental, or emotional restriction is going to trigger your biological drive to eat and interfere with your ability to make intuitive food choices. So if you are still having trouble giving yourself permission to eat brownies, it makes total sense that you’d crave them often because they are a forbidden food. Our brains crave what they can’t have. Over time, you will come to a place where you can freely say, ‘Sure, a cupcake sounds so good right now’ and you can also freely say, ‘I don’t really feel like that cupcake, but thanks.’ You’ll still crave these foods occasionally, but they won’t always be on your brain. Intuitive eating allows you to move away from chaotic or guilty experiences with food and teaches you how to feel competent around highly palatable foods. Remember food is supposed to be pleasurable and satisfying. Intuitive eating allows you to eat these pleasurable foods in a nourishing amount when you are craving them. Again, remember you won’t always crave these foods for every meal/snack but until you give yourself full permission to eat them without judgement you will crave them all the time. Be patient. Give yourself time. This is all part of the process.

How do I know if I’m still restricting/in diet mentality or if I REALLY want to eat the broccoli?

You’re still in diet mentality if you’re choosing foods you think are ‘healthy’ because you fear what will happen if you don’t. If there’s fear, there’s probably some restrictive thinking at play. This is obviously distinct from the fear of, say, eating peanuts when you have a peanut allergy, which is an understandable and life-saving fear. But barring serious food allergies like that, you really don’t feel afraid of eating (or not eating) anything when you’re in the mindset of intuitive eating and gentle nutrition. Instead the operative emotions are desire and self-care – that is, you genuinely WANT the veggies (or whatever food) because they sound delicious/refreshing/crunchy/flavourful/etc, and you’d like to have some veggies that day because you know it helps your digestive system keep running smoothly. Note that it’s possible to have the self-care impulse AND still be stuck in diet mentality, and the way you’ll know is fear – fear of damaging your health by making the ‘wrong’ choice, and of course fear of gaining weight.

I know that diets don’t work for me, but accepting I won’t be thin/as thin as I imagined is really hard!

For a great many of us, embarking on a non-diet journey involves learning to accept that our bodies will never match the ‘ideal’ presented to us by society. It can also mean having to come to terms with the energy, time, and money we’ve wasted trying to reach that ideal.

It can be helpful to acknowledge the torrent of emotions this inner work can trigger. In fact, many practitioners have likened it to a grieving process, where we spend time bouncing between feelings of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

It’s important to know how completely normal it is to have strong emotions as you do this work. Giving up on the goal we once thought was the ticket to our happiness is not an easy task, but you can absolutely get to the other side. What will help most is giving yourself plenty of permission and time to process whatever emotions come up for you, whether that’s through journalling, talking to friends, getting professional support, or something similar.

Intuitive eating is a framework to help you get back to your version of normal – whatever that looks like for you. Intuitive eating is not prescriptive in terms of what, when, or how much you should eat. I don’t want this to become yet another thing we have to do because it’s cool or trendy. Intuitive eating is about you taking charge of your mental and physical health and rejecting dogmatic ideas about health being predicated on your weight or unrealistic beauty standards that were imposed on you before you were even conceived. It will look different on everyone, and that’s OK! My favourite description of normal eating was written in 1983 by Ellyn Satter in her book Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family1, and she totally nails it:

Normal eating is going to the table hungry and eating until you are satisfied. It is being able to choose food you enjoy and eat it and truly get enough of it – not just stop eating because you think you should. Normal eating is being able to give some thought to your food selection so you get nutritious food, but not being so wary and restrictive that you miss out on enjoyable food. Normal eating is giving yourself permission to eat sometimes because you are happy, sad or bored, or just because it feels good. Normal eating is mostly three meals a day, or four or five, or it can be choosing to munch along the way. It is leaving some cookies on the plate because you know you can have some again tomorrow, or it is eating more now because they taste so wonderful. Normal eating is overeating at times, feeling stuffed and uncomfortable. And it can be undereating at times and wishing you had more.

Normal eating is trusting your body to make up for your mistakes in eating. Normal eating takes up some of your time and attention, but keeps its place as only one important area of your life. In short, normal eating is flexible. It varies in response to your hunger, your schedule, your proximity to food, and your feelings.

Normal eating is flexible, dynamic, and adapts to different situations and circumstances. Sometimes we are busy and stressed and need to make food choices that help support our immediate needs for energy and sustenance, with little regard for long-term health. Other times we have time, space, and energy to lovingly prepare home-cooked meals for our family for the whole week. Sometimes we order a pizza, sometimes we eat a salad, sometimes we eat both. Sometimes we eat a little too much birthday cake, other times we pass on the birthday cake. Sometimes we eat past the point of comfortable fullness, other times we don’t eat enough and wake up with a rumbling tummy. All of this is intuitive eating, all of this is OK. You decide.

My wish for you is that by this point in the book you feel a million times better about food and body image. But also, if you’re not there yet, seriously, don’t sweat it. Intuitive eating is a practice; an iterative process that you can go back to as many times as you need to until you have taken what you need from it. The quiz here can help you identify the areas you might want to focus on (although you probably have a pretty good idea of this on your own). From experience, though, clients tend to think they’re doing a lot worse than they really are (remember negativity bias). Remember we’re not aiming for perfection here, but flexible, adaptive eating that makes you feel healthy and strong without feeling restricted or deprived.

So where to now? Now that we’re done with diets and body-checking, and restriction and deprivation, what comes next? Here’s the part I come clean and level with you. My intention with this book was to help you get your shit together around food, but this was also a massive decoy, because getting your shit together around food is only the beginning of this story and the work that needs to be done. Make no mistake, food and body hang-ups are intentional and deliberate distractions engineered by a capitalist patriarchal society that thrives on insecurity, fabricated inadequacies, and keeping women from realizing their full power.

In this sense, getting your shit together around food is subversive; the patriarchy has weaponized food and our bodies against us under the guise of diet culture, ‘wellness’, and the beauty and fashion industries. Diet culture wants us to stay oppressed, fearful, consumed, and confused by navigating a system that intentionally shape-shifts and morphs to keep us just subdued and hungry enough not to realize what’s going on.

But when we can shake off the ideals and the power that oppress us, only then can we push back against the tyranny, forging new paths, and making way for the real work to begin. The work of social justice and equality. Not just equal pay for white middle-class women, but equal pay for all women. Period. Pay is only one domain where we have work to do; there are countless others. The point here is this, and I’m going to be blunt so please forgive me, but there is way more important shit going on in the world that justifies and deserves our attention, resources, energy, and spirit than worrying about food, and when we look outside of ourselves at the pain and suffering of others around us it can help us gain clarity and perspective on our own hang-ups.

● In the UK one in ten girls have been unable to afford sanitary wear, and one in seven girls have struggled to afford sanitary wear.2

● The Trussell Trust, the largest food-bank network in the UK, handed out 1.2 million food packages in 2016/17 compared with around 41,000 food packages in 2009/10.3

● We are amidst the biggest refugee crisis since WWII, with over 65.6 million people displaced from their homes in 2016 due to war, violence, and persecution.4

● One in eight trans employees have been physically attacked by a colleague or customer in the last year and a quarter have experienced homelessness.5

● Socio-economic inequalities are the biggest driver of health disparities with people in the lowest socio-economic groups having a life expectancy seven years shorter than those in the highest socio-economic group. What’s more, the richest people in society can enjoy seventeen more years disease/disability free compared to the poorest in society.6 The World Health Organization has stated that social inequalities in health arise because of inequalities in the conditions of daily life and the fundamental drivers that give rise to them: inequities in power, money, and resources. If we are serious about improving health, we need to get serious about reducing inequality.7

Period poverty, homelessness, food inequality, LGBTQIA+ rights, and social inequalities present a fraction of the issues that plague society, and I’m certainly not suggesting that any one individual can take down all that stuff on their own. But imagine if the two-thirds of people on diets in the UK channelled all the energy, strength, grit, and determination usually reserved for dieting, and used it as a force for social change? Collectively, if each of us harnessed even a proportion of that energy into taking action, whether that’s online activism, protesting, canvassing for a political party, volunteering with a charity, donating time or money, craftivism, starting a community group, or just helping your neighbour out with their shopping, imagine the ripple effect that would have?

Look, I’m not saying you need to become a martyr or a saint. I want you to live your dreams beyond dieting and exercise. Being free of diet culture means having the space and energy to create a fulfilling life (think about what you can do, what you can achieve, right now, in this body). What I’m saying though, is that if we pull together, we can make real and meaningful changes that not only enrich our lives, but help raise up those most vulnerable in our society, making it more fair and equitable for all of us. That is the real magic in unsubscribing from diet culture and it’s time to take our power back.