“No! Maybe? Okay, you’re right.”
This is the phrase one client used to describe her experience learning about intuitive eating.
The first reaction: No. How could it be? I thought I was doing the right thing by trying to control my food to lose weight. This can’t be true. Restricting and restraining my food cannot possibly be the problem. Overeating is my problem. I just need more willpower and discipline.
As she continued to read the book and explore intuitive eating in our group program: Well, maybe. What I’ve been doing hasn’t really worked for me. My relationship with food has gotten worse, not better, from dieting. My tolerance to any food restriction has diminished over time, like so many other dieters, apparently. I’m lucky if I can last a few days on my new plan. Maybe this really isn’t my fault?
And then, at the end of her six-month exploration of intuitive eating: Okay, you’re right! I’m so done with dieting. It is so not my fault. I’m breaking up with dieting culture so I can live my life without apology. I’m allowed to take up space. I can listen to my body and be more in tune with internal cues that tell me when, what and how much to eat. I’m allowed to eat without feeling guilt and shame. And it feels so damn good.
Many people wish they’d known about this alternative paradigm years ago. They think about the time, energy and money they could have saved. They think about the years spent self-loathing instead of self-fulfilling. They think about how dieting has just made them gain more weight over time, and how they’d love to weigh what they weighed when they started dieting. (If only they’d trusted their bodies and themselves back then.)
It doesn’t have to be this way. You, too, can stop weighting to live your life. In fact, you don’t have to be sure to start, just curious.
Consider investing in yourself instead of the multi-billion dollar diet and cosmetic fitness industries that have zero long-term outcome data to support their claims of helping you lose weight and improve your health. That’s right, ZERO data! In fact, they depend on you coming back, over and over again, despite their plans and programs not working for you in the long run. They only benefit when you keep blaming yourself instead of placing the blame where it belongs.
It can be different, but not by trying harder. Because how much harder can you really try? We’re pretty sure you’ve already tried really hard. Our e-course is an opportunity for you to try different. Here is what one recent participant said:
“I thought I would have lost weight. I thought I would be a different person. I thought that it would be easy. All that in six weeks. But instead it is much better.
I have no clue what my weight is.
I am aware of my body.
I have a glimpse of what it means to be hungry and full.
I am a beautiful person.
Just as I am.
It is ok to take up space.
I am on a journey.
Thanks for nudge!” -KR
Warmly,
“I’m so done with dieting. I’m breaking up with dieting culture so I can live my life without apology. http://bit.ly/23pNLMX #nomoreweighting”
Click The Birdie To Tweet!
View more posts related to these topics
Many, if not most, people who worry about how nutrition impacts health spend their time judging people for their food choices or claiming that we are “being poisoned” with sugar or processed or highly palatable foods while knowing little to nothing about the systemic injustices in our food systems.
Body Trust is a radically different way of relating to, occupying, and caring for your body in a culture that doesn’t trust bodies.
it’s easy to get swept up and away from all you are exploring here. To wander and then return is the path to reclaiming body trust.