When we see yet another ad for a weight loss/wellness/cleanse/diet, they aren’t selling us weight loss-they are selling the life that awaits us when we’ve lost the weight. Which only intensifies our association between losing weight and living the life we’ve always dreamed of.
Read MoreOne principle of Intuitive Eating is Honor Your Hunger. While it may seem simple (ringing up past moments of diet-y advice to ‘just eat when you’re hungry and stop when you’re full!’), we know it’s more than that. After decades of being told that your hunger is something to be controlled, revered, or ignored, honoring it feels scary and somewhat impossible.
Read More“I get it (intuitive eating, health at every size, food freedom), but I don’t get it”. Translation: “intellectually I understand the concept, but experientially I’m at a loss.” This feels SO hard. So hard because we can know and understand the evidence that supports Intuitive Eating and Health at Every Size, but feel clueless as to how to make it feel true and put the concepts into practice.
Read MoreFor many of us, the words “dieting and exercise” are like “peanut butter and jelly”. They just go together. When you’re ‘on’ one, you’re ‘doing’ the other. Conversely, when you’re ‘off’ one, you’re definitely not ‘doing’ the other.
Read MoreWe’re coming up to the time when we’re going to be extra bombarded with messages about our eating. More specifically, messages about our bodies wrapped up in messages about our eating. When we start wading into the waters of Intuitive Eating, it’s hard enough saying no to regular old diets (the ones we’ve been on/off since we were teenagers, the ones with commercials featuring celebrities, the ones that don’t try to hide they’re diets). It’s even harder to stay the course of turning inward for direction on how/what/when to eat when there are diets that don’t identify as diets around every corner (those sneaky sneaks!)
Read MoreOkay, so we’re post-Thanksgiving and middle-holiday season. A normal response (that we’ve been conditioned to believe is a bad way our body responds to evil food) is to sometimes get bloated. It can trigger a reaction in us that induces guilt, pushes us to start planning how we’re going to adjust our eating to ‘fix’ it, and makes us feel like we did something wrong. Our heads can be scary places after (what are normal) experiences of eating past fullness.
Read MoreWeight loss efforts are appealing for so many reasons. The one that gets a lot of attention is the end result-the promise of a body that will make you feel proud, a body that will make all of the other things you worry about somehow cease to exist (or at least cause less worry), a body that is the body you were meant to have. All of which are appealing as hell when we’re spiraling, deeply ashamed of our body. And all of which we realize after a ‘successful’ weight loss effort are actually totally false.
Read MoreIt’s officially November. Halloween has passed, the days are shorter, and Christmas decorations seem to be coming out in full force. Between now and December 31st, we will be surrounded by foods we’re told to simultaneously make/bake/enjoy while also told (implicitly and explicitly) to abstain from. A real mind-f**k.
Read MoreIt’s the day after Halloween. You wake up feeling a mix of guilt and fear. Guilt because you ate all the candy that didn’t get passed out (candy that isn’t even a kind you particularly enjoy, which you did on purpose), wrappers in a heap on the table that you quickly smushed together and disposed of, angry with yourself and unable to tolerate seeing the ‘evidence’. Along comes fear. Fear that you’re not going to be able to pass up the leftover candy everyone is bringing in to the office today. Or maybe you feel resolve, confident you can pass it up because you are so disgusted with yourself you just know you’ll be able to be strong.
Read MoreI often think of this phrase as I see people begin to heal their relationship with food. When we’re stuck in the painful, endless cycle of binge/shame/restrict, our joie de vivre is squashed. There is very limited ability to delight in the joy of being alive when your mind is endlessly screaming at you about eating (either for being ‘bad’ or screaming to keep it together and eat perfectly), not having it (your body) together, and generally feeling a sense of unease.
Read MoreHealing your relationship with food and your body means being willing to grieve. It means grieving the time you may feel you’ve lost to hating your body and obsessing about food. It may mean grieving the body you’ve always wished you had to make compassionate space for the body you have right now. Or it may be grieving the idea of waking up one day and loving your body in order to give way for the the not-always-fast road to respecting your body.
Read MoreYou’re overwhelmed…deadlines are due, your partner is starting to get annoyed that you’re not around as much (and when you are, you’re not really there), your home is a mess, you forgot your friend’s birthday and there is just.not.enough.time. The demands are crushing and you’re left feeling like things are slipping through the cracks at an alarming rate. Enter the newest “clean” eating plan/cleanse/re-set/diet and exercise plan.
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