The early days of intuitive eating can be exciting and exhilarating.
They can also be when you hear the most chatter and lies when it comes to the journey you’re embarking on.
Let’s combat those lies about intuitive eating with some truth.
Scroll to the bottom of this blog post if you would rather watch the corresponding videos instead of reading 🙂
Lies about Early Recovery
Lie : ‘This is too much food.’
Truth : It’s not. But it may feel like too much food when you’ve been functioning at a 50% deficit. The bigger the deficit, the bigger the swing will need to be towards normality of hunger and fullness. Don’t give up because it feels like too much now. It won’t always feel that way.
Lie : ‘This journey is really just an excuse to be lazy and undisciplined.’
Truth : Our culture has told us that gaining weight is from being lazy and undisciplined. When we begin intuitive eating it is natural for us to gain weight. Gaining weight is not a moral issue nor does it reflect your character as a person. Intuitive Eating is hard work, you’re not lazy if you’re committed to facing your trauma and mindsets head on.
Lie : ‘If I eat this way, I will gain weight forever.’
Truth : This could possibly be true if you’re overeating at every meal. This is not at all what we’re proposing with intuitive eating. Your body will find an equilibrium with where it what’s to be when you’re eating from hunger and fullness. There will have to be temporary uncomfortableness of weight fluctuations so that your body can find that place of settledness.
Lies about Bingeing & Emotional Eating
Lie : ‘I have no self-control.’
Truth : Look at your life as a whole. Is there an area you can find where you exercise self-control? It could be your job, your finances, your family, anywhere. If you can find one then you don’t lack self-control.
Just because you ate past fullness or even when you didn’t want to because you don’t know how to stop doesn’t mean you lack self-control. It means there’s the potential for a missing resource to deal with how you’re feeling inside.
Lie : ‘People will think I don’t care about my health.’
Truth : The fact that you are even having that thought means you care. Maybe you care but you lack the resource of knowing how to supportive eat without it being diet culture.
Lie : ‘Intuitive eating is an excuse. I just need to get it together.’
Truth : This is code for ‘I need to diet again to fix this’. Letting go of diet culture is hard but intuitive eating isn’t a distraction from dieting. It truly is the better way.
I hope you found this series helpful. Sometimes part of healing is just the ability to look to confront what we’re thinking or hearing with the truth – another perspective that can help change our mindset.
