To help guide my journey with Intuitive Eating and to create a more positive body image I’ve joined an online support group with two phenomenal coaches! Both coaches have been through this struggle and both have come out stronger and more passionate because of it. They are Jenna Free and Lauren McCauley and they coach The Body Love Society. This group has been so full of advice and help for me. Most notably, this group has helped me to realize that I think very black and white, everything is an extreme with me.
… It’s perfect or it’s a failure.
… I’m fat or I’m skinny.
… Food is good or food is bad.
But this group and these coaches have helped me to see that we live in a world with shades of grey and grey is okay. If tomorrow is not better than today, that’s okay. My life isn’t a failure because of one bad day. We have to embrace that sometimes we take missteps. Sometimes we have a bad day. Sometimes we veer off the path we do desperately desire to be on.
And I feel like I’ve taken a few missteps with my intuitive eating journey recently and I’m working on being okay with it. It’s something new for me and it’s okay if it’s hard. I’m being honest that this journey is not linear. Each new day isn’t always better than the last day.
Biggest Struggle: Overeating
I’m struggling with overeating at almost every meal. I feel like I’m gaining weight, and I’m struggling with that as well. But I know in order to make peace with my body and in order to truly embrace intuitive eating I have to make peace with weight gain. I know this is true, but to be honest, it makes me feel frustrated. I feel frustrated because I feel like I’m not doing this perfectly. I feel frustrated because I’m gaining weight. I feel frustrated because I’m abusing this new found freedom of eating without a restricted food list by overeating all of the time.
Biggest Success: Food Neutral
Have you heard the term “food neutrality”? I hadn’t before I started this journey. It’s about taking the morality out of our food choices. Diet culture causes us to deem some foods as “bad” so when we eat them we feel shame and failure. Diet culture deems other foods “good,” making you feel strong willed and “like a good person” when you eat them. But really, food is food. What we eat doesn’t make us a bad person or a good person; our mindset, our approach to life, our actions do that. Choosing kale over fries doesn’t make us “good” and choosing pizza over zoodles doesn’t make us “bad.” Don’t get me wrong, some food is absolutely more nutrient rich than other food, but eating more nutrient dense foods doesn’t make me a good person and eating nutrient deficient foods doesn’t make me a bad person. I no longer have a list of good foods and bad foods. I have really come a long way in feeling neutral about food and I feel totally empowered about this forward movement on my journey!
It’s not always forward. But I’m choosing to keep walking on this journey. I believe there is freedom. Fake it till you make it. I’m not willing to quit.
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