What Led Me to Intuitive Eating
Intuitive eating sounds so simple, like something we are born to do (maybe because we are born knowing how to do it). Except actually doing it is not so easy. Especially after a lifetime of silencing ourselves and suppressing our own hunger signals in a futile quest to fit one acceptable mold.
I didn’t stop listening to myself because I was trying to be someone I wasn’t, I stopped listening to myself and my body as a survival skill, born of trauma. I put up walls around myself and my feelings because I had to, and I kept those walls up long after I needed to.
I didn’t give up dieting because I was trying to get in tune with this hidden me. I gave up dieting because I was tired of having so much of my self worth tied up in my weight. Was it up? Was it down? How I felt on any given day was dictated by what I put in my mouth, how much exercise I did, how bloated I looked or felt, and how my clothes fit. None of my personal or professional successes really mattered, because there was really only one thing that I was judging myself against, and that was my appearance.
A few months ago, I told myself “Enough. I am done with this.”
I could tell you I had had enough of myself and this way of living, and that is true. I could tell you I was sick of a lifetime of hearing my mother, even to this day at 83, talk about how fat she is and how horrible she looks and how her life would be perfect if she could lose those last 10 pounds hanging off her __________ (insert whichever body part she doesn’t like in this moment), and that I didn’t want to end up like her. I could tell you I was tired of losing and gaining and restricting and binging and hating myself for my supposed lack of control and discipline. But even this was not the reason I decided to quit dieting. It took something outside of myself, the love of my child who was locked in a battle with anorexia and wasting away to nothing, to ultimately help make that decision.
Her story is hers to tell, but I will be telling mine here.
I am about four months into my journey of learning to eat intuitively and listen to and accept my body. It is not easy.
If you Google intuitive eating, you will find any number of dietitians, nutritionists, coaches and authors (including the original Intuitive Eating founders Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch) espousing the steps, or principles, of intuitive eating.
What you won’t find easily is what to expect when you start intuitive eating and more specifically what will happen to you — physically, emotionally, mentally — after you do. There are good reasons for this, starting with the most fundamental. Intuitive eating isn’t a diet. The goal isn’t weight loss, and focusing on weight and weight loss tends to derail people who are attempting to let go of their eating issues and learn how to eat intuitively. It would essentially be turning the anti-diet into a diet.
That said, many people, myself included, sought out intuitive eating as a means of making peace with food and their bodies. It’s natural to want to know what will happen. Some people coming from a lifetime of restriction may gain weight. Some people coming from years of binging might lose weight. Where will you end up? How long will it take you? Tribole has stated repeatedly she doesn’t know know what will happen when someone learns to eat intuitively. Every body and every journey is different.
While I can respect these reasons, at the end of the day, I found not knowing what to expect or at least not having some idea of what could happen and when to be a disservice.
I personally wanted to read other people’s — and specifically other women’s — stories with intuitive eating. In the absence of them, I decided to document my own, as both a reference for myself and others. To be clear, my experience is my own. Probably no one will 100% relate to my beliefs and feelings going through this process or the life circumstances that led me here, and yet so many people I know battle these same demons. It is my hope that by sharing this journey I am able to help both myself and others.