This week in thoughts: from Marlborough Lights to early nights. Intuitive eating and me.
If I had to estimate, I would say I’ve been on close to a thousand diets during my lifetime.
ONE THOUSAND DIETS.
What. THE. F***
To clarify; this is based on the fact that I’ve mostly started a new ‘diet’ every week, since I was 21 until turning 40 in 2020. I haven’t been completely devoid of restriction since I reached that milestone age but I’ve dieted FAR less, and have been diet free for about 6 months.
Have I had wobbles in those 6 months where I’ve felt I should cut back? absolutely. Days where I’ve hated my body and wanted to be smaller? You betcha. But also, I remember that dieting doesn’t work, makes me far more likely to binge and most importantly, it makes me miserable.
And moreover, I don’t owe anyone ultra thinness.
As a teen with an eating disorder, it was pretty obvious that I would end up chronically dieting throughout most of my twenties and early thirties. When I first lost a lot of weight post uni, I can remember feeling elated. Being able to fit into tiny clothes made me feel powerful and pretty and although lots of other areas of my life were messy, control around food helped to stimulate feelings of accomplishment. I swapped bulimia for weight watchers, Slimming world, Atkins, calorie counting, fasting and many, many more. I lived on chicken salads, diet coke, cigarettes & partying and although I sometimes wondered when, or if, I could ever stop whatever diet I was on, I’d reasoned that it was a fair trade off for staying thin.
And boy, was I a good dieter.
I was ultra disciplined. Hardly ever strayed and always came mentally and often physically (rice cake anyone?) prepared. I was, plainly put; boring. Desert? (No thank you!) Side of chips? I (oh I couldn’t I’m stuffed!) Being in an extra small body was so intrinsically important me but honestly, I couldn’t tell you why? All I know, and this is embarrassing, is that I loved, nay, needed validation, especially from men, and being thin and dressing in a way that highlighted that, felt like a priority. Without dieting and without my slight frame, I didn’t know who I, or what my purpose, was.
I never felt good enough in my teens, and had attempted to quash those feelings of sadness and despair with my ED. I had lots going in my life at this time and essentially ended up on a path of self-destruction, so when I suddenly became (in my mind) ‘attractive enough’ I made it my entire identify. Never mind the fact that I was artistic or clever, funny or had opinions and my own thoughts.
This was essentially my life for 19 ish years. Start a diet, stick to it. Binge. Re-start diet and add infinitum. I was OBSESSED with my weight and became at one with my scale. I liked to know what other people weighed too, what they ate and whether they were slimmer than I was. It was dick-ish behaviour and I’m not proud of it but reaching and maintaining a certain dress size was just too alluring. I was fair game for an industry that thrives on insecurity.
Apparently it gets harder to stick to a diet the more dieting you do, and just before my 40th birthday (we’d just gone into Lockdown) I noticed that I was gaining weight and that my usual methods weren’t working as well (age and a slowing down of my metabolism probably played a significant role in this too) but also; that I just couldn’t be bothered anymore. I was cycling between over eating, starting a ‘new’ diet (again) and feeling completely and utterly fed up. I was tired, bored, and felt exhausted from the constant yo-yoing . Lockdown saw a huge shift in how I ate because for the first time, I didn’t have to go anywhere. I relaxed and I ate. I ate everything in sight and of course, gained weight.
The weight gain was justified of course, but rather than absolutely freak out about it (as I had done in the past with much smaller increments. A pound gain would literally ruin my day) I didn’t really care. Whilst sometimes I felt really down about it, I felt, ‘neutral’ about my new body most of the time, and this in itself felt like a huge revelation. Of course, I attempted several rather non-committal ways to shift it, but found that, bar a few pounds, it didn’t really want to come off.
After the initial food freedom that had come with lockdown, I started to gain a bit more control over what I wanted to *actually* eat versus eating everything and anything in sight because I had let myself off this almost lifelong leash. I was able to manage portions better, and combine fruit, veg AND chocolate all one day whereas historically, I’d been very all or nothing; with hyper strict views on what constituted good or bad food. I was able to moderate naturally, most of the time and was getting better at listening to my body. I was, without realising, eating ‘intuitively’. Or, like a ‘normal’ person (or how I used to eat before I became a diet addict.)
If you haven’t heard of intuitive eating, then, it’s essentially a ‘normal’ way of eating whereby there are no restrictions. It was developed in 1995 by two dieticians, Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch and is not a ‘diet’ at all, in fact it’s more an ‘anti-diet’ and especially valuable for those of us who have had ongoing issues with food, or more specifically our body image and obsession with weight loss. If you’re feeling fed up of dieting and ready to stop counting ‘points’, ‘syns’ or macros then intuitive eating could well be the answer. It’s a great way of making peace with food, relearning your hunger and fullness ‘cues’ and most importantly, feel ok in your skin. Its also a huge F*** you to the diet industry which is purported to make £299.39 billion dollars in 2023 (source: google.)
There’s loads of info out there on intuitive eating and because I don’t want to butcher the theory behind it, I’ll instead recommend a particularly stand out book “Just Eat It” by Laura Thomas PHD. It’s simple, funny, and incredibly eye opening (I read it in 2 nights!).
Intuitive eating consists of 10 principles, from rejecting the diet mentally (especially challenging for those of us who have an unhealthy relationship with weight loss) to honouring your hunger, and neutralising food. It is revolutionary for sure, or feels it, but actually, its just how we used to eat before we got incensed in diet culture. It’s so sad.
“I’d grown to really despise dieting, especially as I got older and had my daughter Harlow. It really robs us, especially women, of so much. It keeps us submissive, disciplined and ‘good’ and frustratingly, it strips our freedoms and stops us from achieving. I only started chasing my goals and fulfilling my creativity when the lull of dieting had started to wane because I suddenly had space in my brain for the stuff that actually mattered. Chronic dieting and restriction stole half my life, and that is not ok.”
Becoming a mum also helped to re-establish my priorities and although I only completely relinquished dieting about 6 months ago, I’d slowly built up to that point from the day she was born. It is more important to me than anything that she has as positive a relationship as possible with her body and I am continually working on that. From the language we use within our home, to neutralising foods and giving her choices, to encouraging movement in a joyful way which doesn’t feel like punishment. We avoid commenting on her body and instead praise her drawing, her humour and her zest for life. I am as impartial as I can be regarding my own body in front of her and whilst these factors wont necessarily protect her from issues with food, weight and body image because there are so many egregious factors externally and beyond our control, I believe in sowing these seeds as early as is deemed appropriate. Her generation deserves so much better.
Back to initiative eating, it is definitely is a marathon- not a race. It takes time for the body to adjust, and moreover, for you to trust yourself, and to honour your body. When you’ve followed arbitrary rules for most of your life, it can feel odd, to suddenly, not. You worry that you’ll eat and eat and eat, and maybe you will for a while, but if you trust the process, your body will know what to do. Now I can have some chocolate and put the rest in the fridge (unless minstrels) whereas a few years ago I would’ve demolished a family sized bar, feel overwhelmed with guilt and self-loathing only to start a new diet again on Monday. I’ve realised recently that I can ‘feel’ when I am full more easily and far less inclined to overeat, I am able to decipher if need to eat more fruit and veg and because I don’t live in a scarcity mindset, the foods that I would’ve once binged on, simply don’t hold the power they used to. I can pass a donut by. It is really liberating.
I used to really worry about the holidays, specifically because of the food. All I wanted was to eat ‘normally’ and enjoy nice things, but instead I’d be freaking out, worrying about gaining weight, or conversely, eating with absolute wild abandon. My life was devoid of a middle ground. I cant wait for Christmas nibbles this year and have already had Christmas pudding, mince pies and hot chocolates with oodles of cream but zero guilt.
Intuitive eating is for life. I have to remind myself daily that I am entitled to eat and that there is no big ‘diet’ happening tomorrow. This helps me to rationalise meal times and make better choices. Because nothing is off limits anymore, I can eat what I want. Adapting your mindset to reflect this is really powerful. Simply saying, “I can eat whatever I wish” shifts my perspective.
Obviously as a straight sized person, I have some thin privilege and even though I heavier now than I was, I am still, technically small. I can’t relate my personal experience of intuitive eating to everyone reading this, but I can promise that there is life outside of chronic dieting and weight loss culture.
Questions to ponder/ I ask myself:
-Would you rather be heavier but feel free around food and not stressed or anxious?
- What will you do once you’re at your ‘goal’ weight? I had no answer to this because all I wanted was to be as thin as possible.
-What are you putting off doing until you reach your goal weight that you could actually do now? (for me it was self-care, invest in nice clothes, go out.)
-Are you happy to restrict your food intake forever to stay at goal? If you eat normally you’ll very likely gain. How do you plan to stay a certain weight?
-Do you follow/ look at diverse bodies on social media? if not, try and open up your feed to include a wealth of shapes and sizes.
-Where do your ideas about thinness equating health/ attractiveness stem from and are these ideas relevant to your current stage in life?
-Am I objectifying myself and others and why is appearance so important to me? Who am I beyond surface level? What are my goals/ skills/ talents?
-Who benefits from me dieting?
-What am I missing out on through my dieting behaviours?
-What message am I conveying to the world and to my closest people?
Nina x
So pleased you are writing again 💕 and of course looking fabulous x