Have you ever thought about how much mental space dieting actually takes up?
What am I going to eat today? How many calories are in that? Did I eat too much? Should I work out? How long should I work out? What am I going to order at the restaurant? Do I need to bring my own food? Was that food “bad”? Do I need to make up for it tomorrow?
It is freaking exhausting.
And when you’ve lived inside diet culture for years (or decades), you may not even realize how much of your brain is devoted to thinking about food, weight, exercise, and your body until you start getting some of that space back.
Carrie, a Find Food Freedom® client, described it perfectly:
“It’s just mind-blowing how much storage in your brain is caught up with the whole diet mentality.”
STORAGE IN YOUR BRAIN. That is exactly what it feels like.
Carrie had been exploring intuitive eating in some form since 2003, but after spending time in a program that increasingly emphasized weighing herself, tracking what she ate, and intentional weight loss, she realized she wanted something different.
Eventually, she found Find Food Freedom® and started working one-on-one with Alex, one of our weight-inclusive registered dietitians.
And what changed wasn’t simply what Carrie ate.
She got some of that freaking brain space back.
You can listen to my full conversation with Carrie about her food freedom journey here.
What happens when food stops taking up so much space?
When Carrie first started working with our team, she described her relationship with food as unpleasant.
She wrote about years of dieting, fear of “naughty” foods, and the cycle of restricting those foods only to eventually feel out of control around them.
Later, when I asked how she would describe her relationship with food now?
Pleasant.
And when I asked if she still uses the word “naughty” to describe food, she told me about recently going to lunch with a friend who used that exact word.
Carrie remembered thinking to herself: It’s not naughty. It’s just food.
That might seem like a tiny shift, but removing morality from food can fundamentally change how you experience eating.
When eating cake isn’t a moral failure, you don’t need to punish yourself afterward. When you don’t have to earn your dinner, movement can become something you do because you enjoy how it feels. When going out to eat doesn’t require researching the menu, calculating calories, planning what you’ll eat beforehand, or bringing special foods in your purse, you can actually be present at dinner.
Carrie talked about taking up watercolor. She can go for a walk without wondering how many calories she’s burning or how long she needs to stay on the treadmill. She can go out to eat with her girlfriends without worrying about whether she has the “right” foods with her.
These things can sound so ordinary.
Going for a walk. Eating at a restaurant. Painting.
But when you’ve spent years thinking about food and your body all freaking day, having the mental space to just live your life is a really big deal.
When nutrition advice pulls you back toward restriction
Part of getting that mental space back also means figuring out how to navigate nutrition and health without automatically falling back into dieting.
That became especially important for Carrie when she started experiencing medical concerns and was told to remove sugar from her diet.
When you’ve spent years healing from dieting and disordered eating, being told by a medical professional that you suddenly need to restrict again can bring up a lot.
You want to trust your medical team. You want to take your health seriously. And you may also know exactly what restriction has historically done to your relationship with food.
Carrie decided she needed to try the recommendation, and Alex supported her through that experience without judgment. When restriction began pulling Carrie back toward the restrict-binge cycle she knew so well, they could talk through what was happening and explore other ways to support her health.
Eventually, something clicked:
What can we add instead of constantly focusing on what needs to be removed?
Maybe that’s fiber. Maybe it’s protein. Maybe it’s another food that makes a meal more satisfying or supports a specific health need.
As Carrie and I called it, inclusion, not restriction.
Your health still matters. Nutrition still matters. Medical conditions still matter. But nutrition care does not always have to begin with making your body smaller or handing you a list of foods you’re no longer allowed to eat.
A weight-inclusive dietitian can help you sort through the messy stuff, including conflicting medical advice, nutrition concerns, old food rules, and the very real emotions that can come with all of it.
Food freedom can change your relationship with your body, too
When Carrie first started working with Find Food Freedom®, she also described her relationship with her body as unpleasant.
She wrote:
“When I look in the mirror, I see a body that I’m not used to seeing, and I feel that I should be in a smaller body.”
Hearing those words again later brought up a lot of emotion.
Carrie talked about how much of her life she had spent feeling like she was in the wrong body. Through her experiences with her health and the work she had done with her dietitian, she had started looking at herself differently.
She could see strength. She could appreciate the body that had carried her through her life, given birth to her sons, and allowed her to be here for the people she loves.
Intuitive eating and body image work aren’t about waking up every morning, looking in the mirror, and thinking you are the hottest person who has ever walked the planet.
Sometimes body respect looks much quieter than that.
It can mean recognizing that your body deserves nourishment even on a day you don’t particularly like it. Advocating for yourself when a healthcare provider makes everything about your weight. Moving your body because it feels good instead of trying to burn off lunch. Buying clothes that fit the body you have today.
It can mean deciding you’re no longer willing to spend your entire life waiting to become smaller before you fully participate in it.
Carrie talked about wishing she had found this kind of support sooner, and I think that feeling is incredibly relatable.
There can be real grief in realizing how much time, money, energy, and mental space diet culture has taken from you.
We can’t get that time back.
But we can decide what gets our time now.
Maybe progress looks like thinking about calories a little less. Maybe it’s going out to dinner without researching the menu first. Maybe you find yourself moving your body without wondering what you burned. Maybe you pick up watercolor, call your friend, play with your kids, travel, read, create, rest, or do whatever the hell else you’d rather be doing.
Because you have to eat multiple times a day, and you live in your body every single day.
If those two things have been taking up a massive amount of storage in your brain, imagine what else you could do with that space.
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Want some of that brain space back?
If food rules, dieting, food noise, or body image are taking up way more mental space than you want them to, our weight-inclusive registered dietitians can help you work toward a relationship with food and your body that feels a little more peaceful and a lot less consuming.
And like Carrie discovered, you may already have insurance benefits that cover virtual one-on-one nutrition counseling at little to no cost.
