This week I wanted to talk about two things. I put a poll up for our community about feeling like a failure from weight gain and what progress looks like on your intuitive eating journey.
What does progress with intuitive eating look like? Think about how you would define progress. Your mind may wander towards diet culture. You may think about the number on the scale, how much you ate recently, or others. Now, I’m not saying there is anything wrong with goals. Goals are a positive thing to work towards. But, the positivity you can reap from goals goes back to the intention behind the action. The goal of intuitive eating is not intentional weight loss. Intuitive eating is a self-care framework of eating created by Evelyn Trible & Elyse Resch. Intuitive eating helps you make peace with food and become more in-tune with your body. With intuitive eating, you’re not listening to the external voices of diet culture that seem to constantly be screaming. These voices tell you to ignore hunger cues or that you can’t eat X, Y, and Z. I could list a plethora of food rules that diet culture has come up with to try to make you the “healthiest” human possible. It would be a whole tangent and could be a topic within itself.
So, think about what your definition of progress is. Then, I want you to think about the reason behind your intuitive eating journey. Why are you following our page? Why are you reading this blog post? Have you heard of intuitive eating before? Why are you choosing to learn about intuitive eating, making peace with food, and finding food freedom?
No matter where you are along your IE journey, there are going to be days that are hard. Your intuitive eating journey will not always be rainbows, smiles, and sunshine. Just like life, your intuitive eating journey will have its ups and downs. Journeys ebb and flow with time.
Remember your reason. And, remember there is research supporting intuitive eating. If you head to the intuitive eating website (check it out here!), you can see the growing library of resources. There are already over 170 studies about intuitive eating to date! Here’s an idea about the information on intuitive eating. Intuitive eaters have lower…
- Disordered eating habits
- Emotional eating
- Self-silencing
- Suppressing your physical or emotional thoughts, feelings, needs
- Loss of control around food
- Binge eating
- Internalized weight bias
- Blood pressure
- Body dissatisfaction
- Triglycerides
Plenty of research shows the benefit of intuitive eating. In addition to that, intuitive eaters have higher…
- Self-esteem
- Well-being
- Optimism
- Eating a variety of food
- Body appreciation & acceptance
- HDL, aka “good cholesterol”
- Interoceptive awareness
- Pleasure from eating
- Proactive coping & additional coping mechanisms (to food)
- Unconditional self-regard
- Life satisfaction
- The goal of this journey is increasing your life satisfaction! It’s time to get out of your head, where diet culture can run rampant, re-tune into your body and live your life!
What does progress look like?
Think about your journey with intuitive eating. Progress with intuitive eating can look like eating all foods, not having guilt & shame with food, dissipating negative self-talk, increasing self-respect, moving your body with a purpose of finding joy (not with a purpose of shrinking your body), no interest in starting a diet, no longer attaching your self-worth to a number on the scale or the size of your body, knowing other people’s comments are a reflection of them (not you!), wearing a bathing suit or shorts in warm weather, ordering whatever you please when out to dinner, traveling on vacation without guilt & shame. All of these are areas you may not even think of labeling as progress along your intuitive eating journey. You may have thought these were little things, but, the little things are progress because they signify stepping out of diet culture and tuning into your body. And, that list doesn’t entirely cover the scope of the different wins you can have on your journey. Your wins can be different or the same, this is your journey!
Side note: Remember, there is no “failing” intuitive eating. Each experience is an opportunity to learn more about yourself & your body. Take note of what experiences leave you feeling happy and fulfilled and which leave you feeling more unpleasant or uncomfortable emotions. Use these experiences to guide you along your journey—whether “good” or “bad” each has a place in helping you navigate the ebbs and flows of finding food & body freedom.
Intuitive eating is not a diet, the measures of progress are completely different from what diet culture has taught you. There are no cheat days and no restrictions.
A really important point—you are not “failing” intuitive eating if you gain weight. Intuitive eating does not have the intention of weight loss. If anyone tells you this, unfollow them, block them, or unsubscribe from them! This is absolutely not within the realm of goals of intuitive eating. Weight gain is a natural body response to stopping a diet, so, if you gain weight, understand your body is doing all the work it can to protect you. Do not let this deter you from experiencing the pleasures of living life as an intuitive eater!
The goal of intuitive eating is to restore your relationship with food. There are different things that can happen on your journey—you can gain, lose, or maintain weight. Looking at your journey as a shorter time frame within the scope of your life, your body size is going to change throughout the course of your life. These could happen on your intuitive eating journey. This is natural. There are so many different stages to life and changes in life that can affect your body. But, bodies are meant to change after high school. You do not have to look like your 18-year-old self! There’s no telling what will happen on your intuitive eating journey.
Come back to your reason for wanting to find food freedom. This is extremely powerful when you feel like you may want to diet again, or if you feel like a “failure” for gaining weight, or any other intrusive diet culture thought. Remember, weight is not any type of goal within intuitive eating and you should no longer feel obligated to tie progress to it.
People starting their intuitive eating journey may have restricted certain food(s) for years because of diet culture. For example, maybe you haven’t had a carb in years. You had been restricting but now allow yourself to eat them. Weight gain cannot be looked at as a marker of progress or “failure.” As mentioned earlier, your body may need to gain weight to function and thrive physically, mentally, and emotionally.
You may have heard of yo-yo dieting or yo-yo fluctuations in weight. There is research showing these fluctuations can lead to higher blood pressure, cholesterol, and other measures of health. Going on and off of diets creates fluctuations in weight. Your weight will begin to neutralize on your intuitive eating journey.
You may wonder how my discussion about progress has intersected with weight. This is because weight is the topic of our most asked questions and our comment sections across social media platforms can be flooded with questions about weight. Know there is nothing wrong with curiosity around weight loss. Weight loss has been pressured upon you your entire life because of diet culture.
The research and 10 principles of intuitive eating teach us that weight is not the purpose of intuitive eating. And, weight loss is not the solution to achieving health. There are other health promoting behaviors that you can engage in that are actually going to improve your health. Weight is just a number on the scale. A numerical data point. It does not paint a full picture of your health. But, engaging in health behaviors does.
Our conversation developed as it has to account for the weight bias and stigma that exists in our society, and to try to unpack that. Weight stigma is harmful on both the individual and societal level. And, health should not be tied to weight. When learning about intuitive eating and progress on your journey, this is an important lesson to take in. If you are on your IE journey and have gained weight, no there is no “right” or “wrong” way to experience it. Every eating experience and day is an opportunity to learn more about yourself. Through these experiences you can dive into restoring your relationship with food.
Exploring this area of life unlocks doors of exploration into different areas of life, prompting you to get curious about your thought processes. In regard to food, it is about getting curious about diet culture. Intuitive eating is a process of unlearning and learning new ways of living. You will unlearn negative thoughts about food and how to re-focus those thoughts with a different frame of mind.
The size of your body does not determine your worth. Remember the reason you started this journey. This is a journey of removing your sense of worth from the size of your body. You were not put on this Earth to lose weight and pay bills. Think of the picture perfect lifestyle marketed to you by Noom and Weight Watchers for weight loss. Weight loss is not the ticket to happiness. There is more to life. Your worth is so much more than your appearance. If you are not nourished and fed, you cannot strive to achieve your dreams and wishes. Intuitive eating will help you get to a place of pleasantness and satisfaction from food and your body. Begin your journey and see how it can impact your life! If you need any encouragement, scroll back up to the list of research points on intuitive eating.
If this blog post resonated with you and you want to hear more about progress and “wins” from food freedom, check out our Facebook video!
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