Intuitive Eating 101
Oddly enough, the trendiest new diet is actually an anti-diet. After years of binge & restrict cycles amongst dieters of all sexes, we are finally wising up to the lie. Yet many of us still can’t manage to let go of all the diet culture that’s been programmed into our society over the course of the past century. As with any great change, the key is to first look at the beliefs you’ve been clinging to that might not be the truthiest of truths. Only then can you start to align with your intuition to guide your diet choices. Let’s dig in.
A brief overview of the past 100 years of diet culture in America will undoubtedly be the eye opener you need in order to realize why diet culture is utter bullshit. There was the cigarette diet in 1928, the liquid only diet in the 30s, the grapefruit diet in the 50s, Weight Watchers in the 60s, the sleeping beauty (sedation) diet in the 70s, SlimFast in ’77, the Zone Diet (macros) in ’95, Atkins in 2003. The list goes on.
What becomes apparent as you explore our diet-obsessed history are 3 things: 1) Women have been the primary focus of dieting initiatives & have been disempowered through body shaming, to the advantage of the diet industry. 2) Our reliance on physical appearance here in the western world means we are willing to starve, punish, and disform our bodies solely to gain approval & external validation. 3) The diets we were once so willing to hop between actually made us sicker, not healthier or happier.
We may not be puffing at Luckies & praying to morph into Marilyn any longer, but we still haven’t broken free of fad diets. Now we have Paleo, Keto, Raw Food, and Mediterranean to name a few. And while all have benefits, all have drawbacks as well – because each person has entirely different dietary needs & no one rigid system will ever be the answer. There is no one-size fits all approach, outside the realm of your own inner knowing.
The same realizations that come from looking at an overview of the last hundred years of dieting can be translated into modern day as such: 1) The wellness industry benefits from you being broken. 2) A willingness to jump at any diet signals a deeper emotional issue that will never be solved through diet alone. 3) Diets that keep us sick keep us reliant on a cunning & exceedingly prosperous pharmaceutical industry. It’s clear that it’s time to ditch dieting & take back your power.
Dieting demonstrates another big problem: We have no idea what the fuck to eat! We’ve lost touch entirely with that part of ourselves that just knows what to eat & doesn’t need to be told. After all, what do you think our ancestors used to do before the advent of canned & packaged products in the Industrial Age. They weren’t looking in Vogue for celeb diet hacks, I assure you. And they also weren’t struggling with modern ailments like diabetes, high blood pressure, and sluggish livers. They were listening to their bodies & living from the land! A whole food clean diet with a focus on plants.
It doesn’t stop there. Now you realize that you’ve been fed lies. That your power has been leached from you. That you have wasted precious time & energy obsessing over perfecting your body to be lovable. Forgive yourself. It’s a process, but begin. Apologize to your body for all the agony & judgment & hatred you have placed upon her. Congrats - you’ve just reclaimed your power, you rebel.
Before you go & grab the sleeve of oreos, chill. This does NOT mean that nutrition principles go out the window. Your brain hasn’t been the only one that got a hefty dose of indoctrination. So did your tongue! Your palate (& brain) have become accustomed to certain types of foods. If you have been relying on highly processed ingredients, or a high fat diet, or sugar overload – you will undoubtedly continue to crave those things. Feeding yourself oreos “intuitively” will lead to wanting more oreos. Catch the drift?
How does one put an end to the madness, you ask? By temporarily getting rid of all those highly addictive inflammatory foods (read: brain interrupters) that confuse you & your brain into thinking you need certain foods that actually won’t nourish you at all. In fact, they could even worsen chronic health issues. This isn’t some restrictive diet though – because we all know what happens when we restrict. We fly off the effing handles – pizza, wings, beer, why not an entire cake too.
This is an experiment. An opportunity to reduce your diet down to clean whole foods & see how you feel. Then the next time you get curious about how an oreo would feel, have one. Feel awful? Take note for next time you try to talk yourself into it. Feels okay? Great, have one occasionally - prioritizing the foods with nutrient density over junk food. Sound easy? That’s because it is. Once you dig beneath the lies, the shame, and the addictions – FREEDOM. Start today.