That Wasn't Worth the Calories. Sound Familiar?

Did you know the first principle of Intuitive Eating is “Reject the Diet Mentality”?

This step is critical because having a dieter’s mindset disconnects you from your body's wisdom, including your own internal cues that tell you when, what and how much to eat.

When you operate with a diet mentality, you eat according to external factors (e.g., food rules, good/bad foods, macros, calories, points, time restrictions, etc.) rather than honoring your body’s needs, desires and preferences.

Approaching food with a diet mentality can make eating a fraught, unsatisfying experience and lead to a disordered relationship with food.

Ultimately, having a diet mentality erodes your ability to trust yourself, your body and your instincts, and negatively impacts your physical and psychological wellbeing.

Diet vs. Non-Diet Mentality
Even if you aren’t on an official diet or have never dieted, you likely still have a diet mentality due to our pervasive, insidious diet culture.

Diet Mentality
The diet mentality is the voice in your head that sounds like this:

• I want it, but I shouldn’t have it.

• I don’t deserve to eat it.

• Will this make me gain weight?

• What am I allowed to eat?

• I feel guilty about eating this food.

• I’ll have to make up for eating this.

• I can’t be trusted with certain foods.

• No one can see me eat this.

• I had a big lunch so I should skip dinner.

• I’m hungry but I shouldn’t eat anything.

• I ate so good/clean today.

• I’ve earned the right to eat this. 

• That wasn’t worth the calories.

• Tomorrow, I’m getting back on track! 

Do any of these statements sound familiar? 

The diet mentality is so normalized in our culture that many people aren’t even aware of the role it plays in their lives and how harmful its presence can be.

Where do you stand with the diet mentality? How strong is yours? How does it impact your eating and relationship with food?

Non-Diet Mentality
In contrast, the non-diet mentality—that is, the Intuitive Eater voice—sounds like this:

• I can have it. Do I want it?

• How hungry am I?

• What am I in the mood for?

• Will this food satisfy and sustain me?

• Is this tasty? Does it hit the spot?

• How does this food feel in my body?

• I trust my body to tell me what it needs.

• I honor my hunger and cravings to the best of my ability.

• It’s totally okay to eat when I’m not hungry.

• I love how much pleasure food gives me.

• There’s no reason to feel guilty or ashamed about my eating.

• Food can be such a great source of comfort.

• I’m feeling full. I can have more later if I want.

Do any of these statements sound like you? How present is your Intuitive Eater voice compared to your diet mentality voice?

This Feels Scary!
Rejecting the diet mentality can feel pretty scary, especially if you’ve been trapped in this mindset for a long time. You may fear that if you let it go, you’ll lose control, eat “badly,” never stop eating, and completely go to pot. 

Your fears are totally understandable. 

In time, however, they will start to fade as you realize that it's the diet mentality—the rules, restriction, deprivation, good/bad foods, moralism—that prevents you from having a peaceful, pleasurable and intuitive relationship with food.

Your fears will further subside as your Intuitive Eating voice becomes stronger than your diet mentality. 

By reconnecting with your innate sense, internal cues and individual experiences—your instincts, desires, hunger, fullness, satisfaction, preferences—you’ll rediscover that you and your body can be trusted to guide your eating. 

I Ate Freely on July 4th. Until I Learned I Shouldn't.

With the Fourth of July upon us, I’ve been reflecting on what Independence Day was like for me as a kid.

Naturally, the fireworks were the highlight of the holiday. However, I also have very fond memories of the food.

I recall kicking off the festivities with a pancake breakfast at our local pool. I happily gobbled up syrup-soaked flapjacks topped with strawberries, blueberries and whipped cream in honor of the occasion.

After hours of swimming and playing with my neighborhood friends, the day would end with a big block party. What a thrill it was to be able to ride my banana-seat bike down the middle of our street!

Picnic tables were hauled from backyards and covered with an array of homemade summer dishes, while a couple of grills smoked away on the sidelines.

Food-Fueled Fun
My nighttime fun was fueled by ketchup-covered hot dogs, honey baked beans, buttery corn-on-the-cob, juicy watermelon wedges, salty chips and dip, and very patriotic Jell-O salads. All of this was washed down with thirst-quenching cups of lemonade.

No matter what I ate, I always had room for a fudgy brownie or strawberry shortcake topped with rapidly melting vanilla ice cream.

I ate what looked good, tasted good and felt good in my body. Sometimes I ate it all, and sometimes I left some behind.

I ate freely and intuitively. 

Not Yet Tainted
My young mind hadn’t been tainted yet by diet culture—an oppressive system built on anti-fat bias and unrealistic body ideals, one that’s full of food rules, good/bad food lists, meticulous tracking, (e.g., calories, points, macros, etc.), intentional deprivation, punishing exercise and false promises.

I hadn’t been taught yet that I should be hyper-vigilant with food and micro-manage every morsel.

No one had told me yet that my body couldn’t be trusted and that I needed to rely on a plan or program to tell me how to eat.

I hadn’t learned to abhor my belly, demonize certain foods, feel ashamed about my eating and compensate for my food sins. 

I didn't worry about others judging my choices nor did I sneak food to protect myself from scrutiny.

Do I Want It?
While I loved all that food, I had more exciting and important things to focus on, like water-balloon tosses, sparklers and bottle rockets.

As an Intuitive Eater, I just ate and moved on.

Eating was simply a matter of: I can have it. Do I want it?

Diet Mentality Takes Over
Unfortunately, all of this changed as I entered my teenage years and began adopting a diet mentality powered by salads, rice cakes, diet sodas (hello, Tab!) and Jane Fonda workouts.

My desire to achieve the “thin ideal” led to decades of disordered eating and exercise.

Thankfully, with help from some very wise guides, I eventually broke free from diet culture and made peace with food and my body.

The healing process wasn’t easy or fast. Some days, I feel like I'm still a work-in-progress. But, it’s all been worth it.

Ending the war I was waging against myself enabled me to return to the food freedom and body liberation I experienced as a young girl.   

It’s Still Within You
I’m sharing this story as a reminder that, for the most part, we all came into this world as Intuitive Eaters—that is, we ate based on our instincts, inner cues and desires. As long as our needs were met, we were able to eat without worry, guilt, fear or shame.

Sadly, we’re losing touch with our ability to eat intuitively at a younger and younger age. Shockingly, an estimated 80 percent of 10-year-old girls have been on a diet.

I’m also sharing my experience to assure you that if you’ve become disconnected from the Intuitive Eater within you, you can reconnect with it.

It hasn’t gone away. It’s just buried under layers of diet-culture gunk, which today, is often packaged under the guise of “wellness.”

Magical Powers Not Required
I don’t have any magical powers. My clients don’t either. If we can relearn how to listen to and trust our bodies, it’s quite likely you can, too.

“I’m no longer searching for the ‘answer’ to the perfect way to eat. I don’t stress about how I eat because it isn’t that big of a deal anymore. I no longer believe those food guilt thoughts and that is F-R-E-E-D-O-M!” 
–Client Molly

I Inhaled the Snack Mix. My Eating Felt Out of Control.

A few days ago, I arrived home early in the evening feeling absolutely ravenous. 

Due to an unexpected delay that afternoon, I wasn't able to eat lunch and my body was screaming for food.

I spotted a container of snack mix my mom and I had recently made on the kitchen counter and thought I’d eat a few handfuls to tide me over until dinner was ready.

Well, one handful quickly turned into multiple handfuls. 

I could not stop eating it. 

In fact, I was shoveling it into my mouth.

My eating felt frenzied, primal, animalistic. 

It felt out of control in a way it hadn’t in a very long time.

Unable to focus on preparing dinner or anything else, like unpacking my bags or changing into my comfy clothes, I hovered over the container as if I was tethered to it and ate as if I would never have access to food again.

Out of Control
In my dieting days, episodes like this happened frequently and I’d chastise myself for being out of control with my eating. 

My diet mentality would have convinced me that I lacked willpower and discipline, that I couldn’t be trusted to have snack mix in the house, that I should just throw the rest away and never make it again.

My internal Food Police would have berated me, telling me how bad I was for eating so much snack mix and that I needed to make up for it by skipping dinner and working out longer the next morning.

Thankfully, this isn’t what happened.

In Survival Mode
I compassionately understood in that moment that I was inhaling the snack mix because my body was trying to get its nourishment needs met.

My ravenous hunger had put me in survival mode. 

In an attempt to keep me alive, my very wise brain was telling me I needed to eat as much as possible as fast as possible. 

Although it felt like it, I wasn’t acting out of control. I was experiencing a natural human response to extreme hunger.

Since I stopped intentionally restricting my food years ago, I rarely get to the point of ravenous hunger these days thus rarely find myself in situations like these. 

Usually, I plan ahead to ensure my body is fully nourished on a regular basis. But sometimes life gets in the way and I’m unable to eat when I need to.

Although it would’ve been more enjoyable to savor the snack mix at a leisurely pace, I’m grateful it was there to quickly satisfy my body’s needs. 

I'm also grateful I was able to just eat it and move on without feeling any guilt, shame, remorse or other unhelpful thoughts and feelings. To me, this is true food freedom.