I’m not sure that I’d call my eating-related work “Intuitive Eating” anymore (“authentic eating” currently feels more right), but it certainly does overlap with many of the core principles of Intuitive Eating — listening to your body about when and how much to eat, reducing feelings of restriction, and more.
And yet — I have some beef with many Intuitive Eating or anti-diet “experts” or influencers. Serious beef. It’s time for me to be honest:
1. Eliminating restriction may not be enough.
Many prominent folks in the field seem to advise something like: Stop restricting / dieting! Then everything with your eating will work itself out!
I totally agree that restricting tends to wreak havoc with your eating. You become more obsessed with food, more likely to turn to eating when you aren’t even hungry, and more.
But based on my extensive experience: eliminating restriction alone is usually not enough.
I’ve worked with clients who were advised to eliminate restriction without building the skills to take care of themselves around food (which is what we practice in the Dessert Club), and then kept eating.
And eating.
And eating.
And yes — they gained a significant amount of weight in a short time, and didn’t feel well in their bodies.
I’ve also read several books by prominent body positivity activists who share that they’ve gained very significant amounts of weight after they decided “fuck diet culture.” They seem to imply that this is just a common, natural side-affect of ditching diet culture.
No. That just doesn’t make sense.
Absolutely, our weight will vary over the course of our lives. Of course! And, of course, if you started out having an eating disorder or restricting in a significant way, and especially if you were underweight, you will likely gain weight as you start eating again and your body finds a healthy set point.
And yet.
Just like it’s not mentally, emotionally, or physically healthy to under-nourish ourselves…it’s also not healthy to over-nourish ourselves. We’re likely not going to feel well. And yes, we are going to gain weight that our bodies don’t need. The weight isn’t the problem here — the weight is simply a symptom of not taking good care of ourselves with our eating.
Again — I feel a little nervous writing this. Will the Body Positivity Police arrest me? But also, I feel like many people are probably hesitant to change their eating because some part of them thinks: wait, if I just eliminate restriction, won’t I keep eating and eating and eating?
They are right to be worried. Yes, for some people it will be totally fine. But for many others: eliminating restriction alone is like being given the green light to start eating, but no one has taught you how — in an authentic, non-diet culture way — to stop eating.
2. This stuff is often hard and complex.
Other prominent folks in the field do acknowledge that eliminating restriction alone isn’t enough. They’ll mention that you should also stop try to not eat if you’re not hungry, for example, or that you should try not to eat for emotional reasons alone.
What they don’t mention enough though is this: Doing this may be hard. Really, really hard. You may need new skills that you do not currently have.
It is one thing to say: if you’re not hungry, don’t eat.
It’s a very different thing to live that practice. When you really start to look into it (if you’re anything like me or the many people I’ve coached in the Dessert Club), you’ll find that you’re eating when you’re not hungry many times a day.
You probably won’t just be able to flip a switch and “stop” doing it. New skills are required — the capacity to observe new things about yourself, and ask new questions. This is at the core of the work in the Dessert Club — and there’s a reason why it’s a serious, multi-week program (and even then, the journey continues!)
I’m a life coach, not a nutritionist — because my work is all about that deep, complex, stuff. It drives me bananas when people act like, “just stop eating emotionally” as if someone reading it would say, oh gee, I never thought of that before! “Stop eating emotionally” is actually a tall order — it typically requires skills that many of us do not currently have.
…
Whew. Okay. Rant completed.
I hope this if helpful. I wanted to write about it because I think that sometimes people are curious about changing their way of eating…but some small part of them also holds back.
And I think that part of that hesitancy is reasonable. Some “influencers” or “experts” can tell a narrative about how to change your eating that can be…problematic. So I want to set the record straight:
Eliminating restriction alone won’t be enough. Most of us won’t just say “fuck diet culture, I’ll eat whatever I want!” — and then will eat in a way that truly serves us.
It won’t just be flipping a switch. Most of us will have do so some hard work, self-reflection and skill-building in order to eat in a way that really works for us.
And, of course, this deep, important work to shift how you relate to food is at the core of the Dessert Club. The waitlist is currently closed, but general enrollment will open in February. If you’d like to be notified when enrollment opens, please sign up for my newsletter!