What is Intuitive Eating?
What is Intuitive Eating? Does Intuitive Eating work? Also how intuitive eating changed my life.
Overall, to me Intuitive Eating is getting back to your inner intuition and knowledge when it comes to food, eating, and connecting to your body. I say "getting back to" because I believe that everyone is born as an intuitive eater and then as we grow up in the society that we do, we can lose the ability to connect with that inner knowledge and body cues.
How does this happen?
I think the way that it happens is going to be unique for everyone. I also don't want to place blame on any one place. Often times the feeding rituals that we had growing up had the best of intentions, they just might not be how our body wants to naturally operate.
I will give a few examples from my own story.
I grew up in household that was a proud member of the Clean Plate Club. Meaning that I could have no dessert or leave the table until every morsel on my plate was gone, including the boiled spinach with no seasonings and the gigantic glass of milk. Again, not to place blame but I grew up partially with my grandmother, a woman who grew up in The Great Depression and the era of food recommendations like everything cooked with no salt, no fat and that you should drink 2-3 glasses per day of cow's milk to build strong bones (hence the earlier example). This in turn caused be to get the message that even if I was full, the portion that I was given was the right amount for me, dessert was a treat that I only deserve under certain circumstances and vegetables are a disgusting punishment. I also now know the stomach ache I had from drinking dairy was because I was lactose intolerant, not because I was getting too little fiber.
Again, I am telling this story with compassion and understanding towards my grandmother because she was doing what she thought was right and healthy. Of course in retrospect I can see how many of these messages backfired and I had to re-learn and develop a lot of new relationships with foods and my body cues in my adult life.
This is a common thing that I help clients with, though the details will be different. Often times, there are circumstances that causes us to not know how to listen to our bodies anymore, or caused us to think our bodies were broken in some way because they don't do what we want them to do, ie. diet, lose weight, eat no sugar, crave plain boiled spinach, etc.
This is where I see Intuitive Eating come in. When we start to understand our origin stories with food and our bodies we can start to understand where we received the messages that we have today. It's not that your body is broken or needs to be fixed, it's more of a re-learning patterns that work better for you and your body.
It is about re-learning your hunger and fullness cues so at any one time your body tells you what portion of food works best. It is about making vegetables delicious so that not only do you crave them, but they are a staple of the meal because they feel good in your body, and not used as punishment. You have dessert after dinner most times, but sometimes not, because it just doesn't sound that appetizing, but you have that choice because you know it's available to you whenever you want it. You've switched to oat milk and know that you are getting plenty of calcium because it's fortified and you now love spinach.
I definitely don't want to over simplify this process or say it happens overnight. It's complicated, confusing and emotionally uncomfortable a lot of the time. Food is not just food. We are complex humans that have complex feelings and emotions and thoughts about food. But I can say that it's worth it. It's worth every bit of the process because you give yourself the ability to trust your body again. I don't want to sound like a cheesy credit card commercial but to me, this is priceless.
Katy Gaston Nutrition
Katy is a registered dietitian nutritionist and owner of Katy Gaston Nutrition based in San Francisco, CA. Katy is passionate about her work in eating disorders and disordered eating (AKA dieting) and wants to help people heal their relationship with food and body. If you would like to work with Katy in counseling sessions, she is available virtually via her services page below. If you are unable to be a client at this time but would like learn more, click here for a free introduction into intuitive eating workbook!
Creativity and Eating Disorder Recovery
What is creative recovery and do you need it? What is the relationship between being creative, making art and recovering from an eating disorder and chronic dieting? How does this relate to Diet Culture and Hustle Culture?
Do you need Creative Recovery?
Often times when we hear the word 'creativity' we put our defenses up or we run for the hills.
"I'm not a creative person."
"I'm not an artist or anything but I did enjoy my coloring pages as a kid."
"Oh wow, I could never do what you do, you're so artsy."
And I'm going to be that annoying person and say that I truly believe that every person is creative. You just have to find your brand of what that looks like. I don't think everyone is going to be creative in a 'traditional' way or the ways that are usually thought of, but I think everyone has passions or that "thing I've always wanted to try."
Part of reclaiming our creativity is a mindset shift that starts with knowing where these ideas come from.
• How do you feel about your creativity?
• What did you hear about artists growing up?
• What is something that you enjoy but you think it's a little silly?
I think Diet Culture is tied to Hustle Culture which is fed via Perfectionism. All of these things are killers for your creativity.
To do creative things is to feed your soul. It's to get caught up in the moment. It's the transportation into another state of being that is hard to explain.
That is the reason why I think that Creative Recovery is very much tied to Eating Disorder/Disordered Eating Recovery. When we are tying our worth into external markers, we get lost. We think our creativity needs to be the same way. If we don't produce perfect art, there's no point. If we don't produce something of value in the eyes of others, there's no point. If we don't keep up the wears of production at all times, there's no point.
To recover our creativity is to recover a piece of ourselves. A piece of ourselves that calls to us, but we think it's not worthy of the time or energy.
To recover your life from Diet Culture, but from Hustle Culture too. To really tap into our intuitive selves through art, food and body.
Katy Gaston Nutrition
Katy is a registered dietitian nutritionist and owner of Katy Gaston Nutrition based in San Francisco, CA. Katy is passionate about her work in eating disorders and disordered eating (AKA dieting) and wants to help people heal their relationship with food and body. If you would like to work with Katy in counseling sessions, she is available virtually via her services page below. If you are unable to be a client at this time but would like learn more, click here for a free introduction into intuitive eating workbook!
How To Respond To Diet Talk
Seeing people in person again can be a bit of an adjustment. How to cope, navigate and respond to diet talk when it arises.
We are still very much in the midst of a global pandemic…
As we go into a time where we are seeing more of our friends and family there can be a lot of diet talk. If you are trying to recover from an eating disorder or seeking the path of a non-diet life, how do you navigate these comments and questions?
First I just want to say that it is a weird time right now in general. Here in the US and especially in California, life is starting to “open up” again. We are starting to come out of our houses, go back to the office, see groups of friends and family, and go to events. This can be nerve-wracking and an adjustment just like when we were going into lockdown (and all the changes that happened inside of that.) As part of this adjustment, we might be seeing people in person that we haven’t in a long time and we might be more self-conscious because we have gotten used to being on video from the comfort of our homes.
How do I respond to diet talk?
Since we all have varying comfort levels depending on our mood, personality and context I have included categories of “soft” and “bold” responses, but one is not better than the other. You need to protect your energy first and foremost.
Comment: Wow, you look great! Did you lose weight??
Soft: Thanks, I’m not sure, I don’t track that.
Bold: I’m actually healing my relationship with food and my body that doesn’t include monitoring my weight so maybe that is what you are noticing!
Wow, you are eating so healthy, good for you.
Soft: I try to eat a little bit of everything!
Bold: Actually when I changed my mindset in knowing no good or bad foods it opened me up to so much variety! I’m craving a salad right now and definitely going for dessert later because it looks delicious.
Do you work out? If I ate like you I would gain so much weight.
Soft: Mmm. [changes subject] So how has the new dog been?
Bold: I’ve healed my relationship with my body and food so I enjoy joyful movement when I want. I’m not afraid of weight gain because I trust my body will figure out what weight it needs to be. I also know fear of weight gain is ingrained in us but I’ve been working on un-learning fat-phobia instead.
My friend just lost a bunch of weight on this new diet! Let me send you the book title, I think it could be good for you.
Soft: I’ve actually stopped dieting for a bit, thanks though.
Bold: I know that I tried a bunch of diets in the past that didn’t work but it turns out I actually needed to heal my eating disorder instead!
Someone looks hungry, what a big plate!
Soft: Yep.
Bold: Funny, I didn’t feel the need to comment on your plate of food.
Come-on, finish off the mashed potatoes! I don’t want them to go to waste.
Soft: Thank you but like I said I’m really full.
Bold: Definitely won’t go to waste, I’ll take them home with me because I am too full right now.
Ugh my thighs are so big, diet starts on Monday for sure.
Soft: I had parts of myself that I haven’t liked either but I’m choosing to send them some love instead!
Bold: We are some smart, passionate and funny ladies, isn’t there something else we could talk about besides what we hate about our bodies and dieting?
Navigating diet talk might seem like a never-ending battle. But like I said always put your energy first and see what you have the energy for. You are also not alone <3.
Katy Gaston Nutrition
Katy is a registered dietitian nutritionist and owner of Katy Gaston Nutrition based in San Francisco, CA. Katy is passionate about her work in eating disorders and disordered eating (AKA dieting) and wants to help people heal their relationship with food and body. If you would like to work with Katy in counseling sessions, she is available virtually via her services page below. If you are unable to be a client at this time but would like learn more, click here for a free introduction into intuitive eating workbook!
Can Dieting Cause Eating Disorders?
My experience with dieting and an eating disorder.
Dieting, an eating disorder gateway?
TW: dieting thoughts/patterns, weight loss, eating disorders
I have been thinking lately about my own healing journey from an eating disorder and what the start of that really looked like. As anyone knows who has or had an eating disorder, it doesn’t start in one day. You don’t just suddenly think to yourself, “Oh, I would like to have an eating disorder!” It is more of a gradual, slippery slope into eating disorder thoughts and patterns, so much so that you might not even realize it. Today I want to talk about what the start of that slope looked like for me and likely many others.
If I think back, I believe the desire to change my body, lose weight and therefore begin dieting started around 6th grade (12 years old). I was just starting puberty around that time which for me looked like widening hips and butt which was then commented on by family members in ways that made me think this was not okay. To illustrate this point more specifically we live in a society that values thinness and especially during this time the very straight-shaped, very thin model type was “in.” Before puberty my body looked more like that, I had a very straight frame and not many curves as is often the case in girl’s of that age. Therefore when my body was changing this translated in my head that this change was bad, a failing on my part, to control my body. I was eating more (because I was growing) and when this was commented on I made the connection that eating more = growing = bad.
Again, I cannot pinpoint the day where these dieting patterns started coming in, but I can start to see it when I first wanted to become a vegetarian. I know this really was rooted in my desire for better animal treatment, but I also know it was a way for me to start having control over my food intake while still living under my parents’ roof.
I remember my mom would causally diet and around this time I started joining her, it felt like a bonding experience and I can still remember the excitement of new diet and the feeling of sacrifice when we were “good” and only ate the foods that were on the list of approval. This would last for a few weeks, slowly drop off and we would go back to our normal routine, only to start again in many 6 months of so.
I then remember I took these dieting patterns more under the radar, I wanted to lose lots of weight to the point when even then I knew it wasn’t going to be seen as healthy. Bringing in how my body image was at the time I knew it was tied to feelings of wanting to be as small as possible. I very much wanted to be the Manic Pixie Dream Girl that needed to be saved from herself. I wanted to be so broken that people noticed my broken-ness.
In early high school I started on the covert diets like the Special K one (where you eat two bowls of cereal or bars a day instead of meals) and skipping meals. I then tried fasts all while convincing myself that I was “cleansing my body” to the point where my GI tract was so messed up I had to be rushed to the doctor for severe stomach pains only to show that I was so constipated that almost my entire GI tract was full. (At the time I was so happy the doctor didn’t “catch me” but now it makes me so sad to see that this prominent red flag was not addressed.) There were many other “dieting” things that I did around this time but I want to not overload this newsletter with potentially triggering things.
This continued throughout high school and into early college. My primary eating disorder behaviors had started in 8th grade and these common dieting behaviors were just adding fuel to the fire. I then went on to study to become a dietitian and in the course of healing one eating disorder I started to develop new patterns. Finally towards the middle-end of college I was on a course of healing and true recovery.
So, what about others?
According to Intuitive Eating by Tribole and Resch, “35% of so-called “normal” dieters progress to pathological dieting. Of those, 20-25% will progress to partial or full-blown eating disorders.” This prevalence is only increasing and I personally have never worked with a patient or client with eating disorders that didn’t start with some kind of dieting thoughts about food, even if they were not weight-related.
Recovery is so difficult not only because it takes so much devotion to heal yourself but also because we live in a society where dieting is so normalized. I see a lot of shame and guilt in my clients coming for help with that healing because it was a slippery slope that they feel got away from them. A lot of times it is this sense that dieting is okay but then they took it too far. I give so much compassion to clients because dieting it not normal, dieting is disordered eating that society has normalized. You are not broken because you have “failed” at dieting and you are not broken if things have “gotten away from you”.
That is why I like to say that I work with people with eating disorders and disordered eating because I see that line as so blurred. In fact I don’t even see it as a line, but more of a spectrum where people can be going from one end to the other or progressing along it. I see dieting as harmful patterns that can be taken as seriously as those who have then taken those patterns into eating disorder territory. The harm might be there, but then so is the healing.
Sending so much virtual love to everyone because I know what that feels like, I have been there. I have free 15 minute consults if you’re or anyone you know is confused or a little lost on how to get help or who to get it from. Here is the link to my services page and there is also a FAQs page with some more information on these subjects.
Don’t be afraid to take disordered eating and dieting patterns seriously and seek help if you want to break free from them!
Katy Gaston Nutrition
Katy is a registered dietitian nutritionist and owner of Katy Gaston Nutrition based in San Francisco, CA. Katy is passionate about her work in eating disorders and disordered eating (AKA dieting) and wants to help people heal their relationship with food and body. If you would like to work with Katy in counseling sessions, she is available virtually via her services page below. If you are unable to be a client at this time but would like learn more, click here for a free introduction into intuitive eating workbook!