My Intuitive Eating Journey

Let’s talk about intuitive eating (IE). It almost seems like a dirty phrase in the society of diet culture that we live in. I know that intuitive eating is popping up everywhere on social media (and for good reason). So I wanted to take some time to talk to you about my own journey with IE.

Starting about a year ago, I suffered months with crippling anxiety. During this time I couldn’t handle the stress of what I called “dieting',” which I can now recognize as disordered eating. I was having at least 4-5 panic attacks a week no matter how much I exercised, how much or how little I ate, how many minutes of meditation I did, how many morning pages I wrote. Nothing was helping. My dieting, at the time, consisted of: intermittent fasting (for 16 hours a day), working out with weights and doing cardio everyday (yes that’s 2 workouts a day), drinking a gallon of water no matter what, being Keto which included weighing every morsel of food and tracking every single calorie (even gum and honestly being so afraid of fruit, bread, and potatoes)! At this point, I was absolutely exhausted: mentally, physically, and emotionally.

I came to a point where I realized I could NOT live this way anymore. I spend a few months pretending not to diet including the infamous I am going to count my macros and fit Oreos into the calories that I am allotted (the person I asked for help when creating my macro program literally told me to count every lick, because that’s reasonable, NOT). I felt “better” as I lied to myself that I wasn’t dieting and on the other hand, I was consumed with tracking everything that I ate. I was measuring my butter, coffee creamer, and all of my vegetables.

I remember my breaking point vividly. I was in my kitchen gathering all of the necessary materials and ingredients for one of my followers grandmother’s recipe for banana bread (thank goodness for this social media community). As a woman who loves to cook, it is extra special when someone gives you a family recipe. My husband came home while I was making this recipe and I started talking to him (really for the first time) about my disordered eating and how heavily it had weighed on my soul.

I wept big fat tears as I stirred the ingredients into this banana bread. I realized that I had been dieting for as long as I could remember (starting at 10 or 11 years old). Being 28 years old and never understanding how damaged my relationship with food had been was a scary place to be. I wept as I told him I couldn’t imagine being a mother who didn’t enjoy my child’s birthday cake, or cooking with them, or eating pizza with them just because. It was like I saw my past (and the loneliness and sadness and unhappiness with myself no matter how small I ever was) and the possibility of my future (with children especially) all at once. I could not fathom having disordered eating forever.

It was on this day that I decided I was going to lean in to all of my issues with food and dieting. It was on this day I finally said out loud that I had disordered eating (and an unhealthy relationship with exercise too). It was on this day that I purchased a book about intuitive eating and invested in an e-course. I went all in. Because I couldn’t be so unhappy on the inside while pretending to be a happy small person on the outside.

Giving up my disordered eating has been one of the scariest things I’ve ever done. I realized I used dieting and exercise as a way to have an illusion of control. There were so many things that were out of my control when I was growing up: my father dying, my mother getting cancer (and later on dying too); the trauma and chaos that so vividly filled the adolescent version of myself. I am accepting the fact that all of these things happened to me to bring me to where I am right now: a 28 year old woman who has started her IE journey, no longer exercises as punishment, and is living her life with the way her body looks being one of the least important things about her.

Intuitive eating is a philosophy. It is a way to honor your mind, your body, and the way you nourish it. I am no expert, which is why I have recently decided to invest in group coaching with intuitive eating. For me, I went from all the food rules to zero of the food rules and it is a VERY frightening place to be in. I opened the flood gates and said f*** it to all the things I knew.

So here I am in a place where I am bigger than I’ve ever been. In a place where I have no idea what it means for my body to be hungry (or full). In a place where I’m not fully understood by those who love me most. In a place where some days I miss dieting. In a place where food still feels like it has control. In a place where I overeat sometimes. In a place where I don’t eat enough some days. In a place where I have the most cellulite I’ve ever had. In a place where it doesn’t matter because I am okay with not being okay.

Starting next week I will be part of virtual group coaching for intuitive eating. It’s the next step for me. I need to learn more about the principles and how to really put them into practice. I need to relearn what hunger is and what fullness feels like. I need to find a way to exercise without pushing myself to absolute exhaustion or skipping a day and not working out for the rest of the week. I have so many things to learn in this intuitive eating journey, but it’s worth for me because I can’t be in the same mental, emotional, and physical state I was in when I was engaging in disorder eating. This journey is harder than I ever imagined it could be. I hope you know that wherever you are in your own journey, you are not alone.

Comment below and tell me where you are in your own journey. We are all here to be with each other, through it, because of it, and we together will lean in to it. Whatever that it may be for you.