Holidays are a time for celebration and we are also aware of the struggles it brings. Food is undoubtedly a major centerpiece for many different holidays.

What does eating good-tasting food mean to you? I’ve learned many stories from clients of what it means when they eat delicious food.

Intuitive eating (IE) is a process intended to heal our relationship with food. Its first principles are to practice unconditional permission with eating, to challenge food policing, to foster mindfulness with enjoyment of food.

Binge eating can often be confused with lack of self-control when in fact, it is just a way your body is trying to communicate its discomfort with deprivation with you.

If you think about it, there are so many stages in our lives that we won’t achieve unless our bodies shift in some ways - from infancy to teenager, to a fully grown adult, and to old age.

This client noticed when they changed their group of friends, it became easier to challenge the ED.

ED recovery takes time, but it is certainly not wasted time. Because it’s a journey through hardship to gain a better understanding of ourselves.

Your ED would also have not allowed you to have many other things, like eating out spontaneously with friends and family, enjoying holiday dinners guilt-free, going on vacation without worrying about calories, a regular period, healthy hair and nails etc. 

When someone has recovered or entered remission from their ED, I hardly ever hear anyone say things like I hate my body more than ever before but I’ve had to just give into recovery so I stay alive.

The pressure and discomfort on our joints could be attributed to the weight, sure. And why must this automatically mean weight loss is the only essential step in getting what we desire? 

Many of my clients in lower weight also complain of having joint pain, back pain, chronic fatigue, and they can barely catch their breath going up the stairs. 

I mean…the answer is yes and no- depending on context. But the common denominator is that we simply have limited control. Our bodies are designed to survive in our environment which means we can lose or gain weight in ways that ensures our survival.

We’ve been sold the message that our body can be easily manipulated for a long while now, that if it’s not this or that weight or size, it must be our fault. Certainly if I follow the same eating patterns and exercise routines as the thin-bodied person on social media, surely I should be able to achieve the same?

Folks come to see me at varying stages of readiness for recovery. Some are still quite committed to keeping their ED as a way to survive and cope. Others may have grown tired of the cost of ED and moving towards taking actions exploring recovery. Many of course have witnessed the benefits of renourishment and are keeping strides in actively challenging their ED. 

This sounds like another obvious realization, but we’d all be surprised at the journey it would take for someone to arrive at this conclusion. Because at the end of the day we are driven by our own relationship with ourselves.

Let’s take a moment to examine this person’s experience with their medical team. Putting ourselves in their shoes, what would this comment evoke emotionally for you if you heard this from your care team? 

I think we can all believe that those who love and care for us have good intentions. However, when all of us grow up with a narrow perspective of what health looks like, being “healthy” can feel like a cage. The dominant view on health seems to be fixated more and more on a thin body, a meticulously curated diet, a rigid exercise routine, and a denial of existence in authenticity. 

One of the biggest reasons I love my work is because I get to witness the incredible capacity of courage, strength, and love through my clients.

Many businesses started the initiative of putting caloric information likely with the best of intentions to help consumers make informed decisions in a weight stigmatized world. However, diet culture has turned this tool into an omnipresent food police, a moral compass. High calorie bad, low calorie good- regardless of individual needs or preferences. The shame it can create often perpetuates more self-harming behaviors.

With so many conflicting messages out there about nutrition, how can we filter out misinformation? How can we decipher which tidbit is true and which is not? Obviously most of us do not have the time or capacity to go through scientific journals or clinical practices ourselves (that’s what healthcare professionals are there for!). So here are the steps to help us to think a bit more critically next time someone presents a new nutrition recommendation.

You know what else is also an estimate? Your daily caloric needs from a random online calculator. Heck, even the fancy equations that dietitians use to calculate daily energy needs or protein needs are ultimately estimates. Estimates are guesses which means if I somehow designed a meal plan for a client using tools that offer a best guess for their needs, and if this client noticed they remain hungry or dissatisfied on the meal plan- this means the estimates are wrong, not their body.