It All Adds Up.
In my work as a registered dietitian, I specialize in helping people move away from a lifetime of dieting and make form a peaceful relationship with food and their body. Some of my clients started on their first diet at a very young age. Some can never remember a time when they weren’t dieting or having their food monitored by someone in power. Most seem to have started dieting right around puberty (between 10-12 years of age). As their bodies were changing and working to grow from child to adult-size, a doctor, parent, well-intentioned adult or ill-intentioned peer made a comment telling them their body wasn’t good and their behavior around food was wrong.
Just the other day, I sat with a client who was expressing frustration about how hard it was for her to notice her hunger and fullness cues and to trust her food choices as she worked to move away from the dieting mindset to a more mindful, attuned way of eating.
Why is is this so hard?!
Did you ever hear the phrase "practice makes perfect?" It’s true for the most part. Take musical instruments for example. My 9 year old started taking piano lessons a year ago. He started out poking at the keys, one at a time. Now he can play “Jungle Safari”, a piece that requires both hands, with his eyes closed. We know, we hear that piece at least 100 times each day. Even I, who have not taken a lesson in 30+ years can still sit down and play
Practicing a behavior creates a deep neural pathway in the brain that gets stronger with repetition until this behavior is the normal or habit.
It applies for both helpful and unhelpful behaviors.
When we follow a diet, we commit (or are forced to commit) to the behavior of following a set of external rules about when, what, and how much to eat. By doing so, we consciously (or unconsciously) choose to ignore internal cues of hunger, setting us on a path to mistrust our intuition about eating.
So, here sat my 42 year old client who was started on her first diet at age twelve by caregivers who were also restricting their intake in the hopes of achieving a smaller body and good health. And, so, a path was set, moving her from one fad diet to the next in the 1990s and one lifestyle change to the next throughout the early 2000’s.
Let’s do the math. 30 years x 365 days per year = 10,950 days x 3 meals per day = 32,850 meals.
32,850 times a meal was eaten or skipped
32,850 times hunger and fullness cues were ignored
32, 850 times an internal want or desire was not checked in with
When you do something 30,000+ times, an impact is made. It all adds up.
The repetitive action creates an unconscious or automatic behavior. It starts to feel normal. It becomes a habit.
I’m giving the example of 30 years because many of my clients have been dieting or working to recover from disordered eating for decades.
But, I don't think it takes that long to see the detriments of food restriction and body mistrust.
Perhaps you started dieting at the beginning of the pandemic in March - 6 months (540 eating opportunities). That's a lot of times to question, judge, and criticize yourself.
Another just as important issue is food insecurity. If you do not have access to a regular, adequate food supply, having the option to trust your body cues to guide your eating isn't even a choice you get to make. If you have been food-insecure since birth, that's 1,080 meals per year that you didn't get a choice and didn't have enough.
Here’s the thing, our bodies don’t know if we are on a diet to "look good in a selfie" or starving because we don't have access to food. The human body only knows NOT ENOUGH. With continued denial of food, our body and brain make adjustments on both a psychological and physiological level. And the longer this goes on, the more difficult it is to change.
That’s why this work is so hard.
Recovering from eating disorders and learning to eat in an attuned, mind-body connected way takes time, relies on many variables, and requires support. Here are some first steps.
1. Get access to food.
Call the USDA National Hunger Hotline for help getting access to food in your area. Reach out to your neighborhood public school to check if they have a community feeding program.
Sign up for support through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Find a food bank in your area.
If finances allow, make a meal plan and get food into your kitchen.
2. Eat regularly
Bite-by-bite, meal-by-meal practice tells your body I’m here for you, you can trust me.
Challenge food rules that keep you stuck in old eating patterns.
Find Support and the presence of a safe + loving other. Check out this free eating support account on Instagram.
3. Pause to check in with yourself.
Get into the practice of slowing down and tuning in to what your body is experiencing, wanting, and needing.
Do a body scan starting with your head and ending at your feet.
Ask yourself, “Am I hungry?” Decide what you want to eat. If you aren’t hungry for food, what else could you be wanting or needing?
You can heal your relationship with food and learn to trust yourself around eating. One meal at a time. One choice at a time. Start today. Start with 1.
Do you want help with this? I’d love to be a person who’s on your side. Reach out to chat. My fat-positive, inclusive approach is careful and deliberate, upholding my core value of structuring safety along the way. We can meet with curiosity around your relationship to food and your body. Together, we begin to cultivate habits to help you move away from the diet mindset and towards supportive eating practices.