When you’re giving up disordered eating and trying to re-learn how to eat and exercise appropriately for your body (read: intuitively), it can be really hard and confusing.
For me personally, I didn’t even know what foods I actually did or didn’t like, I didn’t know what actually felt good in my body, what amount of food I actually needed to feel satiated or how to appropriately exercise my body. I had to re-learn everything and at the same time try and erase all of the calorie and nutrition information I had memorized from years of disordered eating.
It was hard and messy and I felt like I would never be able to quiet the diet culture noise long enough to figure myself out, so I started to make choices based on the question: what if calories didn’t exist? What if what I chose to eat had no numeric value, but only affected how it would feel in my body? How would I choose to move my body right now if it wasn’t going to burn energy, but just change how I was physically feeling? What would feel good?
I still didn’t always get it right, but it sent me in the right direction. I stopped seeing food as a number and saw it all as equal. A salad was equal to a burger, and some days I was very much craving the burger and some days I was very much craving the salad. Some days I needed heavier foods, and other days the thought of heavier foods turned me completely off.
Recently exercising hasn’t been a top priority, as I’m taking an entire month off to give my body some much needed rest, but my body still has made it clear when I need to stretch and walk to get blood moving.
A big factor in understanding how foods and movement is actually affecting you on an internal level is learning how to be in your body. I talk about this a lot because it’s incredibly important for so many things. Moving in to your body is hard and scary and it can be noisy and uncomfortable, but it in the long run it teaches you a lot about yourself and how to take care of yourself.
Yoga nidra and meditation are really helpful techniques for teaching you how to feel your body and removing the noise of diet culture helps you make decisions that are best for you and your body.
Removing the stress of calories/macros/etc. helps you identify what your body is saying vs. what your mind is saying and therefore making you feel.
Your thoughts control everything. If you think a food or movement will affect you in a certain way, they will. That doesn’t mean that’s what’s actually best for your body so removing the stress you feel around food and movement will help you figure that out.
My question for you today and everyday is,
If calories/macros/etc. didn’t exist, what would you choose to eat? And how would you choose (or not choose) to move your body today?
Disclaimer: I am not a therapist or medical professional. This is not meant to diagnose, treat or cure any illnesses and should not be seen as a substitute for professional help. I share my experiences here in hopes of helping others, but I absolutely encourage you to seek professional help for your struggles.
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