Intuitive Eating Journey
So I thought I'd share a little update on my journey with intuitive eating. I by no means have this all figured out. I'm always in a learning process with it but I know so much more now than I ever have before.
Up until 8th grade I never gave eating a whole lot of thought. My mom gave me food to eat. There were certain things I liked eating and certain things I didn't but that was about it. I probably don't remember much about my food habits because I didn't think about them much.
As I approached middle school there were a bunch of foods I started to restrict that wasn't for the purpose of losing weight or being healthier but rather the result of an irrational fear I had of being poisoned but that's a story for another day.
Seventh grade I was slowly but steadily cutting out foods in an attempt to get healthier. Became too restrictive. Lost too much weight. Got help from a nutritionist and started a meal plan. That year I stuck to my meal plan really well and intuitive eating wasn't much of an issue because I pretty much always followed my plan. Sometimes at night I would eat a lot and feel overly full but it didn't really bother me. There were still however a list of foods I wouldn't eat because I only wanted to eat "healthy foods" and I was afraid I'd eat too much of the "unhealthy" ones.
High school years I somehow lost sight of the structure of my meal plan and wasn't sure what normal eating looked like anymore. I would force myself to eat food I didn't want because I felt I had to. I'd either make myself eat past my point of hunger or I'd end up eating under my point of hunger and be starving. There seemed to be no in between. Constantly thinking about or analyzing my past or current meals became the main focus of my time and energy. The harder I tried to eat "normally" or intuitively the more I was unable to do so.
First year of college = changes. I was finally working with a dietitian and counselor simultaneously who were helping me gain back needed weight. The dining hall was very overwhelming but it was a blessing to always have a supply of nourishing food around me and the freedom to chose when and what to eat.
Sophomore and Junior year of college I began reading books and blogs about intuitive eating, realizing that it involves a lot more than how full my stomach feels. I became more free with portion sizes because I had no way to measure them. I was learning to embrace the ebb and flow of my hunger cues rather than be angry they weren't more predictable. I also had to cope with often feeling overly full.
Currently (I'm still a Junior) it seems that some weeks I'm better at intuitive eating than other weeks. I allow myself a lot more freedom in when, what, and how much I eat. I'm learning how emotions and the availability of food impact my desire to eat or to not eat. I'm making peace with the fact that sometimes I'll eat more and sometimes I'll eat less but that's okay because it all balances out over the course of a week or so. I can eat mostly any food I crave. Granted 85% of the time I crave super healthy food like salad, beans, salmon, fruits, vegetables, yogurt but I've also done a lot more baking and eating of chocolate and nut butter than I ever used to.
The biggest challenge I currently have is learning to respect my body by eating less when I'm not hungry. This week I've been eating a lot of volume food (think plates full of fruits and vegetables and proteins). Normally this is how I eat and what my body craves but for whatever reason this week those things have been making me feel really full but I continue to eat that way out of habit. I'm trying to remember to give myself grace because this is a learning process and no one does it perfectly. Intuitive eating is going to look different for each individual and it's going to look different for me from day to day.
I think I'll end here but I hope to post more about this in the future.
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