What are the benefits of fat acceptance and intuitive eating?

 A little background first. 

I am a recovering compulsive overeater (COE).   I discovered I had an eating disorder in January 2005. I always knew that food was a coping mechanism for me.   It and my weight allowed me to divert all my focus onto body hatred and food obsession so that I didn’t have to deal with the real issues I was experiencing.   Very quickly I will tell you I was given a diagnosis of having an eating disorder and that was when I allowed myself to recover.    I gave myself permission to open up to other options on living.

I can’t say that I’m recovered and no longer a compulsive overeater but I rarely use the words “eating disorder” anymore.  Using those words early in my recovery allowed me to explore new avenues, make new friends, get some pretty direct counseling, confront my family issues and to get to where I am now.  Connecting myself to the words “eating disorder” led me to a community of others with eating disorders.  It was a god send to be able to go to an online community and to feel like other people understood what I was going through.   I will always be grateful to the psychiatrist who said I had an eating disorder.

Where I am now?  I’m in a whole different head space than I was in 2005.  Since the day I was diagnosed with an eating disorder I began educating myself.  I read like I had never read before.  To be honest, I hated to read until I came upon some books on intuitive eating. 

Intuitive eating, in a nutshell, is eating when you’re hungry, what you want, until you’ll full.  That’s just a very brief overview.  My favorite description of what IE is, is listening to your body.

Listening to your body.  Can you imagine?  Trusting what your body has to say?  It’s almost unthinkable to those of us who have let outside forces tell us what and how much to eat most of our lives.  To eat without guidelines and rules?  To eat and not write down the calorie, fat and fiber counts?  And something foreign for most of us, not weighing every week?  But the one thing that almost forced me to run the opposite direction – getting rid of my scale?  OMG!  Can they be serious???  Yes they were serious.

There are some authors to which I owe a debt of gratitude.  Geneen Roth is someone who I so highly admire because she has spoken out about intuitive eating for years.  I’m now 45 years old but I remember reading one of her books about IE when I was in my 20s.  She’s been carrying the IE torch for many years and has not given up her role in the IE community after all these years!  She’s my hero.  Read any of her books and you will feel enlightened and empowered.

Two authors who co-wrote books about IE are Jane Hirschmann and Carol Munter.  They authored “Overcoming Overeating” and “When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies.”  These two books were life changing for me.  It was these two books who sealed it for me and led me to change my beliefs about life in general.  I learned so many life lessons by reading these two books.

Other authors that influenced me are Carol Emery Normandi, Karen Koenig and co-authors Judith Matz and Ellen Frankel.

The authors I mentioned opened my mind and heart to IE.  Learning to trust my body and learn what being intuitive means has affected so much more than just my eating.  I’m learning boundaries and self-acceptance. I’m learning to trust not only myself but others.  I listen to myself and to others better based on what I’ve learned about being intuitive.

Now that I’m really getting a handle on being intuitive, I’m knee deep in self-acceptance.  I think this is the best part of my journey into self-discovery thus far! 

It’s just been in the past few months that angry gray rainbows got me totally hooked on fat acceptance blogs.  I’ve done enough work on my eating disorder, my intuitive eating and my self-acceptance that I’m actually to the point I’m able to talk about fat acceptance.  I’m learning new things everyday and I’m LIVING fat acceptance.

Had you asked me last year if I would ever be able to accept myself as I am right now…well, I would’ve said “of course,” because that was what I wanted to believe so badly.  I would’ve lied saying I accepted myself when deep inside I really didn’t.  I kept holding out for those two words….weight loss.  I kept holding on to the negative thoughts about myself because I hadn’t lost weight.  I kept beating myself up for being a failure because I didn’t lose weight.

No more!  What has fat acceptance and IE done for me?

 

• I’m listening to my body about what it wants…be it rest, food, movement, fun, intimacy, etc…
• I walk with my head held high and proud.
• I no longer beat myself up. I just don’t expend that energy for such negative processes anymore.
• I treat myself with dignity.
• I wear clothes that fit and are comfortable. I look for cute clothing and wear jewelry, fix my hair and wear make up because it makes me feel beautiful. (I am beautiful!)
• I’m quicker to speak my mind and voice boundaries when I need to.
• Potato chips, full fat salad dressing, Chinese food, chocolate, pop tarts and tater tots!
• I’m fat. No shame, no guilt. Just fact.
• I exercise at the gym and do what I feel I can. I go up to other fatties and smile and if they’re having problems with a machine, I try to help without overstepping their boundaries. I know it can be very uncomfortable for fatties to exercise in front of other people.
• I danced at a Christmas party! I had a blast with no regard to whether people thought I was too fat to be out there on the dance floor.
• The exercise I’ve gotten used to has cured my sciatica that was very painful. I’ve had a very painful bunion on my right foot for a couple of years now but the pain from it has almost completely disappeared too.
• I’m comfortable in my body. If I never lose a pound, I’m fine with that.
• Listening to my body and heart led me to cut ties with toxic ‘friends’. How much more loving can one be to one’s self?

~sas