If you haven’t yet, pop over to Fat Fu and read Meowser’s post on Intuitive Eating. I read it this evening and it was exactly what I needed to hear right now. The validation within that post is phenomenal for me.
The quote that really validated me was:
The thing is, those it’s-bad/I-shouldn’t/I-want-it-even-more effects can persist for years — decades — after you cease trying to lose weight. (Remember the Ancel Keys semistarvation study? It doesn’t take much calorie restriction, or too long a period of time doing it, to potentially screw your head up but good.) That’s why not everyone can practice IE out of a book, or a blog post, without outside support (and why people with full-blown eating disorders can especially find it problematic).
I’ve been trying my darnedest (notice the implication that I’m failing) to practice IE and living by HAES principles for at least a couple of years. The only thing I really think I have succeeded in is turning IE into another diet of “shoulds” and “should nots” with some “goods” and “bad” thrown in quite often.
I can truly say that, for me, it may take me a few years to really get a hang of living intuitively. For meowser to point out that it may take some people decades to retrain their brain to think along the lines of being intuitive was a god send for me. I’ve been beating myself up for not being “farther along” than I had thought I would be. I’ve been wondering what is wrong with me that I can’t get the hang of IE or HAES as quickly and fully as I would like to. After I read Meowser’s post, I started putting some thought into what’s going on in my brain regarding IE and my seemingly opposition to living it.
Of course, the first thing that pops into my mind is that I’m now 45 years old and I’ve been dieting since I was 7 years old. I’ve been told by my parents, society, my “friends”, complete strangers yelling at me out of their cars as I walk around the track and salespeople that I’m fat and need to lose weight. I’ve been led to believe for 38 years that I’m not good enough, I’m lazy, I’m worthless, I’m “bad”, I’m ugly and I’m stupid.
Only last year did my doctor get on board and see that I was more than just a fat person in his office. Before that I was told by all of my doctors that I “had” to lose weight….no reason why, just lose weight. An old gynecologist of mine told me that even though I’m in my time frame for perimenopause that I probably wasn’t having hot flashes, I was just wearing a “permanent jacket” and that I needed to lose weight. (Notice I said he’s an old gyno of mine….don’t go to him anymore.) The therapist that I found in my city, who I thought would be able to help me so much told me within the second or third visit that I needed to either lose weight or have gastric bypass surgery. He said that the root of most of my problems was my weight. As a child I was taught to respect my elders, believe the professionals, blah, blah, blah, I believed all these professionals. “They’re professionals, they must be right!”
My first diet was Weight Watchers at the age of 7. My sister was constantly dieting (still is) and she and my mom decided I always needed to be on a diet. I can’t tell you how many organized diets I went on from elementary school through high school but it was a lot of them. My parents shelled out the money to get me to look thin. Each time I lost the weight, only to gain it back plus more. When I dropped out of college and disappointed my father yet again, I started working in a factory with over 300 women (very few men) and a friend of mine and I joined Weight Watchers (probably for my 10th time) and every week we would meet at the WW weigh in, sit down in the small chairs that were placed WAY too close together and listen to the wonders of dieting. I lost over 50 pounds at that time. Within a year I had gained almost all of it back.
I’ve taken dexatrim, fen phen (or however you spell it), done Nutri-System, WW, The Diet Center, the grapefruit and boiled egg diet, the Mayo Clinic diet, the cabbage soup diet, 1200 calorie diet, 1500 calorie diet, 1800 calorie diet, American Heart Association Diet, Diet for Diabetics, the Food Pyramid Diet, etc….and now apparently, the IE diet. My point is, I’ve done this for a freakin’ 35 years! It’s engrained in my brain to choose grilled chicken instead of fried, to look at labels to count calories, fats, fibers, sodium, etc…, to eat a salad with low fat dressing instead of full fat dressing.
So after thinking through all that, I had a real AHA moment. Not only is that engrained in my brain but so is the sense of rebellion that comes from restricting and dieting. From the time I was a child and going to WW, I was sneaking food into my room at night or sneaking to the store to buy candy and eating it before my parents found out. When I got old enough to drive, I would eat my diet meal at home then make an excuse to go out, go through a drive-thru and snarf down all I could. Of course, on the way home I had to drive with my windows down to get rid of the smell of the food. In college I would eat one meal with my “friends” and then go to my room and find something else to eat. I still do that today. I still get the sense that someone is trying to control what I eat because I’ve lived it for so long. You cannot turn on the news without seeing a diet related news story or a story about obesity or about the stupid airlines charging fat people double for a ticket. You can’t pick up a single magazine without a whole 4 page layout being dedicated to the “right foods” or what you “shouldn’t eat”. My mind instantly goes into rebellion stage.
My AHA moment: I’ve been in this rebellion stage for about 3 years now. I have purposely over-analyzed and over-thought IE and HAES to the point of rebellion….just as I did with dieting. I know in my heart that IE is what I want to be about. It’s how I want to live my life but as soon as I rededicate my life to it, the rebellion rears it’s ugly head. I turn IE into a diet. I have turned IE into another set of rules and by doing that, I’ve created the rebellion that comes from restriction.
What do I mean by that? As soon as I pick up my IE book and refresh my memory of things, I start saying, “yeah, I can have ANYTHING I WANT, WHENEVER I WANT, HOWEVER I WANT, IN THE QUANTITIES I WANT.” Yes, my brain does go in that direction. My brain is still functioning in the “rebellion from restricting” phase. There is no middle ground. There is either restriction or rebellion. Even if I post about it and I sound like I could be a guest speaker for IE, I’m still taking it to the extreme and not seeing the “intuitive” part of it. 35 years of dieting has brainwashed me to believe there are only two ways to live – restriction or rebellion – and I can tell you from personal experience they are both hell!
I would really like to open this up for discussion because I feel like this really has me stuck. Any ideas on how to deprogram my brain?
Angry Gray Rainbows 
This sounds so much like me, it’s scary. I’ve done most of the diets you mentioned, and succeeded short-term at all of them, failed long-term at all of them. At one point, all it took for me to hit the cupboards looking for something, anything, to eat was for someone to mention dieting/weight loss. It didn’t have to be a person to whom I was talking, it could have been someone on the TV or radio or in a magazine.
I still have times when someone will talk about dieting and I have that urge to start eating. I have to stop and ask myself “am I really hungry or is this just a knee-jerk reaction to all the years of restricting?” If I’m truly honest with myself, I can say that most of the time, it’s knee-jerk reaction, I’m not hungry, and I can let it go. But I’m still working on it, and not always successful at getting past the diet brainwashing and resultant rebellion.
Recognizing that you have that mentality is the first step in overcoming it. Then the hard work begins, stopping yourself when you know you’re rebelling and asking yourself honestly if your body really wants/needs this and then deciding if you’re going to keep on with the rebellion or let it go this time, because there will usually always be another time, unfortunately. Hopefully, those times get to be fewer and farther between.
I get what you’re saying…at least I get it “logically”. It makes total sense to me right now, at this moment but to keep it in the forefront of my mind and it remain a logical conclusion just isn’t happening.
I understand what you’re saying about recognizing the problem and thus being able to start working on it. And…looking back…I see differences in my life – some subtle, some really well defined. I have changed it’s just been a very slow process.
I think my brain is disconnecting at this point – “stopping yourself when you know you’re rebelling and asking yourself honestly if your body really wants/needs this and then deciding if you’re going to keep on with the rebellion or let it go this time…” – the part where it says you KNOW you’re rebelling. I don’t know, but sometimes I feel like my life has been one big rebellion and because I’m living the rebellion, I don’t even know when it happens. It’s so engrained in me that I’m going to have to work extra hard to catch it.
Asking myself if I really want or need the food at the time is a whole ‘nother issue. But I’ve come this far, I’m not going to stop now.
As always, thanks Vesta.
It helped me to realize what I wrote here: https://angrygrayrainbows.wordpress.com/2009/04/13/restriction-goes-both-ways/ … that restrictioin goes both ways. When we are in rebellion mode – we are still restricting. We are restricting the foods our bodies really crave and want for the foods we think we “should” want in a rebellion against “bad food” restriction.
Does that framing help at all…?
Now that is an interesting concept. Sometimes, for me, it’s not that I’m not getting the right or wrong foods, sometimes it’s just that I’m eating because eating is sinful, wrong, disdainful, stupid, gluttonous, needless…you know, something to be done in secret so I shout out to everyone, HEY LOOK! I’M EATING BECAUSE I CAN! SUCK IT!
(ok, that was a bit over the top but it’s how I’m feeling right now)
I know I’m sounding cantankerous and like I’m being a brat but I think this is a really deep issue for me and I’m only just now scratching the surface.
I’m so happy you got something out of what I wrote! And that it inspired such a great post all its own. (Just like Fillyjonk’s post inspired mine, I love the ricochet effect.)
A “permanent jacket”? Really? Gads.
Got something out of it?!? OMG! Yes, I got something out of it. You know, I don’t get to read a bunch of blogs so when I do, I’m so grateful to find ones like yours that I relate to so much.
I know your post has opened up something pretty big for me but I’ve come too far not to delve into it more. It’s actually been quite eye-opening for me to see just how entrenched I am in diet thinking. I’ve been thinking that I would read a certain book and magically, everything would click and I would no longer obsess about food and weight. That just simply is not the case. I’ve practically lived my whole life thinking about food or weight and to actually try to replace all those thoughts with something else is proving to be quite the challenge.
I want to just be…just live…be content and calm…dance when I want to dance, where what I want to wear, no judgements, no condemnation, no evil shoulds or should nots.
I’m thinking I’ve got a long row to hoe but I’m in it for the long haul. Scary shit!
[…] those articles gave me a lot to think about, and then I read On Diets by Big Liberty, and finally, Rebellion or Restriction? by […]
Hi, I’m new to FA/SA body positivity…Having hit complete diet bottom after another round of diet pills from some local quack, I started working with an IE therapist in January. I too am having a hard time living in the middle (whatever that is) between restriction and diet backlash induced overeating. You’re right-both are a horrible way to live. Just right now, I feel like going to the kitchen and finding something to eat, just because “I can” even though I am not hungry and my body does not need food, nor is it asking for food.
I am 41, and have been firmly entrenched in the diet mentality for around 25 years…so it will probably take years to normalize my relationship with food. Still, I’m frustrated because I don’t think I’m doing IE “right”, I’m stuck in either “watching myself” or overeating mode,. I can’t even look at a fruit or vegetable right now. I know I’ve gained weight and I’m in self flagellation mode about it- if one of the actual authors of the IE book can’t help me, I must be a really pathetic case.
Anyway, your post really gave me much to think about-thank you. Dieting is no longer an option and IE/normal eating is how I really want to live, so I’m not giving up.
Stacia (love your name), yep, sounds like you’re in some deep hate right now. You’re not a pathetic case. You’ve made the conscious decision to stop dieting and that alone shows me you’re not pathetic. You’ve also decided you’re not giving up. Bravo! I’ll be right there with you!
Thank you for writing this post. I really needed to think about this tonight, and you have provoked thought.
I am going to count myself extremely lucky that I only did organized dieting for about a decade. This is, of course, because I was naturally thin when I was younger. My sister wasn’t as skinny as me, and she had an ED by fifth grade (I didn’t find out about this until a year or so ago).
If I hadn’t found HAES and fat acceptance, I would probably have an ED now, or at least still be dieting.
Funny thing is, though, I can still remember being a kid and sneaking food — I did it all the time, from around age 7. My mother called me ‘the bottomless pit’ and (do I remember this, or does it just fit?) warned me my eating would ‘catch up to me one day’. Come to think of it, I had the foundations of dieting and self-hatred, right there.
I’m working on IE myself. I’m not ‘there’ yet, as in ‘perfectly in-tune with my body and perfectly tuning-out the crap’, but there has been some progress. I do still notice that I tend to binge on one thing or another, but I’m starting to think that’s just my pattern of eating — that I want one thing or other and eat it until I don’t want it anymore (sometimes days later). After all, I will listen to a song repeatedly because I enjoy it so much — why would my eating be any different?
But yes, I still suffer from the hyper-awareness of my eating, so that it’s “my eating” instead of not an issue at all. By reading blogs like this one, though, I’m thinking about healthy attitudes vs. unhealthy ones a lot more, and I’m becoming more conscious of what my attitudes look like at any given time. I’m gradually more able to make conscious decisions for myself, especially how I’m going to treat myself — I have the right to be treated like a responsible human being, which I am, and not like a naughty child, which is how the diet talk treats me.
The most important thing to me to allow myself whatever I need — even the feelings of rebellion. If I can let myself be how I am for that moment, then I open up the possibility for being anything at all — even a person for whom food is no longer an issue.
That’s the goal for me, to have one moment like that, and then to have more moments, more frequently.
Very well put and I agree with everything you said. “hyper awareness of eating”…Yes! that’s it! Thank you for your input.
At the times I can look at this whole deal from the outside, it seems so stupidly illogical that something so basic for life could be anything but an unconscious process. We breathe to live, and are not generally conscious of it. And yet we’re to brainwashed into vigilance every waking hour of the day.
That I have to use my conscious thought to fight that brainwashing to become unconscious of eating again is… well, boggling.
Ooooo…. neat point, Jo! From that POV… it makes trying to control eating seem more like trying to control the rate at which we grow hair…. measuring one’s hair every morning and freaking that it grew 1/8th of an inch over the last 2 days… OMG!!!… and then feeling guilty or less-than for having hair that grows “too fast” or something…
Or like trying to hold our breath when our bodies are saying we need to breathe.
Speaking of holding our breath… that was the first thing that popped in my mind, but… I didn’t use it cuz holding my breath is exactly what I used to do for years, because I felt like I didn’t deserve oxygen. No joke. I taught myself to breathe shallowly a little before junior high (as I remember it) to try to see if I could get myself to use less oxygen. This practice went on… oh, into adulthood. Nowadays, most of the time I breathe normally… but now and then I get stressed or triggered and I realize I am not breathing deeply enough. *headdesk* I managed to make shallow breathing or not breathing into an unconscious habit that I have spent years trying to unlearn. Sad, yes?
But yeah… your point is spot on, Jo. 🙂 Not eating when we’re hungry is just as ridiculous as not breathing the way we need to breathe to be healthy and functional!
It is so hard. But what a great story.
The only thing I can tell you is that, now that you’re consciously aware that this is the way you’ve done things, literally, for decades — go easy on yourself.
You spent most of your life dieting. That’s the mental foundation you’re operating on, and it’s not going to shift overnight. But deciding to work on it, to commit to trying to change it, even just a little, every day is such a huge achievement already.
You’re allowed to have issues with food. You’re allowed to have the habit of treating things like a diet. Given your experiences, how could you not?
You deserve major credit for starting to make changes. Give yourself that credit. Practice just noticing when you’re slipping into a diety mental state, and just be aware of it. Don’t judge yourself. Just sit with it, and notice it, from an almost removed perspective, if you can.
Once you’re used to viewing it objectively, it will feel less like a part of yourself, and you’ll be able to replace it with something that works better for you.
But anyway, thanks for writing this.
Thank you so much. Coming from you, I feel quite complimented. I will try my best not to judge myself too harshly but that too will probably have to come gradually.
Thank you for your response.
Thank you for your kindness, sassyblonde. I just don’t feel I can trust myself with food right now. My choices still feel contaminated by either the diet police or the rebel in my head. Adding to this is the necessary pain of letting go of the “fantasy of being thin”, and accepting my natural weight range.
I too did WW about 9 or 10 times. Going on another diet is absolutely unacceptable to me.
Glad there are blogs like this to help us all along in our journeys.
Hey Stacia (nice name, btw!!),
I think where you’re at is a normal milestone along the road to becoming more accepting. Getting to the point that diets are absolutely unacceptable is a really awesome thing and I know that it takes a lot of hard work to get to even that point.
It helps me to break down what I think is going to change for me if I’m thin (when I’m all in the FoBT). I have yet to come up against something that isn’t possible at the weight I’m at now. Happiness and success is possible at any weight and this can be a hard concept to wrap one’s mine around, but in time (and with patience 😉 ) it is definitely possible. I highly recommend being patient with yourself. These changes don’t come over night no matter how badly we want them to.
I read back through the comments here and one thing that really jumped out to me was in Jo’s comment: “And yet we’re to brainwashed into vigilance every waking hour of the day.”
Vigilence every waking hour of the day. I think this particular thing really kicked off with me when I had to write down every thing I ate. Although some people can keep a daily food log, I can’t now. Talk about rebellion! This was the beginning of me watching every morsel I ate. I would go to bed thinking about what I would have the next morning for breakfast and I would begin when I woke up thinking about what I would/could have during the day. If I ate “too much” one day, then the next day I would “watch it” (be extra vigilent).
What could have been a healthy experience with food became an obsession. My vigilence to keep up with everything I ate, to keep up with all the exchanges, calories, fat grams, etc…only led me down the path to obsession. The obsession with food allowed me to avoid the real issues in my life.
Food WAS my whole life! Food – or obsessing over food – became my be all – end all. It replaced joy, movement, self-love and even sex.
My obsession with food allowed me to numb myself from the pain of abandonment, the pain of seeing my parents argue constantly, the pain of the emotional abuse I suffered, the pain of having an addictive husband, the pain of being called names, the pain of losing loved ones and so much more. I have lived in a state of numbness and avoidance.
ANOTHER FREAKIN’ AHA MOMENT!!!
I just realized this is why I’m having trouble with IE and thinking I’m doing it “right” or “wrong”!!!!!!! I’m trying to obsess over doing/living IE and I know deep in my heart that living intuitively is not something you obsess about, it’s just something you do. I’m scared as hell to live IE because that might mean I can just be and then I’ll have to face the real stuff. IE and self-respect and self-love are the answers but if I do that then that means I’m not obsessing over food anymore, which in turn means I have the time to actually address some real emotions. OMG! That’s it! I’m scared that if I successfully live IE then I might not be able to escape what I’ve been hiding from!
Ok, gotta chew on that for a while.
This post is revolutionary for me. This is exactly what I am going through and never had a name for it. I AM REBELLING.
I have been spending years of my life vacillating between being a “good eater” and rebellion; neither has been helpful. So lately the tape in my head is, ” No one can tell me what I can eat. I can eat whatever I want. F*ck You!”.
I truly want to get to the point where I can have a relationship with my body and treat it with the respect it deserves. I know that my body is suffering because I am not offering it the nourishment that it needs.