Healing My Body & Mind by Saying F*ck Off to Restrictive Eating

Restrictive Eating in My Life

Honestly, I don’t remember a time where I wasn’t thinking about restricting… and bingeing food. There were so many moments as a kid that felt shitty. When my sister was a tiny little thing who’s clothes hung off her frame, and when the only jeans that would fit me were boys husky jeans. YES, BOYS HUSKY JEANS - Y’ALL. When all my friends went to abercrombie on a friday afternoon to pick out outfits to go out in and NOTHING there fit me - or, if it did, it looked absolutely terrible on me. I was made aware that certain foods were good (vegetables) and others, were bad (oreos, french fries and bread).

I did try and restrict what I ate, but then, in a bout of depression at 3 am, when I couldn’t fall asleep, I would sneak out of my room to watch CSI and eat an entire fucking box of oreos until I felt sick. The more I was told - or told myself - I couldn’t have something, the more I craved it. The more the thought of it occupied my whole mind.

Then in college I became WILDLY unhealthy, barely eating, doing drugs, going out every night and dancing my ass off for hours. I was hands down the most unhealthy I’ve ever been.

Guess what, though? I weighed the least I ever had in my life, and I have NEVER IN MY FUCKING LIFE BEEN COMPLIMENTED MORE! Everyone complimented me on how good I looked. My bones were sticking out of my body, I was doing too many drugs, I was barely eating and all around was unhealthy as F*CK. But our society values thinness above all else, so everyone complimented me as though I was somehow winning at life now.

Who Profits Off Our Vulnerabilities

As women and girls, we are constantly bombarded with messaging that we need to eat the ‘right’ foods, we need to limit the ‘wrong’ ones. How we need to ‘earn’ our desserts and so many other fucked up, damaging narratives. Not to mention that  many of the people preaching these things are contradicting each other, making it seem like we just haven’t found the right diet. Well, as I’ve gotten older I’ve learned to consider something: Who is benefitting from women and girls constantly feeling like they’re not the best they can be because they aren’t thin enough? who is benefiting from this narrative that thinness is equated to worthiness?

In this case, there are lots of clear winners, but the main one is the diet industry… which is worth $68 BILLION DOLLARS. No wonder it’s beneficial to cultivate these social vulnerabilities. When the majority of people don’t feel good about themselves, it's easy to convince them that they just haven’t found the right thing yet, spend your money on this and we’ll be the solution to your ‘problem’.

How many of you know someone who is constantly on a new fad diet? Paleo? Keto? Weight Watchers? Intermittent Fasting? Counting Macros? Counting Calories? The list is endless.

Saying F*ck Off To Restrictive Eating

Enter Intuitive Eating. I’m linking to one of my favorite resources in case you want to learn more - since I am not a dietician, just someone who is healing their body through granting myself persmission to just fucking be. I started listening to Christy Harrison’s podcast Food Psych, and stumbled upon an episode where they talked about how restricting leads to bingeing. I thought about my own life and how often I would limit my sugar intake, only to make a giant batch of cookies and eat all of them. I decided for the week to let myself eat whatever the f*ck I wanted and see what happened.

Want to guess what happened? I stopped craving sugar like Gollum chasing after his ring. Giving myself permission made me not really want it. I think I ate a piece of chocolate and 2 cookies that whole week. That doesn’t mean there aren’t weeks I crave sugar morem but usually it coincides with when I would be on my cycle. And honestly, my body is doing crazy shit, if it wants a f*cking cookie, it can have it.

My whole life I’ve been telling myself not to eat X or Y and it was making me do nothing but want to have X and Y. Intuitive eating felt like a better way to live. I was so sick and tired of the shame and fear that surrounded eating for me. I was constantly afraid of gaining weight or of my thighs touching, but my body is not a f*cking ornament, it’s an instrument, and a badass, strong one at that.

Who cares what the number on the scale says? Who cares if I don’t look like the photoshopped bullshit plastered all over our media outlets? Not me. Not anymore. My body has NEVER been this capable before. I can climb walls and do arm balances,  I can squat over 100 lbs, and guess what? I also weigh the most I’ve ever weighed. I stopped weighing myself entirely because it’s still really hard for me to see that number after years of indoctrination to this bullshit culture we’ve cultivated.

I’m not doing it anymore.

I’m not trying to be as small as possible.

I’m not trying to be as light as possible.

I am listening to my body, I am listening to my hunger and my fullness.

I am making peace with food, I’m giving myself permission to eat whatever the f*ck I want.

I am saying no when I think. ‘oh well, this is a good food and that one is bad’.

I am moving because it feels good.

I am moving because I am grateful for this body.

I am not moving because I hate my body and want to shrink it.

I am learning to heal my body and mind from years of pain surrounding my body.

I’m learning to love my body for what it can do and not for how little it weighs.

I am saying ‘f*ck off’ to restrictive eating.