In October, Tim and I will celebrate 7 years of marriage!
Which means I’m coming up on another 7 year anniversary… 7 years since I broke up with dieting, obsessive exercise, and the constant quest to manipulate and control my body through food and exercise.
It’s almost my 7 year food and body freedom anniversary!
It was almost 7 years ago that I said ‘this is it! I’m meant for more than obsessing over this.’
It was almost 7 years ago that I got the honest, loving support I needed to make an awesome change in my life.
It was almost 7 years ago that I discovered intuitive eating
Not sure exactly what intuitive eating is? It’s a set of healing principles, which you can read all about here, that guide you back to your body’s natural cues and give you the freedom to honor your body without dieting in your relationship with food.
Intuitive eating changed my life. Plain and simple.
Intuitive eating helped me learn how to listen to my body and take care of her without external rules.
Intuitive eating set me free from the guilt, shame, confusion, obsession, rigidity, and restriction of diet culture, diet rules, and an unhealthy obsession with “wellness.”
Intuitive eating has allowed me to experience a deeper level of health – not only physical health but also emotional and mental health as well.
Yet, today, I can tell you that if I’m being 100% honest… I don’t really consider myself to be an intuitive eater anymore.
So… what do I consider myself?
A natural, normal, human eater.
For me, this was always the deepest desire, dream, wish, and goal.
Intuitive eating was the powerful BRIDGE away from diet culture to this place:
A place where I feel total peace in my relationship with food – whether I’m at home in my kitchen or traveling in a foreign place far away from all my casual comforts.
A place where it is simple and wholly uncomplicated to honor my body with food.
A place where I don’t think too much about ‘eating when hungry’ or ‘stopping when full’ because it happens most of the time subconsciously.
A place where I eat nourishing foods – most times foods that nourish my body and taste buds…
and definitely some times foods that nourish my soul (like this past weekend, when I ate sugar dusted fried donuts by the water with lovely friends).
A place where rules are replaced with honoring needs, values, and lifestyle.
A place where food is just food
AND ALSO food is what…
brings people I love together around a table,
comforts a crowd in the midst of loss,
fuels our laughter,
allows me to experience a new culture,
allows me to connect with my own heritage,
makes me feel nostalgic,
gives me the energy to show up in the world,
and so much more.
My deepest desire, dream, wish, and goal for all who want it is this: for you too to feel like a natural, normal, human eater.
