More times than not, a client will sit opposite me (in my office or on video chat) when the light bulb goes on! The light bulb that I’m referring to is the fact that being an intuitive eater came along with their body when they were born. It’s “factory installed” but unfortunately over the years, it became faulty. Today I’d like to explore the reasons why.

Well-Meaning Parents

By no means am I looking to blame your parents. Most parents are well-meaning, although I do recognize that this is not the case all the time. But in most instances, parents want their children to eat well and grow well, and they believe the latter is determined by the former. So, as a baby, if you pushed away breast or bottle as a sign to mom that you had enough, but she felt that you didn’t, she would encourage you to nurse a little longer or drink a little more from the bottle.

As a toddler, when you were more interested in playing than eating, perhaps your mom forced you to sit at the table until you had x amount of bites, or she’d run after you with a forkful of food. In each of these instances (and others that I’m sure you can share), you are getting the message at a young age that you cannot trust what your body is telling you. Mom must be right after all. It’s no surprise then that now, as an adult, you continue to have mistrust in your body’s signals.

The Diet Industry

You decided that it was time to lose weight and you followed a diet because that is the cultural paradigm on how to “manage” your weight. But with each diet you followed, you lost further trust in your own body’s signals. You ate when, how much and what the diet told you to, regardless of whether you were hungry or not. You played by the rules, but with each diet game you played, you moved further and further away from your “factory installed mode” of eating.

Quick story: I have a friend who was on a diet. We were out together and at 11 am she pulled out a bar to eat. She said, “I’m not hungry now, but this diet I’m on says I must eat every 2-3 hours, so I am”. That sounded so wrong to me, but it wasn’t my place to say anything to her.

Have you found yourself in this type of situation too?

The Thin Ideal

It’s very likely that you’ve been effected by society’s messages of the thin ideal, the concept of the ideal body of a woman being thin and slender. That to be worthy in this world, you need to possess a thin body. This concept has led to many disordered eating patterns and eating disorders in young girls and women of all ages.

If you’ve been striving to achieve this body, then more than likely you’ve been ignoring your “factory installed” mode of being intuitive and eating when hungry and stopping when comfortably full.

Resetting to Factory Installed Mode

When the light bulb goes on for my clients, their immediate thought is “we need to come with an instruction manual”, but then they follow that with “wait, we do, It’s inborn.

Yep!

So how do you get back to the way you were born?

• Step 1: Say NO to Diets – Recognize that diets don’t work long term. Sure, maybe you lost a few pounds (or more than a few) when you were “strict” and “following” the diet. But it wasn’t sustainable and for the majority of people, it never will be.

 

• Step 2: Tune Inward, Not Outward – Decide today that you will no longer base your eating on external sources, whether that be a diet, a health coach or a guru you find on the internet. If you stop and listen to the signals your body gives you, you will become acquainted with them again. Do know, however, that it takes time. If you’ve been dieting for decades, those signals have likely silenced. Be patient. You’ll be glad you did.

 

• Step 3: Reject the Thin Ideal – As hard as this step might be, come to terms that your genetic blueprint probably isn’t for that thin body you’ve been chasing after all these years. Give up the chase, work on respecting your body wherever it is now, and allow nature to take its course. Only your body knows what shape, size and weight is natural for it, so take the pressure off your body (and yourself) and enjoy the life you are living.

 

I have many resources that can help you as we move into 2020. Schedule a complementary call with me and let’s restore your body to it’s “factory installed mode” of intuitive eating.