Intuitive Eating Principles: Taking the “Die” Out of Diet
UPDATE: Check out this new article from Oprah herself that directly relates to what you are about to read!!!
Step off the scales and quit counting every single thing
calories & lbs
screen time & likes
sleep scores & silent minutes
ounces & scoops
reps & steps
carbs & crunches
hurts & offenses
every single
heartbeat…
For whatever reason, a million in fact, our diets have become problematic and at times even lethal. There are approximately 20 million girls and women and 10 million boys and men in America with eating disorders, according to the Cleveland Clinic. By any account, it is far too many, which doesn’t even account for the millions left unreported or all the other food-related obsessions and distortions we deal with daily. It is almost impossible to eat anything without a red flag going up.
This is not a question of being healthy or fit. We all know those are ways to love ourselves and live our best lives. However, a false narrative sometimes derails the longing for those things. Because Oprah is a big contributor to that narrative, I first became concerned when she became a spokesperson for Weight Watchers, thinking we/she didn’t need to spend any more time watching (obsessing) over our weight. However, her newest TV special on weight loss was one more far-reaching reminder of how deeply this issue penetrates our lives. While I don’t want to believe that Oprah has sold out, I could barely watch. As much as I sympathized with her story of living a life of shame and being ridiculed about her weight in public, it felt like she succumbed to the shame by making herself into precisely what the shamers were saying she should be: thin at all costs. Maybe I missed the part where she talked about what extreme diet culture is doing to us. Still, the only part I heard was how the new weight loss drugs were being held up as the newest lifelong answer to all her prayers to become what the shamers told her to be. Being raised by television (atinylight.com/blog, 8/31/20 “Say Who You Are”), I watched her every day at 4:00pm and remember when she pulled out the wagon of fat she paraded around showing how much she lost at one point only to hear her admit in the special that as soon as the NEXT DAY she started gaining it back very consciously (since it turns out, her body was in fact starving). That is disordered eating. AND, it is something most everyone has done in one form or another. Not just women and girls but men and boys, too. As my husband’s doctor pointed out, all these drugs do at their core is suppress appetite. It is put forward as something we cannot control on our own. No mention is made of how we’ve lost touch with our own most basic, protective, life-saving, internal monitor: our hunger cues.
Disordered eating has become the norm.
That should be the actual headline.
What, if anything, has Oprah learned as she puts herself out there again with such a massive following? I don’t doubt that she and so many others may be feeling better physically and actually are in better “shape” according to some list of numbers (and we know this is a lifesaver for certain folks with ailments like diabetes). She is obviously having fun wearing new clothes! Still, it is ironic to hear her talk about things like “food noise” (that constant obsession with food) like it is anything but a clear product of the disordered eating we all have been desensitized to accepting as normal. To tell millions that they can be proud of whatever body they have after that seems disingenuous. If we only had the health care and the funds to swallow a pill for an “answer” to whatever irks us, why would we ever need to love who we naturally are? And, by the way, who are we…naturally? Do we have a set point for weight that feels best for our bodies, and are we constantly overriding that? How would we ever know??
Instead:
gulp
go
chew
savor
pardon
absolve
merge
settle
wonder
wander
consider
muse
exist…
And so, after watching the special, I spent time listening to two intriguing podcasts about something called “intuitive eating” that I wish more people would hear. Dieticians Bonnie Roney and Mallory Page do a much better job than I in addressing what is wrong with diet culture. The first is an episode that specifically addresses points brought up in this recent TV special in specific detail (both the positive and the negative):
The Diet Culture Rebel Podcast with Bonnie Roney April 2, 2024: My Reaction to Oprah’s Special: Shame, Blame and the Weight Loss Revolution
The Diet Culture Rebel Podcast with Bonnie Roney March 19: Quiet the Food Noise: 3 Ways Intuitive Eating Can Help
Seems Like Diet Culture With Mallory Page, February 29, #98 Weight Loss Injections & Weight Loss Journeys
So why is a poet writing about dieting? Because my poetry is about resilience and self-love. I have been mortified to realize I swallowed the lie that we can’t control ourselves, which dissociates us from our bodies and our hunger. It has made food an obsession and either “good” or “bad” rather than nourishing or enjoyable. It has stood in the way of my health and is taking a long time to unlearn and let food be only what it is rather than something to fear or worship. I don’t blame Oprah for that. The hard truth is she is struggling like all the rest of us, even though we want to put her on a pedestal and have her help us out of it. Maybe she needs our help. If she won’t call it out, we need to help each other by calling it out together. Our kids are watching us, and there is no telling how far this will seep into their lives any more than it already has, wreaking more havoc on their minds and bodies. Otherwise, we will never be able to tell them that food is meant for nourishment and pleasure, that our bodies are meant to be different sizes and shapes, or that we are not meant to let food (or the lack thereof) dominate our every thought. Whatever the current trend in dieting is, it doesn’t matter as long as we keep striving for bodies that would keep shamers at bay. In Bonnie Roney’s words, we need a “diet culture revolution”!
Step off the treadmill of tedious tracking
and sing your way through
a stroll or skip your way
through a sandwich
licking up every
single note
“Note to Self” by dena parker duke
Of course, there are things we need to count, monitor, and/or adjust. However, when we lose touch with our hunger, we should be afraid of things going off the rails. What is healing anyway? If we are healing only to be met with lies about how to nourish and care for ourselves, have we really accomplished anything?? There is no deep-down love, down in our bones, muscles, and, yes, even our fat, if we can’t look in the mirror and honestly love all of what’s there. We deserve to say and hear the words we need; we also deserve to honestly believe in our bodies and treat them with the utmost love and respect. I don’t blame Oprah. I truly hope someday, even Oprah will be able to have that in her life. I wish for us all to find peace inside our bodies and souls that can be passed to our children. Let’s fill our cups full. May our bodies never have to rebel because we are starving them, but may they also relax because we are not over stuffing them.
May we feed ourselves well and plenty so we can know we have been fed.
May it, please, be so.
