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#intuitive eating
cyanomys · 1 day
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Calling all body positive ppl
Does anybody have recs for fat & body positive creators I can follow. Especially about movement and intuitive eating.
But also just seeing other fat people doing hobbies and being visible on the internet would be nice. I like gaming, books, the usual nerd package.
I’m having so much trouble searching for these sorts of creators without getting suggested fatphobic or pro-ED content instead which is very upsetting :(
Even if you don’t have answers please reblog so I can find people who do!!
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brytning · 1 year
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Everyone knows it's that time of year when many people feel compelled to set goals to alter their body and restrict their food. The pressure to be thin is everywhere---it's the water we swim in. If you want to take care of your body, I hope this is the year you learn more about weight-neutral approaches to health! The Health At Every Size movement and books by fat activist Aubrey Gordon are great places to start!
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neptunes-cunt · 2 years
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i love you consistent meals i love you steady blood sugar i love you little snacks i love you non-diet foods i love you full-fat yogurt i love you sugary drinks i love you intuitive eating i love you full stomach i love you breaking free from diet culture i love you body that just wants to keep me alive
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sitronsangbody · 11 months
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"Oh so we should just eat anything we want??"
Well actually YES but also:
Restricting food Does Stuff To Your Brain. "Restricting" doesn't mean stopping when you're full. I feel like this is what gets misunderstood a lot. It means placing rules and limits on food that supercede what your body is signalling that it wants. Let's use cookies as an example. Restricting would be:
- I can only have cookies when I deserve them.
- I can only have cookies when I'm alone.
- I can only have two cookies.
- I can only have low-calorie cookies.
- I can only have cookies on set days, or so-called cheat days.
- I can't have cookies.
- I can't have cookies in the house.
- I'm bad when I eat cookies.
- Cookies are a bad food and I must compensate for having eaten them.
Whether or not you stick to the restrictions you set, your brain is learning to be an anxious mess around cookies. It might want to avoid anywhere that has cookies. It might feel shame for wanting or eating cookies. It might get exhausted from suppressing the craving and decide to binge. It might go into binge mode every time you eat cookies because you've taught your body that This Will Not Be Available Whenever. It might feel ridiculously important to eat all the cookies while you can.
I know we're all so used to constantly talking about food, diets, weight and bodies, and it's completely normalised to look at absolutely everything you eat and assign it the level of guilt you're gonna feel for eating it, and to brag about not eating this and that, and to announce that you know it's a Naughty Indulgence when you eat anything sweet.
But oh my god, it's such a huge weight off your shoulders to just let yourself eat cookies because you wanted cookies and stop when you feel satiated and know that the cookies will be available next time you want cookies because you don't need to earn them in any way. Because a brain that knows it can have cookies whenever it wants cookies, doesn't crave cookies all the time. Nor does it feel any self-loathing when it does crave cookies.
And I just wish everyone a very chill brain and some cookies
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slow-burn-sally · 21 days
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People's fear of eating is intense. I work with an older woman who is constantly dieting "for her health", and at least once a day if not more, she bemoans wanting to eat things.
"I can't make corned beef for St. Patrick's day, or I'll eat all of it."
"I can't have chocolates in the house, because I'll eat them."
I am so sick of hearing this from multiple coworkers and friends every day or every week. This fear of food, and fear of eating. Fear of hunger that is a perfectly natural and unavoidable and enjoyable part of being human. Fearing your body's natural hunger is a sad thing. I used to live under that fear all day. I am so very glad I'm not afraid of eating things I want to eat any longer.
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sullina · 1 month
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genuinely insane that diet culture poisoned people will insists that, if they don't diet, they'll just "eat cake all day" or some other type of sweet candy
because... that's not how it works
like, if you completely give up any sort of dieting and go for intuitive eating (meaning: listening to your own body and giving it what it craves), you're probably gonna be eating "unhealthy" at first, because you've been denying your body something it desperately needs.
For one person, that can be sweets.
For another, that can be fast food.
Just imagine literally anything that could potentially deemed "unhealthy" by diet culture, and someone is gonna crave just that once they start intuitive eating.
But back to my point No one is gonna be eating "only cake" if they don't make a conscious effort to monitor every little thing about their diet, because that's not how the human body (or any living body) works. It's your body's job to keep you alive and well. This includes your diet. Your body knows you can't live entirely off of cake. It's gonna crave salty things, too, not just sweet stuff. And by "salty", i mean, like, an actual meal.
And believe it or not, but vegetables? Can be fucking amazing. On the condition that you focus on making a meal that tastes good instead of being "healthy". Believe it or not, but you're gonna benefit more from a vegetable medley that tastes fucking amazing, than you're gonna get from the same vegetables but raw and unseasoned. I'm not kidding, how much you enjoy your food has a real and measurable effect on how many nutrients of said meal you end up absorbing.
Another benefit of intuitive eating I've personally found is that I'm much more willing to try new things, especially new vegetables. Like, I'm seirous, just listening to your body and trusting yourself to know what you need, like how every single living being, including humans, have been surviving for literal millions of years, is actually really good for you. Cutting out entire food groups, because some """health official""" being paid billions of dollars to say that it's unhealthy and what you REALLY need is their company's product, is NOT good for you. At all.
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hyperlexichypatia · 2 months
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Prescriptive diet culture, especially (but not exclusively) the sort aimed at losing weight, is ableist and sizeist, with frequent undertones of racism, classism, and sexism. It relies on the premise that all bodies can and should fit into a certain size and a certain range of “health” and ability, that fat and disabled bodies are inherently lesser, and frequently relies on patronizing or limiting the options of poor people for their alleged “own good,” stigmatizing or patronizing the food choices of non-European cultures, and judging women’s and perceived-women’s bodies more harshly than men’s bodies.
In response to this, various fat liberation, body positive, and health-at-every-size movements have arisen to challenge this narrative to varying degrees. One of the alternatives often promoted in these contexts is “intuitive eating,” in which people eat what their bodies crave, whenever they’re hungry, instead of following a prescriptive diet or schedule. This is framed as radical, liberatory rebellion and self-actualization against diet culture.
Intuitive eating is great for some people. However, there are some problems with promoting it as a universal solution.
First of all, “Everyone should eat intuitively” is just as prescriptive as any other prescriptive diet. It still frames food choices as something with a right and a wrong answer. What superficially sounds like “Eat whatever you want” actually becomes “You must eat whatever you want, and examine carefully whether you actually want it, and defend your choices accordingly.”
Secondly, intuitive eating is fundamentally inaccessible to the majority of the world’s population. Perhaps if we lived in a Star Trek universe where we could just command a replicator to create food and have it instantly ready for us, then most, if not all people, could eat intuitively. But in our own world, our food choices are constrained by time, money, and availability, as well as restrictions like allergies and sensitivities.
When I think about what food I want to eat, I have to think about what I already have. What I can afford to buy. What I have the time and energy to prepare. I might “intuit” that I crave a steak, but what I have readily on hand is a bowl of cereal. Intuition won’t help someone with chronic fatigue who can’t stand at a stove for long or chop vegetables, or someone on food stamps who has to stretch their budget, or someone who works long shifts and comes home exhausted, or a parent of three children with food allergies who only feeds themself leftover scraps from feeding them. Who has time and energy to cook a meal from scratch? Who has money to go out to a restaurant? Whose invisible and underpaid labor -- farm workers, grocery workers, restaurant cooks, homemakers -- does this system rely upon?
The third problem with promoting intuitive eating as a universal solution is that many foods are manufactured in such a way as to sensorily mislead the eater about their properties. The idea that “artificial” or “processed” foods are somehow “worse” than “natural” foods -- or that those are meaningful categories -- is ridiculous and baseless. However, it is a fact that many foods are made to mimic the look, taste, smell, and texture of foods they do not actually contain. This makes it harder for eaters to “intuit” a food’s properties by the usual means. Eaters may have to rely on ingredients lists and nutritional information rather than sensory input alone. This is especially true for people who have specific nutritional needs, like allergies or nutrient deficiencies, to either avoid or seek out specific food attributes.
Finally, even if all other obstacles were eliminated, some people are just not good at intuiting their own food needs. People with executive functioning disabilities may forget that they’re hungry, or not recognize their bodies’ hunger signals. Not everyone is naturally good at piloting a meat suit. Food is difficult, and it’s okay to need external reminders to refuel.
Intuitive eating rhetoric can sound suspiciously similar to the common rhetoric of the “natural” “wellness” movement, stemming from the premise that all bodies are born with a natural alignment to a certain standard of “health” and normative ability, and only external factors and individual choices can “corrupt” it. In reality, there are no normative bodies or abilities. Plenty of people are born with food-related disabilities, whether difficulty remembering to eat, anxiety, susceptibility to nutrient deficiency, allergies, diabetes, or all kinds of other conditions. Food is hard. Harder for some people than others. And that’s okay.
There’s nothing wrong with intuitive eating, but it’s not a universal solution to everyone’s food difficulties. We need affordable, accessible food for everyone. We need everyone to have the free time and support they need to perform all activities of daily living. We need living wages for everyone at every part of the food supply chain. We need clearly labeled food ingredients and nutritional values. We need a society where everyone has the resources, time, and support to eat whatever they want, and the information to know what they’re eating. And then, maybe, intuitive eating can be a more attainable goal for people who want it.
We also need a society in which bodily autonomy is respected, and people’s food choices and other health and bodily choices are rightly regarded as no one else’s business. We need widespread recognition that there’s no standard of health or ability that anyone “should” have and no way that anyone “should” eat, and that what matters is ensuring that everyone has equitable access to resources, which each individual can choose how to use, whether that’s eating frozen dinners every day, growing vegetables for fun, eating only purple things, or using a timer to remember when it’s time to eat. But until we achieve that society, “intuitive eating” might as well mean “let them eat cake.”
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thepeacefulgarden · 9 months
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frickfatphobes · 6 months
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this is just a quick reminder that you cannot get addicted to food
you can have an unhealthy relationship with food (for instance, restricting or dieting or eating more than you'd feel happy and comfortable with consuming) but you cannot be "addicted" to it
why? because just like breathing or drinking water or sleeping, it's something your body physically needs to survive
again, with anything your body needs, you can overdo or underdo it. that will always be true. balance is required in all aspects of life at one point or another. just practice intuitive eating and trust your body
sincerely, someone who has felt a hundred times better since i replaced fad diets with intuitive eating
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jokes aside, i think when we talk about having healthy relationships with food and eating mindfully we forget that for many people, intuitive eating isn't, well, intuitive. especially if you are recovering from severely disordered eating patterns and/or a severely disordered relationship with food, figuring out when you are hungry, full, wanting, finished, and more in regards to food feels impossible. so for those in recovery: it's okay that intuitive eating is hard. it takes practice and time, and it has to be learned. be gentle with yourself. a healthy relationship with food is possible, it just takes time.
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therealieblog · 5 months
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A big part of Intuitive Eating involves the de-stigmatizing of food. How do we de-stigmatize food? By not assigning it moral qualities, and by not using derogatory, negative language when we talk about food.
Examples of moralizing, derogatory and negative language we, under diet culture, still use regularly when talking about food:
"Sinful"
"Fattening"
"Unhealthy"
"Deadly"
"Bad for you"
"Clean"
"Pure"
"Healthy"
"Good" "
Junk/Junk food"
"Crap/Crappy"
Words to use instead of: Instead of "Sinful", or "Fattening", use "Decadent", "Rich" or "Delicious". Avocados and dark chocolate and many organic, "healthy" foods will make you fatter if you eat them often enough. Is this really about health? Or is it about fatphobia?
Instead of "Unhealthy", you can just say what it is about the food that impairs your health. "It hurts my stomach," "It makes my skin greasy/makes me break out", "I'm allergic to it" "I feel nauseous when I eat that." That at least is honest. Saying any food that isn't on some diet culture list of approved foods is "unhealthy" is just not scientifically accurate or backed by anything other than fear mongering.
Yes, eating foods high in fat and salt and sugar in large enough quantities, for long enough periods of time can negatively affect your health, but the vast majority of studies done on exactly how it affects your health, do not control for participants' smoking, drinking, drug use, genetic predispositions (genetics makes up a significant portion of health by the way), sedentary lifestyle, exposure to chemicals in the environment, mental health status, or literally anything outside of what they eat, so... yeah... f@ck that.
Ditto with "Bad for you." It's just so formless and un-researched and based in fatphobia. What does that even mean? In what amount is it "bad for you?" would it be equally bad for anyone to eat "unhealthy" foods at any time? Is there a magic threshold past which one's donut consumption goes from infrequent to "bad for you" levels? Or, are human beings a wildly diverse group of people, who all have very different bodies, metabolisms, genetics, tolerances, tastes and needs.
"Clean" is just as bad as "Bad For You", only worse, because it's so moralistic. If food is made out of animals, plants and grains, and is considered edible by human beings, it's fucking clean. Now if you're talking about gross things falling into the food by accident during the process of making it, or if you're talking about pesticides being used on your fruit and vegetables, then I get wanting to make sure the food is "clean". But if you're putting food on some sort of angelic pedestal for being free from sugar, or saturated fats, or carbohydrates, then you are still stuck in diet culture.
Instead of "Junk food", which implies that the food itself is garbage, which is honestly just a horrifying way to think about and talk about food, you could say "play food", "fun food", "snack food". These foods: chips, chocolate, cookies etc. aren't meant to fulfill your nutritional needs. We eat them for enjoyment, or to pick us up when we're blue, to calm us when we're stressed, or just because it tastes good and we like eating it. I think gentle nutrition is important, and paying attention to how food makes you feel is obviously important, but the way we perceive food and talk about food, reinforces what we think of ourselves when we eat it. If we are eating "bad" and "unhealthy" foods, then we are bad and unhealthy people, and that is a mind-fuck, believe me.
I've performed a 25 year longitudinal dieting study on myself. I know what it feels like to absolutely hate myself for what my body tells me it wants to eat. Not fun. So please have a care with the way you speak about food, and the way you look at yourself in relation to food. Food is sustenance and life. It is meant to be enjoyed, not feared. Lets not talk about food as if the thing meant to connect us to life also makes us inherently morally deviant.
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brytning · 2 years
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When you're tired, stressed, burned out, depressed, or just busy, figuring out how to feed yourself multiple times a day can take more energy than you have to give. Here's a resource I've been leaning on lately so that feeding myself is easier. I've never been a meal prepper because I don't like eating leftovers over and over, and taping a written list of snack ideas to the pantry hasn't worked for me in the past. When I tried a visual method by saving a folder of photos on my phone, something clicked. I'm a visual person---of course I would benefit from seeing a personal menu of food in my own kitchen! (I haven't tried it, but I imagine a visual menu would work for kids too.) Right now, my menu has a lot of appetizer-type finger foods on it because that's what sounds good and doesn't take long to make or reheat. Maybe I'll change my menu out seasonally like a restaurant... Anyway, I hope this sparks an idea for you if deciding what food to make is a struggle. If not this method exactly, experiment and see what makes the task easier for you! I'm all for saving energy on daily, routine tasks so that I can spend it where it's really important.
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Just a reminder that exercise without proper nourishment is extremely harmful to your body and pushes it into dangerous and traumatic survival mode. There are many physical and mental health benefits to a decent exercise regimen, but in order to properly enjoy them, you MUST nourish yourself as much as your body asks for. Exercise is for honoring what your body can do, NOT for the desperate pursuit of thinness!
(Not everyone is obligated to work out or pursue heavy exercise, by the way. This may not be ideal or accessible for some people. This is just a reminder for my fellow workout enthusiasts that yes, it is possible to take this in an unhealthy direction, and that's something to watch out for.)
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bootobeneficiary · 2 years
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Mood of the Board: Fine, Fit & Free of Stress
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aturinfortheworse · 1 year
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A few years back I stumbled across intuitive eating/no food rules stuff on Instagram and had a startling moment of "this actually seems legit? this is a non-insane approach to food?" which means a lot to me as someone who needs instruction on how to not be insane.
So I heard the theory that if you want to stop bingeing on a food every time you have access to it, you should just... let yourself have as much as you want. Obviously this only works for certain things, and a more careful approach to this would be more helpful for many people. But I like to live dangerously so I just started buying chips whenever I wanted chips.
(You would not believe how much I like a potato chip. It is a notable feature of my personality.)
I let myself eat the whole bag of chips. I could open a second bag if I wanted to, though I don't think I ever got more than three chips into the second bag before going urgh. The only restriction on how many chips I could have was my willingness to acquire chips.
Slowly the bag of chips went from lasting thirty minutes, to lasting the day, to lasting two days. Now I have a (clipped-shut) bag of chips on my desk that I opened on NYE and I don't really want any. I know they taste incredible but every I eat one I go "blerh."
The best part of this whole thing is that I can just keep chips in the cupboard now. When I actually want chips, I can simply go to the cupboard and get them, because past-Ruin did not eat them immediately. When I'm nauseous and nothing else sounds edible, there are chips in the cupboard waiting for me!!
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If you’re ever insecure about your body, look at old paintings and sculptures, for I have found that they tend to focus on portraying realism (as they tried to represent humanity) while photography tries to capture perfection
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