Health at every size
P's experience of intuitive eating and other happenings
Hello, hello,
Ameya is back from her travels and we had a fun evening tasting whiskey last Thursday. Come Friday morning, I am sick with food poisoning! I drank the least, but I suffered the most. So I ask the Universe, are you trying to say I should drink more? (You know the whole alcohol kills the germs funda…) Now of course you may say, the Universe could be saying: eat less or eat “healthy” or eat differently. And that brings me to the topic of this newsletter—intuitive eating.
Ameya and I spoke to someone about our views on HAES last week. And that brought up a lot of stuff. To set context, in the book, Health at Every Size, or HAES for short, Lindo Bacon talks about “intuitive eating.” I am not an expert or a HAES practitioner and I would strongly recommend reading the book and researching the concept for yourself—all I’m sharing here is some of my story.
I did start eating what I liked and doing so mindfully—and I did notice my body’s signals letting me know it was full, the taste changed and other indicators. But I did not want to listen. This is because, after years of feeling guilty about eating basically anything, here I was with what I felt was a license to eat—what I wanted, when I wanted. There was no way I was going to regulate how much at that point in time. And that was scary. And that’s when I realised that the first thing I needed to do was heal my relationship with my body AND in the process heal my relationship with food.
Five years later, the healing is still a work in progress and yet much has changed. I don’t obsess about food, I have far more agency on what I choose to eat. I find it easy to follow the OMAD lifestyle and do extended fasts and don’t find myself craving or hungry. When hungry I eat, and I eat what I enjoy but only till I am full. What I like to eat is surprise, surprise mostly nutritious, unprocessed food (not implying that’s good or bad, just saying that’s what feels good to me.) I also enjoy and choose movement a lot more than I used to. I feel better in my body.
Basically, my experience is that, like everything else, this takes doing, needs research, talking to an expert if you can, as well as time and allowing yourself to heal. Most importantly, do what works for you. To know what works for you, observe your body. Do you feel stronger, move easier, have more energy, maybe less pain, poop better, sleep deeper? Do you feel good in your body, do you feel like doing things with it? One size does NOT fit all and there are as many different ways to do this as there are people and their preferences.
And as I was contemplating all of this, the lovely Ragen Chastain sends out her newsletter which contains this absolutely fantastic article on health at every size. If you have any questions on diets, movement, what is health at every size, is being fat unhealthy etc., do have a read.
That’s all for now folks. We continue working on the book, making fab reels, posting pictures flaunting our new wardrobes and loving our haircuts!
Until next time!
Love,
Pallavi (& Ameya)