If I’m not losing weight, how can I tell whether intuitive eating is “working”?

I recently had a conversation with a friend who told me of another friend’s concern that intuitive eating would lead her to a place of decreased health.

For anyone who conflates thinness with health, this point of view makes sense, because intuitive eating is absolutely going to make anyone who struggles with eating disorders, dieting, or excessive exercise gain weight.

As much as I wish I felt safe reaching out to this person directly, I don’t yet, so I decided instead to make a list of ways in which I know that this change in my life is “working,” even if it has also made me fat.

1. I will never go on a restrictive diet again.
2. I am no longer obsessed (or concerned in the slightest) with “grading” my foods as “good” or “bad,” counting calories, counting macros, or “earning” food through exercise.
3. I can go out to eat and enjoy every part of it because I do not have to weigh the morality of my menu decision.
4. I can buy a pizza, eat some of it, and then have multiple meals’ worth of leftovers rather than eating the whole thing to either “get it out of the house” or because I literally cannot stop.
5. My bread has been going stale because I don’t feel the need to continuously eat it when I see it.
6. I really understand and enjoy how vegetables contribute to the complexity of taste and textures in a meal rather than focusing on how they add to the moral “goodness” of a meal.
7. I can buy chips and candy, keep them in my cupboards, and not have to play a game of convincing myself that I do not want to eat them every time I see them because I literally do not want to eat them every time I see them.
8. When I am hungry, I am able to honor that hunger and eat, which reassures my body that I will care for it.
9. When I am full, I am able to recognize that feeling, and understand that I am satisfied before the fullness turns into severe discomfort.
10. When I am sad, stressed, or bored, I am able to recognize that I may want to use food as a coping mechanism. When I do eat for comfort, I am also able to tune in to my actual emotions, rather than trying to mask them with food.
11. When I realize that I have been thinking excessively or obsessively about food, I am able to understand that I might be unconsciously restricting food, and I am able to once again give myself full permission to care for my needs.
12. When I feel restless or worried, I am able to determine what sort of care I want–be it rest, isolation, socialization, or exercise.
13. When I exercise, I am able to tune in to my body more than my mind, and I am able to listen to whether I need to tone down my movement or turn it up.
14. I am able to take days (or weeks) off of an exercise routine without becoming consumed by guilt and fear of being fat.
15. I am also able to listen to my body’s desire for movement for the sake of it making my body feel good—not just to quell my mental expectations that I should exercise this or that way, this or that much.
16. Increasingly, I am able to go out and move my body in public without worrying what others will think of my fatness.
17. Increasingly, I am able to go out wearing whatever I want in public without worrying what others will think of my fatness.
18. Increasingly, I am able to look at my body in the mirror and find myself attractive, regardless of my fatness.
19. I am able to catch any lurking fatphobic thoughts about others or myself, stop them, and reframe them before they do any damage.
20. I have learned how to be truly and unconditionally kind to myself.
21. I have learned that I deserve to be cared for.
22. I have learned that I deserve to have all of my needs met, no matter what they are.
23. I have learned that I deserve to be loved.
24. I have learned that I deserve to be the truest version of myself—that I do not need to change myself for anyone.
25. I have learned that the media and medical industry thrives off of fatphobia, and that their opinions are harmful, if not deadly, and should not be trusted in matters of body size and shape.
26. I have learned that each person’s body has a set point weight, or range of weights that it will always strive to be. A person’s set point weight is their healthy weight. BMI and other measures that tie weight into health mean nothing.
27. I have learned that there are literally no methods of weight loss that can be sustained without disordered eating and exercise.
28. I have learned that gentle behaviors, like eating a wide variety of foods and moving one’s body with joy and moderate intensity, are what leads to increased health markers, and that weight loss has nothing to do with gaining physical health.
29. I have learned that the intentional pursuit of weight loss leads to obsession, anxiety, self-hatred, increased internalized fatphobia, hopelessness, and depression, which are the opposite of health.
30. I have learned that mental health must be prioritized when healing one’s relationship with their body.
31. I have learned that mental health must be revered as equal to (if not greater than) physical health overall.
32. I have learned that health is a privilege, NOT a requirement.
33. I have learned that, like racism, homophobia, transphobia, and ableism, fatphobia and healthism are oppressive tools used by those in power to displace and silence large groups of people.
34. I have learned that body diversity, both in size, shape, color, ability, and presentation, is a crucial social justice pursuit.
35. I am learning how to recognize when my politics have been exclusionary, and I am working to ensure that my beliefs, language, and actions better align with the inclusivity that this movement requires—that people of all colors, shapes, orientations, genders, abilities, and socio-economic statuses can safely thrive in this world.

 

On this list, 20-24 are, I believe, the most astounding changes I have undergone since giving up the pursuit of thinness. The beliefs that have been replaced by those 5 realizations were the cause of nearly all of my personal suffering. If I was still stuck in diet culture, no matter how often I tried to tell myself that I deserved to be loved, I could have never really believed it, because dieting, and the messages it gives the dieter about how they are not good enough, is inherently the opposite of unconditional love. If I was still stuck in diet culture, I would never truly know how to understand my needs and ensure that they are being met, because dieting is inherently the opposite of meeting one’s needs. Dieting and the pursuit of weight loss are the opposite of health. Dieting and the pursuit of weight loss are the opposite of happiness.

To anyone still grasping at dieting and intentional weight loss as the paths to health and happiness, I just want you to know that there is another way—A way that actually “works.”