My Mind My Body

I was reading the newspaper¹ the other day when a topic in an advice column caught my eye. A person posed a question about her diet and stated that she had eliminated dairy and bread because they’re unhealthy. My immediate reaction was to wonder why those would be considered unhealthy. Dairy has calcium and bread has a bunch of B vitamins. Then I remembered the fad diets that have been thrown at us, so the “unhealthy” label slapped on dairy and bread made sense. But are those foods really “bad”? If not, then are they “good”? Hell, should we even label them at all? …

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When I quit dieting, there was a lot of leftover guilt about overeating because I was taught that eating the fewest amount of calories was “good” and overeating was “bad”. It was all very black-and-white. When I shifted from dieting to intuitive eating, I had to wrap my head around the idea that IE doesn’t have any rules. Overeating is not “bad”; it is just part of the eating experience. There is nothing inherently wrong with overeating, which meant that I could finally give up the idea that it was “bad” to eat beyond fullness. …

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I had two major “Ah-ha!” moments in my recovery.¹ The first one occurred as I was browsing the psychology section at my local Half-Price bookstore. I was looking for some books for my job as a school psychologist when Almost Anorexic caught my eye. I flipped through it and, although some parts intrigued me, I put it back on the shelf. Then I picked it up again. I thought to myself, “There is no way I’m anorexic. I’m just healthy and lean!” But when I scanned through the book, I saw myself in the personal stories about obsession with body image, food, and exercise. I decided to make the purchase. At the time, I told myself that I didn’t know why I was buying the book; I was not anorexic. Now that I look back, I believe this book called to me for a reason. I think my subconscious knew something that my conscious mind didn’t.

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