Healthy eating habits:

Eating when you’re hungry
Noticing how foods make you feel and eating foods that help your body feel good
Eating foods you enjoy
Feeling calm about the eating experience
Eating a variety of foods to satisfy your mental and physical needs
Listening to your body for cues on what to eat, when to eat, and how much to eat
Eating for enjoyment and nutrition
Eating until you’re satisfied

Unhealthy eating habits:

Not eating when you’re hungry
Labeling or judging certain foods or food groups as ‘bad’ or ‘unhealthy’
Restricting foods you enjoy for non-medical reasons
Feeling anxious about the eating experience
Eating foods you don’t enjoy as punishment or in the name of health
Counting calories, macros, grams of fat or sugar; weighing food
Using food as a reward
Eating to the point of discomfort frequently

Disordered eating is common and sometimes seen as normal in our society

I wanted to create this list to promote awareness around what disordered eating looks like. You may want to push back on some of the things you see on the list of ‘unhealthy eating habits’ and that’s okay. You learn a lot of your eating habits in childhood and challenging these can be difficult for a lot of reasons (Does this mean my parents were wrong in telling me certain foods were bad and should be avoided? I’ve been taught to trust outside sources for what I need, could I really trust myself for that wisdom? Surely if I trusted my body, I’d be eating pizza and ice cream for the rest of my days like Dad always joked about, right?) Learning to make peace with food is difficult and can require a lot of work.

Disordered eating usually starts with a person going on a diet

Sometimes suggested at the advice of a well-intentioned friend, family member, or health professional. Maybe they lose a little weight and are praised. This can turn into constant restricting, which often leads to bingeing (and sometimes purging). Purging is the one behavior that everyone can recognize as disordered. If you do this, you know your eating is disordered in some way. But other disordered behaviors are a little sneakier. If you restrict all the time, you can rationalize it in your mind by saying you’re on a diet or are just very careful about your eating. If you binge all the time, you can rationalize it by saying you’re just an emotional eater going through a rough patch. Regardless of how you spin it in your mind, it’s still not healthy!

Disordered eating is encouraged by diet culture

A lot of us hang on to disordered eating habits because they feel safe and we feel supported in them. Our culture is a big supporter of disordered eating habits.. Fasting is in right now and I’ve seen people doing up to 22 hour fasts daily without thinking this was at all disordered. Ignoring your body’s cues and needs for hunger is not healthy! I get that our bodies can survive through long periods of famine, but this does not mean we should subject our bodies to long periods of famine unnecessarily. If fasting works for you, great! But I would challenge you to really ask yourself if it’s working for you. Are you really getting the nutrients you need to get you through the day feeling awesome?

‘Healthy eating’ isn’t just about the foods you put into your body

If your constantly anxious or fearful around certain foods, this is not healthy! Health is not just physical. If you don’t take into account your mental health when considering your eating habits, you’re missing a big part of the picture. You may be the world’s most self-controlled person and only put ‘clean’ unprocessed, whole food into your body. Wonderful, round of applause for you. How do you feel mentally? Do you feel like you’re missing out on life and fun because of it? If you do, what’s the deal with all the restriction? Chances are, if you’re restricting certain foods because you think they’re ‘bad’ and are going to ruin your health, you’re restricting in other areas of your life, as well. Where else might you be restricting yourself from enjoyment and pleasure? And why?! Life isn’t meant for suffering and restricting!

Healthy eating is trusting your body

It can be difficult to trust your body and make peace with food. We are taught to trust others for nutritional advice or general health advice because we’ve been taught that others know better than we do. Eating shouldn’t be hard, though; we’ve been doing it since the beginning of time without dietitians or health experts. We have greatly overcomplicated eating, but it doesn’t have to be this way! Our bodies are wise and know what we need. Tune in to your body and give it what it needs.

If you need extra support, contact me to schedule a counseling appointment!

How can you improve your body image?

I know we’ve all been taught to believe that losing weight or achieving a thin figure will help us to FINALLY love our bodies… but it won’t. Loving our bodies is an action we choose and if restricting and shaming our bodies are the actions we’re choosing, we are not loving our bodies. The thin ideal our culture promotes is an unhealthy, unrealistic body size that pits us against our own bodies. Just like it feels good to have a little extra money in savings in case of emergency, our bodies like to have a little extra energy (or fat) stored away in case of emergency (famine). Our bodies have learned to do this to keep us alive and this is a biological advantage.

People are profiting off your belief that your body is not good the way it is

But culture wants us to believe that thin is good, thin is healthy, and thin is beautiful. It hasn’t always been this way, though! Throughout most of history, larger bodies have been considered more desirable than thinner ones. In some cultures today, larger bodies are still more desirable than thinner bodies. Linda Bacon, author of Health at Every Size, says, “beauty standards reflect the political and economic interests of the times” and goes on to talk about how thin women were sold pills, creams, and potions that were supposed to help them get fatter in the early 1900s. Whatever can flip a profit is in. And you better believe that people are profiting big time off of your insecurities around your body (food companies, weight loss industry, pharmaceutical companies, health professionals, etc.).

Extra fat on your body doesn’t mean you’re unhealthy

But what about health?! I know we’ve all come to believe that we can determine someone’s health and their health habits by looking at them, but it just isn’t true! We know that there are thin people who are super unhealthy and larger people who don’t have any health issues, so why do we still latch on to the idea that weight = health? Probably because it makes us feel like we’re in control, but PLEASE READ HEALTH AT EVERY SIZE so you can understand that this simply isn’t true. Too little fat on your body is much more dangerous and unhealthy than too much. And BMI standards were set by people who receive funding from companies like Weight Watchers who are making a profit off of you thinking you’re unhealthy and need to lose weight!!

Improve body image by listening to your body

Okay, I think you get how angry I am about the diet and weight loss industry tricking us into hating our bodies and believing that we need to change them in the name of health. And I hope you’re angry, too. You don’t need to change your body. You need to change the way you feel about your body. Your body works hard for you and it’s about time you show it some appreciation. It needs love to thrive and your struggle against it and hatred of it is not conducive to it’s thriving. Listen to it and work with it. If it tells you it needs food, you need to give it food. If it tells you it need rest, give it rest. If it tells you to move, move joyfully.

Our bodies tell us what they need but oftentimes we think we know best (or culture knows best) so we try to override or ignore our bodies’ messages. We make rules for food or exercise or sleep or whatever else because we don’t trust our bodies. I know I’m sore, but I’ve got to get this workout in. I know I’m still hungry, but I’ve already had 2000 calories today. I know I’m tired, but I don’t have time to rest. Your body is wise and you do it a great disservice when you assume you know better about it’s needs than it does. It’s needs are constantly changing day to day and the only way to know exactly what it needs today is to listen to it!

Improve body image by showing love to your body

Start to love your body by listening to it. Start to love your body by giving it what it needs. Stop killing yourself at the gym and starving yourself at the dinner table. Loving your body isn’t all about loving the way it looks. You may never love the way it looks. But you can love the way it feels and the way you feel in it. You can love it for what it does for you, how it enables you to experience amazing things, and for the way it fights to keep you alive.

Your body is deserving of love no matter what size it is. Stop struggling against it and trust that it knows best when it comes to what it needs. Practice eating nutritiously, joyfully moving, and resting when your body tells you to for the sake of health. Stop trying to lose weight in the name of health. Acknowledge what’s under your fear of gaining weight or being in a larger body. Remember that you are worthy regardless of what size or shape your body is currently taking.