It’s hard to eat intuitively when you have body image struggles. Because how you see yourself dictates how you eat.
If you reject who you see in the mirror, there will always be an intuitive bias towards eating less and being smaller.
Any potential action you might take that threatens your ability to move towards this particular body will be met with resistance.
Even if your body is saying it needs more food and energy, your body image is going to have the final say in the matter.
When you have a negative body image, eating more calories or stereotypical indulgent foods will always be seen as a risk to your self-worth, even if you’re experiencing restriction and deprivation.
This won’t be obvious in the moment. In fact, you will rationalize your actions and they will make perfect sense to you.
You will say you’re eating intuitively and listening to your body. But in reality, you’re listening to your body image.
Satiated and satisfied feels much different when you love and accept your body versus when you hate and reject it.
In order to eat in a way that meets your body’s true needs, you must work from a place of unconditional body acceptance.
People spend way too much time and energy focused on food and exercise, what and how much to eat, and what to do for their workouts, and not nearly enough time and energy working on embracing who they are and what they look like.
They spend years and decades and sometimes a lifetime living in a body they hate – trying to fix this hate by eating less and moving more.
Self-hate isn’t overcome with food and exercise. It gets smothered through acceptance.
Acceptance allows you to eat in a way that satiates, satisfies, and nourishes, as opposed to eating to maintain a calorie deficit.
Acceptance allows you to move your body in a way that you enjoy, instead of exercising to burn fat or manipulate your body.
Acceptance allows you to focus on what your body is capable of (empowerment), instead of what it looks like (self-worth derived from appearance).
Acceptance is the birthplace of good nutrition and exercise. And it’s the single greatest thing that will improve your entire life experience.