A common sentiment I hear from clients once they’ve spent some time in treatment is they start to notice how much diet culture exists in their daily lives. Lunchroom chats at work, family gatherings, parties with friends, or even interactions with strangers can have you run into diet talk.

It’s hard to believe in recovery, to believe in the notion that we don’t have to micromanage food and control our bodies this way when it is modeled by our environment and culture.

If incessant diet talk is unsettling for you, there are ways to navigate these conversations so that you can support yourself and the people around you. 

This sends quite a confusing message doesn’t it? Sometimes I hear from clients that they get frustrated when caregivers urge them to eat yet they themselves might be on a “diet” or restricting food in some way. 

Our family can love us and have the best of intentions, AND be hurtful and wrong about us at the same time. It’s okay to hold two conflicting truths at the same time. We’re allowed to feel conflicted.

Notice how different it feels when we commit to nourishing rather than depriving. 

If we pay attention, we might notice that diet talk is all around us. After all, if our friends and family have talked non-stop about their keto diets and intermittent fasting and have been encouraging us to lose some weight, it’s probably for the best, right?

While messaging such as these, especially from our close ones, may seem innocent at first, it can be incredibly triggering or have a negative impact on ourselves and others.

It’s okay to not care. It’s not your fault that you find it hard to care about recovery. Recovery isn’t fun or easy. 

Food is fuel. Starches and grains help increase serotonin synthesis. Food makes us feel better.

Let’s talk about fullness. Just as ED will underestimate your hunger, it will also overestimate your fullness. It is normal that during nutrition rehabilitation that you will be challenged by your fullness. 

When our body experiences restriction of food, one of the symptoms of malnutrition is a gradual loss of hunger cues. 

Yes. ED can definitely escalate bloating in two ways.

What a great question and example of how diet culture fuels our anxiety around eating.

By reclaiming our power and taking responsibility for our own healing- we arrive at a place that’s brighter than we can ever imagine. 

The BMI has already been widely regarded and acknowledged in healthcare as an INACCURATE measure of body composition and health alone.

There is so much content online on sugar addiction being an epidemic. So let’s find out if carbohydrates and sugar are really the bad guys they’re made to be and whether sugar addiction is really a thing.

It can seem like the person with ED is willingly CHOOSING not to eat. Which isn’t true at all.

It’s hard to figure out exactly where these old food rules came from.