So many of my followers and clients will ask me:

“Ok but I really care about health and don’t want to become unhealthy. I have health issues too, so how can I just let go and let myself eat anything?”

I understand heath issues. I understand health stress. It was one of the big reasons I became crazy about food in the first place.

Cystic acne. Hypoglycemic fainting. Thyroid nodule filling up with fluid. Diabetes medicine (that burned an ulcer in my esophagus on my homestay in France) (no, I do not have diabetes), such extreme anemia that I needed a blood transfusion (didn’t get one. Became raw vegan instead), no period, hair falling out, excess hair, horrible sleep, being able to feel my liver when I have 3 sips of alcohol, restless legs, cystic ovaries…

Add on top of that, erratic weight because of bingeing and restricting for 10+ years, all in an attempt to heal my health, and become beautiful and perfect and safe.

I understand health issues.

And you know what? My issues were not all from dieting. In fact, I would say 95% of them weren’t from dieting at all.

Dieting is really bad for your health and metabolism and weight, but my health issues are more from an overload of chemicals and toxicity.

And I do not want to be a fear monger. I think an obsessive fear of toxins will ruin your life as quickly as the toxins themselves. We are living in a very toxic world, but that doesn’t mean we have to hide in our rooms drinking celery juice.

My family moved into a house with chlordane implanted into the floorboards (a now outlawed termite pesticide). Then we did construction, drilling into the foundation/chlordane. We all got sick. Hormonal stuff, my mom got lymphoma, I got anemia. I also had major dental surgeries for 5 years, lots of glue. Lots of chemicals. Lots of stress. Plus epstein barr and chronic fatigue. Etc Etc Etc.

Restricting and bingeing on top of all that certainly did not help. But eating, food, and weight was not the cause either.

My point is? I’m not going to sit here and tell you that all of your problems are caused by dieting. I am not going to tell you that not dieting will cure all your health problems.

What I will tell you, is that there is absolutely no way I was able to sanely seek any sort of real health while I was obsessed with what I put in my mouth. My desire to perfect my diet felt like it was going to be helpful, but it was completely destructive and soul sucking.

And no, The Fuck It Diet did not cure my health and hormones. It didn’t. It helped. It made me more clear headed. It made my weight stable and freed up my mind to create and learn and relax. But normal eating alone won’t heal everything. However, I believe it is the only way to lay a foundation for other health practices (whatever they may be for you – I am not a doctor).

One of the biggest mistakes was seeing my weight as an indicator of health, and thinking that controlling my weight was going to heal my health. Not. So.

I now see how much my weight is incredibly independent from health. The closest link is correlation or a symptom of other things, nothing more.

Four years after healing my eating, I was drawn to work with a very holistic doctor who specializes in Lymes and Parasites. (Two things I don’t think I have… yet 😉 )

She asked me if there was anything I wasn’t willing to do.

And I said “Go on a diet, because I’ve literally tried everything, and it made me crazy.” And she said, “Great. Ok”.

I said, “I mean if there is something general you need to tell me, I am willing to keep it in mind, but I am not willing to do anything extreme with diet unless it is proven that I need it.”

She didn’t give me any diet recommendations. I’m still eating what I crave, and seeking health, and, after years of desperation, totally unattached to a result. I mean it when I say it is helpful to let go of health perfectionism.

You can learn to eat normally, settle wherever your weight wants to be, and seek health in whatever way feels right to you right now. They are not mutually exclusive.

We are living in a toxic world, and food is the least of our worries.

Eat what you want. Trust that you will find whatever health practices support the life you want. And care about yourself and your happiness. That’s literally all you can do.

This blog title is actually a common search term people use who end up finding my site.

How do you know what to eat?

It’s as simple as your cravings.

We are so afraid of our cravings. We seem to think that if we just eliminated cravings, we would be so healthy and happy and be-a-u-tiful!

But here is a little secret: if you didn’t have cravings, you might actually die. Because you wouldn’t care to eat. And you wouldn’t eat what your body needed. You’d keep eating salads when your body really needed carbs. You’d keep eating fish when your body really needed fruit. You’d keep eating polenta when your body really needed some fat.

Cravings are not the villains we think they are.

This applies to you both if you are in the midst of what feels like Binge Eating Disorder, or if you are now completely normal with food.

If you currently feel out of control with food, you probably think that cravings are your enemy. You’re probably in the camp of “if only I didn’t have cravings…”

But the more you resist those cravings, the stronger they will be. Most people crave carbs because they actually need them. If you’re restricting, the body wants to re-feed. It needs surplus. It needs calories. And if you’re craving dense foods, there is a reason for that. It’s the easiest way to fix your body from it’s low metabolic state. The body wants to know that there is enough. Feeding it carbs will take it out of that low metabolic, starvation, is there a famine state.

The sooner you allow cravings, the sooner you will give the body what it needs, and allow your mind to lessen the power of those foods too.

If you are someone who is normal with food, that means you’re already giving into your cravings, and you know that following what you desire is the best way to feel fed, satiated, and truly be able to hear what you truly need, ongoing.

If you deny what you’re body is craving, there is a backup. The body believes that it can’t get what it needs and so it just tries to speak up louder. This is the cause of lots of bingeing.

Just listen to your cravings. It’s the closest thing to loud intuition you’ll ever experience.

This isn’t a trick. I really don’t condone mindful eating.

And I’ll tell you why:

When you attempt mindful eating, you’re going to make it into an obsessive, perfectionistic way to eat, and then it’s gonna backfire, and you’re going to binge and wonder why ‘it’s not working’.

If you’re someone who has been stressed about the food you eat, the antidote is not mindful eating.

The antidote is neutral, normal, messy, haphazard, who-gives-a-fuck-if-you-order-fries eating.

You don’t need to add one more day of worrying that you’re eating too fast, or not rating your hunger level, or not paying attention to the chickens who lay the eggs in the muffin you’re eating.

I mean it.

You need to just eat, and eat what you want, and eat a lot. That is the ONLY way you’re ever going to neutralize food, and neutralizing food is the ONLY way you are ever going to actually be able to hear what your body wants without all that NOISE and the ANXIETY in the way.

And being able to neutrally hear what the body wants (and doesn’t want) is the closest you ever need to get to mindful eating.

I mean that so sincerely.

You don’t need to eat slowly in order to learn to eat normally.

If your goal is to be a monk, that’s another story. Then… sure. Eat slowly and mindfully and meditate over your food. Make it part of your spiritual practice. What do I care!

I’ll be eating casseroles and ice cream in front of the tv, stopping when I’m done because I don’t feel like more, and waking up to drink my morning cappuccino while I multi-task.

That’s the way you find food freedom. Make food less of a big deal instead of more of a big deal.

And the paradox is (and there is always a paradox), that’s the best way to really give yourself what you want and need.