Author: Caroline

young and the resting

Don’t Shrink Yourself Away

Controlling food is a microcosm of the bigger picture: The way we look at our whole lives. We tend to treat food the way we wish we could treat everything. We want to control it, we don’t trust it to work out, and we don’t trust ourselves to make the right decisions.

Eating can then become the one thing we think we actually can control: When everything else is impossible, “maybe I can at least stick to this diet this time. Maybe I can at least control my body.”

Trying to shrink away and control our body’s external appearance often represents our fear or shame over being seen. Being afraid to exist. Being afraid to be ok. Being afraid to be enough. Being afraid to take up space and be your own unique human being. Being afraid that the things we have to say, people won’t want to hear.

But we deserve to be alive. We don’t need to walk around in skeletal/jacked body armor in order to be worthy of love and peace and happiness and respect and food and nourishment and rest and ease and fulfillment.

Sometimes we believe that shrinking away and shielding ourselves through our attempts at perfection will strengthen us, but instead it weakens us. Because life doesn’t actually work that way. Hardening your heart doesn’t mean that no one will ever hurt you again. And hardening your body doesn’t mean that we going for our fullest potential. Denial is not the way to fulfillment. The world opens up to us and softens when we do the same to the world.

Action, love, nourishment, trust, and letting go are the keys to getting what we want. We want to be alive, to experience things and to connect to people and to allow our full potential, and controlling what you eat and what you look like does not have a place in that. You can still dress well, and look vibrant and beautiful and happy and free and glowing without doing a thing to control it.

Truth dagger: We cannot control anything. Not even our bodies. Our bodies exist as they will. Treating your body with love and respect will only do wonders for your body, but still, it cannot control any outcomes. In the end we know this. Health, and longevity, and extenuating circumstance are not fully in our control. So best to stop pretending we can.

Open up, and promise yourself to try to let go a little bit today. To actively trust the world to guide you and support you and show you. Actively trust your body to go through the process of recovery and nourishment and no control. Trusting will not lead you astray, and a little voice inside you knows that is unwaveringly true.

Don’t shrink away from your life. Don’t be afraid of existing and taking up space and being “imperfect”. That IS life. Life is about action, not control. Action takes your forward, control spins you in a pointless, fruitless circle.

Trust.

And fuck it.

I Can’t Believe I Was So Afraid of Sugar

Seriously. I can’t believe it.

Being afraid of carbs was like my religion. And these religious beliefs always ranged from mildly afraid to EXTREMELY afraid. I believed every bad thing I ever read about it. And whenever I ate carbs it was with a heavy, guilty heart. “I just can’t get it together” “I am feeding my addiction” “I am going to gain weight with every bite”. Every fear you could have about carbs, I have had it. And I have yo-yo’d with carbs for 10 years.

And when I first started this journey, it was from a strict Paleo “carbs-are-the-worst” view point. And I literally started the Fuck It Diet with “lots” of squash and potatoes. And it was THE SCARIEST THING.

The weirdest part now, is looking back to see how it was all in my brain.

I am weight stabilized now. I eat a LOT of carbs. A lot. In fact, I still will not fall asleep if I have not eaten enough calories or carbs during the day.

Point being: It is so clear to me now that carbs and or sugar, on their own or with other foods, are NOT a problem in the least. Inherently, they are neutral. They are fuel. They are not always what I crave, but sometimes they are all I crave. And it is good and fine…. and nothing bad happens.

It took time, though. It took time. It took me so long to finally add back in gluten, and then to start eating it liberally and then to actually be able to eat it without any anxious thoughts before during or after. But time has proven what I hoped it would. And my body has proven what I hoped it would. It can handle it. And everything is fine.

Keep Going.

Fuck It.

 

In Defense of Mindless Eating

Ok ok ok, sure sure sure — paying attention to what you are eating, and enjoying it, and really tasting your food and feeling for satiation is never a BAD thing, especially when it makes you happy and feel good.

But the rules of “mindful eating” or “intuitive eating” are stressful and unhelpful and you should throw them away. You don’t have to pay attention when you eat.

I used to get so stressed about whether I was eating too fast or not paying attention enough or not keeping each bite in my mouth long enough or whatever. Then when I was sort of satiated I would stressedly stop so I didn’t overeat, and then I would be hungry 45 minutes later.

That is a nice way to spend your entire day eating very slow tiny bites. Which is not much of a life.

Paying attention to what you eat will never hurt, but it is not the be-all-end-all.

Eating should be EASY. It should not take hours and should not take much thought at all!

You can eat that brownie fast. You can eat it fast and be hungry still and get another one, and eat that one fast too. Then you may take a third and eat that one fast as well and maybe stop near the end when you feel like you may feel full. Or maybe you eat 5 brownies til you feel full. That is normal and that is fine. Hungry people eat fast. You are supposed to. It is FINE.

We have made eating too stressy.

Maybe afterwards you’ll think- wow I wish I enjoyed those brownies more. Or maybe you won’t. Maybe you enjoyed them just fine and you enjoyed eating them fast. Either way: WHATEVER.

Then you will be full, or very full, or slightly full for a time. That time will pass and you will get hungry again. Maybe in 45 minutes because your body really wanted some protein too. Or maybe in 4 hours because you ate lots of the perfect thing for you at that time.

Your body is SO SMART that you don’t even need to pay close attention to your eating. You don’t NEED to meditate on every bite. You just don’t need to. You CAN! Sure! But you can do whatever the hell you want.

Your body is smart enough to know to stop eating. Food is less desirable when you aren’t hungry anymore. And once you aren’t afraid of food or eating, non-desirable food won’t need to be quickly snuck into your body for fear you’ll never get it again.

Fuck It.