Today I want to talk about some of the privileges we can be born with and take for granted.

First let me say: all of us struggle. All of us. No matter who we are. We all experience pain, loss, darkness, sadness, struggles, and are asked to grow. All. Of. Us.

But some of us are born into situations of privilege and get to side step struggles that other people face on the daily. And I think it’s really important to acknowledge that.

I am one of those people. I am a lucky girl. I was born into lots of privilege.

I am white. I am genetically thin. I am able-bodied. I am straight. I was born with a financial “leg-up”.

I am privileged. Besides some hormone stuff and chronic fatigue… I won the genetic lottery.

And I didn’t know that until I heard about it from other people… relatively recently. Sure I knew I was lucky, but looking at it in terms of “privileges” was something I had to learn.

And here is the important thing to note: We can experience some privileges and not others. For instance, I experience most all privileges except being a man – my struggles came from the twisted way women’s bodies are treated in our culture.

Another example, some white men (the ‘top of the food chain’, the ones who have held the position of power for… centuries) experience all positions of privilege except being straight, for instance. So they are treated poorly for being gay in a society that still sees that as being less than, but still get to benefit from being white and male.

Or, in a different scenario, that white male is born into poverty, and so they have odds to face, but their privilege and their leg up is being white and male.

Having a hard life doesn’t mean you don’t still get to benefit from certain privileges that allow you to be treated better, and see yourself reflected positively in the media, etc.

So even though some people are born into poverty and abuse, they still get to benefit in their every day lives walking into a store just by being white, or thin, no matter how hard their lives are otherwise.

So, what do we do with our privilege?

We get to be allies. We get to listen. We get to admit that there are injustices and that people aren’t always treated fairly. We get to try, in small ways, to make the world a kinder place.

I get to be an ally. I get to talk about oppression and prejudice, kindness and acceptance, while still getting to benefit from being in the privileged party.

For instance? Fat activism.

I am a fat activist. I believe, in my core, that our culture accepting body diversity is a really important social issue. It’s a matter of human rights and human dignity. And once we move further in that direction of kindness, understanding, and acceptance, everyone will benefit.

But I still get to benefit from being thin while that is all happening and slowly changing.

Sometimes I wonder what I’m doing. Why do I get to talk about my experience? Why do I get to be the one to tell people how to be happy when in some ways, I have it so easy?

Especially this past week, with racial tensions running so high. With fear and sadness and misunderstanding and people wanting safety and to be heard….

I wonder what I’m doing – and if I’m even using my privilege to help in the best way possible.

And I don’t know.

Cause what do I really know about pain and suffering?

What do I know about oppression?

The answer is, maybe not much.

So I stick to what I DO know about:

Hating yourself.

I know, deeply, about hating yourself.

Given a charmed life, I still hated myself.

There was nothing wrong with me (or you, or any of us) and I hated myself anyway. And yes, it was largely because I didn’t think I fit the standard for what a woman should look like. I was failing the beauty game, I thought. So I hated myself. And I thought hating myself would fix me somehow.

All I know how to teach is not hating yourself. (And feeding yourself.) And then not hating yourself some more. All I know how to teach is compassion – for ourselves and others.

And on a deep level, I think that will help heal us all. I really think that all people who think less of other people, do it because they hate themselves. They don’t know how to deal or feel and so they turn it on others and other groups. It’s all fear.

And no matter how evolved we are, we all do that a little bit.

So I will keep teaching not hating yourself. Because privilege aside, we are all worthy of feeling good enough. Because we are all good enough.

So if you are realizing you have some privileges (even if you don’t have others), what do you do?

-Listen. Listen to the people who have had different experiences than you.

-Be compassionate to those who are different from you.

-Learn to be kind to yourself. Because it sounds cheesy… but it really is difficult to love and be kind to others if you can’t do that to yourself.

-Just get more comfortable admitting that you don’t have all the answers. You don’t know what it’s like to walk in someone else’s shoes. All you can do is be kind and listen.

You’re not bingeing because you’re broken. Or a food addict. Or out of control.

You’re not bingeing because you’re eating the wrong foods.

You’re not bingeing because you’re a failure.

You are bingeing because of restriction.

You are bingeing because your body and/or your mind feel restricted with food.

That’s right, not JUST real physical restriction, but mental too.

Bingeing is caused by restriction every single time.

It is the biological response to not having enough food.

And it is also the biological response to not thinking you’re allowed to have enough food.

You are going to be tempted to blame it on the food you’re eating, on not having a good enough food routine, on being emotional. But you are not bingeing because you are emotional. You are bingeing because food feels like the biggest rebellion you can think of.

Imagine that you are in a real-life famine… bingeing is exactly what you’re SUPPOSED to do.

And once that famine ends, eating a LOT, resting, and gaining weight is exactly what your body would need to do for months and months.

That’s what a diet is: a self-imposed famine. And guilt over eating triggers thoughts that there won’t be enough food.

So how to stop bingeing?

1. Stop restricting.
2. And stop feeling guilt over the food your body wants to eat while you replenish, heal, feed, and finally take care of yourself.

Your body has got this.

How to stop feeling guilt?

1. Be really, really kind to yourself
2. Check out energy work

I used to think sugar was the reason I was addicted to food. Sugar was the reason my hormones were out of whack. Sugar was the reason I wasn’t skinny.

It was all sugar’s fault.

This seemed to be confirmed by every health and diet book or guru out there. In the 90s it was fat, now it is sugar.

And depending on the diet I was on, not only was it refined sugar, but all carbs, too. Because all carbs turn into sugar. Haven’t you heard????????

That includes fruit, and rice and, depending on the diet, even carrots. I didn’t mind, cause I decidedly hated carrots, but still, too much sugar in carrots? Yep.

And the more I cut out sugar, the more it all became a self-fulfilling prophecy. The less I ate sugar, the more I craved it and the harder time my body had processing it when I would inevitably eat some. Then my body’s impaired metabolism of carbs and sugar just seemed to prove those beliefs about sugar even more.

But 4 years ago I started eating sugar again, full force. I was over it. I was over my futile attempts to find the perfect diet. I was over the yo-yo. I was over obsessing over my weight. I was over bingeing. I was over it all.

I knew there had to be a better way. And that included eating sugar and just letting it happen.

And now, 4 years later, my relationship to sugar is… awesome.

I did not spiral into a 4 year sugar binge. It was more like a 3 month sugar bender, and then… it all normalized.

That’s the part that people never let themselves get to, people panic or fight themselves and therefore stay in the binge/repent cycle. Guilty over eating, trying to cut back, then rebelling over their cutting back — and the cycle continues.

But now that I eat carbs, I can handle carbs. My weight is stable and consistent. I eat lots of carbs every day, but I can tell when my body has enough. I can tell, mid-dessert, if I’m ready to stop. And because I am allowed to eat as much dessert as I want, for the rest of my life, it’s no big deal.

Eating sugar did not make me a bottomless sugar pit, instead, eating sugar actually ended my dysfunctional relationship to it.

I fed my body sugar, and finally, my body started telling me what it needed.

I’m not saying that eating candy and only candy for the rest of your life is a good idea. But, I want to say very strongly that I believe what we are told about sugar and carbs is destructive to our relationships to food and feeding ourselves. That catchy headline that sugar is as addictive as cocaine is complete sensationalist bullshit.

The truth is, we need sugar. Our brain runs on sugar. We also obviously need way more than just sugar (fat, protein, minerals, vitamins, sunshine, sleep, connection, people, oxygen), but we need carbs and sugar, too, pretty profoundly. And the less you eat it, the more you’ll likely crave it, and the harder your body will work to break down protein and muscle into sugar for your brain to use (to keep you alive).

Not only that, but the less you eat carbs, the slower your body will burn fuel. Meaning, the less you eat carbs, the slower your metabolism becomes. And I promise you, that’s not what you’re looking for.

Sugar is only addictive to people who are either physically or mentally (and often both) denied carbs or calories. It is a fast fuel that we are wired to crave when food or fuel doesn’t seem abundant.

Hey, everyone needs something different. I can’t possibly speak for everyone. If cutting out sugar has completely healed your life and health, by all means, keep doing what you are doing.

But if you are like most people, odds are, things aren’t better. You still feel addicted to food. You’re still bingeing. You’re still cold, and tired, and reactive to food.

Maybe, just maybe, your issues aren’t from sugar, but actually from denying yourself sugar.

For me, cutting out sugar was definitely not the answer. (And you had better believe I tried over and over again for 10 years.)

The answer was finally feeding my body everything it craved, including sugar, and letting my body do the talking. My body is actually pretty freaking wise and normal with sugar, now that sugar isn’t forbidden.