Can you not remember the last time you ate without being on some kind of diet? Do you feel anxious and preoccupied about your food choices? Do you feel like you use food to escape your life, and avoid intense emotions? Are you consumed by feelings of loneliness, and find yourself trying to use food to fill that hole? Listen now to get some insight on these issues.

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Key Points:

• Dieting harms us and disconnects us from our own innate wisdom about our health.
• We associate the word "skinny" with positive attributes, and the word "fat" with negative attributes, but these are FALSE TRUTHS fed to us via toxic diet culture.
• Erica Leon joins to talk about our cultural ideas around "skinny" and "fat," and diet culture overall.
• We often diet to feel in control, but inevitably it does the opposite and makes us feel out of control instead!
• This pain is so VALID, and our pain surrounding food and our bodies is so, so common.
• Perfection is not reality!!
• Using food to cope is an understandable reaction to trauma... but this means that we must tackle the emotional underbelly of our relationship with food.
• We must let go of dieting, begin to trust our inner wisdom, and understand that all foods fit! This process can cause a lot of uncomfortable emotions to arise, and so having additional mental health support is very important during this process.
• Dieting, disordered eating, and eating disorders have a function! They allow us to get through trauma, and we cannot discount how important these behaviors are in the context of our journeys.
• Therapy is such an important adjunctive piece of healing a client's relationship with food and their bodies, especially when working with a nutrition therapist who may not be able to support clients in that mental health capacity.
• Our relationship with food is about so much MORE than the food!
• Discomfort means you're GROWING!! Keep going...
• The first step of intuitive eating is to let go of the diet mentality. This can trigger the feeling of being out of control, and having the support of a dietitian in this phase can be super important! This is when we start to tune into our hunger and fullness, explore food in a new way, and observe everything with non-judgmental awareness.
• Feeling out of control with diets might be the first step away from diets... but this feeling does NOT last forever!
• Part of this process is rediscovering foods you may have not liked in the past, things you thought you loved that you don't like anymore, and just feeling it all out by asking yourself questions and reconnecting to your wisdom.
• You are not alone!!!

Show Notes:

• Link to subscribe to the weekly FREE Food Peace Newsletter. It is sent out every Tuesday morning and no spam EVER. By signing up, I will also send you Love Food's Season 1's Food Peace Syllabus.
• Intuitive Eating, 3rd ed. by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch
• Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat by Michelle May --> This week's Food Peace Syllabus addition #1
• The Diet Survivor's Handbook by Ellen Frankel and Judith Matz --> This week's Food Peace Syllabus addition #2
• Erica's website, intuitive eating workshops, Facebook page, and FREE webinar!
• Eating Disorder Dietitians
• Julie Dillon RD blog

Do you have a complicated relationship with food? I want to help! Send your Dear Food letter to LoveFoodPodcast@gmail.com. 

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Thank you for listening to the Love, Food series. Give me feedback via Twitter @EatingPermitRD.

This episode is sponsored by my friends at Green Mountain at Fox Run.
A special promotion for Love Food listeners:
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The Women’s Center for Binge and Emotional Eating at Green Mountain at Fox Run is the only clinical program in the nation solely for women suffering with binge & emotional eating. Their insurance-eligible program is backed by over 40 years of experience and is staffed by licensed clinicians. Their program has created life-altering changes by helping women to manage emotional overeating through the practice of mindfulness. For more information, visit www.fitwoman.com/binge.

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