I’m talking about 5 ways that body image work will help you to heal your relationship with food.

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Episode 159: Body Image Series: Body Image & Intuitive Eating

SUMMER: This episode of Fearless Rebelle Radio is brought to you by You on Fire. You on Fire is the amazing, 12-week online group coaching program that I run, where we build up your worth from the ground up, so that it’s no longer hinging on the way that you look. It’s got personalized coaching from me and incredible community support, plus life-time access. Get details on what’s included in this program, and sign up to be notified when doors open for the next cycle, by going to summerinnanen.com/youonfire. I would love to have you in that program and in that group.

INTRO: This is Fearless Rebelle Radio, a podcast about body positivity, self-worth, anti-dieting, and Feminism. I am your host, Summer Innanen, a professionally trained coach specialising in body image, self-worth, and confidence, and the best-selling author of Body Image Remix. If you’re ready to break free of societal standards and stop living behind the
number on your scale, then you have come to the right place! Welcome to the show.

This is episode 159, and in this episode of Fearless Rebelle Radio, it’s the second episode in the Body Image Series, and I’m talking about the relationship between our body image and our ability to eat intuitively. And specifically, I’m going to talk about the five ways that we can use body image work to help heal our relationship with food. And I’ve also got a really cool freebie and download that goes with this episode. It’s called “Eat like a Grown-Ass Adult: Four Prompts to Inspire You to Live Your Life Without Diets,” and it’s questions to help you create a vision of why you want to say no to all the should’s and diet rules.

And it’s something that you can turn to when you are starting to feel those should’s occupy your mind, to remind you of what’s going to be so amazing when you’re no longer dieting, and to have a vision for what that future’s going to be like for you. I think that that’s a really important thing that we can do, because sometimes those what-if’s and all the fears can really cloud our decisions and our ability to truly let go.

So you can get that freebie, as well as all the other links that I mention in this episode, at summerinnanen.com/159. You may notice that I still sound sultry, and that’s because I have what is now the never-ending cold. I have been congested for over two weeks, and I feel totally fine, but it’s just kind of annoying, so, I apologize for that. But I’m not apologizing for my voice, so, you’ll just have to deal with it.

Before we begin, let me give a shout-out to somebody, I don’t have the name here, that left this awesome review that said: “invaluable and sustaining. I love Summer’s interview style, gets right to the heart of the matter. She explores topics which help me with my everyday body image struggles and negative self-talk. I’ve learned so much about societal pressures, long-held beliefs, and social justice. On top of that, she always cheers me up with her humor. Thank you so much, Summer!”

Thank you, thank you for that review! And I just checked, and that review came from someone who goes by momtohighenergydaughter. So, thank you so much. I really really appreciate that.

You can leave a review by going to iTunes, click “ratings and reviews,” search for Fearless Rebelle Radio, then click to leave a rating or a review. A review is preferred and I’ll read it on the show! And you haven’t done that, I would really appreciate if you do. And also, subscribe, using whatever platform you use to listen to podcasts. That helps keep me on the air here, and doing this work, and inspiring others to ditch dieting as well.

Second, if you haven’t done so already, definitely get the free 10-Day Body Confidence Makeover at summerinnanen.com/freebies, with 10 steps to take right now to feel better in your body.

And I have a special announcement as it relates to reviews. For the month of February, February 2020, if you leave a review, I will give you a free audio copy of my best-selling book. So all you need to do is leave a review, tell me, and then email me, info@summerinnanen.com, or you can use the contact sheet on my website, or you can DM on Instagram or Facebook, however you want to communicate with me. Just tell me your username that you used to leave the review, what you wrote, and once I can verify that, then I will email you an audio version of my best-selling book, Body Image Remix.

And if you already have a copy of the book, the audio version, I can send you the PDF, or if you have that too, then you can just have my never-ending gratitude for leaving a review. And if you’ve already left a review, I really appreciate it. But for the month of Feb, I’m going to do this little give-away, this little contest, you get a free audio copy of my book, so head on over and do that.

Okay, let’s get started with today’s episode. I really wanted to explore the intersection of intuitive eating and body image, because I see these things going hand in hand, and before I dig into that, I just want to recap that over the next few weeks, I’m taking over this podcast with some solo episodes that I’m calling the Body Image Series, and I’ll be dedicating several episodes to body image and self-worth, and giving you specific ways to be more accepting of your body and who you are.

I’m going to cover things such as how we can build our self-worth outside of our appearance, how our emotions influence our body image, how to navigate social situations when we’re feeling self-conscious, how to stop caring so much about what others think. Those are some of the upcoming topics that I’ll be getting into.

And today, we’re looking at the relationships between body image and our ability to eat intuitively. What if the key to really healing our relationship with food was in the work that we could do around accepting our bodies? What if the work that we do around accepting our bodies and who we are could really facilitate a much more peaceful relationship with food?

I think that we often focus so much on fthe food part of the equation, when we quit dieting, so we think about our hunger, our fullness, and the eating part of Intuitive Eating, which is really important. But we’re often left with struggles like, “I still don’t fully trust myself,” “I continue to eat past fullness,” “I don’t know if I’m really hungry,” “I don’t know if I’m actually full,” “I allow myself permission with all foods, but I still feel out of control with this one food.”

So we get a good portion of the way there, but not fully, where we can fully trust ourselves. And whenever I hear people still struggling with these things after they’ve done all the work around healing mental and physical restriction, I know that there’s still some things that we can do, or a lot that we can do, outside of that, which intersects with the work that I do on body image.

So if you’re still struggling with food, or looking to have a wider understanding of how to heal your relationship with food, then this episode is for you. We’re going to talk about why body dissatisfaction drives the diet mentality, why accepting our bodies doesn’t mean giving up, and five ways that we can use body image and improving our sense of self-worth to facilitate healing our relationship with food.

And as I said, there’s a free worksheet called “Eat Like a Grown-ass Adult,” with four prompts to inspire you to live your life without diets. And you can use that when you need some inspiration and in moments of doubt.

So I’ve talked about the diet cycle in a few other episodes of this podcast, specifically Episode 83: Why Diets Don’t Work, Episode 153: Holiday Overeating and Weight Gain, and how the diet cycle generally gets triggered when we have body dissatisfaction. And it makes sense, right? Like, anytime that we’ve started a diet before, it’s because we were unsatisfied with our body. We wanted to be thinner. Sometimes it’s because we want health, but usually, and even in the majority of cases of health, the underlying thing is that we think we need to be thinner to be healthy.

And so, we have to really address that piece of the puzzle, to truly heal our relationship with food. And body image work is about getting rid of the need to diet in the first place. If we are satisfied with our body, if we can accept our body, then we don’t have that need to diet. And therefore, our relationship with food is just easy and effortless. Adn the goal is to get to a place of acceptance and self trust, so that we don’t feel that need to diet, or to control our body or control our food.

And the more accepting we are of our bodies, the less diet mentality we’ll have. So imagine, for yourself, what it would be like if your food choices weren’t dictated by a desire to lose weight or a fear of gaining weight. What would your relationship with food be like? Really think about that. Hopefully you’re thinking, wow, that would be so freeing!

But I know that for a lot of us, when we first think about that, we think, “There’s no way I could do that. There’s no way I could trust myself around food. I’ll never stop eating pizza. I’ll just keep getting bigger and bigger.”

And while there’s nothing wrong with either of those things, that is diet culture talking. That is fatphobia at work. And that is what we need to reclaim our power from. Accepting our body is a catalyst to treating ourselves with respect and compassion. It’s not about ‘letting ourselves go.’ So let me just connect those dots for you, because I think that there’s always this hesitation that if we really let go of all the should’s, and all the food rules, that we’re just ‘letting ourselves go.’

And as Lindo Bacon says, in the book, Health at Every Size, “You are not giving up. You are moving on.”

And it’s a struggle to really believe that, because we’ve intertwined health and thinness and dieting together for so many years, that adopting a new paradigm feels like giving up. That’s what the media tells us. That’s what it seems like. We’ve been told that if we just bootstrap, if we just buckle down, that we can all just look a certain way and lose weight.

And so we think that by leaving that behind, we’re giving up. And it can feel like that, too, because we’ve been emotionally connected to that process and that journey for so long. Many of us have given decades of our lives to that pursuit of being smaller, and to let that go really does feel like giving up, because a lot of us are achievers, we’re Type A, we get shit done in every area of our life, and it’s like, why can’t we just do this one thing?

So it does feel like giving up, but I really want you to reframe it to moving on. We’ve invested so much effort into trying to make this whole diet thing work, that accepting our body makes us feel like a quitter, and we’ll assume that we never want to do things that are nourishing for our body, because we’ve ‘given up.’ And that’s all just the brainwashing.

But what if we think about it differently? What if we think about what we’re really quitting and giving up on? And since I can’t hear your responses, let me give you my thoughts: You are actually quitting a culture that discriminates against certain bodies, not yourself. You’re quitting punitive behaviors, not yourself. You are quitting restriction and beating yourself up mentally, not yourself.

So you are saying ‘yes’ to leaving a different legacy behind for other people in your life that really fosters a sense of acceptance and that all bodies deserve respect and humanity. You are saying ‘yes’ to really honoring yourself, your mental health, your physical health, and looking at yourself as a whole being and nourishing yourself in all those different areas.

We look after the things that we respect and we care deeply for. And dieting is not caring for ourselves. It’s all about denying ourselves pleasure, comfort, and nourishment to thrive. And you can think about the things you care for in your life. How do you treat them? You probably treat them pretty lovingly, with respect and compassion. It’s the same thing. When we have compassion and acceptance for our bodies and ourselves, we really give ourselves care and ultimately, cultivate a better relationship with everything else in our life.

So if we really want to focus on health, which is not an obligation, and not always in our control, and if we really want to eat effortlessly and just move our bodies when it feels good, it has to come from that place of respect and compassion and trust. And body acceptance can really help to flick that switch, to help us move there, if we’re still struggling.

And I’ve never worked with anyone who didn’t feel so much more at peace when they truly let go of that need to control. And when they really accept their body unconditionally. It gives you so much more time and space, and I always think about people that I’ve worked with, and the things that they can do once they’ve done that work. So whether it’s, they just have more time to do things socially, or they’re able to ask for a promotion at work, or they’re able to really get into their hobby of art or photography. It’s just amazing, and I’m going off on a bit of a tangent, there, but there’s just so much to gain. So much to gain.

So that hopefully convinces you that you’re not giving up, because you aren’t. And what I want to explore is five ways that we can use body image work to facilitate healing our relationship with food.

So, #1 is about understanding the root causes of why we diet., why we feel that need to control our food and our body size. So if we talk about actually getting off the diet cycle, like, not having that need to diet anymore, we really want to understand why we’re dieting in the first place. And you might be thinking, “Well, yeah, I diet, because I want to be smaller,” and yes, on the surface, that is true. But there is always something deeper there, because dieting is a coping mechanism, fixating on our body is a coping mechanism.

Many years ago, I wrote a post called “Forget Emotional Eating, Let’s Talk About Emotional Dieting,” and I’ll link to that in the show notes. And what it speaks to is how we fixate on our weight as a means of coping, and therefore use dieting to soothe our emotions. And you’ve probably heard me talk about that in previous episodes, and if you’re new here, hi! Then I’ll talk about it right now really quick: we turn to fixating on our body, and hating on our body, in an effort to distract ourselves from emotional discomfort, which is a thing I learned from the book When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies by Jane Herschman and Carol Munter, where they say, “We turn our bodies into metaphors for all of our bad feelings.” And they go on to say that bad body thoughts really involve displacement.

So we’re attacking our body instead of allowing ourselves to feel or think something else. And this was always one of those mind-blowing things that completely shifted stuff for me when I first started doing this work for myself many years ago. But we become preoccupied with weight to really comfort ourselves.

It’s a way to protect ourselves from emotional discomfort, it’s a way to give us a sense of safety, which I know sounds strange, because it’s like, why are we picking ourselves apart to feel safe? But it is actually coming from that protective part of ourselves. And we’re trying to control our emotions and destiny by fixating on our weight, because it becomes something that we think we can fix, and we believe that being thin is just going to make everything better. Which, intellectually, we know is true, but we still deep-down think that if we can just fix this thing, then stuff will be better.

Therefore, we medicate ourselves with dieting and fixating on our body to fix our feelings or avoid our feelings, which is one of the reasons why dieting is also so addictive. It’s easier to think that our weight is our problem, and this is especially true because we live in a culture that discriminates against larger bodies, and it’s easier to think that our weight is the problem instead of really feeling things like rejection or loneliness or anxiety or hurt or shame, or trauma or fear of the unknown.

And we think that dieting is going to protect us from feeling these things, so we numb ourselves out by obsessing over our weight and planning our next attempt at weight loss. So to really heal our body image and relationship with food, we have to dig in to explore what’s really triggering us, what’s at the root of that.

For me, it’s always been about feeling out of control, or when life is in chaos or crisis, mixed with a healthy dose of craving adoration to feel like I’m good enough, to be honest. And so knowing the root of these things can really help us to close that gap and step off that cycle completely.

And once we understand those triggers, we can make changes in our lives to help avoid those things, or have healthy coping mechanisms to deal with those things, or at least have awareness to where these temptations and need to diet and control our weight come from. And so that’s something I always do when I’m working with clients, is really try to get to the root of that, what is really the underlying reason why we keep going back into this way of thinking, and into this cycle, and thinking that our body is the problem, and really having that attachment to the thinner body. So when we can get to that root, get to that trigger, we can break that attachment.

So the second way that body image work facilitates healing your relationship with food is by addressing core beliefs and fears about your body, and how the way that we eat, what that says about us. I feel like there’s probably a better way to word that, but that’s all that’s coming out right now. So in other words, what does it say about us if we don’t eat the way we think we should? Or work out the way we think we should? What does it mean if we “overeat”? What does it mean if we gain weight?

Our culture has taught us so many harmful beliefs and lessons about food, and about what it means to be a woman. And I’m using the word ‘woman’ here because what I’m embedding into that is the archetype of the ‘ideal woman,’ which is what we are constantly measuring ourselves up against.

And we’re burdened with all these should’s, and we’re measuring ourselves up against this expectation of perfection and that leads us to never feeling good enough. So when we can explore the guilt, the shame, that we feel around our food choices, why we think we should be doing things differently, we’ll find, it’s almost always intertwined with our body and our self-worth, and beliefs about those things.

And sometimes it means identifying what the fears are, because maybe it’s like, “I’m afraid of gaining weight.” And then we dig into, well, what does that mean? And getting to all that stuff underneath, to really get to what we are believing about ourselves that’s driving those fears.

And once we can identify those core beliefs, then we can start to change them. And when we can work on changing them, and challenging them, both the beliefs and any of those fears, we can really rewire the way that we feel about ourselves and how we take action in our life to reject the should’s and the rules. And that’s going to lead to that freedom we’re seeking around food.

So, to summarize, once we can identify those core beliefs about our body, and about what that says about who we are, then we can start to change those things. And that can break that attachment to wanting to be thinner, which can get us out of that cycle of needing to diet, or not trusting ourselves around food, or fixating on our hunger and fullness, worrying about whether we’ve eaten too much.

Okay, the third way is discovering our identity beyond food and our body. So, a lot of us have had our identity wrapped up in the diet that we follow, or the food that we eat, and it’s our way of life. It’s like, “This is who I am. I’m the Paleo–eating Crossfitter. Who am I if I’m not that? Who am I if I’m not always talking about why gluten is the devil and how much better I feel from cutting it out?” And I’m kind of mocking these things, but at the same time, this was me. This was like, “Let’s go for dinner!” And then I sit there talking about why I don’t eat gluten anymore. I was really fun.

Anyways, when I’m making a mockery of it, I’m just making fun of myself, but it’s true. So many of us have had these diets kind of define our way of life, or we’re the person who’s always trying to lose weight, and that’s part of our identity. And so, we have to think about who we are beyond that. And sometimes that’s a scary thing, because when we’ve been dieting for decades, it is such a part of our identity, even if we don’t know it, sometimes.

When I work with clients and we sit down and we look at it, and it’s like, “Whoa, this is actually a big part of my identity,” and getting a new– not a new identity, but really discovering who you are without that, is fundamental, because it’s part of who we are. We have to let the part go that’s really dragging to us. And I think that I’m probably more an extreme case here, because I was constantly fixated on whether I was going to allow myself to eat a banana later, and stuff like that.

But for many people, it’s just about answering the question: Who am I if I just let myself be without trying to strive for all these should’s? Being anchored in what we truly value in this life is a fundamental piece of closing off this piece of the puzzle, because it can help us move past our body size defining our happiness and well-being. So in other words, if we really can identify with who we are as a person, what we truly value, find meaning and purpose in our lives outside of our body, then it can play a huge role in being fully content with whatever size our body is. And being fully accepting of ourselves.

And another piece of this, I’ll just kind of squeeze in here, it’s always good to find a reason to do this work that’s bigger than you. So maybe that’s your kids, maybe that’s your niece or nephew, maybe it’s because you just want to disrupt this culture. You could really have that rebellious energy. Maybe you have feminist values. Whatever it is, find a reason to do this that’s bigger than you.

And take the opportunity to rediscover what makes you feel alive, and focus your efforts on that. And connect with people who aren’t wrapped up in diet. That’s also a piece of this. So it’s really the identity piece. Like, who we are. And I know my friend Kyla Tova, who used to go by Kyla Prinz, her whole thing was ‘discovery, not recovery.’ We focus so much on the recovery piece, and I know I don’t work with people specifically with eating disorders, but in the same way, recovering from the diet mentality, we focus on the food piece, and our hunger, and all that stuff, but it’s a huge part of it, which we often overlook, is just rediscovering who we are without that stuff. And that’s been a huge benefit to me, to not be talking about gluten when I go out with people.

Okay, the fourth way is about building self-trust, which I like to think of as a reclamation of power. We’ve been told that we can’t trust ourselves, and I think over and over again, I hear from people, “I’m doing this work, I’m eating intuitively, but I still don’t fully trust myself.” That is kind of the road block. And what I like to focus on is helping people build that trust. And letting go of this fear that we can’t trust our own instincts, and that we need to be told what to eat and how to be.

Self-trust is really just about being able to be who you are, and own your decisions, and know that you will have your back regardless of what happens. It’s about ditching all the crap we’ve been told about who we think we should be, and just being who we are, and tuning into our instincts and aspects of our life. And taking our power back. And as it relates to this work, it’s about being in your body, and not in your head. And so that may either be the most bizarre concept to you, or you may be like, “Oh yeah, I get that. I get that.”

But so often, we’re just in our head. We’re always in the thinky brain, and if we can be in our body, meaning, “What am I actually feeling? What does my body want to eat? What would feel good right now?” Instead of just going through all the thoughts in our head, like “Well, I should eat this. Well, I didn’t have any vegetables today. Am I going to be moving around later? Blah, blah, blah, blah.” We are never in our body.

So building self-trust, and that I’m talking about as it relates to food in that instance, but as it relates to body image, it’s also about being in your body. So I always have people just… I’ll always asking them, “What are you actually feeling in your body right now?” Instead of all the thoughts that are going through your head that are criticizing the way that you look.

Okay, going off on a bit of a tangent there, but let’s bring self-trust back to a very simple concept. So, in my book, Body Image Remix, I say, “Confidence is the courage to show up as the woman you want to be today. Compassion is the capacity to embrace imperfection and be okay with the outcome no matter what happens.” That’s a really important quote. I really like that quote.But I’m going to connect the dots to self-trust with that quote.

So this is how I’m going to define self-trust: Have the courage to eat the damn piece of food. And always have the compassion to embrace imperfection, and be okay with the outcome no matter what happens. That is how self-trust is built. That is so important. So we use self-trust in the work we do with ourselves, just having the courage to kind of do stuff, being okay with whatever the outcome is, having our backs. And we learn to trust ourselves, and then, similarly, with food, just eat the damn piece of food.

And just have compassion for yourself, know it’s not going to be perfect, and be okay with the outcome, no matter what happens. And doing that over and over again is just about really giving yourself permission, giving yourself compassion, giving yourself grace. And the more that you can do that, the more that you’re fully going to trust yourself. And when we do body image work, it’s about cultivating that courage, and that compassion with yourself in all areas of your life. And when we live by those rules, in all areas of our life, then self-trust around eating happens a whole lot more easily.

Okay, the fifth way that we can use body image work to really help us eat more freely, is self-care, and I don’t mean like eating from a self-care perspective, because I think there’s value in that too, but it’s about looking at your overall self-care, and how much time you spend recharging versus draining.

So, awhile ago, I was talking to a client, and she was struggling with all the should’s around food. Andas we started to unpack the various aspects of her life, what was going on was that she had no time for herself. She was working, she had kids, her day started with chaos, it had chaos in the middle, and it ended with chaos. And we realized that when things were more calm, when she had some time to herself, her diet voice and all those should’s was quieter. She wasn’t burdened by so many of them.

And I see this all… the… time– I’m saying that really spaced out to make my point– all the time with our body image. So when shit is chaotic in our lives, when we have no time to recharge, when we’re running on empty, our inner critic, the voice that is your inner troll that is telling you that you’re unattractive and all that other shit, gets really loud. Really loud. We pick apart our body more, we fixate on food, we beat ourselves up. And this is the most common thread in a lot of the people that I work with, and myself in particular. And one I see all the time with the people I work with. I think I sort of said that twice in that sentence.

So looking at ways that we can recharge more often, and cut out things that are draining us, can really go a long way towards giving us more peace in our brain, and that peace can go a long way towards making peace with our body and making peace with food. How many times did I say peace there? Four? That’s about right. But it’s true.

So the point of this is, and I’m not going to go into the specifics of self-care, that’s a whole other, well, it’s a module in my course in and of itself, but it’s looking at mental and physical and emotional. But really, a simple way that I look at self-care is like, how much time are you spending doing things that recharge you, versus draining you? And even if you’re just going to hold that question right now, and you think about it, if the majority of things that you do are draining you, that is going to drive that voice of your inner critic. It’s going to drive the should’s that you’re putting on yourself, and the dissatisfaction with your body. And that is going to then impact your relationship with food. So that’s another way that, you know, if you’re still struggling with food, look at that piece of it, too.

So, that’s really what I wanted to cover in this episode. It probably went on longer than I thought it was going to. But imagine how far you could come if you focused on some of these other things as well, instead of just the food piece. If we really started to look at the bigger picture of this stuff. And so I wanted to create a freebie with this episode. It’s a worksheet called “Eat Like a Grown-ass Adult: Four Prompts to Inspire You To Live Your Life Without Diets.”

And the reason why I created it is because we often ruminate on the potential what-ifs and fears of what might happen if we really stop dieting, and creating a positive vision for what would be possible in our lives once we’re free from diet culture can help to reinforce our decision and help us focus on being hopeful for the future, versus ruminating on the what-ifs. It can give us that motivation and hope and desire of like, what’s going to be great about our lives? And I’ve broken it into four buckets, four questions for you to really think about, so that you can paint that picture for yourself and return to it whenever you need inspiration.

So you can get that by going to summerinnanen.com/159. And hang out with me on the post-wrap-up show podcast party, which doesn’t have an official name. I’ll be on Facebook Live, noon on Friday, noon Pacific Time, 3PM Eastern. And it’ll be the Friday after this episode drops, so if this episode drops on February 4th, it’ll be the Friday, which would be February 7th, to talk about this stuff and answer any questions that you have. so you can join me there.

And, yeah, get that download for yourself, and it’ll be great! It’s just some powerful prompts to give you that vision. And this work can be really hard, and it can be helpful to have that vision to help you really reject the diet mentality and remind you of why you’re doing this.

I’d love to know what you thought of this episode. You can message me, and remember, if you leave a review in the month of February, just DM me with that information, just the username that you used, and your review, so I can cross-check it, and I’ll send you a free audio version of the book.

Once again, you can get the show notes for this episode at summerinnanen.com/159. And if you want to take this further, definitely check out the different ways that we can work together. Specifically, get on the waitlist for You on Fire, which will be back in the Spring of 2020. Or if you’re hearing this post- Spring of 2020, get on the waitlist for the next time. And listen for the upcoming episodes in the Body Image Series. They’re going to be awesome. Hopefully you’ve been enjoying it so far. Let me know! I’d be curious to know. Are you getting stuff out of this, or am I just putting words into dead air space? Hopefully you’re getting stuff out of it!

Okay, thank you so much for listening. I will talk to you next time. Rock on!

OUTRO: I’m Summer Innanen, and I want to thank you for listening today. You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, @summerinnanen. If you haven’t yet, go to Apple Podcasts, and subscribe, rate, and review this show. I would be so grateful. Until next time, rock on!