F*ck Food Rules
Are you sick and tired of being told to lose weight, eat this and not that, or that your body just isn't good enough?
This comprehensive guide is a list of 57 weeks of the "F*ck Food Rules Friday" email series where we dissect:
- Diet culture language
- Scientific evidence debunking common diet rules
- Body shaming
- Weight comments
- Healthism
- Fatphobia
- Wellness culture
And much more.
Each page in this book is based off a real life food and/or body rule from real patients in eating disorder recovery.
Fair warning, this book is likely to make you uncomfortable and challenge some core beliefs.
It's meant to be a lighthearted translation of just how F*cked up the diet industry really is. Digs into how the diet industry harms our relationships and physical and emotional wellbeing.
Great for providers or anyone wanting to dig deeper into the HAES movement, body positivity, or eating disorder recovery. Very easy to digest and good for anyone 13+.
Contains lots of "language" so viewer discretion advised. Do NOT purchase this unless you'e ready to get uncomfortable!
As always, if you don't love it i'll return your $$ for any reason. If you do love it, please consider leaving a 5 star review:).
Entry Example:
Food rule: “I wish I just had more control with my food.”
Where did it come from?
I will say this one more time: In western culture- we are OBSESSED with control.
After all, a controlled person is deemed to be:
- Disciplined
- Goal driven
- Ambitious
- Deserving
- Lovable
- Admirable
To simply name a few. Thus naturally, to feel like we are lacking in control can leave a sinking feeling in our gut. A sense of desperation.
How many of you have ever experienced a binge? Raises hand
Let me tell you what it was like to binge eat for me:
- I would wake up every morning planning out what I would eat for the day.
- I had a deep fear of “trigger foods” existing anywhere near me.
- I could easily finish off a couple of pizzas, soda and breadsticks to myself.
- I was EXTREMELY protective of food. When my family would order a meal I would map out who would get what in my head. Then I would race to get as much as possible because I was TERRIFIED of being hungry.
- I would get upset when people didn't finish THEIR portions I had allocated for them in my mind.
- I never got full. Never. Even when I stopped eating- it was to control myself. Not because I was satisfied.
So I've got some really fucked up news for you. The very intent to control your food, is EXACTLY what strips away your capacity to do so.
Why does this rule suck:
As a result of my inability to “control my food” I developed a clever little trick. I simply created a “food rule” that I would leave the last bit of my food on the plate.
HA! I WIN! Or so I thought…
This really makes me laugh these days. After almost 20 years of doing this (which by the way I wasn't even consciously aware I was doing it- A boyfriend pointed it out) I realized that my subconscious mandating exactly 1 bite being left on the plate was the exact OPPOSITE of being in control.
Control is funny like that.
These days my most favorite thing to tell my patients is “Relax. nothing is under control.” Meaning- our only real capacity to be in charge of this world is to adapt to constantly changing circumstances and environments.
On days I have the desire to control my food I remind myself of one thing: “Shena. If you restrict that right now before you are fully physically and emotionally satisfied you're going RIGHT back to your old binging self.”
I'm not going to lie. Binging scares the FRICK out of me. It scares me so much that even if i'm having my worst disordered eating disorder thought day, I'm easily persuaded to nourish knowing I'll avoid an endless binge-restrict-cycle in doing so.
And low and behold- when I continue to eat even if I feel like i'm going to go completely out of control with a trigger food, after a couple more slices of pizza or a couple more bites of ice cream my body says “cool. you're good."