Intuitive Eating: Pandemic Edition (Part 2)

Last week I talked about dipping my toes into the concept of intuitive eating and the challenges I faced trying to "ditch the diet" mentality that had plagued me for as long as I could remember. The thing about overcoming something is that for a lot of us, it's still always there-in the background, behind the curtain, ready to show up if we allow it. Through using the Intuitive Eating workbook (link below) and the help of my amazing therapist, I started to understand that allowing space for those thoughts and feelings and letting them have their place was much more realistic than shaming myself for ever thinking about a diet ever again. How could we not, when it's plastered on every billboard, commercial and social media advertisement? What we do with those thoughts-that's where the real work begins. 

Exercise? Never heard of her.  
I said I would talk about how I began to fall in love with exercise-I wouldn't probably call it falling in love as much as something slapping me in the face and making me realize I had to begin treating my body with more respect. During the first year of the pandemic, I rarely left my house which was a good thing, but I was also doing very little except sitting at my desk for work each day and sitting in front of my television at night. One day when I pulled a muscle from shaving my legs, I realized my journey of becoming one with my couch cushion needed to be addressed. The truth is, I have always loathed exercise. I saw it as something people did to get smaller. If I was trying to get over my disordered eating and ditch the diet mentality, where the heck did exercise fit into this? I hated getting sweaty. I hated having more clothes to wash each week because of leggings and sports bras. I couldn't see how it fit into my life. One day, a friend asked if I wanted to join a virtual lifting class she did with a colleague of hers. She said it was "Thirty minutes and we drink wine after."  You had me at thirty minutes and wine. Within a few months, this bi-weekly class completely transformed my life. I no longer got out of breath from picking something up off the floor. I no longer pulled a muscle in the shower. I actually-get this-got excited about moving my body. I think something about the no pressure environment really helped me to push myself (also being able to do it in sweatpants in the comfort of my own home helped). I've now been doing these classes for close to a year, and I can't imagine my life without them. Point is-you're not going to love every form of movement, just like anything in life. Finding what you do like is the key. Something that you don't dread doing, something that brings out the best in you. If you are like I was, I promise there is something out there for you, too!

Embracing the "new me" 
My body has changed since the beginning of the pandemic. I attribute this to a number of reasons, many of which you may have also experienced and none of which are worth diving into-why? Because I know myself enough and my patterns enough to know that analyzing the reasons why my jeans no longer fit will only trigger me to figuring out how to make them fit again and gaining weight isn't always a bad thing! For a lot of us it can mean healing-mentally and physically. Being kind to our bodies. Loving ourselves. It can also mean going through something difficult- like a serious health issue, a loss or-hey, a global pandemic. I try to remind myself these days how blessed I really am, and that the fact that I had to retire my favorite skinny jeans doesn't mean anything other than a sign that my glorious self is ever changing. 

Potatoes: A love story 
Somewhere along the way in the height of my disordered eating I made a mental list of off-limit foods. All of these were foods I was convinced would lead to instant death-or at least immediate diabetes, heart disease or cancer. I made a lot of progress in the years since starting to address my issues, but there were still a few foods lingering that I couldn't quite stop the guilt trip on. Potatoes were at the top of that list. I managed to selectively eliminate from my brain what I learned in school about the health benefits of potatoes (more to come on this amazing food in a later blog post) and that they would cause nothing but trouble. One weekend this past Summer my husband broke out his electric smoker and made pounds and pounds of smoked brisket, ribs, chicken and sausage. We had leftover smoked meat for days and days and let me tell you, as delicious as it was-after day three I just could. not. stomach. meat...at all. This lasted about a month, and when my hunger cues kicked in from lack of protein I started assembling some plant-based alternative meals to get me through my meat aversion period. Many of these meals included potatoes-air-fried potatoes, roasted potatoes, steamed potatoes. Potatoes as a side, potatoes on a salad, potatoes dipped in ranch dressing (my favorite plantifulkiki.com/ranch-dressing/ )...my life revolved around potatoes. And guess what? I didn't immediately develop a chronic disease or drop down dead from turning into a potato. In fact, I felt full and satisfied for the first time in a long time. I've started eating meat again (thanks, Intuitive Eating) but potatoes...I will love you forever.

I'd love to hear what your eating journey has been like during this pandemic! Drop a comment below. Thanks for reading! 

In love, health and french fries,
Kacie Leigh 

Resources:
 www.amazon.com/Intuitive-Eating-Workbook-Principles-Relationship/dp/16262562255