Top 7 Fears Holding You Back from Food and Body Image Freedom

Embrace the courage to break free from the shackles of disordered eating and body image struggles. Our latest episode is a roadmap to rediscovering the power of intuition in your eating habits, charting a course through the murky waters of diet culture and into the clear skies of body trust. We confront the top ten fears that bind us to patterns of self-sabotage and offer insights on how to cultivate a compassionate, grounded approach to embracing food freedom. 

Join us as we dissect the myths of the 'perfect diet' and challenge the notion of control in eating patterns. We unravel the allure of diet success and the ensuing shame, steering you towards a more sustainable, intuitive approach. This episode is a treasure trove of wisdom for anyone who's ever felt lost in the cycle of dietary dos and don'ts, revealing how to rebuild trust with your body's natural signals and find a deep-seated respect for your own health journey.

We wrap up with an empowering discussion on achieving food and body image freedom, proving that fear can indeed walk hand-in-hand with bravery on the path to what we truly deserve. For those ready to confront their fears and reclaim their lives from the clutches of diets and disordered eating, we extend an offer: a special mini-course designed to be your companion on this transformative journey. Tune in and be inspired to take those steps towards the liberation you've been yearning for, free from the binds of shame and full of hope for the freedom that awaits.

If you are ready for full food and body image freedom, DM us on Instagram @JamieRD_ the word FREEDOM for a free Minicourse on how to achieve full food and body image freedom for good!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Jamie. I know what I need to do, but I fear Today that is what we're going to be talking about. We're going to be talking about the top 10 fears when it comes to working, moving forward, knowing you know what you need to do. You know you need to become an intuitive eater, you know you need to build trust with your body. You know you need to get rid of those destructive behaviors, you know you need to explore a body image, but you fear these things, and those fears are very self-sabotaging and they are very strong and very real and they're very valid, very valid. So what do you do? When you know the path to ultimate freedom? You found it. You know you have to ditch dieting. You know you have to ditch disorder dating. You know what you've been doing has not been working. When you know that focus on the scale it needs to go, but things seem too scary, you may feel like you totally know the way. You know what you need to be doing and what you need to be exploring and learning, and you know you need to be diving into the work, leaving no stone unturned. But it's just too scary. These butts really get in our way. They really create a lot of self-sabotaging behaviors and I don't want to shame them at all because really they're there to protect you.

Speaker 1: 1:38

Those fears coming up are those protective parts of you that are making sure and trying to make sure they're doing what's best for you. And they're not doing what's best for you. They are driving the bus for our whole self. That one part of us is driving the bus for our whole being and not all parts are on board with its decision, and so we want to give that part of us some time and some space and some understanding and listen to it. And that's exactly what we're going to be doing today. We're going to be listening to those fears and then, after we give it the space, it will allow us to speak from a more grounded, compassionate part of our self that should be driving the bus, that knows we know what we need to do to move forward. That part just has to get out of the way and stop bleeding. We can come up with a ton of fears and all the reasons that we shouldn't be moving forward with the decision of our grounded part forever. So we don't want to continue to let it lead us and we want to really dive in not dismiss but dive into those fears. I have sat with so many people and their fears and they're very valid and we have to thank those protective parts, but we also have to let those parts know and decide as an integrated whole being that although that part's trying to protect us and we don't want it to go away, we want it to stay there. We just want it to get to the back of the bus and it could stop us and let us know its fears whenever it needs to. We don't want it to feel unheard, but we have to acknowledge it, sit with it and make that conscious decision to let our grounded part that knows what we need to be doing to ultimately transform our relationship with food and body. We need that to guide our whole system.

Speaker 1: 3:37

Okay, so we're going to be talking about these top 10 that are the most that I find to be the most experienced of the fears. All right, let's get into the fears in no particular order. Here we go. I fear I will lose control. That fear is oh so valid and where it comes from is your own experience of feeling like you're losing control when you are losing control of being able to be around certain foods binging, losing control over feeling like you can manage your body and manage your weight, feeling like you are losing control after you get off a diet or when you're not able to maintain a diet. Losing control is very scary and it feels very, very real when you are in it, and so this is a very common fear.

Speaker 1: 4:37

But I want to challenge you with a few questions. When did you lose control, when did you start to feel like you were losing control over your relationship with food and body, your control over stopping when you're full, and lose control of your hunger and fullness cues, lose control over whether or not you want to eat that whole thing of Oreos? When did you lose control and did you always have a lack of quote unquote control? And the reason I want you to assess this is because, most likely, there was a time when you had control, whether it was when you were a very young kid or a couple of years ago, before you started dieting. Okay, it's going to be different for everyone, and I want to remind you of that because at one point, you most likely had control, because we're born with control, and the reason we lack control quote unquote is because when we get into this restrictive mentality, this diet mentality.

Speaker 1: 5:52

When we get on this cycle of dieting and disorder eating and trying to manipulate our size, this is when our relationship with food starts to shift and becomes way more distrusting and our relationship with our body becomes more distrusting. We start to manipulate, use external, distrust, internal, we lose insight and trap and are unable to understand our cues or hear our cues. So all of those things largely contribute and create this feeling of lacking control. But what is actually causing the lack of control is these disordered behaviors, are these shameful behaviors, are these disrespectful behaviors? And I want to name that because if we had control at one point and if these destructive things are taking away our control, then when we think about moving in the direction of doing the things we know we need to do, like learning, intuitive eating, bringing back all foods and doing body image work, if we go, if those are the opposites of what is, that is the opposite path of what is taking control away from much from us, which is diets, disordered eating, focusing on weight and size, right.

Speaker 1: 7:11

So, although moving in a different direction is going to be scary and you may quote unquote lose control for a little because, well, you've always tried to control food and you have this distrust that's also very, very much making it scary. This path will ultimately, although uncomfortable and may cause you to feel a little out of control at some points, will bring you back to a place where you have all the tools and the mindset and the beliefs and the trust and the intuition that then helps you to understand why you lose. You lost control in the first place. What causes someone to quote, unquote lose control, and how? We don't need control over food, we don't need control over our bodies. But once we move in this path that is respectful and helpful for us, ultimately, in a sustainable, happy relationship with food in our body, we will gain back that trust and intuition and never feel like you know, we will lose control again because we have and we understand and we're grounded in our intuition, in our understanding and our knowledge and our new experiences. So that's a big one, so that's a good one to start with. So just ask yourself those questions.

Speaker 1: 8:32

All right, the next fear, and with fear I should also say the next objection. So, fear or objection that I get, I fear I just have not found the right diet. All of these other diets weren't good for me they weren't the right diet, but I just need to find the right diet for me. And this I challenge you to think about how one diet is different from the other and how. What are the similarities with all diets, or quote unquote lifestyles that are sold to you Now, what makes up a diet? And when I think of what is a diet and what is your own true, intuitive trust and grounded eating.

Speaker 1: 9:14

Diets are going to be built on external rules. They're going to be built on good and bad foods You're going to have. You're going to have rules in place and these are external rules. When you have external rules, you cannot listen to yourself because those go against each other. Because if you want to, let's say, if you're on, if you're intermittent fasting and your body gets hungry but you're not allowed to eat in those hours, you're not going to be able to build trust with what your body is telling you and you're not going to build this relationship where you two are listening to each other. So when, if your argument in your mind, if it may be, I just haven't found the right diet, I want to ask you how many diets have you been on? How many things have you tried? What do you think this magic diet is going to be and is going to bring you? And how are all these diets similar? How are they all built on? Distrust with your body, external rules, these false ideals, these false promises, these miracle solutions. And again, I emphasize, I emphasize with you, very much so because we are really sold that if the diet doesn't work that's because we didn't find the right one or we failed the diet. But they're all structured in the same way. They're all created from that same place of trying to sell you on shame and distrust of food in your body to buy the diet product that is being sold to you.

Speaker 1: 10:51

Another similar I guess this is a similar objection and fear is Well, it worked once before. Okay, a diet has worked once before. Restriction has worked once before. Punishing exercise has worked once before. So I just have to get back to a place where it works again. It just I keep failing at it, I can't keep it up as long or I missed something, I just it's not successful anymore. But I just need to get back to the place where it is successful because it has worked in the past. And to that I challenge you by asking you, and again, I'm not just going to give you my.

Speaker 1: 11:32

I want you to look at the your own experiences and ask yourself what does it mean for something to have worked? If something worked before, why wouldn't it continue to work If this diet has promised you a sustainable, healthy relationship with food, where you feel in control, where you feel confident with food, where you don't have these binges, where you don't, where you can keep all food in the house, where your friends with your body? If it was sustainable, it would continue to work. But the fact of the matter is is the fact that you're saying it did work before? Right in that sentence is the answer that it doesn't work, because if something would have worked, it would continue to work. It worked. It worked quote-unquote short term and maybe providing you some confidence with your body, confidence with food, weight loss, feeling more in control again, bringing some of that confidence for that quote-unquote success at that time with the diet or with manipulating and managing your body. But it's short lived because what you're implementing is not something that's sustainable, is not something that's healthy, is not something that is taking care of your holistic health. If it was, it's something that you can keep going. It's something that will continue to work and will not have you relying on it in this constant cycle of a Little bit of success, quote-unquote and then failure.

Speaker 1: 13:12

The next fear I get a lot is I do not know how to Trust my body signals. So if I move into intuitive eating but I cannot hear what my body is telling me anymore, I don't know when it's full, I don't know when it's it needs to eat. I don't trust when it needs to eat, I don't trust when I feel out of control, all of those things when that is going to keep people in a fearful place. Very Understandably, because very much intuitive eating requires you to listen to your body and that is part of it. It's not all of intuitive eating. There's other things to consider other than just listening to your body, and that's for another episode. However, this is a Foundation of intuitive eating to build back understanding and trust with your internal cues.

Speaker 1: 14:05

Now, when people have that fear and they say I've been trying to get back back my cues and I don't have them yet, or I haven't been trying to get back my cues but I In fearful I will not be able to get those cues back because I've been dieting or in this disorder eating for so long. It's very understandable and what I have to say there is that we need to give the the time and space for our bodies to get those cues back. What happens with our cues our hunger and fullness cues and I see it so often with so many folks and I've seen it with myself is that you lose those cues because your bodies Stop sending those cues. When you stop listening to it, it shuts it off. It says, hey, this person is not listening to when I'm hungry and so I'm gonna stop giving those cues. And you start to just get really disembodied and Unable to Be in tune, like like you used to before the dieting and disorder eating now with that. It just takes time. It takes consistent practices of respect for your body, it takes Getting uncomfortable by doing things that help you to get back your hunger cues and it takes some time.

Speaker 1: 15:27

So if you have an argument that you tried getting your cues back, I would. I would be very Curious to hear about how you've tried to get those cues back for how long. What are you doing to get those cues back and where is the fear as well that's holding you back from consistently moving in the direction to get those cues back and get In tune with your body. Is body image holding you back? Next fear that I hear so often is I Will lose motivation. Without diets, without disorder eating, without external rules, how am I going to have the motivation to move my body? Where is the motivation to have a vegetable going to come from? I am going to lose motivation and again, very Understandable when the motivation has come to you from a place of diet rules and structure that the diet Creates and what's off limits, what's on limits, how often you need to exercise, and taking you away from your own intuition and understanding Of your body. Right it places. It gives you all that structure.

Speaker 1: 16:31

So many times people feel like without that structure of the diet, without the motivation of the diet, there's no way I'm going to want to continue to move my body, there's no way I'm going to want to eat a vegetable. And that argument is very. I could just ask you right now, okay, so I can say there, of course, you feel like you don't want to exercise at this point, right now, and you don't want to have movement because you just bent on rigid Plan after rigid plan of how you should be moving your body. It's been built on stress and anxiety. You've had to exercise in a certain way for a certain amount of time, regardless of how you're feeling in that moment and regardless of if you want to do that exercise or want to do that exercise that day. So you have. It makes sense. I wouldn't want to exercise like that either and I don't have motivation to exercise like that, and so it's.

Speaker 1: 17:25

It's very understandable that you may think that you'll never want to move again, and you may not. You may need to take a hiatus from exercise or from the exercise you're doing right now, maybe when in your journey, you just start to do some light walking and light yoga again and move your body in ways that feel really calm and peaceful and Bring you joy To heal your relationship with exercise. And maybe that's all you want to do for right now or forever, and that's absolutely fine. But many times people feel that they are going to lose their motivation for healthy habits, right Like movement included. Another thing that people worry about is is losing all motivation to Incorporate nutrient-dense foods in their diets, and again, it's very understandable If all you are allowing yourself is the same kind of one food and it's all. You can only have Certain vegetables, lean meats, whole grains, whatever your diet may be, and so you're gonna be really sick of those foods. But additionally, those foods become really boring when you have to Stick to a strict way of eating those types of foods and you can't get creative with it and bring fats in and and Incorporate other things that enhance that that particular nutrient-dense item as well.

Speaker 1: 18:52

So, anyways, to that I would say that when you think of the motivation of diets, it's very motivated on shame, distrust and disrespect. And what studies have seen time and time again is that when Motivation is through shame, that motivation is very short-lived, it cannot. It cannot sustain itself. And you can think of that in terms of when you think about a Child's being motivated if they're shamed into Doing their chores, if they're shamed into getting their homework done, whatever it might be, there's a lot of resentment that's gonna grow around doing homework, doing chores. It's not gonna be internal, it's going to be. They're gonna feel very Crappy down on themselves, have low self-esteem when it comes to those items. So the shame is just again. According to research, it is very, not sustainable, whereas when you're coming from a place of trust respect your values, intuition, self-compassion now. Those are behaviors that are super sustainable. So I would say the exact opposite.

Speaker 1: 20:10

If someone said I'm so fearful I'm gonna lose motivation, I would say, with what you're doing right now, you will absolutely lose motivation. Absolutely. If not today, if not tomorrow, if not in a year, you will lose motivation for this healthy, quote-unquote lifestyle you're trying with this diet or with this extreme exercise routine built on shame and distrust. You will absolutely do that. If you want true Motivation that will last a lifetime, that will feel really good, then we need to move in the direction of trust and respect with our body and with exercise and with food. So All right.

Speaker 1: 20:50

So the next one is I fear I will not be able to stop eating X, okay. So, whatever it might be put, place your binge food on there, place your input, put in your restricted food in there and Finish that sentence for yourself, so we can go over this, this fear. This is similar to losing control, but I do want to keep it as a second, a separate category to chat about, or a second, a Separate fear. Okay, so I fear I am going to not be able to stop eating X food when I introduce this food back in, and I want you to close your eyes as I'm chatting, unless you're driving. Don't close your eyes. I want you to envision what I'm going to be going over right now. Okay, picture this.

Speaker 1: 21:39

Envision a day when you're restricted to consuming only one type of food let's say it's donuts and picture waking up to a day filled with donuts, allowing yourself to indulge in one or two for breakfast. You feel a sense of excitement and satisfaction as you relish in the fact that you have full permission to enjoy this food. As the morning progresses, you have another donut for a snack without thinking much about it. By lunchtime, you're still quite enthusiastic about Having exclusively donuts. As the day goes on, you continue to nourish yourself solely with donuts. Now, how are these off-limits donuts working for you as the only food for the day? By this time your perspective of your answer you persist with the donut only day and consume a few more to sustain yourself. And as night approaches, I'm really curious how you would feel After consuming only donuts and how you would feel toward donuts.

Speaker 1: 22:44

You might have a head full of judgments about the fact that you only ate donuts. However, if you attune yourself to your body, how do you believe your body would react and in my experience, when I post this question, clients often swiftly express that they anticipate feeling pretty unwell. They also anticipate feeling a lack of energy and bored with consuming donuts and Also having a longing for something else a bowl of soup, some carrots, nice steak, right? The key message to remember here is that the fatigue of eating those donuts, the boredom with those donuts, that energy dip and not feeling great with eating only donuts all day, that desire for other types of foods is your body's way of communicating with you about what foods it wants and is communicating with you that you can trust its signals and it's going to tell you, tell you you can trust that expertise. Okay so, and when you're? When you're thinking about this, maybe you have two days of donuts, three days, only of donuts. It's depending on where you're at with your level of restriction. You may be totally fine with the day of donuts and it might take two or three or four, but the fact of the matter is, if you continue with donuts long enough, you will not feel the same way about donuts. So that's the. That's the thing I really like to educate people on when they come to me with that objection.

Speaker 1: 24:27

The next fear and objection I get is I cannot like and accept my here and now body. I have to focus on weight loss. I have to focus on diets. It has to change first. My body has to change first. Before I'm able to move in the direction of building a healthy relationship that's trusting, with food and body, I have to change my body first. All right, this is such a tough one and I have some questions for you.

Speaker 1: 25:00

If you were to change your body right now, say you could snap your fingers and you are in what you say is your ideal body. Now, if it was built on distrust, disrespect, how are we going to move forward with trust and with bringing foods back in without the fear of our body changing? How are we going to lean in and decide we're going to respect our body, listen to its, listen to its cues, no matter what, do what feels good mentally, physically, and move in that correct direction. If it is built, if you come to a place of starting, only when you feel comfortable in your body I can tell you your body is. You're still not going to feel like it's good enough. It's not enough weight loss, it's not there. You're always going to feel like you can have a quote unquote better and more ideal body.

Speaker 1: 25:59

Because body image is built off very unsustainable things and body image is centered around. And you put the focus on and said that having a confident relationship with your body and having a good body image is what your body looks like, period. And we know and there's an episode on this, you should go listen to it that that is not the case. Body image does not equate to what your body looks like. So, anyway, so you come to trying to navigate your relationship with food and body in a respectful way, but only after you have achieved this ideal body through distrust and disrespect. If you're even able to get there With going through your we know just right there how is that going to be able to? How are we going to be able to do that? And, additionally, when have you tried to get this ideal body or even gotten this ideal body? And we're still miserable, was even more distrusting around food, even more uncomfortable in your body, even more fearful of if your body were to change, even more, feeling like you need to manage and manipulate your body and take more foods out right? It just does not work that way. We cannot build a healthy relationship with food and body based on shame, distrust and disrespect. It's very, very common to feel like it's it's scary to move in a direction that doesn't focus on weight loss, that doesn't focus on external diets, when we are so fearful and uncomfortable in body. But what happens is when you move in the direction of practicing respectful and acceptance techniques with food and body image is new doors open for your understanding and your relationship and your confidence with your body.

Speaker 1: 27:54

And lastly, I wanted I want to speak to this one last, because it's just a great one to end on. And this objection is I have tried something like this before and it doesn't work. I have tried intuitive eating and it has not worked. It completely fails. I have tried developing a healthier relationship with exercise by listening to my body and it did not work.

Speaker 1: 28:19

Now, this is why I say people need support and education from an expert and from someone who can hold hope in those scary moments, because when you're moving forward with doing something brand new like intuitive eating, after years of diets and disordered eating, you're going to feel like you are moving in a very, very scary direction and it's going to be very easy to to give up, to feel like you're. You're failing to feeling like it's too scary to feel like you gave it enough time and it just doesn't work. But the fact of the matter is is that when you go in this direction, you absolutely will get to full food and body image freedom. You just have to keep moving in that direction, and what I would recommend is steak is, first of all, is not putting a time limit on on navigating through developing these new behaviors. It's gonna take time.

Speaker 1: 29:18

Think of how long you were in disordered eating and how long you were dieting for and how long you were bashing your body. We have to rewire your brain. We have to build in those trust around those behaviors. It's going to take some time and we need support. We need support so that when you're in those stuck moments and you need some education, you need some cheerleading, you need some people holding hope to help you to keep navigating that path.

Speaker 1: 29:47

It's very, very easy to just jump out and say intuitive eating is way too hard, giving up these disordered eating behaviors is way too hard, trying to have a new relationship with my body is way too scary, and so we need the support of people who have been through it themselves, who have helped other people get through it, who can be your cheerleader, support system and who has education and tools to help you to not give up on that path. So if you say that it hasn't so, if your argument is it hasn't worked for you in the past, I would ask how long did you give it? What resources and support did you have? Did you work with anyone? How long? What did you do? Are we just, did we just get into a place where we got really afraid and we didn't wanna sit in that discomfort? Did we just get really uncomfortable and want to escape that discomfort, being in lean on our more comfortable, disordered behaviors? That's my question I wanna leave to you. So, with these fears and objections, my heart goes out to you. Big hugs.

Speaker 1: 30:58

It is so, so hard and I want to challenge you and say we should not let fear lead us. If we're letting fear lead us, it's not going to lead us in the right direction. If part of you knows that the direction of true food and body image freedom is scary, but it's there and you know the things you need to do to get there. You owe it to yourself to be brave, to get support and move in the direction that is going to ultimately free you. I don't want your fears to drive. I want your part of you that is curious, calm, clear, compassionate, confident, creative, connected and courageous be the one to guide you and that is the voice telling you to move forward in an unfamiliar direction that you know is the right way and to stop moving in the direction that those anxious and fearful parts are telling you to go in, which is going to be disorder, eating, dieting and body shame. These fears are very valid and you just have not had the right support, education, opportunity to move in the right direction, and you deserve it. I don't want you to stay stuck due to these fears. So, anyways, I hope you found moving through these fears and kind of chatting with them, communicating with them, to be helpful, and I really encourage you.

Speaker 1: 32:33

If we didn't go over some of these fears, I want you to go over your fears by yourself. Practice writing them out, practice speaking back and forth to the different parts of you. Ask that anxious part that's fearing something why is it fearful? And ask yourself part what it thinks. Let it also be able to speak, and you can work through and understand your fears better in this way.

Speaker 1: 33:00

Now, if you're ready to dive in despite your fears because, hey, the fears are still going to be there. We're not trying to get rid of them, we're just trying to. We're trying to hold them at the same time as we move forward in our courageousness, in our bravery, to get what we deserve. Okay, so if you are ready for that, if you're fearful but still ready and willing and excited to finally reach full food and body image freedom, I want you to DM me the word freedom at jamieRD underscore and I'm going to send you a three two day mini course that is going to walk you through understanding how we can ditch diets and disordered eating and finally achieve food and body image freedom without the shame. I'm so excited to see you in there. I hope this episode was helpful and I will see you next time. Stay brave and stay strong.