Tina's Arena

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:20:00
Speaker 1
Hi everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Tina's Arena. Today I wanted to talk about things that I have learned as an intuitive eater for the past, however many years since recovering from my eating disorder. So just a few quick things, or maybe not quick that I've learned along the way.

00:00:20:00 - 00:00:42:08
Speaker 1
Number one is that the learning process is slow and tedious, and there will be setbacks and there will be moments in which you feel like you're not really making progress, because the baby steps that you have to take with intuitive eating and healing are so small, you need to take incremental baby steps and learn that consistency is the key.

00:00:42:10 - 00:01:16:19
Speaker 1
You want to practice eating things that used to trigger you, and you want to expose yourself to all different types of situations and see how you respond to them. Sometimes you might fall into old eating patterns, habits, and sometimes you'll learn and grow from that situation. And all of it is okay. It's totally okay when you're on the healing process to take a couple steps back, because when you take a couple steps back, you're also learning about the situation which brought you there.

00:01:16:21 - 00:01:25:01
Speaker 1
For example, sometimes I overeat, so and it's completely normal for people to overeat. It's not,

00:01:25:01 - 00:01:43:13
Speaker 1
disordered eating behavior simply just to overeat. The disordered behaviors happen when you beat yourself up for it. You fall into a negative shame cycle, and you like the disordered part. Is your response to it right?

00:01:43:13 - 00:02:11:22
Speaker 1
Lots of people can have, you know, disordered eating behaviors, but they don't have an eating disorder. For example, intermittent fasting. It can be totally healthy for some people, and it can absolutely work for people. But on the other hand, for some people, it can totally trigger eating disorders and like it did for me. And it can totally exacerbate the situation and make it worse.

00:02:12:00 - 00:02:32:01
Speaker 1
So everything you know comes with a grain of salt, and everything is just up for interpretation in this space, I believe. So, I mean, I, I was in charge of my own healing journey, and I totally recommend that if you are on this journey yourself, that you talk to a therapist and have lots and lots of help along the way.

00:02:32:01 - 00:02:48:01
Speaker 1
the learning process is very, very slow, and at times you might not feel like you're making any progress at all. But just know that as long as you have the right intentions, as long as you are sticking to healing and you want to heal, then you can get there.

00:02:48:05 - 00:03:05:20
Speaker 1
No matter how slowly it feels like it's going to take, if you just practice and know that you are on the healing path, you will get there eventually. It doesn't matter how slow you go, as long as the intention and the desire to heal is there, in my opinion.

00:03:05:20 - 00:03:20:03
Speaker 1
Second thing that I've learned. Building off of this first one, since the learning process is slow. Any progress that you feel like you're making is also going to be really slow.

00:03:20:03 - 00:03:34:15
Speaker 1
you might start beating yourself up because you have to gain weight a little bit during the learning process. Or if you're still trying to lose weight, you might be really frustrated that it's taking a very, very, very, very, very, very, very long time.

00:03:34:16 - 00:04:03:02
Speaker 1
But trust that the mental health growth will be worth it. It will be worth it. It doesn't have to be hard. It's hard now, but it doesn't have to be hard forever. So spend these next few months, years, whatever it takes in order to heal your relationship with food, because you still have your entire life to go. Do you really want to be struggling with this for your entire life?

00:04:03:04 - 00:04:34:15
Speaker 1
I have hopefully 50 or 60 years of life left, and I don't want this to be something that is constantly weighing down on me. And I am so happy these days because I get to eat whatever I want, whenever I want. Obviously, I still eat healthy. Most of the time I'm still eating a lot of vegetables, but just knowing the fact that I can have a little bit of caramel popcorn and not completely derail myself is so, so enlightening.

00:04:34:17 - 00:04:49:21
Speaker 1
Like it feels and like, inviting, I don't know, feels lighter. I'm not weighed down by the food choices that I make anymore. They don't weigh heavily on me. I have brain space now to do other things

00:04:49:21 - 00:05:10:19
Speaker 1
As I have said in the past, if you've been listening for a while, when I was in the midst of my eating disorder and I had very disordered eating behavior, I could not think of anything else other than losing weight and what I was eating. It occupied my entire brain space. I had no capacity for anything else. These days I feel lighter.

00:05:10:19 - 00:05:30:14
Speaker 1
I have more space in my head to do other things that I want to do, and it just doesn't consume my entire day. And all of my energy anymore. So the healing, although it's very, very slow, it's going to be worth it. And because the healing is slow and worth it, your progress is also going to feel very, very slow.

00:05:30:17 - 00:05:38:08
Speaker 1
But you just have to trust yourself and know that you are working towards the bigger picture. The bigger picture is going to be worth it.

00:05:38:08 - 00:05:41:23
Speaker 1
I'm having a really hard time explaining this one. But the third

00:05:41:23 - 00:05:42:05
Speaker 1
thing,

00:05:42:05 - 00:05:57:13
Speaker 1
that I've learned is that everything matters and yet nothing really matters. We're all completely unique individuals, but because we're all unique and individuals, well, we're all kind of the same. If you get what I'm saying.

00:05:57:15 - 00:06:30:03
Speaker 1
So everything matters. Every little bit counts. Every step that you take. Every stair that you climb. Every minute that you put into your workout. It all counts, no matter how big or small that it is. It's all going to have an additive effect. And then we can also look at the other point of view where because we are eating consistently throughout our lifetime, one meal out of the thousands and thousands that you are eating, is it really going to make that big of a difference in the long term?

00:06:30:05 - 00:07:00:18
Speaker 1
So if you are having a random meal where you might be eating more sugar than you intend to, well, at the end of the year, at the end of your life, that little meal is not going to make a huge difference for you. So you can just alter your perspective in that way. When I was in my eating disorder days, I would focus and zoom in on the one meal and focus on how much sugar I was eating in this one meal and how bad that one meal was for me.

00:07:00:20 - 00:07:25:12
Speaker 1
So in that scenario, when you were zoomed in on that negative aspect of that, it's really important to zoom out and look at it from the bigger picture. That one snack that I'm eating is not going to offer real me for my entire life. It could set me up in a negative shame spiral if I'm still learning. But you know what?

00:07:25:12 - 00:07:46:10
Speaker 1
I'm going to take that learning instance and I'm going to learn from it. I do not want to feel the way that I'm feeling when I'm in a shame circle. So what happened? How did I get here? What was I feeling? What was I avoiding? Was I eating in order to avoid people? Was I eating in order to avoid my own discomfort?

00:07:46:15 - 00:08:12:05
Speaker 1
Was I eating in order to avoid boredom? I'm going to use that meal and that learning opportunity to actually learn from it. So when you're focused in on something negative, it's really important to zoom out and look at the bigger picture. That one or a few little negative things that happened or that you did is not going to matter in the long run.

00:08:12:07 - 00:08:40:03
Speaker 1
But also, we're going to take the flip side of that. Every positive thing that you do for yourself, no matter how small, also matters. Every minute you spend meditating, every extra step that you take walking, every extra stair that you climb, every extra workout that you get in. No matter how small it is, imagine that it's going to have an additive effect in the future.

00:08:40:05 - 00:09:13:19
Speaker 1
So when we were looking at something negative, we wanted to zoom out and look at the bigger picture. But when we are considering something positive, you want to zoom in on it, and you must understand and really believe that every tiny, positive action that you are doing for yourself will compound in the future. Every time you practice a skill that is healthy for you and that is going to create positive outcomes for you, you are reinforcing that mindset into yourself.

00:09:13:19 - 00:09:40:03
Speaker 1
even if you are only able to take a five minute walk during your lunch break, take that walk because that five minutes is going to add up over time and become something great. Even if you have only one minute to meditate and that's all you feel like you can get in. Take that minute and it will build up and add up over time.

00:09:40:05 - 00:10:09:14
Speaker 1
It's really important to shift your mindset into this direction, because that's going to help you get over your own mistakes. It's going to help you get out of that negative shame cycle, and it's going to help you to start focusing on the things that really matter. You do not need to spend your time beating yourself up over things that you can't control, or things that you did in the past, or things that maybe have felt good to you in that moment.

00:10:09:20 - 00:10:31:06
Speaker 1
If you get what I'm saying, you can move on from it and just use it as a learning opportunity. Mark it in your head. This is what happened, and this is why I'm not going to do it again and use that as fuel for the next time that you are faced with that same situation. You can remember this moment in which you didn't feel the way that you wanted to.

00:10:31:10 - 00:10:38:18
Speaker 1
And remember that action or those feelings or whatever it was, in order to fuel your decision. Next time.

00:10:38:18 - 00:10:56:12
Speaker 1
the next thing that I've learned, also kind of building on that one, is like the small baby steps matter. Sometimes it feels like you're not making progress because the steps that you are taking are so tiny. If you're just adding an extra five minute walk a day, it feels like it's so small it's not going to make any difference in the long run.

00:10:56:17 - 00:11:19:16
Speaker 1
But the thing that we want to build is not actually about the five minute walk. It's more about the skill and the habit of taking care of yourself and doing positive things for yourself. So once you start to consistently do the five minute walk every single day, you'll build up that skill of learning how to take care of yourself and learning how to listen to your own body.

00:11:19:19 - 00:11:38:18
Speaker 1
And you're going to become more adept at using that skill in the future. So the next time you are faced with maybe a 15 minute walk, you'll be like, oh, well, I know I can do a five minute really easily. So sure, this 15 minute walk won't be any problem, or you start figuring out recipes that you like.

00:11:38:23 - 00:12:04:04
Speaker 1
And I just started making cucumber salads, and I did not ever make a cucumber salad before. Even though I love cucumbers and I love soy sauce, and it's a two minute salad that you make. I have started to make cucumber salads and they're so simple. And then building up on that, well, now I make a simple soy sauce salad with cabbage and that's just as easy, just as quick, just as delicious and filling.

00:12:04:04 - 00:12:30:09
Speaker 1
And you get what I mean. Like, you start to build up on these skills that you gain over time. So it's completely worth it to do this all very slowly. In fact, I think the more slowly you go, the better habits you learn and the better the results will be. They will last longer. You won't fall into any crash dieting schemes, and you'll actually learn how to listen to your body along the way.

00:12:30:11 - 00:12:54:19
Speaker 1
You're not going to follow some meal plan that someone designed for you where you don't like the recipes, where you have to track meticulously so you might not actually be listening to your body hunger and fullness signals. You're just following the numbers. Which is okay, because that's going to work for some people. But that's not going to work for me because I don't want to live the rest of my life counting calories.

00:12:54:22 - 00:13:23:02
Speaker 1
I mean, people can use that as an avenue to learn about their bodies, and that is completely great if that works for you. It was just that I knew that calorie counting kind of caused. Well, it did cause disordered eating behaviors in me, and so I haven't really wanted to count calories since then. I do count my protein grams right now because my trainer asked me to, but even that I don't really feel is that necessary?

00:13:23:04 - 00:13:41:22
Speaker 1
I just want to do things slowly, gradually, and build the right skills and habits over time so that in a couple of years this is all second nature and it becomes so easy for me even where I'm at now, it doesn't feel like work at all. I eat pretty, pretty healthy.

00:13:41:22 - 00:13:50:04
Speaker 1
my weight has been stable within the same five ish pounds for the last year and a half, and are starting to build muscle.

00:13:50:04 - 00:14:11:02
Speaker 1
Things are all going in the right direction, and it's because I've built this huge base of foundational skills that I have worked on for so long, since my healing journey. So I hope that this was all really helpful for you, and I want to hear your feedback.

00:14:11:02 - 00:14:15:10
Speaker 1
What was the one key takeaway that you're finding is going to really help you on your journey?

00:14:15:13 - 00:14:19:21
Speaker 1
Message me, let me know and I hope to see you next week on Tina's Arena. Bye.