Shine Your Light Brightly
Holding onto clothes that are an aspirational size can at first seem motivational (I will fit into that outfit again!) and thrifty (I’m saving money if I just lose xx lbs!). But as the months and years pass, these too-small clothes morph into a storm cloud of “shoulds and musts” as in, “I should be able to eat less,” and, “I must exercise more.” The messages we tell ourselves about fitting into these clothes and repeatedly rejecting our bodies takes a toll on our mental health.
As intuitive eaters, we are learning to connect with our bodies’ hunger and fullness signals and to honor them. One reward is feeling energized and comfortable. For the most part, we stay in the middle of the hunger fullness scale, avoiding the extreme ends of “starving” and “stuffed.”
Another reward that comes from making peace with food and our bodies is wearing clothes and undergarments that fit! Alternatively, wearing clothes and undergarments that pinch and restrict, do just that - they restrict how brightly we can shine our light into the world.
When we can take full breaths and move comfortably, we increase the likelihood of having that breakthrough thought for a difficult project or speaking the brave words in our hearts to someone we love. When we let go of how we think our bodies "should" look and wear clothes that feel good on our bodies, we gain the freedom to shine our light more brightly.
Another loss for diet culture and a bright and shining win for intuitive eaters!
Community Shout Out
Students Rising Above, a Bay-Area non-profit serving low-income, first-generation college students, supports students’ pre-college readiness, guides them through the application process, and provides advising during college. For the past two years, I volunteered as an SRA college essay coach, helping students tell their personal stories for college applications. SRA has helped more than 835 Bay Area students attend college, of which 91% have completed their bachelor's degree, and 64% have graduated without debt. As a parent of an 11th-grader, it hits home even more how needed SRA’s services are to navigate the complex college process, which is why SRA is on my holiday donation list again this year.
Dieting and diet culture wouldn’t make sense if we simply accepted that people come in all different sizes.
Virgie Tovar
