Dr. Kerri Fullerton ND

Intuitive Eating. Health At Every Size (HAES) Doctor

restrictive diets

How do YOU Measure Success?

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Measuring success is deeply engrained in both business and personal development. Sadly, we are often encouraged to measure something that is actually irrelevant to our real goals.

For instance, measuring the number of followers that I have doesn’t reflect how I’m doing financially. Just like measuring my weight or inches doesn’t actually reflect my health or my worth.

When my patients choose to work with me they are often perplexed on how to measure their progress. “How will I know if it’s working?” is a common question.

Since September is the unofficial new year and therefore wrought with weight-loss ads promoting themselves as get healthy schemes, I figure that now’s a good time to review some non-scale related measurements of success.

It’s important for me to take a moment here and speak to context. Any of these can become a substitute for the scale if we give it veto over how we’re allowed to feel about ourselves. For instance, if I use the fact that I ate outside of biological hunger cues as evidence that I’m failing, then that’s really no different than using the scale.

Measurements are data. And data doesn’t have a moral value. It’s not good or bad, it just is. If you’re not yet at a place where you can’t separate data and morality, then measurements are not likely a healthy part of your progress at the moment.

All of that to say, stay curious. Start your sentences and ponderances with ‘isn’t it interesting…’.

Here are some of the measurements that my patients have come up with over the years:

  • How peaceful are they with food and body
  • How often did they honour their hunger/fullness cues
  • How far past comfortable fullness did they go? Did they let themselves get as hungry as they use to?
  • How much time are they spending thinking about food or their body
  • How many times did they say no to issue or guard a boundary
  • How quickly did they pivot out of food police voices and into IE voices
  • How many did they choose calm over chaos
  • How many times did they check in with their body for direction? (Even if they weren’t able to fulfill the request)
  • How long did they feel the feels before using a coping strategy
  • How is their energy
  • What about strength or endurance? Have they changed?

In the September MLR we are going to walk through all of this in greater detail. If you’re looking to make some diet free goals, then here’s your group support.

Join the MLR today!

“Don’t worry! It’s not a restrictive diet.”

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It seems that everyone understand that restrictive diets don’t work. So they tell me that it’s not a restrictive diet they’re just not eating xyz (insert long list of foods or ingredients that they’re not eating) 😔

They call it a “lifestyle”.

One of the (many) things that makes intuitive eating different from diets is the nuance, the exploration and the permission.

For example, I LOVE the taste and texture of cheese. Same for cream in my coffee or Alfredo sauce over pasta. AND dairy doesn’t sit so well in my guts 😕

When I lived in diet and wellness culture, I declared myself dairy-free! I sang the praises of dairy-free options and espoused the many health benefits of being dairy-free. At times I even went as far as demonizing dairy and blamed it for all kinds of health conditions. Btw, I’ve also done this with sugar, grains, fats, meats and soy at various times🤦‍♀️ I’m so sorry.

I felt guilty every time that I consumed dairy. I would berate myself for putting my body through that. And when I did eat dairy, I would eat ALL of the dairy. In for a penny in for a pound right?

Let me tell you about how it is now.

I’m MOSTLY dairy-free. By adding that one word it gives me permission to include dairy into my diet. The other night for instance, I had some lasagna. Not because it’s my favourite but because it was easy and accessible and that mattered at the time. The potential bloat was worth it for the ease of that meal. And since I had full permission there was so need to follow it up with a bowl of ice cream and block of cheese.

I acknowledge that dairy isn’t the devil. While it may CONTRIBUTE to SOME people’s health challenges it is not the cause nor the cure. And even if it does contribute to someone symptoms, they are not a lesser person for choosing to eat it anyway.

Absolute restriction, with the exception of anaphylaxis, is not necessary or healthy.

Food and health are not moral obligations. As such, guilt has NO place. If guilt starts to rise within me, I know that I need to take a closer look because it’s a sure fire way to know that it’s diet culture looming in my unconscious.

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