“If I was thin, would it be ok to eat that?”
When one of my clients told me she thought eating 4 slices of toast was wrong, we explored why she felt this way. I asked her if she thought it would be wrong for a thinner person to eat 4 slices and she said no. So I probed a little further to understand why she thought it would be wrong for her. You may be guessing correctly that her response was based on her body size. It was also unfortunately influenced by a previous dietitian that told her she should only ever eat 1 slice if she wanted to lose weight.
Just as the amount of food you need to eat at a particular meal should not be based on your height or shoe size, it should not be based on your weight. How much you need to eat depends on how hungry you are. If you’re physically hungry for 4 slices of toast, then that’s what you need, regardless of your body size. The ability to know this does require connection to appetite and being able to differentiate between physical and other types of hunger. This is an example of some of the appetite work, myself and other non-diet dietitians, do with people.
In order for appetite work to be effective, you need to start loosening your grip on diet thinking. Diet thinking encompasses thoughts such as “4 slices of toast is too much”, “ I shouldn’t eat that because of my weight” or “carbs are bad”.
If you struggle with diet thoughts, try this question next time you’re struggling with one;
“If I was thin, would it be ok to eat that?”
If the answer is yes, then yes, of course it’s ok and it’s diet culture that’s making you think you shouldn’t eat it. Just as eating a chocolate bar is not bad for a thin person, it’s not bad for a larger person. If a thinner person has a right to eat a food, so do you.
Necessary disclaimer: In saying this, I am not saying it’s ok to live on chocolate bars, or to eat chocolate bars at the expense of a varied nutritious diet. I am not in the pocket of BIG sugar, the chocolate bar could be a home-made brownie with coconut sugar and organic cacao for all it matters. The point is, your body size should not be a factor in whether or not it’s ok to eat something.
