Anti-Diet: Reclaim Your Time, Money, Well-Being and Happiness Through Intuitive Eating

by Christy Harrison

The reason people eat to the point of discomfort is not because they’re weak or greedy or emotionally broken; it’s because they don’t have enough, and because they don’t trust that food will always be there when they want it. We can’t stop at the point of fullness when we don’t know how to honor our hunger—how to respond to it when it first pipes up rather than letting it build to a screaming emergency, or letting it scream for so long that its voice eventually becomes inaudible. In fact, when we aren’t heeding our hunger signals (because of diet culture or any other reason), our bodies are programmed to start pumping out more and more of the hormones and neurotransmitters that drive us to eat—and that process virtually guarantees we’ll feel out of control with food.2 Moreover, we can’t learn to use things other than food to cope with our feelings if those feelings are largely driven by needing food. Granted, once we release the restrictive thoughts and behaviors, we may also see that we need to develop some additional coping skills. But we can’t know that for sure until we’ve recovered from the trauma of deprivation, which makes anyone reach for food to cope.