One of the frustrating things that can come up in our journey towards eating in a more mindful way and giving up dieting is having to deal with people bashing our efforts at getting off the dieting roller coaster. This often comes as negative comments about our size, what we eat/do not eat, or spouting “facts” about all the issues supposedly caused by obesity. Often, part of the reason for these situations being so hard to deal with and bothersome for us is because these people are directly expressing our own doubts about our journey. If we are not completely solid in our reasons for making the change we are making and the beliefs behind it, when others express doubt we can very easily be sucked into that and we start wondering “oh are they right”?

This is much easier said than done however, especially in the beginning of our journey around food and body image. We live in a world that preaches that our bodies are all important, that certain foods are good or bad etc. Of course, when we have people in our lives preaching this to us (which most of us do) this only gets intensified. So essentially, we are actually doing something counter cultural when we embrace body positivity. That means, many people are not going to agree and may even challenge our beliefs. This is actually to be expected, but that doesn’t make it any less challenging to deal with.

So, what can we do if we are new in our journey with eating intuitively and someone makes negative comments about what we are doing that hit a nerve? First, acknowledge that the statement was triggering. This can sound small but I have found that many of us tend to try and brush these incidents off only to find ourselves engaging in dieting behaviors later one. Secondly, it’s important to develop some other ways to cope with the feelings you are experiencing. This can be anything from writing in a journal to taking a walk-experiment! The same things don’t necessarily workeveryone. Finally, if we realize that we have binged, underrate, etc. after an incident like this has happened, it’s important not to beat ourselves up about it although again easier said than done.

Questions about this topic or anything else food/body image related? Feel free to get in touch!