I met with Casey from Funky Forest Health & Wellbeing today. She is an anti-diet, HAES dietician. It was so wonderful talking to her about my life experiences with food and dieting and the difficulties and prejudices I face in a larger body. We spoke about the fears I am facing while undertaking an intuitive eating, non-dieting, HAES journey and we spoke about how far I have come in extracting myself from diet culture. I know I still have some diet mindset remaining that we will work on together. Still judgements around food and not having certain foods in the house because I don’t trust myself around them. So if I want something, I go and buy it and allow myself to eat it, but I don’t have it in the house. We spoke about the complexity of all this with children and how perhaps I don’t trust them either around certain foods.
She told me about Ellyn Satter and lent me her book “Your Child’s weight” which I am really excited about reading. While I have always tried to keep a body positive environment in my house, and to some extent have easy attitudes towards food with my kids in regards to not having to eat things they don’t want and not having to finish their plates, I definitely still have quite firm boundaries around certain foods and not allowing them the freedom to choose when and how much to eat of certain foods. I’ve had a quick peruse of the book and it focuses on family meal times and providing a variety of food at the table for your child to choose from and always offering staples like bread and butter so there is always something your child likes. She also suggests if you want to eat dessert to put one serve of dessert on the table next to each person and they get to choose when and how much they eat (but no more than one serve). I’m actually really excited about making this change, as we don’t really currently do family dinners. I usually feed the kids first, then eat mine separately. But I want to start putting shared dishes on the table so the kids can start to be exposed to different foods and hopefully one day try them and like them. She suggests doing the same with snacks…which are a mini meal. Have set snack times together with a variety of items on the table and allowing your child to choose from both more nutritious and less nutritious options. I’m really excited about trying this. Hoping I don’t find it too much work…
I’m excited in general about food again. About the enjoyment of it. The preparation and presentation of it…I’m feeling very inspired by the beautiful platters appearing all over social media at the moment and I want to almost do a culled down version of this for the kids and for snack times. I’ve also committed to holding a women’s supper once a month and I’m excited about preparing platters for these as well.
Since Christmas, my fridge has been filled with yummy food and I have felt so delighted that I have delicious food I enjoy in my fridge. I made mini pumpkin pies, and have been enjoying these every day. I bought a leg of ham and have that pre-cut and waiting in the fridge for snacks and lunches. I made a delicious and Jollof Rice with chicken and vegetables last week which I have absolutely adored every mouthful of. I’m excited about enjoying food again without shame and judgement.
