The Dieting Parts of Us

Written by Michelle Shelton

March 6, 2023

Becoming an intuitive eater requires cultivating conscious awareness of your thoughts and feelings around eating and food. As you begin to do this, you may find two dieting parts in you that are very common for so many of us immersed in our diet culture.

The first is the nutrition informant. This is the part that knows all the rules and “shoulds” that we are constantly fed in headlines and articles from the wellness industry. Don’t eat after 7:00. Don’t eat too many carbs. Eat Keto. Follow intermittent fasting. Eat organic. Don’t snack between meals. Eat more vegetables, but don’t eat carrots (they are too sugary). Sugar is bad. Artificial sweeteners are bad. Don’t eat processed foods. I could go on and on and find plenty of similar headlines, many of which contradict one another. We’re surrounded by them in our news and social media scrolls. And they all promise some desirable health outcome. With this constant bombardment, we develop a part inside ourselves that replays these rules in our own kitchens and at our own dinner tables. 

Another common part, and close ally to the nutrition informant, is the food police. This is the voice that evaluates and adjudicates all our food choices, labeling them good or bad, right or wrong. And if a choice is found to be bad, it will prescribe some sort of penalty or repayment to right the wrong. For example, if you “broke a rule” at breakfast (maybe too many carbs), the food police will determine you must skip lunch. Or maybe a second helping of ice cream at night requires a couple extra miles in your morning run to compensate. 

Both of these parts make so much sense in our diet immersed culture. As with all parts of us, they are trying so hard to help. In our thin-obsessed society, they are doing their very best to drive compliance to the rules and rituals we are told will help us achieve that.

The problem is, rules and rituals may make us thin, but they can never make us healthy. Health is a relationship with our body, an attunement to its needs, and a will and ability to provide those needs. 

As you cultivate awareness to the parts of you that show up around food and eating, watch for these two parts. If you find them, thank them for how hard they have worked to help you live up to the external standard of “health.” Let them know you see and appreciate their efforts. Then ask them to step back. 

As these parts step back, you’ll find more space for curiosity. With curiosity, you can begin to rebuild the attunement to your natural body cues. Instead of “I ate too much at breakfast. I should skip lunch”, you might ask, “I ate a big breakfast, how hungry am I for lunch?” Instead of “I ate too much ice cream last night, I better run a couple extra miles this morning” you might ask, “I ate a lot of ice cream last night. I wonder if something is stressing me? How did/do I feel in my body after eating all that ice cream?” Ironically, either approach might lead to the same action, but they lead to very different outcomes

With curiosity, you are open to learning. Learning leads to attunement. Attunement empowers you to let go of the external cues and reground yourself in your own innate wisdom.