Weight Loss and Healing

Written by Michelle Shelton

February 12, 2023

Is intuitive eating or body healing against weight loss?

I was recently in an Internal Family Systems (IFS) training where the question came up about why a therapist would not recommend a client follow the part of them that wants to join weight watchers to lose weight. Wouldn’t this help the person? Wouldn’t they feel better? Isn’t this a positive change?

I love the IFS answer to this. It is possible to lose weight. It is possible to feel better. It is possible to drive positive change. And it is possible to do it without playing to the part that wants to join weight watchers. 

The tension between a part that wants to eat and a part that wants to lose weight or control the eating part is a very common experience for most people. It’s what we call a polarization in IFS. Two opposing parts with opposite agendas. Usually, in our culture, the eating part gets a bad wrap. It is bad and indulgent. Maybe lazy, often uncontrolled. In fact, because it is uncontrolled, it needs to be controlled. It needs to be controlled by something that we love and praise. Self control, or will power, discipline, maybe grit. We have a lot of names for it. But any way you look at it, it’s something most of us talk about wanting or needing more of because we believe it will save us from our naturally lazy and slothful selves. 

But what if we take a closer look at the eating part. And what if we start with a totally different assumption. What if we assume that it is not lazy or uncontrolled? What if we believed instead that it is actually trying very, very hard to keep you safe? This part that we labeled as lazy is actually working very hard. We label it bad when, in fact, its nature is fundamentally good. We labeled it indulgent when, in fact, it is giving the best that it has. 

Starting with these assumptions takes us down a very different path. It’s easier to have compassion for something we believe is good. It is easier to listen to its story when you believe it is trying so very hard to help. When you approach this part with compassion and curiosity, two qualities of self energy, it will begin to share. It will tell its story of this role it has had to play. Maybe it used food as a way to take you out of your body, to protect you from feeling things that were too much, too painful to bear. It used all the tools it knew to bring safety to a situation that felt so unsafe. It was your protector at a time when you needed protection. 

The good news is, as you heal, it will not need to play this protective role anymore. It will show you the hurt parts it protected and you can witness the hurt and release its burden. And now, now this eating part can rest or take on a new, helpful and healthy role. The turning to food for coping or escape relaxes. The body naturally returns to a healthier weight. Not because the eating part was controlled. But because it was healed.