Episode 27: What is “Gentle Nutrition?”

In this week’s episode, Jessica receives a question from a member from her Facebook community group, The Comfy Spot, about what is Gentle Nutrition and how that can be applied to someone who has or had actively engaged in dieting behaviours. Furthermore, Jessica speaks on being mindful of ourselves, giving ourselves the time for self care when needed.

Does raincouver ever give off a chilling vibe? Sort of like how we can get an uneasy feeling about our bodies from the judgement and shaming of eating. We don’t need to feel this way if we could regress to a time where we felt self-love and care for our bodies from food, and more of this is talked about in the podcast!

For more, Join us at The Comfy Spot - a Facebook community group filled with lovely people who support those who struggle with binge and emotional eating. Find encouragement from several people and more.

Transcript

Hi Everyone!  Welcome back to the Art & Science of Eating Podcast!  It’s been crazy over here, so not sure if you did or didn’t notice, that I had to take last week off from the pod.  But we launched Fall Registration for the Connected Eating Online Group.  If you were interested in the group, not to worry, we will likely be accepting new peeps around… I want to say January, but I think if I’m being reasonable with myself, it’s probably going to be February… and likely late February… and maybe as I’m thinking about it, I’m taking two weeks off for vacation in January, late February maybe even optimistic.  HAHA. 

So trying to be gentle with myself!!  I’m insane about putting unrealistic time deadlines on myself.  Myself and a couple of my dear friends… two come to mind, one is French Canadian and the other is Australian… are perpetually late.  Now if I’m honest, I thought I was punctual.  I am not.   

But what I’m trying to be better at is setting more realistic expectations for myself and others, of when I can be somewhere… or when I can get something done.  When I was younger I was probably able to move faster, or work longer hours in order to get something done.  Maybe?  Or maybe I was just completely oblivious to how late I have been my whole life.   I think it was actually the latter.  That I had been pressuring myself, in these examples of trying to meet other people’s expectations, thinking that I could bend myself backwards to meet a timeline.  I think I was also ignoring how much time I needed to give myself to do things to get somewhere on time.  I think in subtle ways, I thought when committing to a certain meet-up time I was ignoring the needs I needed to address before I went to meet someone.   

So anyway, this isn’t just a ramble here… maybe it is. .. but this leads somewhat into this weeks question that came to me from Marie that is in my private FB group, the comfy spot.  ( by the way, get in there if you haven’t already). 

Her question was

Hi Jessica!

I hear a lot « add gentle nutrition », but how would one know, what that is, how do you implement that if you have a background of « dieting nutrition » (as in eating through diet binoculars) ?

And this question I had to pause for a moment, because there is no definition of what “gentle nutrition” is.  And actually that is why it’s gentle – it doesn’t have rigid rules. 

But gentle nutrition is about tuning into your own innate senses and feelings.  To be GENTLE enough to know what’s right for you in that moment. 

This idea is particularly difficult if you’ve dieted before.  Because basically in order to do a diet, one needs to completely sever from any internal cues.  Get hungry – ignore it, drink water, distract, go for a walk, go to bed.  And then from these restrictive rules, brings tuning out when finally the levie breaks from being hungry all the time.  That uncontrolled eating then happens.  And it also feels like internal cues have been completely severed.  

I’m reading The Body Is NOT an apology in the comfy spot as a book club.  And Sonya Renee Taylor writes this: about connecting with the body:

The messages we get about the body is so intertwined with the way we judge and shame eating. 

Much of what Sonya Renee Taylor talks about the way to self-love is through knowing that at one time you were a tiny toddler that was in awe of your body.  That also you had a connection the same way with food, before all the shame and judgement came around. 

Gentle nutrition is accessing that part of you. 

It’s not the oppressive and authoritarian perspective that comes from dieting

It’s also not the neglectful perspective of tuning out from uncontrolled eating

It’s releasing shame and judgment, peeling away the layers that has been GIVEN to you.  Not that you have to keep (as Sonya Renee Taylor speaks of in her book), and return to that place of self-love that is within you.