Intuitive Eating & Body Positivity with Terri Pugh

53. Stop feeling the shame

August 08, 2022 Terri Pugh Episode 53

Info

Intuitive Eating & Body Positivity with Terri Pugh

Aug 08, 2022 Episode 53

Terri Pugh

We feel so much guilt and shame around food. Let's put that into context, see where it comes from, and try and get rid of it. There is no place for shame around food and our bodies.

Join the Eat From Within membership: https://www.eatfromwithin.com

Join my chat forums: Click here

Get my intuitive eating tips, motivation and general life stories: https://terripugh.xyz/emails

Get your FREE Introduction to Intuitive Eating e-book here: https://terripugh.xyz/ebook

Buy me a cake and support the podcast: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/IAmTerriPugh

Join the conversation in the Facebook group: Https://terripugh.xyz/facebookgroup

Follow on Instagram: Https://terripugh.xyz/instagram or @IAmTerriPugh

Drop me an email: Hello@terripugh.co.uk

Please note, this podcast is intended to be general information for entertainment purposes only. Any figures quoted are correct at the time of recording. As always, please seek the support of a registered professional before making changes to your diet or lifestyle⁠, or if you feel that you are affected by any of the topics discussed.

Related Topics:

Support the show

Welcome to the intuitive eating and Body Positivity podcast. I'm Terri and I'll be talking about all things intuitive eating, body positivity, and health at every size, and shaking off weight stigma, diet culture, and food rules, so that we can all have a better relationship with food and our bodies.

Hello, nice to speak to you again. How are you? All good? I hope it's a glorious day here. It's so lovely. The weather's so good at the moment. Wait till winter and I'm not introducing every episode with 'Isn't it lovely weather?'. I just love it. I really love it, and it means we've been able to do nice things.

So yesterday we went to a Family Day at a local pub, so that was cool. So a big group of us went to have some drinks, have some food, watch some live music and they had loads of stuff for the kids. I don't have little children anymore, but lots of my friends do, so it was nice that they were running off and getting their faces painted and going on bouncy castles and things like that. Yeah, it was good fun. It's just nice doing something different for a change. Isn't it doing something different to the normal work day stuff and housework stuff? And yeah, it was good fun.

Miraculously, today I don't have a sore head. I don't know how that is because there was a lot of drinking done yesterday. It was very well deserved though, because I've spent the last couple of weeks working every hour that God sends, not every hour, but you know what I mean, I've been working long hours to get the membership up and running, but that's up and running now, so that's amazing.

The membership site is now live. The new membership site is live. It's just blooming brilliant if I do say so myself. Got loads of new members come in which is amazing. And I really love the new site. I really love the new setup. I think it's going to be brilliant. Lots of things to watch and listen to and read and take in lots of stuff that you can do in your own time.

But we're still going to have the group coaching sessions as well, so it's a really nice mix of both. I'm so happy with it and I really hope that if you're a new member and you're listening to this that you agree and you really like it. If you're not a member, come and join me. C ome and join us. Y eah, get on in there. I t's so good. I'm really pleased with it. I hope people give me feedback. So if you are a member please do give me feedback because I could only make it better if people tell me what works and what doesn't work so. Yeah, let's see, but it's so good. The link is in the show notes if you want to come in and join us, it's just brilliant if I do say so myself.

Alongside this, I've also launched something else that's exciting. It's so exciting. So you know when you're on Facebook and you're rudely interrupted by all the adverts and the sponsored posts and the things that pop up because you've been talking about things elsewhere. You know when you're, I don't know, talking to your husband about the state of the lawn and then all of a sudden on Facebook, up Pops an advert for a lawn mower, that sort of thing.

You know, all that sort of thing that's really annoying on social media. And it's not just Facebook. Instagram does it too. Sponsored posts. Sponsored ads everywhere. Well, it annoys me because it interrupts what I'm trying to do, and so I was thinking when I set-up this new membership, how can I set this up so that we don't have all these interruptions so that you can just join in? You can just talk to people about the stuff you want to talk to them about? None of this outside noise?

So because it's not enough for me to just be working on one thing, I've also set-up a community chat area. I love it so much already. It is a space dedicated to people who just want to talk about intuitive eating body positivity. They want to get support around that. They want to meet people who are going on the same journey. Think Facebook group, but better. It's that kind of place where you can meet people and talk to people and share with people, but without all the fuss and nonsense that Facebook gives you.

I know I'm giving Facebook a real bashing here, but actually they do annoy me. Facebook annoys me. They you know the people at Facebook, the Facebook, annoys me because of many reasons because they fill your feeds full of noise, they fill it full of things you don't want to see.

They, in my opinion, don't protect you enough from things that you don't want to see. So for us, that's things like dieting adverts, stuff that is unfounded health claims. I know they're making steps towards changing that, but they're not doing enough as far as I'm concerned. They don't protect people who are struggling with body issues, struggling with food issues? They really heavily restrict the things that you can see as well. So a lot of the stuff that I post doesn't even get to you if you're in my group, because Facebook restricts what I can show people unless I pay for advertising, that sort of thing.

Just because you're in my group doesn't mean you're necessarily going to see all the posts, which is really frustrating when you're trying to help people to support themselves, support others, and build relationships and friendships, the people who are going through the same thing. It's incredibly frustrating. N ot to mention the amount of times you hear of groups and things being taken down by Facebook at a moments notice. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine building up relationships having a safe space where you can talk to people, and then it's gone for no apparent reason? So there's lots of reasons there why I wanted to create this different space for people.

And lots of people have told me they're not on Facebook, they're not on Instagram, because it's just too triggering. It's too stressful for them. So I've created a new space for people to come along and be safe in that space and talk to people and meet people. It's so lovely already. It's on a platform called Heartbeat and it's really nice to use you. And use it on desktop. You can download the app to your phone or your tablet. I have it set-up in both because obviously I'm running the community. But also I want to be able to jump in and talk to people on the go. So like you would open Facebook or like you would open Instagram on your phone you can also open the heartbeat app on your phone and just jump in and chat to people.

And I've set-up several different spaces in there. So there's an introductions area. There is a questions area. There's a general topics area. There is a space for people who just want to jump in and talk to people, that is completely off topic. That's what I've called the buffet. You know, when you go to the buffet an event and there's always somebody who just wants to natter to you. Well, that's what this space is about. This is about just a an off topic, chit chat, kind of a space, and there is a member's only space.

So if you are a member of the Eat From Within membership, the new membership, then there's a space there for you to talk about anything membership related. If you're working through something in one of the modules and you want to get somebody else's opinion or you want to share some thoughts that have come to you, that space is from members only. So there's lots of different areas. It's so nice. It's such a really nice app to use.

I would really like you to come along and join us. Come and jump into the chat. I will put the link in the show notes, obviously. It is an invite only link so I can't just share a web link at the moment. I might set-up a personal domain for it, but at the moment you need the link that's in the show notes so just pop down there. Do it now. Interrupt your listening and go and click that link and come and join the chat. Come and join the forum. I'm really excited for this. You don't have to be a member of the Eat from within membership to come and join the chat forums so just come on come and meet some people come and talk to me come and yeah have a nice little chat.

It was really nice yesterday because it was Saturday yesterday and I sat there in the morning having my breakfast just jumped on. Had a quick chat with a few people. I was like, this is a really nice way to start. Yeah, it's lovely. So yeah, come on, come and join us. It's gonna be really good.

Right, what are we talking about this week? This week we are going to talk about food, shame and body shame.

We lots of us feel shame and guilt around food, and so I want to put that into context a little bit. I want to put a new spin on that for you so that you can hopefully move past that. Because food should bring joy and it should bring connection and satisfaction. But for a lot of people it's shame and it's guilt, and you can't fix your relationship with food while you're feeling those things.

That shame and that guilt is all diet culture fuelled. It's all driven by dieting and diet culture and how that makes you feel about your food and your body. So let's have a look at this.

There are lots of ways that you can be made to feel ashamed around food. People commenting, people making comments on your food that you're eating. People comparing your plate to theirs or you comparing your plate to others. Comparing what you've got on your plate, what type of food you've got, how much food you've got, that sort of thing. There can be a real comparison between your food and somebody else's food, and that could be you doing it, or it could be somebody else doing it and make you feel bad about it.

Just things like funny looks. You know, we all have that time where we think somebody's looked at us funny for whatever choices we've made around food or whatever choices we've made around clothes and things like that. It just takes what we think to be 1 funny look from somebody and then we start to feel a little bit ashamed of ourselves.

Maybe it's dieting or eating disorder behaviours. They can make you feel really ashamed of your choices and your habits. You know what you're doing. You know what you're doing isn't necessarily a very good thing to be doing. You know that you don't even want to be doing it. But you're still doing it, and then that leads you to feel shame or guilt.

Even dieting itself can make us feel shameful. Our choices that we're making if we don't make a choice that's on plan. If we don't make a choice that fits with the diet. If we make a choice that we think is going to hinder our ability to lose weight. Whatever you're striving for. That can make you feel ashamed of yourself and that in turn then drives other behaviours that are equally as harmful if not more harmful.

So there's lots of reasons why you might feel ashamed of what you're doing or what you're eating. And like I said, it all comes from diet culture. It all comes from these ideas of what diets tell us should and shouldn't be healthy. 'Eating healthy'. All these diet plans tell us what is right to eat, what is wrong to eat, and how much you should eat. So then if you step away from that when you eat off plan or you eat different amounts of food if you eat too much food, or maybe if you don't eat enough food, they can be really triggering of shameful thoughts.

And when I say too much or not enough food, I mean, we all know that feeling when we've eaten more than what we think is acceptable to eat. But diets can actually make us feel bad about not eating enough too. I know that I have myself been in a position where, well many times been in a position, where it's come the end of the day, and I've not eaten all of my allowance for the day and the diet plan has told me that I have to eat that amount of food in order to be successful on this plan. S o late at night you're eating, or at least I was eating, whatever I needed to eat in order to complete the plan for the day. Well, that's not a healthy way to behave. Is it? But we do it.

Then there are things that stem from our childhood, so comments from other people. Comments from family members. We've got lots of comments when we're young about body and food and growing up and I don't know why people think it's acceptable, but comments around food on things like the amount you have on your plate or how you've got to eat it all, and that sort of thing. Then there's comments about bodies and things like puppy fat. Have you heard that one? 'Ohh, it's just puppy fat, they'll grow out of it'. That kind of a thing. There's lots of comments on the way we grow up and how we're growing up, and we internalise all that stuff you can't not.

There are lots of comments from when I was little that I remember from when I was little, from when I was growing up, from when I was in my teens. All through my childhood years, there are comments there that I vividly remember because what was a throw away comment for an adult or another child gets deep seated for a lot of people, so these things are not just flippant comments. We do take them on board.

And then there's social media. I don't even need to explain this I don't think do I, but there's social media posts everywhere that tell us what we're supposed to be, how we're supposed to be, what we're supposed to look like, and how we're supposed to behave.

And if you're not conforming to that, then it can make you feel guilty and shame isn't just a feeling either. It can result in actions, so things like hiding food. Secret eating, you know. Eating when nobody's looking, so if they don't know about it then they can't cast any kind of aspersions on you. Lying about what you've eaten. Eating alone so that people can't see what you eat, even if it's a perfectly lovely normal evening meal say. S ometimes you just want to eat on your own so that nobody can judge you. B inning food wrappers. You know, when you've binned a food wrapper and then you hide it a bit further down the bin so nobody sees it. That sort of thing.

And hiding behind a diet as well. Sometimes we stay on a diet. We hide behind a diet because we don't want people to see what we actually would eat if we were allowed to. And pretending not to be hungry. Pretending not to be hungry just so that nobody has to see you eat or you don't have to feel judged for what you choose to eat. These are all actions that are driven by shame.

But you know what guilt and shame are for when you do something wrong. Guilt and shame are for people who lie and cheat and steal and murder. They are not things you should be feeling when you are eating should be really enjoyable.

Let me explain the difference between guilt and shame as well before we go any further. So guilt is when you think I did something wrong. I did something wrong. Shame is more a I am wrong. So guilt is what you feel about doing something about having done something. The shame is feeling that there is something wrong with you because of the things that you have done. Do you see what I mean? So it's slightly different. Either way they both have the same effect.

They're both proven to contribute to binge eating disorder to anorexia to bulimia. To anxiety and depression. Mood disorders. OCD. There is lots of things in this kind of area that shame has a knock on effect on. Which is really quite scary, isn't it? It's really quite scary, and when we listen to this shame, and when we take part in these behaviours that we don't really want to do, but we're doing anyway because of how we feel this shame we push ourselves further and further away from our cues. Our bodies cues. We become more and more disconnected from our body. We've become more and more disconnected from what our body is trying to tell us. We're just listening to this shame.

And so we need to not feel the shame. We need to not listen to the shame. We need to not have that shame put on us from other people. So what can we do to stop feeling shame?

We can let go of diets. Let go of the dream it sells. If you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you'll know by now that diets then no good for us. They sell us the dream. These diet companies are making billions, literally billions of pounds. Pounds and dollars. Wherever you are, billions of whatever money you have there. They are making so much money off the back of selling us the dream, the perfect life, the perfect body, the perfect relationships. You know all this sort of thing. It all comes from being thinner, right? wrong.

It is not the diet that's going to make that dream happen for you. It is being confident. It is being happy. It is having a better, more peaceful relationship with food. That's what's going to give you that life that you're craving. So let's let go of the diets. Let's let go of the shame that the diets are putting on to us.

Another thing is to let go of food labels. Now I don't know how much you think about this. Some people are really driven by food labels when you go and you do your shopping. How much attention do you give to them? Do you look at the traffic light system on the front and if it's too much red, you'll put it back on the shelf? Or do you go for the packages that say low fat low sugar? Low this, low that, low joy? Let's stop doing that.

Let's stop being shamed by food labels into buying certain types of food. You can buy the food that you enjoy because then you won't be driven to binge. You won't be driven to go in search of other foods to satisfywhat you're missing because you've chosen to buy a food that you're not going to enjoy as much. You may as well just buy the food that you enjoy in the first place.

You're gonna stop restricting. This restriction binge pendulum is swinging and swinging and the only way you're going to stop that is to stop restricting and you will stop feeling so ashamed because those reactions to food will not be so extreme. If you don't restrict so much your reaction in the form of a binge, in uncontrolled eating, that's going to be much reduced. So stop restricting then you'll stop that pendulum swinging back the other way and having the binges and then that will take away some of that shame you feel.

When you're just eating nicely in tune with what your body wants, when you're not restricting and you're giving your body everything that is asking for, you're not going to feel the shame, because there won't be this uncontrolled eating that happens after.

Stop weighing yourself. When you get on those bathroom scales, how does it make you feel? I know that if you get on and that number has dropped, it makes you feel good and but that just perpetuates the dieting and the restriction.

But what happens when you get on those scales and you feel bad because the number has gone up or the number has stayed the same? That can have the same response. It makes you feel ashamed of yourself. It makes you feel like you haven't done something well enough, like you have been greedy, like you've overeaten, like you have no control. Whatever those feelings are that the scales trigger for you it's all surrounded by shame and it ruins your day. So let's stop weighing, let's stop getting on those scales.

Move them, take them away, make it harder to access them. I like to think that lots of people bin their scale, they just get rid of them, but I know that's not easy for a lot of people, So what you can do is you can put them somewhere that makes it difficult for you to get to them. For me, I put them in the back of the airing cupboard behind the laundry basket. So if I wanted to weigh myself, I had to make a bit of a racket to get them out of the cupboard, and then I had to take them into the bathroom. So all this faff is going on and I'm going to draw attention to myself well. I was weighing myself secretly. So I didn't want people to hear me making that much noise. I didn't want people to know that I was weighing myself.

And before you know it, I didn't even think about the scales anymore, so if it's too much for you to just bin those scales right now, make it difficult to get on them. When you take away that weighing and when you take away that shame that you're giving to yourself through standing on the bathroom scales, it will make such a difference to how you approach the rest of the day.

Stop worrying about dress sizes. Honestly, let me tell you, they do not matter. It does not matter what that number on the label says. And if it really does bother you, cut the label out. But whatever you do, stop worrying about those dress sizes. Your body deserves respect from you. For all the good things it does for you, day in, day out. You know, your heart just beats, and your brain just makes you do things, and your lungs just breathe in and breathe out this air. To name but a few things that your body does for you.

It deserves the respect, doesn't it? It deserves the respect and part of that respect is dressing it in clothes that are comfortable clothes that fit. And it doesn't matter what that size is. It doesn't matter what the number is. What matters is that you're comfortable and that you're wearing clothes that you like. And actually if you dress yourselves in the clothes that fit you, you're not going to think about them through the day very much.

Because what happens when you put on clothes that don't fit you properly? The wasteband's tight or maybe maybe your shirt is tight across your back. That's one that I found quite common as I changed sizes, my waistband was really uncomfortable, or I would wear shirts and the back would feel tight when I was trying to do things, and they were signs that I needed to go up a size in clothes.

Going up in size into those next clothes meant that actually I wasn't noticing the waistband on the trousers. I wasn't noticing how tight the back of the shirt was. Because they just fit, and that meant that I could think about other things in my day. It meant that I didn't have to worry about my body. I wasn't thinking about how uncomfortable I was. I wasn't thinking about how big my body was in clothes. And actually, it doesn't matter how big my body is in clothes. What matters is that I wear clothes that fit.

So this is the way I'd like you to think about it. Give your body the respect that it deserves and put it in clothes that fit and then that will help you. It will help you mentally. It will help you to not care so much about your size, because you'll be comfortable and you won't have these constant uncomfortable reminders throughout the day. So please go and put yourself in clothes that fits. Y ou do not have to feel shame around clothes sizes.

Nobody knows what size clothes you're wearing, except for you. Nobody knows unless you tell them. And why would you do that? Because that's not a topic of conversation that happens everyday. I can't remember the last time somebody asked me what size clothes I wear, or we had a conversation where I volunteered that information myself. It's just not something that ever comes up in conversation.

You know, it's something and nothing isn't it, clothes size. I understand why it's difficult going up a size but it really doesn't have to matter as much as we allow it to matter.

Spot the should and shouldn't its in your life. Have you listened to the last episode yet? If you haven't, go back and listen to it. I'm not going to go into massive detail about this here because there's a whole episode on it, but basically, you know those shoulds and shouldn't in life that dictate what we eat or what we do. That's what we need to pay attention to here.

I should have this food. I shouldn't have this food. I should exercise or I shouldn't do that activity? Go back and listen to that last episode and it will put all that into context and explain it a bit more, but we use those shoulds and shouldn't all the time in our lives and they make us feel really guilty. They make us feel ashamed and so we need to change the language that we use around that. For example, we could say instead of saying I shouldn't have this big plate of food, we could say I'm going to enjoy this plate of food and eat until I'm satisfied.

So you've gone from a guilt and shame inducing ooh look how much food I've got, to a you know what, I've got a lovely amount of food here and I'm going to eat what makes me satisfied. I'm going to eat what makes me happy. And that last saying has got no guilt attached to it. No shame attached to it. Itm ight take some practice to be able to do it, but if we can change the language around our eating habits and around our body then that can really help to take the shame away.

Eat mindfully. I f you eat with attention then you're going to be able to remove that shame and bring back that connection between you and the food and your body. You need to focus on you. This is all about you and how the meal is making you feel, how the food is making you feel, whether you're enjoying it, whether you're satisfied by it. When you can give it your attention and you can eat mindfully and you can listen to the cues in your body, there will be no need for shame because everything will be very considered. Everything will be done with focus and that's what we're aiming for, isn't it?

We're trying to aim for this relationship with food where we're just enjoying our food. We're having food that makes us happy that satisfied us, and we are connected to our body so we know what our body is enjoying, we know what our appetite is saying, we know how much we want to eat.

And when you eat mindfully like that, then again, there's no shame. There's no guilt because there's no lack of control. There's no right or wrong, you're just listening to your body and eating, and it's a lovely way to be. So I encourage you to approach all food that you eat a little more mindfully and that will help take some of that shame away.

And consider why it's wrong to be eating what you're eating. So let's consider why we feel bad about that food. Because if we actually stop and think about what is making us feel bad about the food we can't very often rationalise that. There's not really a real reason most of the time.

So let's try cheese. Why is it bad to be eating cheese? Cheese is one of those foods that is often demonised. Shouldn't eat cheese because it's full of fat and it's very calorific, and that's not good. Well, why is the fat not good? Let's start there. The body needs fat. The body does need fat in order for some systems to work, for cells to regenerate, for hormones to form, all kinds of reasons why we need fat in our body. And we feel guilty for eating that fat when actually we do need it.

And yes, it might be calorific, but in terms of what? I t is more calorific than lettuce without a doubt. But it is also less calorific than some other foods. And does it matter if it's calorific? We need calories. We need energy in our day. Our body needs to be able to be fuelled in order to get everything done that you've got to get done today. So why is it a problem that that's calorific?

So do you see what I mean? When you dive into it and you consider the reasons why you're giving yourself a bit of a beating for eating a certain food, when you feel ashamed of what you're eating, when you actually dig into that the reasons aren't really very logical sometimes.

So next time you are annoyed at yourself or feeling ashamed for eating something, dig into that a little bit and ask yourself why is it wrong to be eating that food? And turn it around and give yourself some suggestions as to why it is right that you might eat that food. Why that food could be good for you.

Please have a social media cleanse too. I know I've talked about this before, but I can't tell you the power that comes from cleaning out your social media. Get rid of those accounts that make you feel bad about yourself, that make you feel ashamed of who you are, that make you feel ashamed of the food that you're eating, that make you feel guilty and like you've done something wrong.

Get rid of those accounts. Even if they are family members and you don't think that you can delete them, for example, you can still mute them. You can still hide them from your feed. Go on there and get rid of all those accounts that you don't like seeing, that make you feel negative in some way, and replace them with some good ones. Replace them with some positive accounts, replace them with some things that make you feel good about your day. Social media should be a positive experience, not a negative one.

And finally, remember self talk is important and I would like you to think of it this way: what would you say to a child? What would you say to your inner child? Would you make them feel the way that you feel when you feel ashamed or guilty for eating?

I personally love to see a child eating a good meal. I really love it because I see the real joy in kids eating food when they don't have these horrible messages. You know, these messages that we have poured into ourselves for such a long time. When kids eat without those thoughts, when kids just enjoy their food, it's the best. So let's treat feeding ourselves the way we would treat feeding a child.

Would you make them feel guilty or shame for what they're eating? What would you rather they heard? What would you rather those messages were? And then you can replace those words to yourself. So imagine you are talking to a child about their food and you wouldn't say ohh don't eat too much, it will make you fat. All you've eaten too. You've got too much on your plate there. You know you wouldn't say those kind of things to a child. Would you rather say to that child look at the lovely food you have on your plate? Or were you enjoying that food? That's good. That's going to give you some energy for today, isn't it? That's lovely. Enjoy it. And then treat yourself as if you were talking to that child.

Stop saying to yourself there's too much food on my plate. Look at the food I've got there. It's going to make me fat. Let's change that and say things like look at the lovely food that's on my plate. Look how much good stuff there is there. Look how it's going to fuel my day. Look how it's going to put good nutrients in my body. Let's replace those words. So when you eat and you start to feel shame for what you're eating, remember the way you would talk to a child and turn those thoughts and feelings around and make it more positive.

It's all a work in progress. It's all things that we have to practice, but these things are definitely doable, so let's get rid of the shame. Let's get rid of the guilt from our lives around food, and let's make it a much more pleasurable thing for us. Let me know how you get on. Let me know how you get on with that.

Do you want to deep dive into some of this stuff with me? Do you want to dive into these things that I talk about on the podcast in more detail? Because that is what we do in the membership now.

Each month is a new topic. Each month is a new subject to dive into and it all gets broken down into nice bite size bits of information for you to take on board. Things for you to watch. Things for you to read. Things for you to listen to. And it goes into much more detail than I will ever put on this podcast. So if you're interested in coming and getting more insight into these subjects, then come and have a look at the membership, the Eat From Within membership. The link is in the show notes. It's fabulous.

And we also have the group coaching at the end of the month each month. So yeah, if you want a nice mix of both of those, come on in and join us.

And just as a reminder, come and join the chat forums. I know I said it at the beginning of the episode. I know I said stop now go and join, but I'm betting you didn't. So if you didn't stop and go and join it do it now, because this is the end of the episode. As soon as this episode ends, go to the show notes and go and join in those chat spaces and I'll see you there.

Have a great week. I'll speak to you next week. Bye bye.

Intuitive Eating & Body Positivity with Terri Pugh

53. Stop feeling the shame

Listen to this podcast on