A COMMON FOOD NEUTRALITY OVERSIGHT

I often hear people preach about this idea of “Food Neutrality.”

Meaning, food is just food.

There are not “good foods and bad foods.”

There are no rules about what you can and cannot eat.

Or what you should and shouldn't eat.

I.E. “sugar cookies are not poison” and “kale is not a miracle.” Cookies are cookies and kale is kale. – as Emily Fonnesbeck explains on her blog.

Once you are there, you are able to make the choice of what to eat based on what will feel best for you in the moment, re-connecting to your Body Wisdom, and choose based on your needs and wants. You don’t have to be so rigid and controlled with what you eat because everything is “neutral.”

Basically…, the judgement of food is gone.

And while I completely understand this and do see alot of value in this mental framework I think it slightly misses the mark.

It’s not that the judgement of food is gone rather it’s that the judgement of yourself for eating certain food is gone.

That's the distinction that I think is more powerful then just the judgement of food alone, rather the judgement of oneself.

You are no longer good or bad for eating a certain way.

You are no longer "okay" or "not okay" for eating a certain way.

There are no longer foods you have to avoid or else "you are horrible person who can't control themselves.

You see, I have never really put cookies and kale on a level playing field.

I didn't decided cookies "are ok," rather I decided that "I am okay" for eating cookies.

In this sense, I did not become food neutral entirely as it is being described in order to heal my relationship with food.

In order to stop judging myself for what I ate I had to became weight neutral.

I stopped making food choices based on how it would affect my weight.

I stopped deciding my self-worth was based on what I put in my mouth.

I stopped obsessing over food because I was no longer obsessed with being skinny.

I no longer felt like I had to be a certain weight to be okay with myself and how I ate.

Cookies were still a play food in my mind, it's just that I no longer judge myself for eating one (or 10) becasue I no longer judge myself based on my weight.

Food lost it's power over me when I became weight neutral not food neutral in and of itself.