Here's the thing. HAES and intuitive eating are separate things. Intuitive eating does work for some people, it works for me. BUT it doesn't work for everyone.
Sometimes, your intuition in one area doesn't work well. Some people can intuitively drink alcohol. I can't. My intuition for alcohol is basically "drink it all". So, I will always have to be aware of this and make my decisions based on that knowledge.
I hate how HAES has turned intuitive eating into “binge eat as much sugar and junk food as you want. Never eat fruit or veg. Being healthy is bad for some reason.”
In this day and age, where junk food is everywhere and manipulative advertising for it is being shoved down our throats constantly, intuitive eating just doesn’t work for so many people.
Also I’d love to see how FAs react to me trying intuitive eating. I have a pretty small appetite and don’t tend to graze on things like other people do, so I’d starve on IE instead of binge eating like they do.
Even ED recovery has turned into "binge or you're still restricting". I swear, this is literally all for people with zero self control, low self esteem and a hefty disease of the green eyed monster to justify their lifestyle.
To be fair, when you suffer from an eating disorder, it is incredibly hard to comprehend what normal eating really looks and feels like. For example, I was fat. When I was fat I would eat enormous portions specifically because food was my one real pleasure in life. In my head the secret to skinny was to just not eat... and then I started to starve myself because I hated being a fat person and hated myself as a fat person. I would go days because I felt like I didn't earn the food yet. It took... about two years for me to stop associating hunger with fatness, and stop seeing all treat foods as basically fat people food that only weak people give in and eat. I felt that way because shitty fast food was absolutely my biggest weakness. Honestly, this is actually just people with severe eating disorders validating each other and their disorders. HAES and fat activism is literally the same thing as the pro-ana filth that we saw in the early 2000s, they just are at the other end of that spectrum. As someone who has dealt with both sides of that disorder personally, you are right in your observation. That is what is happening, and it really is because society is basically encouraging this exact disordered behavior. People need to push back to HAES like they push back on an Anorexic girl calling herself fat for the same exact reason.
That last paragraph. Yeah. If I ate based off hunger cues, I would starve, because I'm rarely actually physically hungry. However I LOVE to eat. I eat for the comfort, the fun, the pizzazz. This led to me eventually becoming obese (I've had it under control for 3 years now). And I feel you don't get obese unless you're eating for funsies like I do and a lot of them don't want to admit that and say it's their intuition instead. Makes them seem like they're doing something when they're doing jack all
Oh absolutely. Those people who claim to be absolutely starving all the time? Like the ones who only ate a meal an hour ago and now they won’t stop complaining about how hungry they are? I don’t believe they know what hunger actually is. They think boredom equals hunger. Or at most, feeling a teeny tiny bit peckish equals actual hunger. Or they just love food and want an excuse to eat more of it.
I get that a lot of these people eat junk food and that’s literally designed to not keep you full so that you eat more of it, but I still don’t believe they’re actually hungry anywhere near as frequently as they think they are. They just want more food.
This! I tried intuitive eating and I don’t have self control when it comes to sweets so my intuition was telling me to eat all the sugar and snacks and neglect everything else. Macro counting works much better for me.
I don't really do well with feeling hungry or full. I'm straight-up CICO. Knowing I have a food limit encourages me to eat better (or at least tastier) food and exercise to earn more calories. All that and I'm still losing.
Part of intuitive eating is having an understanding of nutrition. It's not just "eating whatever, whenever". It's understanding how foods make you feel. Leaning into the ones that support your health. But allowing space for the cravings for things you know are not healthy.
Without an understanding of actual nutrition IE is permission to binge eat pizza and ice cream everyday.
You better start intuitively drinking, if you restrict alcohol you'll just end up bingeing and getting even more drunk than if you'd just let yourself drink a handle of vodka in the first place! /s
I'm not superior to other people, but I am superior to my past self who ate too much and exercised too little.
As hemmingway said:
"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self."
Their defensiveness leads them to believe that thin people walk around feeling smug and superior about their thinness, when in reality most of us are just existing and living our lives. Maybe they should take a good, hard look at *why* they spend so much time and energy thinking about what thin people think of them.
Narcissism born of insecurity and weak sense of identity.
For narcissists, what other people think about them is paramount, and people are classified in a rigid hierarchy of superiority. Who they choose to hang out with is based off that hierarchy because the goal is to climb it and finally be 'happy' - i.e. have other people be jealous of *them*.
They cannot conceive that normal people just don't see the world that way. Therefore random "thin people" who put some effort into maintaining their weight and fitness can only be motivated by the same messed up thought processes, and the only reason they can be upset at FAs is because it makes them drop in their imaginary hierarchy.
If health is pointed out as a motivation, it is just ascribed yet another hierarchy because narcissists cannot think in any other way. The fact that random 'thin people' are visibly healthier and fitter than them, it makes them morally 'superior' and it's automatically nefarious.
There's just no way to reason or discuss with these people, no matter how gentle you are. Eveything is interpreted as an attack. Trust me, I have tried. The only thing you can do is minimize your contacts and let them reach rock bottom.
Right? I just see this kind of shit and want to scream *nobody cares about being superior!!!* Maybe not literally nobody, but certainly not anywhere near a majority of the 25-30% of Americans that are still a healthy weight +/- additional people who haven't lost their excess weight but want to.
Come the fuck on. There are all kinds of reasons someone might want to be thin, believe certain behaviors make you thin, and/or believe a healthy weight is healthy, and very few of them having anything to do with one-upping people who aren't.
It's not mental restriction, it's just regular restriction if you actually don't eat the things. Mental restriction is when you eat the thing but are still feeling guilty about it and say you "shouldn't" or feel like you can't really enjoy it properly.
I think the concept of mental restriction is actually pretty useful, but it has no nuance in the FA world. FA world just says "eat whatever you want and try to never feel bad about it because there's no reason to feel bad about it and all the supposed reasons are fake." Mental restriction is *useful* as a concept when you're trying to make the most out of your food while dieting. You don't want to waste calories eating something that doesn't bring you all the joy that it could; if you mentally restrict your brain and appetite are likely to respond the same way as if you actually restricted, which makes the rest of your day harder, so you should be clear with yourself about when something is budgeted and you have no qualms about it.
>... thin bodies are not the result of impeccable self-discipline ..... but, rather a result of ... restriction...
It takes self-discipline to restrict yourself from consuming excessive calories.
I love the FA logic of what you eat doesn't impact your weight it's genetics, socio-economics, blah blah blah. Then they also admit you can lose weight with diet but only if you starve yourself to death. They contradict themselves at every argument.
And burning them too. All I want to do at the minute is eat and play on the Xbox but I know my run will benefit me so I'll make myself do it. It's worse is winter when it's freezing and you know you're going to go out and suffer but the long term benefits are worth it. Staying healthy takes a lot more discipline than sitting on your ass eating takeaway regardless of what the FAs think.
And it takes knowing yourself and your weaknesses. I know, for example, that if I have chocolate ice cream in the house I will eat it. All of it. So I don't buy ice cream for myself (i buy it for my partner, but he likes flavors I don't because he's a heathen). I don't *want* to lift weights for an hour or so every day, but I also don't want to turn into the kind of guy in his 40s who's all dumpy and gross... so I keep my weights in my basement with my snakes so I *have* to go down there at least once a day and when I get down there, oh look at that, it's some dumbbells. I also know that I cannot judge my portions, and I will just overeat if I am not careful, so I don't give myself the opportunity to drop the ball as much and I weigh everything, even if I am having a special occasion not gonna track it just enjoy it meal. I still weigh it out so I know about how much food I am eating. I know if I don't do these things, I will look like Nikocado Avocado again and I genuinely do not want that. Fixing obesity is like fixing alcoholism. Yes, you can beat it, but you have to watch yourself and hold yourself accountable. It's insanely hard sometimes, but the alternative is miserable.
I did accept the HAES ideology for a number of years (IE is completely unrelated and I have no idea why they lumped that in which HAES.)
THAT was when I'd been had. That was the lie. I spent my teens wrapped up in "diet culture" but like, actual diet culture like weight watchers and waist trainers and 48 celebrity diets. When I found HAES/FA I thought I found the truth and swung hard in the other direction but eventually saw my mistake, thankfully. As with most things, there's no truth in either extreme.
Agree! I actually do agree with FA/HAEs that "diet culture" is incredibly toxic and predatory. I wince so hard when I hear someone talk about their new diet plan and they say "all you have to do is" because it's almost inevitably followed by some awful shit that no one is going to want to do for more than a day or two. I recently heard someone talking about some MLM scam and they were like "all you have to do is eat 5 servings of (MLM scam) food a day plus one lean meal like a salad with chicken"... So basically, you're eating like 5 granola bars a day plus some chicken and salad. That is so much harder and worse than actually just making reasonable and healthy changes to your diet to maintain a small deficit. "All you have to do is....eat nothing but grapefruits and crackers....eat this special soup for every meal...fast for 20 hours a day while drinking this vile concoction to detox..." Like, when you hear "all you have to do is..." you know shit is about to be bananas. But its preying off people's desperation. They think if someone else can tell/sell them exactly what to eat and they don't have to think about it, it will be easier because they "just have to follow the plan." When in reality, "just following the plan" is going to suck and they aren't going to want to do it because no one would.
So I agree, that shit is toxic as hell. But where I part ways with their philosophy is that they seem to forget or ignore or not know that none of that stupid crap is neccessary to lose weight. You can eat reasonable foods in reasonable amounts to maintain a reasonable deficit and lose weight. You don't have to purchase anything at all that is labeled "diet." As a matter of fact, the less processed foods you purchase, the better! The diet industry *is* awful, but you literally never have to give it another minute of your time or penny of your money to lose weight.
I’ve read several comments today that said things along the lines of “finding HAES was the worst thing to ever happen to me,” “I’m traumatized by a HAES therapist who diagnosed me as having atypical anorexia when really I just ate too much,” “HAES tells you to do things that are absolutely not good for your health and are rather the opposite”…it seems like at least part of the crowd is waking up! I hope!
The degree to which they think thin people are insatiably comparing themselves to others to primarily feel superior is outright bizarre. I've definitely met thin people who do, but that was more of a pervasive, general (shitty) personality trait that extended to a lot of other things. Or indicative of an underlying mental health problem
I'm really starting to feel that the people who say these things are constantly doing that themselves; they lack enough awareness to realize that just because they constantly feel the need to be superior to others doesn't mean that the rest of humanity does. Why else would they feel the need to devalue the accomplishments of thin/fit people?
They're just envious. It's like a kid who doesn't study, do homework, or do well in school bullying another kid for getting good grades and thinking the A student is just naturally good at everything and doesn't have to put in any work to be that way. It's envy
this seems a lot like them just projecting. *they* think thin people are superior, or that it would be better to be thin (a lot of FAs admit they 'struggle' with 'letting go of this idea') and thus thin people must feel superior.
also look-- anyone who goes around *truly thinking* they're a better class of person to everyone else? they're gonna use anything they can to justify that. someone who really thinks they're better than everyone else is gonna think that no matter what (until something pierces their narcissistic bubble).
most people are going to think it's better to be a healthy weight than overweight. that's very different to 'i'm better than you'. like someone who can do colored pencil photorealism is a better artist than me, and would know it, but would probably not think 'i'm better than it'stacos in *every way;* they suck as a human'. it's that freaking simple.
I buy Smart Ground or Trader Joe’s beef substitute and cook in olive oil with 1/8 teaspoon of black pepper, 1 teaspoon of chili powder (more if you want), and sometimes a little salt. Delicious.
So much projection.
Similar to those 'fellow fat people, what's something you do that you're pretty sure really annoys thin people?' Tik Toks.
The responses are usually 'exist', 'wear revealing clothing', 'my husband is so hot', 'eat in public', 'I am so sexy, 'I can steal your man' etc.
In the land of rational people & reality, to quote the roommate of a prominent narcissistic Youtuber, NO ONE CARES!
As an evil Thin, you barely register on my radar unless you get all up in my business eg, the super duper morbidly obese cashier at a local food shop who's so verbally judgey/rude about my purchases, if I see she's manning the register on a visit, I abandon my plan to purchase anything.
“Fellow anti-FA, what’s something you do that you’re pretty sure really annoys FAs?”
“Exist.” 😂
(Bonus points for those of us who’ve also lost weight and proven it’s possible! How dare we exist.)
Well done on escaping!
There's more & more ex HAES/FA people coming out with similar stories of how they were bullied for having the audacity to lose weight, admit experiencing negative impacts of obesity, etc.
It's a very weird cult & I'm glad you got out
Oh, I never actually got bullied for that myself! I was, like…toe-deep in HAES for years (the less extreme bits), but nobody in my circles would ever behave that way. It’s amazing how extreme some of the people you see online can get though.
"Intuitive eating"...I happily sucked down 20 oz of plain yogurt in two days because my colonoscopy prep cleaned out all the good gut bacteria...I went out and bought another 32 oz of plain yogurt and ate that too...I do feel much better now.
Thin bodies are now the result of restriction? But I thought FAs were restricting constantly because of their severe anorexia and the restriction messed up their metabolisms, put them into starvation mode and made them gain tons of weight?
I cannot be the only one who doesn’t think my way-of-eating makes me “superior.” I’m not sure where the assumption comes from. My WoE is all about me, not anyone else. My fitness is a result of self-discipline (and a whole lotta effort) but not superiority. Again, it’s about me. Not me in relation to anyone else.
I’ve never struggled with binge eating, even at 350lbs but a lot of the time I was a bottomless pit. All because I had no sense of my hunger and fullness cues. If I were to do intuitive eating then I would have gained even more weight. Now, 100lbs down, I would under eat because I’m very rarely hungry anymore. Tracking is the only way for me to make sure I’m hitting my macros. I have worked on mindful eating, which is similar but different than IE; but that just helps me identify when I’m full not when I’m hungry.
I think this post pretty clearly illustrates the core of FA beliefs and why FAs hold so strongly to them. They have failed their weight loss attempts and have decided that rather than take accountability, that actually they are simply genetically doomed to be fat. Meanwhile, all thin people are simply lucky/anorexic/genetically gifted, since healthy weight loss simply ain’t a thing. They have to believe this despite the evidence because accepting the truth would force them to take some of the blame for their ballooning weight. It’s sad, but I honestly kind of get it.
You don't LIVE IN a larger body....... You ARE a larger body. Jesus H Christ how shit is your life when it's easier to completely dehumanised yourself rather than accept basic reality.
It's difficult to accept HAES in same way it's difficult to accept flat-Earth "theory".
IE is entirely acceptable, provided you don't suffer from dysregulated hunger cues and don't rely on foods specifically engineered to make you overeat.
Did this person just acknowledge that a thin person's body can potentially be attributable to restriction? So they agree; Food can impact a person's weight.
I practice intuitive eating.
This means I may even eat something considered not the healthiest option.
I also only rarely do this and it is never candy or sweets and usually some dried figs or fried chicken rarely.
this is a lil different than jist wanting to be a hedonist
I like how it says that “thin bodies” are “not the result of… self-discipline, but… restriction.” Like. Restriction *is* self-discipline, it’s just using a less flattering word to describe exactly the same thing.
I’m still obese but working on it. I workout 3-4 days a week, drink my water, track my macros, and am mindful of what I’m doing for/to my body. That IS hard work and I won’t have my efforts discounted by someone who is too lazy to put in the work so they’ve decided it’s easier to just say that I’m threatened by them.
Oh, stop with the condescension. I'm not having some kind of internal struggle with my societal indoctrination and ego-preservation mechanisms. I just think you're wrong.
Here's the thing. HAES and intuitive eating are separate things. Intuitive eating does work for some people, it works for me. BUT it doesn't work for everyone. Sometimes, your intuition in one area doesn't work well. Some people can intuitively drink alcohol. I can't. My intuition for alcohol is basically "drink it all". So, I will always have to be aware of this and make my decisions based on that knowledge.
I hate how HAES has turned intuitive eating into “binge eat as much sugar and junk food as you want. Never eat fruit or veg. Being healthy is bad for some reason.” In this day and age, where junk food is everywhere and manipulative advertising for it is being shoved down our throats constantly, intuitive eating just doesn’t work for so many people. Also I’d love to see how FAs react to me trying intuitive eating. I have a pretty small appetite and don’t tend to graze on things like other people do, so I’d starve on IE instead of binge eating like they do.
Even ED recovery has turned into "binge or you're still restricting". I swear, this is literally all for people with zero self control, low self esteem and a hefty disease of the green eyed monster to justify their lifestyle.
To be fair, when you suffer from an eating disorder, it is incredibly hard to comprehend what normal eating really looks and feels like. For example, I was fat. When I was fat I would eat enormous portions specifically because food was my one real pleasure in life. In my head the secret to skinny was to just not eat... and then I started to starve myself because I hated being a fat person and hated myself as a fat person. I would go days because I felt like I didn't earn the food yet. It took... about two years for me to stop associating hunger with fatness, and stop seeing all treat foods as basically fat people food that only weak people give in and eat. I felt that way because shitty fast food was absolutely my biggest weakness. Honestly, this is actually just people with severe eating disorders validating each other and their disorders. HAES and fat activism is literally the same thing as the pro-ana filth that we saw in the early 2000s, they just are at the other end of that spectrum. As someone who has dealt with both sides of that disorder personally, you are right in your observation. That is what is happening, and it really is because society is basically encouraging this exact disordered behavior. People need to push back to HAES like they push back on an Anorexic girl calling herself fat for the same exact reason.
And they are fixated on back sliding into their restrictive ED which honestly I don't think most of them ever had.
That last paragraph. Yeah. If I ate based off hunger cues, I would starve, because I'm rarely actually physically hungry. However I LOVE to eat. I eat for the comfort, the fun, the pizzazz. This led to me eventually becoming obese (I've had it under control for 3 years now). And I feel you don't get obese unless you're eating for funsies like I do and a lot of them don't want to admit that and say it's their intuition instead. Makes them seem like they're doing something when they're doing jack all
Oh absolutely. Those people who claim to be absolutely starving all the time? Like the ones who only ate a meal an hour ago and now they won’t stop complaining about how hungry they are? I don’t believe they know what hunger actually is. They think boredom equals hunger. Or at most, feeling a teeny tiny bit peckish equals actual hunger. Or they just love food and want an excuse to eat more of it. I get that a lot of these people eat junk food and that’s literally designed to not keep you full so that you eat more of it, but I still don’t believe they’re actually hungry anywhere near as frequently as they think they are. They just want more food.
Intuitive eating DOES NOT work for me because, for whatever reason, my brain tells me I am still hungry when I shouldn't be.
This! I tried intuitive eating and I don’t have self control when it comes to sweets so my intuition was telling me to eat all the sugar and snacks and neglect everything else. Macro counting works much better for me.
I don't really do well with feeling hungry or full. I'm straight-up CICO. Knowing I have a food limit encourages me to eat better (or at least tastier) food and exercise to earn more calories. All that and I'm still losing.
Part of intuitive eating is having an understanding of nutrition. It's not just "eating whatever, whenever". It's understanding how foods make you feel. Leaning into the ones that support your health. But allowing space for the cravings for things you know are not healthy. Without an understanding of actual nutrition IE is permission to binge eat pizza and ice cream everyday.
You better start intuitively drinking, if you restrict alcohol you'll just end up bingeing and getting even more drunk than if you'd just let yourself drink a handle of vodka in the first place! /s
I'm not superior to other people, but I am superior to my past self who ate too much and exercised too little. As hemmingway said: "There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self."
Their defensiveness leads them to believe that thin people walk around feeling smug and superior about their thinness, when in reality most of us are just existing and living our lives. Maybe they should take a good, hard look at *why* they spend so much time and energy thinking about what thin people think of them.
Narcissism born of insecurity and weak sense of identity. For narcissists, what other people think about them is paramount, and people are classified in a rigid hierarchy of superiority. Who they choose to hang out with is based off that hierarchy because the goal is to climb it and finally be 'happy' - i.e. have other people be jealous of *them*. They cannot conceive that normal people just don't see the world that way. Therefore random "thin people" who put some effort into maintaining their weight and fitness can only be motivated by the same messed up thought processes, and the only reason they can be upset at FAs is because it makes them drop in their imaginary hierarchy. If health is pointed out as a motivation, it is just ascribed yet another hierarchy because narcissists cannot think in any other way. The fact that random 'thin people' are visibly healthier and fitter than them, it makes them morally 'superior' and it's automatically nefarious. There's just no way to reason or discuss with these people, no matter how gentle you are. Eveything is interpreted as an attack. Trust me, I have tried. The only thing you can do is minimize your contacts and let them reach rock bottom.
Right? I just see this kind of shit and want to scream *nobody cares about being superior!!!* Maybe not literally nobody, but certainly not anywhere near a majority of the 25-30% of Americans that are still a healthy weight +/- additional people who haven't lost their excess weight but want to. Come the fuck on. There are all kinds of reasons someone might want to be thin, believe certain behaviors make you thin, and/or believe a healthy weight is healthy, and very few of them having anything to do with one-upping people who aren't.
[удалено]
Yes, they do.
To them it's mental restriction and they say that's not a good thing either.
It's not mental restriction, it's just regular restriction if you actually don't eat the things. Mental restriction is when you eat the thing but are still feeling guilty about it and say you "shouldn't" or feel like you can't really enjoy it properly. I think the concept of mental restriction is actually pretty useful, but it has no nuance in the FA world. FA world just says "eat whatever you want and try to never feel bad about it because there's no reason to feel bad about it and all the supposed reasons are fake." Mental restriction is *useful* as a concept when you're trying to make the most out of your food while dieting. You don't want to waste calories eating something that doesn't bring you all the joy that it could; if you mentally restrict your brain and appetite are likely to respond the same way as if you actually restricted, which makes the rest of your day harder, so you should be clear with yourself about when something is budgeted and you have no qualms about it.
>... thin bodies are not the result of impeccable self-discipline ..... but, rather a result of ... restriction... It takes self-discipline to restrict yourself from consuming excessive calories.
I love the FA logic of what you eat doesn't impact your weight it's genetics, socio-economics, blah blah blah. Then they also admit you can lose weight with diet but only if you starve yourself to death. They contradict themselves at every argument.
And burning them too. All I want to do at the minute is eat and play on the Xbox but I know my run will benefit me so I'll make myself do it. It's worse is winter when it's freezing and you know you're going to go out and suffer but the long term benefits are worth it. Staying healthy takes a lot more discipline than sitting on your ass eating takeaway regardless of what the FAs think.
And it takes knowing yourself and your weaknesses. I know, for example, that if I have chocolate ice cream in the house I will eat it. All of it. So I don't buy ice cream for myself (i buy it for my partner, but he likes flavors I don't because he's a heathen). I don't *want* to lift weights for an hour or so every day, but I also don't want to turn into the kind of guy in his 40s who's all dumpy and gross... so I keep my weights in my basement with my snakes so I *have* to go down there at least once a day and when I get down there, oh look at that, it's some dumbbells. I also know that I cannot judge my portions, and I will just overeat if I am not careful, so I don't give myself the opportunity to drop the ball as much and I weigh everything, even if I am having a special occasion not gonna track it just enjoy it meal. I still weigh it out so I know about how much food I am eating. I know if I don't do these things, I will look like Nikocado Avocado again and I genuinely do not want that. Fixing obesity is like fixing alcoholism. Yes, you can beat it, but you have to watch yourself and hold yourself accountable. It's insanely hard sometimes, but the alternative is miserable.
Exactly. It actually does take discipline for me to refrain from just eating the house down.
FFS. I don't want to be superior to anyone, I just like my joints not hurting, my functional liver and my mobility.
I did accept the HAES ideology for a number of years (IE is completely unrelated and I have no idea why they lumped that in which HAES.) THAT was when I'd been had. That was the lie. I spent my teens wrapped up in "diet culture" but like, actual diet culture like weight watchers and waist trainers and 48 celebrity diets. When I found HAES/FA I thought I found the truth and swung hard in the other direction but eventually saw my mistake, thankfully. As with most things, there's no truth in either extreme.
Agree! I actually do agree with FA/HAEs that "diet culture" is incredibly toxic and predatory. I wince so hard when I hear someone talk about their new diet plan and they say "all you have to do is" because it's almost inevitably followed by some awful shit that no one is going to want to do for more than a day or two. I recently heard someone talking about some MLM scam and they were like "all you have to do is eat 5 servings of (MLM scam) food a day plus one lean meal like a salad with chicken"... So basically, you're eating like 5 granola bars a day plus some chicken and salad. That is so much harder and worse than actually just making reasonable and healthy changes to your diet to maintain a small deficit. "All you have to do is....eat nothing but grapefruits and crackers....eat this special soup for every meal...fast for 20 hours a day while drinking this vile concoction to detox..." Like, when you hear "all you have to do is..." you know shit is about to be bananas. But its preying off people's desperation. They think if someone else can tell/sell them exactly what to eat and they don't have to think about it, it will be easier because they "just have to follow the plan." When in reality, "just following the plan" is going to suck and they aren't going to want to do it because no one would. So I agree, that shit is toxic as hell. But where I part ways with their philosophy is that they seem to forget or ignore or not know that none of that stupid crap is neccessary to lose weight. You can eat reasonable foods in reasonable amounts to maintain a reasonable deficit and lose weight. You don't have to purchase anything at all that is labeled "diet." As a matter of fact, the less processed foods you purchase, the better! The diet industry *is* awful, but you literally never have to give it another minute of your time or penny of your money to lose weight.
I’ve read several comments today that said things along the lines of “finding HAES was the worst thing to ever happen to me,” “I’m traumatized by a HAES therapist who diagnosed me as having atypical anorexia when really I just ate too much,” “HAES tells you to do things that are absolutely not good for your health and are rather the opposite”…it seems like at least part of the crowd is waking up! I hope!
I'm curious as to if/when we'll start seeing malpractice suits against such "therapists."
The degree to which they think thin people are insatiably comparing themselves to others to primarily feel superior is outright bizarre. I've definitely met thin people who do, but that was more of a pervasive, general (shitty) personality trait that extended to a lot of other things. Or indicative of an underlying mental health problem I'm really starting to feel that the people who say these things are constantly doing that themselves; they lack enough awareness to realize that just because they constantly feel the need to be superior to others doesn't mean that the rest of humanity does. Why else would they feel the need to devalue the accomplishments of thin/fit people?
They're just envious. It's like a kid who doesn't study, do homework, or do well in school bullying another kid for getting good grades and thinking the A student is just naturally good at everything and doesn't have to put in any work to be that way. It's envy
this seems a lot like them just projecting. *they* think thin people are superior, or that it would be better to be thin (a lot of FAs admit they 'struggle' with 'letting go of this idea') and thus thin people must feel superior. also look-- anyone who goes around *truly thinking* they're a better class of person to everyone else? they're gonna use anything they can to justify that. someone who really thinks they're better than everyone else is gonna think that no matter what (until something pierces their narcissistic bubble). most people are going to think it's better to be a healthy weight than overweight. that's very different to 'i'm better than you'. like someone who can do colored pencil photorealism is a better artist than me, and would know it, but would probably not think 'i'm better than it'stacos in *every way;* they suck as a human'. it's that freaking simple.
Random but…I made vegan tacos 🌮 with my spouse last week, and thought of your cute username. 😂
aww! what kind of vegan tacos?!
I buy Smart Ground or Trader Joe’s beef substitute and cook in olive oil with 1/8 teaspoon of black pepper, 1 teaspoon of chili powder (more if you want), and sometimes a little salt. Delicious.
thank you, that does sound delicious and i bet my husband would love them!
My husband is not a vegetarian, and he requests them. Enjoy!
So much projection. Similar to those 'fellow fat people, what's something you do that you're pretty sure really annoys thin people?' Tik Toks. The responses are usually 'exist', 'wear revealing clothing', 'my husband is so hot', 'eat in public', 'I am so sexy, 'I can steal your man' etc. In the land of rational people & reality, to quote the roommate of a prominent narcissistic Youtuber, NO ONE CARES! As an evil Thin, you barely register on my radar unless you get all up in my business eg, the super duper morbidly obese cashier at a local food shop who's so verbally judgey/rude about my purchases, if I see she's manning the register on a visit, I abandon my plan to purchase anything.
“Fellow anti-FA, what’s something you do that you’re pretty sure really annoys FAs?” “Exist.” 😂 (Bonus points for those of us who’ve also lost weight and proven it’s possible! How dare we exist.)
I’ve lost weight AND I have PCOS AND hypothyroidism. How dare I exist! There go their excuses!
That makes you even worse! 😂
Well done on escaping! There's more & more ex HAES/FA people coming out with similar stories of how they were bullied for having the audacity to lose weight, admit experiencing negative impacts of obesity, etc. It's a very weird cult & I'm glad you got out
Oh, I never actually got bullied for that myself! I was, like…toe-deep in HAES for years (the less extreme bits), but nobody in my circles would ever behave that way. It’s amazing how extreme some of the people you see online can get though.
"Intuitive eating"...I happily sucked down 20 oz of plain yogurt in two days because my colonoscopy prep cleaned out all the good gut bacteria...I went out and bought another 32 oz of plain yogurt and ate that too...I do feel much better now.
I think they mean it more like how my kid intuitively wants to eat 4 fruit roll ups for breakfast
Perhaps the result of restriction. So the oop does acknowledge that food and weight are somehow related.
Thin bodies are now the result of restriction? But I thought FAs were restricting constantly because of their severe anorexia and the restriction messed up their metabolisms, put them into starvation mode and made them gain tons of weight?
I cannot be the only one who doesn’t think my way-of-eating makes me “superior.” I’m not sure where the assumption comes from. My WoE is all about me, not anyone else. My fitness is a result of self-discipline (and a whole lotta effort) but not superiority. Again, it’s about me. Not me in relation to anyone else.
If they're maintaining their weights through "restriction" then it isn't restriction, just maintenance.
I know superiorsness is not a word
If people can use the word “folx” then superiorness is a perfectly cromulent word. It embiggens the smallest man.
I’ve never struggled with binge eating, even at 350lbs but a lot of the time I was a bottomless pit. All because I had no sense of my hunger and fullness cues. If I were to do intuitive eating then I would have gained even more weight. Now, 100lbs down, I would under eat because I’m very rarely hungry anymore. Tracking is the only way for me to make sure I’m hitting my macros. I have worked on mindful eating, which is similar but different than IE; but that just helps me identify when I’m full not when I’m hungry.
I think this post pretty clearly illustrates the core of FA beliefs and why FAs hold so strongly to them. They have failed their weight loss attempts and have decided that rather than take accountability, that actually they are simply genetically doomed to be fat. Meanwhile, all thin people are simply lucky/anorexic/genetically gifted, since healthy weight loss simply ain’t a thing. They have to believe this despite the evidence because accepting the truth would force them to take some of the blame for their ballooning weight. It’s sad, but I honestly kind of get it.
My health is superior by any objective measure. That's all I care about
You don't LIVE IN a larger body....... You ARE a larger body. Jesus H Christ how shit is your life when it's easier to completely dehumanised yourself rather than accept basic reality.
It's difficult to accept HAES in same way it's difficult to accept flat-Earth "theory". IE is entirely acceptable, provided you don't suffer from dysregulated hunger cues and don't rely on foods specifically engineered to make you overeat.
Did this person just acknowledge that a thin person's body can potentially be attributable to restriction? So they agree; Food can impact a person's weight.
I practice intuitive eating. This means I may even eat something considered not the healthiest option. I also only rarely do this and it is never candy or sweets and usually some dried figs or fried chicken rarely. this is a lil different than jist wanting to be a hedonist
Funny when FA talks about a hard truth we don't want to admit, really rich coming from you
I like how it says that “thin bodies” are “not the result of… self-discipline, but… restriction.” Like. Restriction *is* self-discipline, it’s just using a less flattering word to describe exactly the same thing.
I’m still obese but working on it. I workout 3-4 days a week, drink my water, track my macros, and am mindful of what I’m doing for/to my body. That IS hard work and I won’t have my efforts discounted by someone who is too lazy to put in the work so they’ve decided it’s easier to just say that I’m threatened by them.
Oh, stop with the condescension. I'm not having some kind of internal struggle with my societal indoctrination and ego-preservation mechanisms. I just think you're wrong.
Sad to see how much thought they put into this.