When It Comes to Eating, You Have the Power Inside

When I was a psychotherapy intern, I was tasked with designing an eating disorder recovery program at a clinic with a colleague. Let's call her Rose. Rose was the kind of no-nonsense woman who spoke the truth. Sometimes her directness surprised people, but mostly it cut through in a way that was helpful. When we were thinking through goals for the program, Rose said five words that became its backbone. I can still see them on the page, quietly summarizing that watershed moment when someone goes from being in the throes of an eating disorder to becoming free: SHIFT TO AN INNER FOCUS.

The Moment I Know Someone Is Going to Get Better

When a client shifts to an inner focus, that's when I know they are going to get better. We have an innate power to eat the right amount of food for our bodies — to know when, what, and how much to eat. This knowledge gets interrupted later, but it's clear when we're young. Have you tried to feed a toddler who isn't hungry? What do they do? They spit it out.

Outside Interventions Can Only Activate What's Already There

GLP-1s, stomach surgery, nutrition rules: they all come from the outside. None of them can give you the knowledge of when, what, and how much to eat. All they can do is activate it. It was already inside you. I see a real place for medical interventions and nutrition guidance. They can give you an experience of eating without struggle, and that experience matters. But if the power on the inside isn't also cultivated, here is what I see:

• People are afraid of what will happen if they stop the drug.
• People gain the weight back after surgery, or switch to another substance.
• People still "feel fat."

This Is Not an Argument Against Medication

None of this is an argument for stopping your medication. Any change there belongs in a conversation with your prescriber, not in this essay. It's an argument for adding something the medication can't give you on its own. Are you wondering if you've buried your own knowledge too deep to find again? You can't know that until you've actually tried to cultivate it. There are specific steps for coaxing hunger and fullness signals back, and specific physical sensations that carry them. Learn those, and the GLP-1 experience stops being a substitute for your own knowing and becomes a doorway to it.

Two Experiences That Taught Me About My Own Body

When I was getting over bulimia, I had experiences that boosted my recovery without my realizing it at the time. Once I ate peanut butter before a hike, panicked, and then realized my body was about to use that fuel right then. It quieted my fear of gaining weight. Another time I had exactly half a cocktail and noticed it put me in the headspace of not overeating. It's not that I started drinking half a cocktail every night to lose weight. Instead, I let those experiences teach me something about my relationship to eating, and folded them into the larger project of getting to know my body. That's how they became part of my inner focus.

The Two Questions That Matter

The inner focus, the power inside, is what set me free of bulimia, and free of eating issues for the rest of my life. Weight, enticing food, nutrition rules — none of that has anything to do with what's happening inside your body right now. It comes down to two questions: Am I physically hungry? Would I enjoy the food? Everything else is secondary. When I see my clients relate to themselves that way, I know they are on their way to whatever is a healthy weight for them.