How I Created A Pinterest Intuitive Eating Food Diary

If you're a dieter, chances are you're sick of yo yo diets. Losing weight and unable to keep it off for good, obsessing about how much you weigh and worrying about your health daily.

Weighing yourself daily, tracking calories, tracking macros, pinching this fat and hating on that roll.

Been there, done that, all I got was an eating disorder.

Thin - depressed, anxious, high self doubt, low esteem

Then fat again, no matter how little I ate, how much I over exercised.

It's exhausting!

That's me in the black pants, don't confuse my smile because I was at a Habitat For Humanity build for happiness. I was pretending so I didn't burden others with my distress and I genuinely enjoyed giving back.

I now track my eating in another way, by centering nutrition, following my body's natural sensations of tiredness and tension, hunger and fullness cues. Along with my stable emotional state and positive self talk, they all work in sync now, there is food freedom to be had from intuitive eating!

I was skeptical at first. After 2 years, I'm a healed believer.

I intentionally wanted this diary to be loosely drafted, with no food rules. A safe online presence, a private one, with no diet culture influence, away from the maddening crowd!

Unlike myfitnesspal account, which drove me deeper into disordered eating behaviours a few years ago, there I met so many frantic dieters, all desperate like the old me. I was weighing myself daily for months, I knew how many calories was in a curry puff, how "bad" Laksa was. I got more and more obsessed, as I successfully lost the diet culture recommended weight, foods got increasingly frightening at the same time.

I disliked eating more and more, my mental health got worse, I was losing weight as planned, but that didn't make me happy, it didn't make me more confident about dating, my career or anything else. I still felt ugly, I still had a huge inner critic punishing me daily, I still felt like a failure underneath the compliments I got when I was thin.

Underneath all the degrees, achievements and medals, I didn't believe I genuinely mattered and I was worthy of body acceptance.

I was miserable and hated my life! Whether I was thin or fat, it didn't make a difference.

I didn't want to know how many calories are in foods, it ruined many of my favourite foods instead.

So, this version is a far healthier one. It has only the photo, the date and nutritional values. Sometimes I add in the time, so I know approximately how long it takes me to be hungry again, this is so I know how to plan travel or meal prep.

A guide if you're new to IE, tend to restrict eat, set an alarm to factor in at least 3 meals a day in the beginning. This was how I started eating enough again. I was skipping meals for a long time, especially breakfast. What is THAT? I was terribly proud of myself as well, SEE, how in control I am!

When I did a food diary, I was stunned, I was severely malnourished, I was eating for a child's needs.

A food diary is important because it helps you track your progress, having a plan is also assuring, a go to place to document everything.

I use it to meal plan as well, including grocery shopping, batch cooking home made meals and eating out. It keeps all the eating info I need in one place.

Here's how you do it!

Click this black plus symbol, choose Create Board

Name it, tick Keep this board secret

Click Create Pin

Add photo

Date the pin

Name the dish

Nutritional value

Click save (in red) on top right

This is from recently, 8th July 2021.

This was me when I was dieting.

See how awkward my body was, scrunched up, always keeping small, trying to hide. I was tired, I was experiencing mind fog, I was dragging myself around, trying to live up to the never-ending social expectations of impossible beauty standards, wellness and fitness.

I looked put together on the outside, inside I was defeated, deflated most of the time, I was grossly unhappy, trying to convince being thin is the be all end all fixer of my life!

I love fashion so much, I even got a degree in Fashion Merchandising, dressing up also became a tiresome chore, limited choices for fat bodies is a real thing.

I would starve myself to fit into smaller sizes, I would use clothes to gauge weight gain, it was a toxic cycle of self hatred, body loathing and malnourishment. Everything was scrambled when I was fat, everything was scrambled in another direction when I was thin.

See how the light is back in my eyes again? I'm living large in so many more ways than my physical size, I am no longer afraid of taking up space in a world that wants women to be tiny, to hide, to shrink, to bend over backwards to subject ourselves to starvation, to not intimidate people with our intellect, our energy, our size, hard earned expertise and innate talents.

Keeping a food diary can help you gauge how malnourished you might be, how that is causing your mental health nose dive. I started afraid of affirming my worst fears of being an out of control unsalvageable pig glutton, this then showed me how strong the influence of diet culture was, how many times I have socially been told the wrong advice, people rather I starve than not look the way they think I should!

It will also show you whether you're eating a large variety of foods, food restrictions can be about limiting food groups or repeating the same foods over and over. I use to cut out carbs, I used to only eat a selected kind of food, I didn't have a wide enough varieties of food to give me diverse nutrients.

I know I was guilty of severely restricting, I felt food was fussy, I convinced myself I was a simple easy going person. When the reality is I lack self love, I was self neglecting, I wasn't taking good care of myself, subconsciously I really wanted to die so I self sabotage as such.

It's not easy to change all of it at once, it's eating, body image, as well as sexuality as a triangle, so concerns about each area will cross over to the other.

It's overwhelming if you don't have someone guiding you. I paid accredited professionals to learn from them, it's so damn expensive, my largest healthcare bill to date.

I hope this helps you keep track of how you're doing.

Check out my my how to make healing bone broth video here, doctor's orders to fix my digestive system using that was one of the many key components in healing.

Eshet chayil, God is a She

Min

About

Some social media platforms above

Other social media platforms below

Pinterest - blackilocks

Quora - Min Lim

Admin of Handmade Singapore Facebook Group

Admin of Creative Spirited Women meetup group in Singapore

Leave a comment