Your Identity as an Eater

In this episode, I speak about your identity as an eater-why it is important, how you see yourself, and knowing what type of identity you want to have so that you can become someone new. Get ready for a new perspective that will help you move forward toward your goals of being the person you wish to become.

Here are a few takeaways from this episode: 

•  Most of the world has it wrong - they focus on what to do first - eat this, don't eat that. If that worked - we wouldn't need this podcast. Instead, you create your identity with your mind. Who do you want to become?
• If you don't create a new identity, you will keep repeating your past behaviors. If you want to become someone new, this starts with who you are being, not what you are doing. 
• It's about a relationship - your relationship with food and your relationship with yourself. 

Want to know why you struggle with food and what to do next? Start watching The Food Freedom Mini Series today. 

Transcript

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Welcome to Binge Breakfast. Welcome to my help you finally break through the barriers. If you stuck feeling out of control, my food. I'm not gonna coach Big Hoker, and I want you to know that no matter how long you've been struggling, all what you've tried, we don't need all of the cycles. Each week I will share the strategies, tools, and mindset that allowed me to overcome my decades-long battle with binge people. Your journey to body trust starts now. Let's dive in. Hello, trusted listener. Welcome to Binge Breakthrough. I consider you a trusted listener because I trust that you are listening to this episode and this podcast at this time for a reason. I trust that you are going to hear something new today, that you might hear an insight, a concept, something that is new that is going to be an instrumental part of a current or a future breakthrough in your own relationship with yourself and with food. So what I want to talk about today is your identity as an eater. This is such an important topic, and it's something that a lot of people don't think about. But whether you realize it or not, you have an identity as an eater. It's so important because it's how you see yourself, how you see yourself in relationship to food. And your brain is always going to look for evidence of what it believes to be true. So if you have a belief about what is true about you as an eater, your brain is going to find the evidence of that identity of how you are as an eater, how you are with food. So whether you realize it or not, you do have an identity. So if you can know what your identity as an eater is right now, this is where we start. So here's some possibilities for you. Think about when I ask you the question, how do you see yourself as an eater? What is your current identity as an eater? Those are kind of two different ways to ask the same question. What comes up for you? What is the immediate, what are the immediate words, descriptions that come to your mind when I ask you how you see yourself as an eater? So here's some possibilities that could come to you. Um, things I have heard from other clients and other just people in my life, things I have felt about myself as well. Uh, perhaps you might think I'm out of control. I'm a disordered eater. I'm inconsistent. I'm an inconsistent eater. All or nothing. I eat all the things or I eat uh, you know, very clean. I'm on or off the wagon. You might think I'm powerless around certain foods. You might think I'm afraid. I'm afraid of food. You might think I'm an emotional eater. You might think I'm an addict. I'm addicted to certain foods. You might think I have no self-control or no discipline. You might consider it abusive. Either you abuse food or you abuse yourself with food. These are all terms and descriptions that I have heard from countless people and thought myself. But can you see that when you see yourself as that type of eater, when you see yourself as out of control, your brain will go to look for all of the evidence, all of the ways that you are out of control. It will go to look for all of the ways that you are inconsistent, all of the ways that you are powerless. It will go to look for whatever it believes to be true. Now, here's another thing I want to talk about as it relates to the idea or the identity, seeing yourself as a someone with an eating disorder. So I'm a disordered eater or I have an eating disorder. The problem with identifying with your eating disorder is it becomes something that you have. It's something that you identify yourself with. And therefore, you are often looking for disorder in your eating. Now, there are absolutely very real, I absolutely believe in the concept of eating disorders. There is the DSM 5. We could open up the um the manual and read all of the definitions of the various eating disorders. And yes, there are definitions. Yes, there are people who fall within these descriptions. But if you identify yourself with your eating disorder, your brain is going to look for all of the ways in which your eating is disordered. Many people teach, many people believe that if you have an eating disorder, it is something that you will have for the rest of your life. It is something that you will just have to deal with. I don't believe this. I do believe there are people who absolutely have disordered thinking around food, the disordered behaviors that relate from relate as a result of the disordered thinking, uh, the patterns, the behaviors, all of those things. I absolutely do believe that's the case. But if you identify yourself in that way, I believe it has a possibility and a tendency to keep you in it rather than seeing the possibility that freedom is possible. You do not have to live with an eating disorder for the rest of your life. But if that's the way that you see yourself, if that's the way that you identify yourself, you will keep finding examples that that is the case for you, that is your reality, and you will think it's just because it's your disorder. No, it's because you are seeing yourself as someone with a disorder. And when we see ourselves in that way, what happens is that you are you're basically losing, you're you're giving away your power. The eating disorder gets the power. The eating disorder is the thing that keeps you stuck, the thing that you have that you have to deal with for the rest of your life that keeps you in this pattern. But we're giving the power over to the label, the identity of a disorder. We can absolutely work to change the patterns of thinking, the patterns of behaving, the patterns of believing that create disordered eating. They can be shifted. But when you think this is just who I am, it is what I have, it's what I have to deal with for the rest of my life that will keep you in the pattern and it will keep you inside, it will keep you powerless over the eating disorder when you and your brain are the ones that have all of the power. So here's what we need to do is you, it's it's so important to know what type of identity you want to have as an eater. What do you want to create for yourself? What is this new identity that you want? I talk with my new clients about this all of the time. If you don't create a new identity, you will keep repeating your past behaviors. If you just keep thinking, well, this is what I've always done, this is how I've always handled it, this is what I've known, and we keep looking at the past, that's what you will repeat in the future. So if you want to become someone new, this starts with who you are being, not what you are doing. We don't just start looking at the actions, and this is what most of the world does. Most of the world has it wrong. They focus on what to do first. Eat this, don't eat that. And let me tell you, if that worked, we wouldn't need this podcast. We don't start with a focus on what to do. We start with a focus on who you want to be. You create your identity with your mind. So, with this in mind, who do you want to become as an eater? How do you want to see yourself as an eater? I am here to tell you that anything is possible. I will give you some examples that I use for myself, that many of my clients use. And I want you to just listen to these possibilities and see what resonates with you. You may love some of these words, you may decide, you may hear these words and get inspiration for another word that feels even more resonant to you. This idea, this identity of who you want to become as an eater, you want it to feel good, to feel expansive and open and like something that is drawing you to this identity. So here are some possibilities for you to consider of who you might want to become as an eater. You might want to be connected to it, you might want to be an aware eater, maybe relaxed, peaceful, normal, natural, a natural eater, intuitive, attuned, intentional. As you hear these words, do any of them resonate with you? Personally, I love to see myself as a connected, peaceful, and intentional eater. What resonates with you? Make a powerful decision. Decide what you want for yourself. If these words don't resonate with you, think about what would resonate, what does feel open and expansive and like something that you would want for yourself? Start to visualize it. What does it look like? If you want to be a peaceful eater, what does that look like? Put yourself in a situation where you are eating. What would it look like to be that type of eater? Now you don't have to know the how. You don't have to know all of the things that you would do to become that eater. But you can put yourself in the energy of being that type of eater. Can you put yourself in that place? Think about this. When we thought about in the original, in the in the beginning of this of this podcast, where I asked you how you currently identify yourself. And we came up with some possibilities like out of control, disordered, inconsistent, all or nothing, on or off the wagon, an emotional eater, an addict, those types, when you think those about that, that identity, those ways of seeing yourself as an eater, how does that feel in your body? It likely feels very constricting, very tight. When you think about these other possibilities, being connected, aware, relaxed, peaceful, intuitive, attuned, intentional, does that feel more open, more expansive? It's that open, expansive energy that you want to put yourself into. Put yourself in that energy and then just visualize what would be different if I had that type of energy when I sat down to eat. What would be different for me? So, out of curiosity, I uh getting ready for this episode, I asked three people in my life who I really kind of look at and think of as more kind of natural eaters, more kind of intuitive eaters, people who I would say really have a pretty good relationship with food. And so I asked them the question: how do you see yourself as an eater? And what was really interesting is all three of them were kind of like, huh, that's interesting. Like, I've actually never even thought to ask myself this question. I don't really think about myself as an eater very much, which I think is very telling because I think they naturally have pretty relaxed relationships with food. So they don't have to think about it a lot. It's not something that they put a lot of time and effort and attention into, which for those of us who do put a lot of time, effort, and attention into food and our relationship with ourselves and food, I think we all would love to not think about it so much. I actually had a client once say, I don't want a relationship with food. I don't want to have, I don't want to have an identity as an eater. I don't want that. It's like, well, but we all have one whether we realize it or not. So the idea that I don't want one is kind of like, I don't want is the idea that we don't want to spend so much time thinking about it, which is available when you are in this more relaxed, normal, intuitive, attuned place because you don't have to put a lot of energy into it. And the energy feels so relaxed. You do have an identity, it's just not even something that you think about. So, one of the people that I asked was my husband. And so his response was, he said, I'm aware. Really, most he is an aware eater. He says, I'm aware of what food does for me, how it makes me feel, and how it fuels my body. I also really enjoy food. And he said, I've always been pretty intuitive, but now I'm more intentional as I realize the more direct relationship on my physiology and how I feel in my body with certain foods as I get older. So for him, he's more aware, he's more intentional, and he's very um, he's conscious with his choices, but he also really just loves food. I asked another friend, she said, I see myself as someone with a solid relationship with food. Generally, I trust my body to tell me what it needs to fuel what I do. I also just love food. So while I eat to perform and fuel my activity, I also eat things I like because I eat for pleasure too. And I love seeing this friend and her relationship with food because she really does. She has a very keen focus on eating to fuel her body, eating for her activity level, eating for her performance. And she pays a lot of attention to that. But she also does eat for pleasure. She enjoys what she eats. And she really has, she does have a solid relationship and a solid balance. And I look at that, it's like, yes, that is, I believe, the type of relationship that most people want. So we can look at that. I have another friend I asked, and she said, you know, I don't, I really don't think too much of it. I eat to fuel my body and I enjoy food. But she said, I've actually realized in listening to you and listening to your journey, I do have a reward type of component to my eating sometimes in terms of what I decide to eat, or um a guilt component if I eat certain things. So it's interesting that somebody that I really thought who who really does have an amazing relationship with food and overall doesn't think much of it, there are some components where she realizes, huh, there are some areas that feel a little kind of sticky to me, and I can see that. So nobody has a perfect relationship with food. But it's interesting to see what other people's relationships are, how they see themselves, and what you might like for yourself. Now, here's another place that you can look at this. Look at your identity, how you see yourself in other areas of your life. So, do you have another area in your life where your identity or your self-image, how you see yourself is strong? This could show up maybe as a parent, maybe in your professional life, maybe creativity, maybe in your creative life. Maybe it's a hobby or a passion. Maybe it's with us as a spouse, as a friend or in another relationship. What is it? Is there an area in your life where you're like, man, you know, this part in this area of my life, I have a very strong sense of self of who I am? So if something comes up for you in that area, ask yourself, how did you develop that strong self-image, that identity? Did it always feel strong? If not, did you visualize getting yourself to where you are now? When you were in those kind of areas where you were just learning, just figuring things out, did you visualize what it might look like in the future when you had a stronger self-image, a stronger sense of yourself in that role? So, for example, for me as a triathlete, in my very first triathlon, I put my helmet on backwards. I uh the the swim was last. I almost got in the pool with my socks on. I stopped on the bike to turn my helmet around because my husband was yelling at me that my helmet was on backwards. I didn't realize that the cops were stopping the traffic for me. It was, you know, I had, I did not have a very strong identity as a triathlete. I was figuring things out. I was kind of, you know, making mistakes all over the place. But I had this image. I saw other people and I thought, wow, I would love to be in that place someday. I started to picture myself doing certain things. I started to picture myself in certain races or doing things differently. I started to ask people who were at a different level than I was. I started to seek support and guidance from other people. And now I have a very strong identity as a triathlete. And it's something I continue to work on. I still have areas that I continue to work on there, just like I still have areas with food that I continue to work on. But in all of these areas, I know what I want to create for myself. I know that person that I want to become. I can appreciate where I am now while also having the vision of who I want to be, how I want to improve. This is all about a relationship. It's a relationship with food and your relationship with yourself. So, how do you see yourself now? And how do you want to see yourself? Start holding that vision in your mind. Start feeling that energy, the expansive energy that is going to draw you to who you want to become. Then with that energy, then you can let the how, the next steps, the next pieces, you can let those come to you. But it starts with deciding who you want to become as an eater. All right, that's what I have for you this week. I'll see you next time. Thank you for listening to Binge Breakthrough. If you would like personalized guidance, insight, and support to implement the tools, skills, and concepts you are learning on this podcast. I have just what you need. Cultivate an entirely new relationship with yourself and with food alongside other women who know and understand your struggles. Coaching, connection, and change are waiting for you. Spots are limited, so sign up today. Find out more at janepilger.com forward slash cultivate.