A few days ago, my mom sent me a few pictures from a journal I kept in 2005. When I was on one of my many dieting cycles. 

And, man. 

The emotions that came up in me were just…well…mostly sad.

Sad for the baby Divya that had such a disordered approach to eating food. Sad for the girl that was constantly shaming herself and shitting on herself for, what? Eating? 

Oof. 

As I’ve been growing into this body of mine, I’ve grappled with the question of HOW to take care of my body as an adult who wants to fuel myself with good foods that give me energy throughout the day…while also not falling victim to the diets that prey on vulnerable women.

I KNOW that eating a certain way makes me feel good. And I also know that there are lots of emotions and triggers that are activated in my body when I make a food choice. So it’s been a tricky thing to navigate. Am I eating a certain lunch option because it’s balanced with healthy fats and carbs and protein and this is adult Divya making a nutritious choice? Or am I doing this because I know that this specific meal contains a list of foods that – on several of the diets I’ve been on – are considered “approved foods?”

Maybe none of this makes sense to a typical brain that doesn’t think about food in this way. 

But maybe, if you’re reading this, you too have been a victim of diet culture and this makes total sense.

Wanting to take care of your body. 

While not wanting to feel restricted.

Wanting to eat the foods that make you feel great.

While also not counting every morsel that passes through your mouth and obsess over every macro and calorie.

Anyway, I feel like I’m in a really good place. And I hesitate to even type that. Because, if you scan through this blog, I’ve made several of these statements.

When I started drinking Shakeology, I loudly proclaimed that “THIS WAS IT. THIS WAS THE LIFE CHANGING THING.”

When I started Weight Watchers for the 5th time, I said, “THIS IS GONNA BE THE MOMENT.” 

And so I don’t want to sit here and wave my flag around saying, “I FOUND THE THING!” 

But, yeah, it feels like I found the thing. 

Maybe because it really isn’t a ‘thing.’

Maybe because I’m not tying it to my weight? I don’t care what it does to the number on the scale. I just want to FEEL GOOD.

Or maybe because I’m not obsessing over the moments we go out to eat or curl up on the couch with a dessert to share? I’m not using up brain space to obsess over the calories I consumed. I’m not constantly living in my mind. Thinking about how “next time, we’re going to do X to avoid a situation like this one.”

I’m just living my life. 

This is what it should have been like all along. 

But, alas, I grew up in a time when things were different. 

But, man, it makes me think about what I could have INVENTED BY NOW if I didn’t use up all that precious real estate in my brain thinking about how if I just ate X amount of calories, “I’d deserve a glass of wine” in the evening. 

In the words of my sweet friend who I’ve shared a lot of this stuff with, “I feel at the crux of feeling so sad for baby Divya and so happy for Divya’s babies.”

We heal ourselves so we can do things better for the next generation. (And for the children that still live inside of us who deserve oh-so-much better).