Fruit Used To Be Off Limits

I’ve been on A LOT of diets. Depending on which one it was, there were always instructions, aka RULES, that determined when I could have certain fruits and veggies, how much I could have, which ones I wasn’t ALLOWED to have, and so on. At some point there were so few fruits I “could” have that I stopped eating them altogether.

When I think back now, I scratch my head and think “when did I stop listening to what my body told me it wanted and start listening to someone else tell me that I couldn’t have a freakin’ banana?” It seems silly, but I’ve been listening to my Intuition when it comes to eating for over a year now, and I often feel like a bad ass rule-breaker when I’m peeling a banana…I want to shout it out loud: LOOK WORLD, ooohhhh a BANANA! 

But sometimes, in full disclosure, I still feel the tiniest twinge of angst when I dare to eat a WHOLE banana and have to fight the urge to cut it in half. And it’s not just bananas. Grapes, mango, watermelon, apples, oranges…any fruit that “they” said had too much sugar or too many calories.

That’s what diet culture does to us: it makes us nervous, anxious, and fearful of FRUIT. How ridiculous does that actually sound when we say it out loud? When did it become the norm to put our eating needs into the hands of strangers and money-making organizations? But it’s not just strangers we look to…we’ve been guilty of asking friends “how did you do it??” if they lost a few pounds. We eagerly soak up all of the information they want to share…meal plans and workout plans. Suddenly, we’re off to the grocery store with Sally’s lists of must-haves and filling our fridge and cupboards with things that maybe we don’t even like…for what? The hope of shrinking ourselves…with someone else’s food advice. However would we know what to eat to stay alive if it weren’t for all of this great advice? *Insert heavy eye roll*

Only YOU know what is best for your body and what it wants and needs to thrive. It’s time to tap back into your own intuition and listen; I promise it will never steer you wrong.