No Eating Rules?

Hello one and all!
I've provided a few new videos over the past few weeks, but I've been away from the keyboard for quite some time, and I'm sorry about that. I miss writing whenever I'm away from it.
I have been ridiculously busy, as you can imagine. Why anyone in their right mind would willingly choose to study English education, theatre, and film, I really don't know. I don't even know why people willingly choose to study English at all. The amount of reading and writing we have to do is absolutely ridiculous. And studying English education in specific is essentially like having a double major. So what I'm getting at is I have a double major and a double minor. Pray for me if you will.
But in all seriousness, I have had a really hard semester for so very many reasons. There have been many days I have been practically entirely unable to function. Things have gotten better as I've reached out for help and told people about my situation. Thank you all so  much for supporting me through all of the difficulties of this new semester. With all of that said, I feel so endlessly grateful to be in the position where I am. I can't believe that I get to study the only things I love every day (and I mean that quite literally, because I take religious classes at the religious institute across the street as well), and that there are a bunch of people like me that I am making connections with and working with all the time, and we are making each other's work better. I feel so much joy to be in this position. I can't believe that making content for people to enjoy and teaching young children how to do the same is something that I get to do for the rest of my life.

It has been requested that I write a post about mental health. There have been a lot of things on my mind that I would like to write about, but one thing in specific has been continuously coming up and I feel like I should finally address it. People are frequently curious about what I mean when I say it's important to not have eating rules.
I think most of you know that I suffered from disordered eating for many years of my life. The behaviors reached their disastrous peak when I was eighteen and that's when I finally started getting help. A lot more was required than I expected, and that's because a lot more was wrong than I understood. I ended up meeting frequently with an eating disorders specialist, and that was one of the best and most difficult summers of my life. While healing isn't easy, it is so happy. I think of that time with so much fondness. The lessons learned in eating therapy are far too vast for one post, so I'm going to try my hand at explaining this lesson in as clear and concise a manner as I possibly can.
I think this concept is well-introduced by a story from my therapy days. My therapist, Penny, asked if there was a time in my life I could recall that I felt really healthy. I thought on it for a minute, and I think I mentioned my sophomore winter guard season. I thought I ate pretty well at that time, and as a result I remember my body just typically feeling really good, no major complaints. I remember feeling so strong, like I could do anything. And I did do a lot of good stuff with my color guard team. We worked hard and performed well. I loved the athletic outlet I had with my team; I loved the activity and the way it felt. The follow-up question perplexed me. Penny asked, "Did you have any rules?"
I didn't really know what she meant. I just sat there confused for a moment and finally had to ask for clarification. She said, "Did you have any rules, things you were and weren't allowed to eat?"
I reflected on it in that therapy session, and I've reflected on it even more since, now that I have a better understanding of the things that I learned in therapy. (If you're puzzled and perplexed by the things you learn in therapy, even after therapy is done, don't lose hope--it takes time to absorb all of the cool knowledge we get there!) I didn't. At least not any major or conscious ones. It probably was one of the healthiest times of my life, because I don't remember thinking about food as something I had to manage as much as I did in other times of my life. I just ate. When I needed to, I ate. I remember having a pretty healthy and balanced diet. Very little extremes seemed to be happening at the time. And of course along with the good eating habits I had the activity from color guard, and that combination contributed to my body feeling pretty great all the time. There were no eating rules.
I learned how to eat at therapy the summer of 2018. It sounds dramatic, but it's true; I realized that summer that I really had not known how to eat for my whole life--or at least for the strong majority of it. That summer I learned the two major rules for eating that would lead to a happy and healthy me.
The first rule is that there can be absolutely no rules. I know it sounds so dumb and cliche, while simultaneously sounding out of the norm when talking about physical health, but this will be the most healthy eating rule you ever learn in your life. No eating rules allowed. None.
The second rule, which surely sounds crazy because I just said we can't have rules, is to eat a wide variety of things. Pairing this rule with the first puts the first eating rule a little more in context. When I say no eating rules, I mean you shouldn't put personal boundaries on what you aren't allowed to eat. (Like, keeping avoiding your food allergies, bros. I'm still not gonna eat avocado because I still get ill every time I do. Food restrictions for your own personal health reasons are allowed.) Have you quit eating sugar? Stop that! You need sugar! Don't put unnecessary limits on what you can and can't eat.
I hope this is making some semblance of sense. Let me elaborate a bit.
I don't remember if it was the same therapy session or not, but this was one that shook me to my core. My therapist was describing to me what normal and healthy hunger and eating is like. It is an entirely different world from what I was experiencing back then. She was talking about how frequently a body should feel hungry if it is eating normally (every two to three hours), and how periodically I should be eating full meals and snacks. At this point she described the variety in eating. She described different foods as parts of this eating habit. Different things I could eat as a snack. And then she said, "And for one day you could have a candy bar for a snack."
*cue brain explosion*
I was in absolute shock. This was a turning point for me. I could not believe it. Candy bars are unhealthy food--so you can't eat them, right?
Wrong. What is inherently wrong with a candy bar from time to time? Seriously, what? Nothing. It's okay to eat a wide variety of things.
When I realized that eating those things was okay, my entire life changed. I started looking at things so differently, and I started acting so differently. It is one of the things that helped me realize eating isn't a crime. It helped me start to branch out and put myself in less of a box.
As we continued our sessions, at the end of every meeting Penny would ask me about any other random eating thoughts I had. I would tell her what I was thinking and feeling at that time. And every response reinforced this idea.
"I've been feeling like I want to eat less oils lately," I'd say. " I feel like I've just been eating a lot of that and it makes me feel gross."
"I'm really glad you said you want to eat less and not that you want to stop eating it," she said. "It is perfectly fine to change your eating to make sure you are eating more balanced. But you don't want to restrict yourself from eating certain things."
I started using these rules as ways to figure out what I wanted to eat. When it was time for me to eat, I would think about what I had already eaten today. Okay, I've eaten a protein today and a fruit today. Maybe I can have a grain or a vegetable now. I would just think about what I had already eaten that day, and start thinking about what I could eat that wasn't one of those things. And when my mind fell across something I hadn't eaten yet that sounded good to my body, I would eat that. It was amazing.
So that's what I mean when I say there are no eating rules. The best way to eat is just listen to whatever your body is feeling at the time. Like in the above example: I felt like I was eating too much of one type of food, and my body didn't like it. I was starting to learn to listen, so I picked up on that. And ate less, not stopped eating it altogether. Whatever my body tells me do, I try to do it.
I know what you're thinking, because this is what people tell me so frequently when I bring up not having eating rules. "But Lizzo, if I didn't have eating rules and just ate whatever I felt like eating, I would just eat garbage all the time. I would never eat anything healthy." This is both true and false. I mean, as you learn to listen to your body this might be true initially. But if this is about listening to the way your body feels, this wouldn't be true forever. If you only eat high-sugar foods all day every day, you're going to get sick, and your body is going to demand you stop. It's going to demand you eat something else. As you learn to listen to how your body genuinely feels when you prepare to eat, you will eat what your body is really asking for. And sometimes that might be healthier foods and sometimes it might be unhealthier, but as long as you are listening to whatever your body is asking for in that moment, your body will be happy and healthy.

Here's the other thing I get all the time. If people are going on a no sugar diet or something similar, I'll tell them about how I don't have eating rules. And they'll laugh and tell me, "Well, Lizzo, you've been restricting your eating for years. I'm doing this because I've gone too long without eating rules!"
Woah, I didn't say no eating rules for just people that have had disordered eating issues. This is for everyone! Because it is based just on listening to the needs of your body. Have you been living without eating rules? Or have you internalized a culture that has convinced you eating is a sin? So maybe when you were eating what you want to (which remember is not inherently wrong), you were just feeling guilty about it because you thought you weren't supposed to. When there was actually nothing wrong.
I just want you all to know how loved and valuable you are. Particularly by me. The way I eat isn't special for me. I know it can be hard to wrap your mind around--trust me, I was there not long ago. But eating without rules is just normal eating. It just is. It is allowing yourself to just exist. Loves, you deserve to just exist. You deserve to not beat yourself up for being alive.
Thank you so much for being my strength as I've gone through all of these things in my life. I hope to be yours.
Feel free to ask any questions in the comments. Thanks and much love!