I don't know if this is relevant to this blog, if not feel free to disregard.

(context I do not have and am not diagnosed with an eating disorder personally but I do have some unhealthy thoughts about food, exercise and body image I need to work out).

It was my birthday over this weekend and I've eaten a lot of sweet treats, this has gotten me anxious over the possibility I have gained weight, whilst I've been trying to push it away and allow myself to enjoy myself because it was my birthday, it still occasionally plays on my mind. So my question is do you have any advice on how to accept weight gain? How to deal with body image (especially the idea that I'll be better, more attractive or loved more in a smaller body)? And not to push myself to unhealthy degrees in order to lose weight

Thank you so much in advance

First of all, happy belated birthday! And thank you for sharing your experiences. I think that it's probably going to be an ongoing process for you to work out these feelings toward food and exercise. Unfortunately, we do live in a world where we are pushed to develop certain pathologies around these things, and it takes work to achieve a healthy equilibrium amid all that. I hope you stay patient with yourself as you learn and grow.

I'm happy to hear you were able to enjoy some treats on your birthday, even if it triggered a lot of stressful feelings afterward.

I think the most important thing to remember is that your body will not gain a significant amount of weight in one weekend. So whatever you're stressing about happening to your body, just bring yourself back to reality for one second - your body did not undergo any significant changes. You had a few treats and an enjoyable time - there's no emergency.

If you're overall engaging in intuitive eating - that is, generally giving your body what it needs, in the amount that it needs - your body is generally pretty good at regulating itself to stay at the size that is currently best for it. Note - that could be bigger, it could be smaller, but either way, no dramatic shifts will occur overnight. Many people find their bodies do experience gradual fluctuations, and that can be hard for them to accept. I'll get into that later, but the point is that these fluctuations do tend to be gradual. Drastic, sudden weight loss or gain is cause to seek medical attention for underlying causes, and there is no moral value attached to experiencing these.

But for most people, fluctuations are gradual and natural. And even these changes people find hard to accept! Change is scary! It feels so big and final, even when it's not the end at all, and we are constantly bombarded by messages that we can keep ourselves from experiencing this stress by preventing this change. I think the best things to do is to stand in front of the mirror and remind yourself that:

Drastic change will not come to your body through a few treats.

Gradual change, unlike drastic change, is inevitable. It WILL happen.

You are not alone in finding #2 hard and scary! That doesn't mean there's any moral circumstance attached to it. Your body WILL undergo various changes throughout your life regardless of how you live it.

Because these changes will tend to be gradual, you can breathe through them and accept them as they come, gradually. You can transition into new phases with intention and tell yourself it's okay to find it hard.

Acknowledge that there WILL be people who treat you differently as you change. Sometimes that'll be in a good way, sometimes not. Continually ask yourself what you need in order to help you see this treatment as a reflection of them, and not you. What do you need to do in order to separate your approval of your body from theirs?

I was gonna ask, are there any sources you used to research how Ha-Eun addresses Grace’s trauma around food insecurity? No worries if not! I know it might just be something you picked up professionally (I’m also a librarian and idk if this is true of your library but a lottttt of my patrons face food insecurity so we have lots of trainings about it). I faced a lot of food insecurity throughout my childhood and through undergrad, even more than I’d originally thought based on the definition Ha-Eun gave in the chapter tbh. I thought I was pretty normal (or at least functional), about food all things considered, but this chapter really resonated with me in a way that made me go “huh maybe I’m not as normal about food as I thought”. Because the way you depicted food insecurity felt a lot more related to me than other conversations I’ve had about food insecurity (like the trainings at work, for example) I thought maybe whatever resources you used to put together that depiction might speak to me as well :)

Don’t feel like you have to go out and do research for me, though, I’m also happy and willing and able to do some on my own :) so if you don’t have your resources on hand, no worries!

Thanks for writing and sharing this. It really unlocked something in me in a way that feels. Like. Bizarrely good considering it made me realize there’s something that deeply, deeply needs to be healed inside me. (It’s relief. That’s the feeling lol.)

You’re the best! I love you!

This is such a lovely ask to receive, I am so glad you sent it! I do hope that I can answer the question satisfactorily: there IS an answer, and it might not be exactly what people would expect.

Apart from the USDA and WHO and other major health organization definitions of food insecurity (which I re-worded slightly to what I think it might be expanded to in the future to be a little more holistic and inclusive and compassionate), there were two main sources that I ended up drawing from to write about what an experienced mental health professional who has dealt with an enormous amount of treating trauma responses to food insecurity might do to help Grace.

The first is something that I learned about during a college course on Fat Studies, which examined health and societal impacts of fatphobic biases in culture, including the near-ubiquitous restrictive diet culture that we live in, and how to counter that. We studied a practice called "Intuitive Eating", which goes alongside principles like Health At Every Size. Intuitive eating (which you can find more information on just by searching that term) involves things like decoding hunger, craving, and satiety cues and basically posits that our bodies know what they need us to eat and will tell us if we can learn to listen to those messages.

The other major source was actually websites that guide foster/adoptive parents on how to help and reassure kids who have experienced chronic food insecurity trauma once they get settled into a more stable environment. Humans are humans, and trauma is trauma, and though obviously different ages are affected by experiences in different ways, there isn't *really* that much of a difference between what a child needs to feel safe after major, sustained trauma and what an adult needs.

Hops gently onto my soapbox for a minute: I genuinely believe that most people in most cultures (speaking from my specific perspective in US culture, but also like, I know for a fact that we are NOT the only fatphobic/restrictive eating disorder aka "dieting" normalized culture on the planet lmao) have a broken relationship with food and pleasure and their bodies. If you ever feel "out of control" around food (usually food that society has labeled as "bad" like things with high fat or sugar contents), and ESPECIALLY if you grew up in a household where you were frequently denied those kinds of foods and/or if you deny them to yourself out of a fear of being "unhealthy" or gaining weight, I highly recommend looking into intuitive eating principles. At the most basic level, start by allowing yourself unrestricted access to a wide variety of foods (yes, including scary "unhealthy" foods that you're afraid you'll eat too much of--you probably will at first, and that's okay, your body will learn to self-limit once it stops being afraid of losing access to the food again), eating smaller meals and snacks more often, and checking in frequently with your body about hunger and satiety.

And a disclaimer/trying to get ahead of anybody who reads this and gets combative with me bc I didn't perfectly account for their exact situation: yes, many neurodivergent people struggle to interpret their bodily hunger/satiety cues and this makes it harder for them. No, I'm not suggesting you eat food that makes you feel sick and/or that you're allergic to (those dietary restrictions are not the restrictions I am talking about). Yes, I know that not everybody can afford to do this: that sucks and everyone *should* be able to, freedom from food insecurity should be a guaranteed human right. I don't want to hear about your magical restrictive diet plan that worked for you. I don't want to hear about how restricting "junk" food is good, actually. I don’t want to hear any remarks about how you would do this but you're afraid of gaining weight (idgaf, get fatter Now, it's literally fine to be fat).

Okay, hops off my soapbox (mostly). That got off topic. But it's something that is extremely important to me and that I don't talk about often but is definitely a major theme in The Chronicles of Terra's Grace. I hope these resources/discussion points helped! Wishing every person reading this (and particularly you, anon) a healing and fulfilling relationship with food. I love you, and you deserve to eat well.

CW: mentions of diet-adjacent topics, shame, and medical anxiety

I'm going to be very real for a moment here.

I have been trying to integrate my feedism and desire to gain weight, with my health, for a while now. I have had some health problems over the past year and those often trigger old shame and anxiety around my kink. This, in turn, often causes what I'd call a "mirror image of a dieting cycle": shame and feeling that maybe I should "cut back" > attempt to "eat more healthy" > that lasts for a moment > slowly erodes into anger at diet culture and purposeful disregard for any "diet advice". Tbh this is not a lot different from a typical diet cycle, it's just differently motivated.

Perhaps this scenario would be hot in a specific type of a feedist story, but it's not sustainable for me in the long run. I want to be able to integrate my kink into my life in a long-term, sustainable way. While health issues I could find hot in a fantasy to some degree, in real life, they cause bouts of medical anxiety and overall worsen my quality of life. (I think it's worth mentioning that A LOT of the stories you'll find on this blog are pure fantasy)

Disclaimer #1: I am not falling for the diet industry propaganda; I don't believe that *all* my health issues come from weight and diet. But I do think that stress brought by the cycle of shame contributes to them greatly. And if I can do something to make myself feel better, I will try.

Disclaimer #2: this is not an instruction on what everyone in this community is supposed to do. People have different bodies, genetic makeup, and also different goals. I'm talking only about myself and my own musings and decisions. Obviously.

Okay, so now we come to the conclusion: Intuitive Eating.

I've heard about it many times in the past - you will if you read anything fat-liberation adjacent - but I haven't had the opportunity to figure out how it's actually supposed to work. But I have recently read the pivotal book on the subject and I strongly believe that for me, easing myself into it could be the solution.

The breakdown of the Intuitive Eating principles can be found here - let them speak for themselves, they'll do it better than if I try to explain them.

Personally, the philosophy behind IE really fits into my personal drive behind feedism. Reaching wg goals is hot, but I never wanted for my own journey to become a mirror journey of a dieter - I never wanted to laboriously count calories or push my limits constantly. I also personally am not into pain, so even the painful stuffing aspect of feedism that is so important to many people hasn't been for me. I always wanted indulgence and comfort to be behind my personal wg journey, and I believe that IE, with an occasional overindulgence, could give me that. What I always wanted was a long, lifelong journey of slow weight gain - not a cycle of loss/gain, and not an extremely rapid gain.

Another disclaimer: just as the authors of the method emphasize that it was NOT made with weight loss in mind, it's also not made for weight gain. What they envision is a goal of mental and physical wellness, freedom from shame, freedom to enjoy food, which would naturally result in better health and in stable weight, whatever that weight may be. Hence, I still crave an occasional overindulgence and I believe this won't ruin the whole method :)

I am aware that I have a bit of a "feedist cheat sheet" for those 2 reasons:

I am taking testosterone. The principle of "honoring your hunger" is very easy when you're taking T. I'm hungry very often. In fact, probably the biggest challenge for me with IE will be "eat when you are moderately hungry, not ravenous". Because that can mean eating every 2 hours for me, and for irl reasons, I can't always do that ;))

I am genetically predisposed to fatness, also because of epigenetics (a history of food shortage or outright famine in my family history). Many members of my family, upon reaching a certain age, gained a considerable amount of weight - as in, "doubled the weight between 30 and 40 years of age". So gaining is easier for me than it would be for other people.

So yeah, I don't think everyone who applies this method will gain weight. Bodies are different.

I'm not sure if this post really has a neat conclusion - but I thought I'd share these musings in case someone in the community had similar dilemmas as I do, and hopefully it can help me let go of shame!

Your dad is making shit up!

The reason diabetics often find themselves craving carbs is because we're told we have to restrict them, and restriction causes cravings! Diabetics need carbs just as much as anyone else!

Your body doesnt trick you into feeling hungry. It makes you feel hungry because you need food. Type 2 diabetics often do gain weight around the onset of diabetes. We still don't know why, but trying to resist that weight gain will only exacerbate an ED.

There are resources for diabetics who want to be intuitive eaters. It's easy to find with a google search but I'll link something below too. But IE is not an ideal framework for people in ed recovery. We can get hung up on things like the gentle nutrition part, and end up just turning IE into new food rules that still keep us in the disordered eating mines. It's best to focus on recovery first, and incorporate IE when and if you feel pretty comfortable in your recovery.

Anyone with diabetes can benefit by finding things to add to our diets to help control our average blood sugar levels. I wrote a comic about it that I'll link before below, and check my diabetes tab for more posts about it. That means doing things like pairing proteins and fats with carbs. For example, if you like to snack on chocolate, try adding nuts to your snacking. Don't turn carb pairing into a new rule that must be followed: if you need to eat and you can't pair things in that moment, just eat. Not eating food is worse for diabetics than eating carbs.

I've also said this in other posts: diabetes is a progressive disease that won't go away, but you can treat it with meds. Eating disorders are an illness that you can recover from, but not with meds. The only way you heal from an ed is by eating food without restriction. So when it comes to deciding to eat to heal you ed, or to restrict in order to control your blood sugar, i will always choose healing my ed first. What you do is up to you. It's not the decion of your father or even your doctors (though I'd trust a doctor more than your dad).

Diabetes and IE:

Comic: https://www.tumblr.com/enbywerewolf/685624759399137280/collecting-my-diabetes-comic-into-two-convenient?source=share

More on carb pairing: