Choosing My Language Carefully: Uprooting Social Stigma
I never imagined speaking up so publicly about my weight. Understanding myself in new ways makes that possible. Check out my social media reel, linked below for a short overview of this blog entry.
Language Matters: Choosing How to Speak about My Hunger Drive
My story centers around drilling into a deep understanding of my hunger drive, so I could lose more than half my weight – a number well into triple digits.
I frequently talk about my hunger drive and the way hunger works in me. I have deliberately chosen these wordings to help me speak as I break my silence about transforming my shadows around weight.
As a former English teacher, I am a lover of language, and I needed to find a way to speak about weight — a topic that I have been silent about my whole life. I have talked to enough people to know I am not alone in that silence.
The language that I use matters, and I have noticed that people react to my terminology: sometimes with surprise, sometimes with uncertainty, sometimes with confusion.
I like using the term “my hunger drive” and the phrase “the way hunger works in me.” Both of these choices serve ways that help me speak about something that has defined my daily thoughts yet I have had few meaningful conversations about — until the past few months.
Uprooting Societal Messages
My language represents important mindset shifts that help me uproot societal messages around health and weight. I am better able to depersonalize myself from what society has told me is an issue of my mind, which I understand to be a physical process in my body.
Mainstream media often stigmatizes people who struggle with their weight, blaming them for their personal shortcomings, mental shortcomings, personality flaws, and moral flaws. I have heard these messages loud and clear — and even though I fought against them, they make a difference.
Such messages feel deeply personal and can be painful, causing feelings of guilt, shame, blame around weight and hunger. Talking about my hunger drive and the way hunger works in me helps me separate and depersonalize myself from these messages.
Hunger Is a Physical Process in the Body
Now, I see my hunger drive for what it is: a human survival instinct, shaped by my genetics and biology, a physical process in my body.
For much of my life, I have thought that weight must be genetic, but I also doubted that idea, was even afraid to accept it, because I did not understand why. And, that may be the case with others, too.
An easy way into understanding the genetics is this simplistic layperson summary: we have different types of receptors in our bodies, such as nutrient receptors and stretch receptors (and others), which impact how we crave foods and how much of these foods we eat.
I can feel how these work in my body. A nutrient-dense lifestyle helps override my hunger drive — my needs around nutrient density seem high, even in the plant-based world. This is why I work to have a wide range of healthy plants every day, especially vegetables (a significantly higher number than recommended by mainstream healthy living).
Because I am a volume eater, I need to also make sure I get enough low-calorie fiber to satisfy the stretch receptors for what I now understand to be a preprogramed daily amount of food that I need to eat.
These are simplistic explanations that have helped me significantly. But, these are also why I can speak up, why I can go public. I have experimented with them over the past few years, and I know their truths in my body.
For the first time in my life, I always have a clear action plan around my weight.
I Was Not Broken, and I Am Not Fixed
Understanding my hunger drive as a physical process makes honesty easier, to name my shadows of binge eating and volume eating. Understanding myself around these topics has been transformative.
Both binge eating and volume eating have significant social stigma attached to them and are often seen in society as mental shortcomings, personal flaws, even moral issues. People who struggle are scapegoats as individuals for what is inborn in them.
As I have talked to more and more people about their own challenges around weight and weight loss, I see that others, too, are impacted by these social stigmas as well.
There should be no shame associated with naming a struggle that is a physical process in the body.
The fact is that certain foods, especially processed ones, trigger binge eating in me.
The fact is that I am a volume eater, which means I need more low-calorie density foods.
This is advice that I first used in Episode 1 of Eat When Hungry, my Signature Series with Dr. Doug Lisle.
I continue to share this advice because I believe it helps set people up for success in a challenging but deeply worthwhile journey.
Dr. Lisle and I have done two episodes of Eat When Hungry, and they are posted online. Episode 3 will be released in November.
These are truths that I know in my life, and they should not be shameful to say.
My hunger drive works when I avoid certain foods and replace them with others: understanding this is of the most empowering and liberating insights of my life.
There are many things that are hard in life, and saying these things about my hunger drive should not be hard. Yet, sometimes, society makes it hard to do just that.
Taking My Own Advice
Being honest about the role of binge eating in my life was a challenging first step that eventually became a source of personal empowerment.
I had to practice saying it, first to myself, then to others, and now I am going wide and far. I have gained more than I have lost by being honest — even if it raises eyebrows and goes against the societal grain.
Once I am honest, then I can then be more curious about how hunger works in me. This curiosity has been important in my learning; there is a lot to learn in a plant-based journey — one step at a time, over time.
Learning the whys of my hunger drive gives clarity to the practical ways I take care of it. I avoid processed foods, salt, oil, and sugar, and I eat whole plants.
All this helps me find my power and approach healthy living from a more positive position of personal agency and strength, to transform shadows.
If you are struggling with making healthy choices, centering wellness, and/or weight, I hope that you can find your own power to be the hero of your own journey.
Cheers to you in your journey, wherever you are going.
