Has diet culture kept you from making real Food Peace™? Did you think you were making progress, only to find yourself struggling again? Listen now to hear a letter from someone struggling with the same thing, and get my take on how to overcome this part of the Food Peace™ journey. Subscribe and leave a review here in just seconds. This episode is brought to you by my online course, Your Step-by-Step Guide to PCOS and Food Peace™. Sign up now to get on the waitlist for the next enrollment period in later this month, and receive my FREE road map: Your First 3 Steps Toward Food Peace™ with PCOS. You CAN make peace with food even with PCOS and I want to show you how. Product links may be affiliate. If you click and make a purchase, there's no extra cost to you. Episode's Key Points: We live in a world suffering from it’s own eating disorder! Diet culture has infiltrated our society, and the majority of us suffer because of it. Intuitive eating is a super important step in the food peace journey! There’s lots of research out there now that illustrates how intuitive eating promotes health. Cultural fatphobia: you’re only acceptable if your body stays acceptable. If your body doesn’t get enough food (which is what happens when a family member restricts our access to it), we feel deprived, and we respond by bingeing and hoarding food. When we give ourselves permission to embrace food in whatever way we need to, we open the door for food peace and remove the threat of deprivation enough to be mindful about our needs. We as human beings yearn for acceptance… and that’s one of the reasons we are so vulnerable to diets! They promise us that when we lose weight, we’ll finally fit in and be accepted. But this isn’t true! Not only will diets not give you lasting weight loss, but they also won’t give you lasting happiness. Trauma can have a huge impact on our food peace journey, so be sure to honor that. Know that making peace and “letting yourself go” with food DOESN’T mean you’re giving up… it means you’re letting yourself be. Our relationship with food isn’t health or unhealthy… things aren’t so black and white! The way we relate to food is COMPLEX!! What would happen if we accepted our bingeing behaviors? Food is meant to be pleasurable and comforting! Unfortunately we often demonize that part of our relationship with food, but that really isn’t fair. Can we honor the ways food comforts us? Bingeing is just a way our body lets us know that there’s an unmet need… and the bingeing helps us! It helps us stay alive, it helps comfort us, and it helps us survive. It’s important to challenge beauty ideals and call out diet culture and oppression. Seek out support on social media to help you on that journey! You deserve happiness in the skin you’re in today! Show Notes: Julie Dillon RD blog Link to subscribe to the weekly FREE Food Peace™ Newsletter. It is sent out every Tuesday morning. By signing up, I will also send you Love Food's Food Peace™ Syllabus. Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch, IntuitiveEating.org, and the 10 Principles of Intuitive Eating Summer Innanen Love, Food Podcast Episode 20 @bodyposipanda AKA Megan Jayne Crabbe ---> This week's Food Peace Syllabus addition Eating Disorder Dietitians can help your Food Peace™ journey. Get access to one near you here. Do you have a complicated relationship with food? I want to help! Send your Dear Food letter to LoveFoodPodcast@gmail.com.  Click here to leave me a review in iTunes and subscribe. This type of kindness helps the show continue! Thank you for listening to the Love, Food series.