clean eating

To him, perhaps, my fat feminine body was acceptable to sexualize. I can’t say I learned a foolproof way of avoiding going on a date with a clean eater.

Eating disorder recovery isn’t magic — at least, not at first. It’s so normal for your brain to try and justify adopting another rule-ridden lifestyle.

I would wonder if others saw me as “super healthy” or as a “fit chick” — or if they had those thoughts at all. I was constantly consumed with every minute detail of my lifestyle, wondering if it was going to take me closer or further away from my ideal body.

[CN: eating disorders, thinspo] It’s easy to disguise disordered eating when it's become standard to mask a binge as a “cheat meal,” orthorexia as a “lifestyle,” and exercise addiction as “beast mode.”

I am NOT saying that clean eating in and of itself is bad. I am saying that clean eating becomes bad when people confuse morality with it… which they often do: “I’m good if I eat 'clean' and I’m bad if I don’t.”

In an interview last week for The Cut, Bernadette Peters made some absurd statements about how she eats to stay in shape. “It turns out there's no shortcut,” The Cut notes, “just a lifetime of exercise and extremely healthy eating” — except if you keep reading, you’ll see this relationship with food doesn’t sound healthy at all.

“Lately, I’ve gone back to coffee,” the two-time Tony-winning actress begins the interview, as if she’s admitting to a heroin relapse. She goes on to share that her typical breakfast consists of “three little smiles” of grapefruit and a spoonful of hemp powder.

This — which is all of about 50 calories — is fuel for a morning trip to the gym.

If you’re looking for a health and wellness guru, look no further than Ani Phyo.