“Don’t expect much, then you can’t be disappointed.” Have you ever been told this? I used to hear this all the time when I was younger. Yes, I get it – setting unrealistically high expectations of yourself, and others etc. can only lead to disappointment. But never having any expectations is also unrealistic. Many of our expectations are unconscious thoughts – we didn’t put them there deliberately. Going through a process such as Intuitive Eating means doing a lot of work on yourself and along with that, it’s necessary to manage expectations. This article takes a closer look at expectations and how they have the potential to disrupt the Intuitive Eating process.
What is an expectation?
There are a few different definitions of an expectation. The Cambridge English Dictionary1 defines an expectation as:
- “the feeling of expecting something to happen”
Or:
- “the feeling or belief that something will or should happen”
Certain small expectations based on culture/tradition will always be there and be likely to happen, for example, you could realistically expect trick or treaters to knock on your door at Halloween or expect the supermarkets (in the UK) to be stocked with chocolate eggs in the run up to Easter. These expectations do not have the potential to cause harm. However, the personal expectations which we place upon ourselves could be doing more harm than good.
Personal expectations
It’s very unlikely that anybody wouldn’t have a single expectation of themselves. We all have our own morals and personal beliefs, and expectations are going to come from them. With the strong presence of diet culture in our society, it’s not surprising that many people’s personal beliefs will come off the back of diet culture. Diet culture could breed expectations such as:
- Being capable of losing weight within a certain timeframe
- Losing weight will solve all my problems and make me happy
- I have a higher weight therefore I can’t be healthy
- If I’m not a certain thinner size, I’ll be a failure
Placing these expectations can lead to a vicious, negative cycle of dieting and never believing that you’re good enough. Going back to the source of the expectations and addressing them is the real key to moving on and getting out of the dieting cycle. If you never get rid of an expectation, you’ll never be able to truly move on.
Starting Intuitive Eating
The decision to start Intuitive Eating can be the hardest part. Anybody starting this process is likely to have a history of yo-yo dieting and a strong urge to want to lose weight. That strong urge to lose weight is not going to magically disappear just because you’ve decided to give up dieting. This is understandable – if you’ve been on and off dieting for decades, fuelled by the strong belief that you need to lose weight (to be healthy / to fit in etc.) that belief is going to take a while to die down. This is ok, but it’s important to manage expectations at the beginning, to stop them having a negative impact.
Weight loss
The biggest expectation to manage is do to with weight. Most people trying out Intuitive Eating, have come from a history of striving after weight loss. This is something which is very hard to let go of, as the urge to want to lose weight can be so deep-rooted. Intuitive Eating is nothing to do with weight – therefore it cannot be predicted what will happen to the body throughout this process, as it’s different for everyone. The problem is, if you go into intuitive eating with an expectation that you will lose weight, it means your focus is still on weight which will disrupt the process and you’ll struggle to be able to tune in with your natural hunger signals. I don’t have an expectation of my clients to just be able to stop striving for weight loss. But what I will ask is that weight loss gets put on the back burner for the moment. It’s ok that it’s still there in the back of your mind but put the focus into the Intuitive Eating principles and be open-minded as to where they might lead you.
Linear thinking
Another expectation is that Intuitive Eating is a linear process, by which the 10 principles are followed like a plan, and hey presto – you’re an intuitive eater! Unfortunately, it’s just not quite that straightforward. Being an intuitive eater is a way of being/thinking/feeling and you have to be open to challenging all your previous beliefs to be able to get there. The Intuitive Eating principles can be approached in any order (with the exception of gentle nutrition) and you might need to spend longer on some than others, or keep repeating exercises until you get them. This is totally fine as you can’t fail intuitive eating, it’s all a learning process. The danger is that if you approach it with the expectation that you’ll find it easy and view having to repeat steps as failing (like when on a diet) – it could have the potential to throw you off the process and give up. By managing this expectation at the beginning and viewing everything as a learning experience, it sets you up with an open mind and the ability to not get thrown off as easily.
Fear of overeating
The next expectation is a common belief about Intuitive Eating which puts many off from attempting it in the first place. This is the expectation that by allowing themselves unconditional permission to eat, that they’ll either only ever eat one type of food, or that they’ll never be able to stop eating. This is understandable as common experiences of yo-yo dieters include bingeing on forbidden foods. However, in these cases it was the dieting which was the problem as the action of telling yourself you aren’t allowed a particular food or any more calories in a day – leads to craving more food and a potential binge episode. As an intuitive eater, there are no forbidden foods, which means that all foods are viewed on the same level. If you let yourself eat something which you’ve been restricting, you will eventually get sick of it. Our bodies crave variety and if all you ate was chocolate, you’d get to the point where you’d never want to look at it again. It’d be the same if you just ate carrots, or bread etc. By dropping the expectation (rooted from fear) that you’ll never stop eating, it allows you to embrace the process and not be put off before you’ve even started.
Timeframe
Finally, expectations need to be managed around time. Many expectations in life are based around timeframes, for example, your boss might expect you to finish a piece of work within a certain timeframe, or you might expect to lose a certain amount of weight within a timeframe set out by a diet company and their false promises. With intuitive eating, there’s no timeframe. There’s no set point by which if you aren’t quite there yet, it means you’ve failed. Everybody has come from different levels of diet culture beliefs, which have to be unravelled. Therefore, you can’t expect yourself to be an intuitive eater by x day. It just gradually happens – for example, suddenly you’ll realise that you’re eating something without any guilt, or that you’ve put half of the food back as you’re feeling full.
Are you ready to re-adjust your expectations?
Managing expectations is more important than you may have realised. It’s the same in many situations in life. You may not have realised that certain expectations may be what’s holding you back. By having an open mind and putting certain beliefs on the back burner, you are giving yourself the key to move forward on a smoother journey.
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References
- Cambridge Dictionary (2021). Expectation. Available from: EXPECTATION | meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionary (Accessed 2nd November 2021).
