'I'm a fat nutritionist. Here's what I want you to know.'

I’ve always struggled with my weight. I use the word struggle because society tells us we shouldn’t be in larger bodies.

Growing up only seeing slim models and actresses, I truly believed there was no way anyone could love me in my size 16-20 body. I thought size 8 was normal, beautiful, and the only size that was acceptable.

In my twenties the body positivity movement piqued my interest, and I was shocked when I learned how many women were unhappy with their bodies. By that time I had lost an insane amount of weight (calorie counting, starving, over-exercising, and obsessing over how to cheat the calorie system), and I looked at what I thought were gorgeous women, and I couldn’t understand how they saw slightly jiggly thighs or a finger of loose skin as disgusting. 

Myself, on the other hand... I had loads of loose skin, a tummy flap, chunky thighs, and jiggly bingo arms so I deserved to not love my body, and felt I needed to change. Yes, I completely misunderstood the assignment.

Watch: 57 per cent of girls compare themselves to other people on social media. Story continues after video.

Flash forward to now and I’ve got my nutrition and psychology degree, embraced Intuitive Eating and Health at Every Size (HAES), and advocate being at peace with yourself. Incidentally, I’ve also put on about 30 kgs.

Do you believe someone overweight can be healthy? Because I do. Science is slowly coming around, too, with studies showing it's healthy behaviours that lead to improved health outcomes, rather than weight. 

That doesn’t mean I don’t suffer from weight stigma and fatphobia, something I have to deal with every day. I drink water, I walk, I do yoga, I get enough sleep, I eat fruit and veg; and yet I remain fat. I feel like a broken record at times - going through the motions, wanting to lose a little weight to get into a smaller size, hating my body, bingeing, remembering intuitive eating and HAES, feeling like a failure, remembering self-kindness, trying to love my body again. It’s exhausting!

It’s one thing to believe in an idea, it’s another to put it into practice. Intuitive Eating (IE) teaches self-compassion, because we all make mistakes. It says that any and every mistake along your IE journey is to be forgiven and used as a learning experience. Or at least absolved of guilt. So I try yet again.

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One thing I never regret is coaching my clients from a strength-based approach. I get clients from all walks of life, some wanting to lose weight, improve fitness, learn how to manage intolerances or medical conditions, or simply preferring the structure of meal plans. All of them deserve kindness and deserve to love themselves as they are. 

It's a special type of hypocrisy, treating my clients with gentleness and being hard on myself. But then, every day we learn and we try to do better.

The "perfect diet" doesn’t exist - the perfect diet is one that you can stick to. So by definition, the nutritional content doesn't have to be perfect but your ability stick to it will be. And that goes for our bodies, too: the perfect body does not exist. If it did, it would require waaaayyy too much upkeep, so much so that it wouldn’t be sustainable. Therefore, the perfect body is the one you already have. See what I did there?

Respect your body whether it’s fat, thin, lumpy, smooth, short, tall, with bits missing or additional bits. Respect your body by eating mainly nutritional food. Respect your body by eating things that give you pleasure, too.

Image: Supplied.

Move in a way that you love; smile and laugh and dance and have sex. Be silly and be the real you. You deserve to feel f**king awesome just as you are.

Yvette Jones is a nutritionist who champions Intuitive Eating and body acceptance. She loves cooking, hiking, pretty clothes and wasting time on YouTube. You can follow her on Instagram here.

Feature Image: Supplied.