I’m absolutely loving learning all about glimmers at the moment, it feels warm and fuzzy to explore them and understand more about these sparkly little friends that can have such a huge impact on our wellbeing.

Glimmers are tiny moments, experiences or thought seeds that fill our cup, make us feel safe and oppose triggers, more about triggers in a sec, but I’m curious if you’ve heard of nutrition glimmers?

Nutrition glimmers are those tiny moments, experiences, and thought seeds that pop up in relation to nourishing ourselves. The little sparks that help pull it all together.

Nourishing our bodies with food is basic self-care. In essence of the words “caring for self”, food and eating is one of our very basic human needs yet no one can seem to agree on how to do it.

For many of us, nutrition has become incredibly confusing, contradictory and can activate that drive to fix our ‘broken’ body. When something so complex and wonderful as the human body, and as delicious, beneficial and nuanced as food, is boiled down by diet culture to one size fits all, BMI, calories and nutrients, of course things can go a little haywire.

Triggers are often a nervous system response to trauma. Remembering with trauma, it’s not the actual event that causes problems, it’s what happens in our body as a result of that event. That’s why not everyone will experience trauma in the same way.

Food and body trauma is very real and like all types of trauma, it becomes part of who we are.

It’s why when I think of Cameron Shephard calling me Fatty Miller for all those primary school years, my heart rate increases and my palms get sweaty. That trauma is lodged in my amygdalya where it has been since 1989. More on that another day.

You may have never thought about food and body trauma before, but I bet if you have a history of dieting, a difficult relationship with food, or you happen to live in a body that doesn’t meet western beauty standards, you hold some trauma of your own.

A beautiful client told me recently about how it felt, as a 8yr old watching her little sister be given chocolate easter eggs when she got plastic ones because her body was too big. This memory comes to revisit her often, bringing an empty achy feeling with it. That’s food and body trauma.

Another spectacular client shared how their parent, heavily steeped in diet culture put a padlock on the fridge growing up because they were told they couldn’t be trusted around food. Fun foods were strictly reserved for holidays and birthdays only, except of course the ones eaten on mass in secret. That’s food and body trauma.

I’ve explored countless stories with my clients involving food and body trauma over the years. About their food insecurity as a child, about being ‘gifted’ fat camp for their 13th birthday present. About their drug and alcohol dependence that developed following bariatric surgery, about their husband leaving because he didn’t like her post-partum body, about how much praise they received by medical professionals for their unintentional weight loss during chemotherapy and about how they were denied fertility treatment because of their BMI.

This is all food and body trauma. It encourages us to disconnect from ourselves. It’s hard to tune in to what our bodies need when we have spent so long tuning out. It’s understandable to tune out when your body doesn’t feel like a safe place to be.

All of those food rules we carry in from the diet graveyard- the nutrition shoulds and should ‘nots’ that seem to change at every turn, portion size, cheat meals, calories, macros, it never ends. Not to mention the casual diet talk, commiserating over the size of our thighs, or the mental gymnastics of whether we have the body for that outfit. Then, we have the ‘war on obesity’ to content with.

How are any of us expected to have a peaceful and nourishing relationship with food and our body?

ENTER NUTRITION GLIMMERS.

Glimmers are based on a little bit of neurobiology, a little bit of intuition, and a little bit of intention.

Yes, glimmers randomly pop up in our day, (your reminder from the universe that it has your back) AND what’s super cool is we can also call in nutrition glimmers.

Let’s not forget nutrition glimmers help our body feel safe and fed so we can play and work and laugh and travel and swim and repair and grow. So we can go live our one crazy beautiful life.

When we have been engaging in restrictive dieting, our brains get han-gry. A starved brain is an anxious brain. Which makes sense right, she desperately searching for food.

Sure we can willpower it out for a little while. Sure we can ‘trick’ our appetite by drinking water or chewing gum. Sure we can swap rice or pasta for cauliflower or z-oodles, but our bodies know.

To bring calm and peace to these brains of ours, we don’t need to cut out gluten or dairy or sugar.

We need to eat. We need to eat a lot (like a lot) and we need to eat regularly. We kind of need to do the opposite of what influencers tell us to do on social media.

Nutrition glimmers will be different for all of us but might include some of the following;

Feeling satisfied after a meal
A gentle structure/plan for your day or your week so you have some food prepared/available.
Increasing stamina, strength or speed when you fuel appropriately.
Eating regularly and consistently throughout the day
Mindfully/peacefully/embodied eating of previously forbidden foods
Experiencing how much less chaotic you feel around food when you are not restricting/dieting/fasting.
Choosing and allowing yourself to eat and be comforted by food.
Choosing not to eat the comfort food, and instead filling the void of what you’re really hungry for.
Choosing a meal/snack based off preference, taste, pleasure or satisfaction over energy or nutrients.
Sharing a meal with your favourite person
Prioritising sleep and rest which impact appetite
Honouring your hunger
Getting ice cream with your kids on a hot day
Eating the rainbow
Using interoceptive awareness (your internal GPS) to guide your meal choice
Trying some new recipes to mix things up OR eating spag bol every Monday because it’s spaghetti night.
Forgetting about the ice cream in the freezer because it’s just not that exciting anymore. It’s there if you want it.

I very much believe in nurturing positive and peaceful relationships with food and body not only for my clients, but also in my own home. My approach to nutrition as an accredited practicing dietitian specialising in Intuitive Eating is to support clients to focus on all the things nutrition gives them, and how it can be a tool rather than a weapon for their health.

What foods can we crowd into our day, our week our month to give thanks to this incredible body? Do I have some nutritional gaps that could be filled? If this body could ask for anything, what would it be?

After studying nutrition science in depth and looking at the evidence we have about nutrition and weight and health, it’s crystal clear there is no one right way to eat. Your experience of food and body is a much more useful tool than anything I could teach you about it.

You my darling will always be the expert in your body, I’m just here to help navigate. We’re all about the glimmers here at Firefly Nutrition, providing a little light in the dark world of diet culture.

What are some of your nutrition glimmers? I’d love you to share some glimmery love with me!

How NUTRITION GLIMMERS ILLUMINATE THE PATH TO WELL-BEING.

ENTER NUTRITION GLIMMERS.