Nova: From counting calories to reading body cues, Hannah Hickinbotham explores the journey from disordered eating to food freedom. This is TEDxOrange.

Nova: I'd been on the dieting roller coaster for years, trying just about everything, and desperate to lose weight and quiet the noise in my head that kept me stuck in an endless loop of restricting and bingeing. It wasn't until I gave up dieting and learned how to eat more mindfully that I discovered food freedom and the peace I'd been seeking. I don't remember exactly when I began dieting. I think I was probably around 14 or so. Like many, I started gaining weight in puberty, and I was uncomfortable in my changing body. I compared myself to all the other girls and the images I saw in the media, and I felt like I didn't measure up. Then someone at school made a comment about my weight, and it confirmed my worst fears. I was fat. I was convinced that my life would be better if I were thin, so I went on my first diet, and it worked. I lost weight, and I got a lot of praise and positive feedback. I felt confident and in control, and I was hooked.

Nova: I kept dieting even after I'd lost the weight, terrified of gaining it back. Food and my body were constantly on my mind, and I was either on a diet or feeling guilty for not being on one. Diets gave me strict external rules and guidelines to follow. They told me what, when, and how much to eat, and they gave me the illusion of control. But the rules were unsustainable, and I would eventually break them. I'd eat something that wasn't on the plan, or I'd eat more than I was supposed to, and I'd feel like a failure. I'd tell myself that I'd blown it and I might as well eat everything in sight because I was going back on my diet tomorrow. This was the beginning of my binge eating. Then I'd feel terrible, both physically and emotionally, and I'd vow to do better, to be stricter, to follow the rules perfectly, and the cycle would start all over again. This went on for decades.

Nova: I was a successful professional, a competent mother of four, but I couldn't trust myself around food. I felt like I was living a double life, secretly eating in my car, hiding wrappers at the bottom of the trash, and feeling so much shame. I thought I just needed more willpower. I thought if I could just find the right diet, the perfect plan, then I would finally fix myself. I invested so much time, energy, and money into the pursuit of thinness, and any weight I lost, I always gained back plus more. Dieting was not only failing me, it was actually making things worse. Research shows that dieting is a consistent predictor of future weight gain, not weight loss. And for me, it was also causing me to binge eat. I was caught in a trap of my own making, and I didn't know how to get out.

Nova: Eventually, I hit a breaking point. I was exhausted from the constant mental chatter about food and my body. I was sick of the guilt and the shame. And I realized that trying to control my eating with external rules was never going to give me the peace I was looking for. I needed a completely different approach. That's when I discovered mindful eating. Instead of following external rules, mindful eating taught me to look inward and to reconnect with my body's internal cues of hunger, fullness, and satisfaction. It taught me to distinguish between physical hunger, the biological need for fuel, and emotional hunger, the desire to eat in response to feelings like stress, boredom, or sadness. And most importantly, it taught me to approach food and myself with curiosity and compassion instead of judgment.

Nova: Learning to eat mindfully felt like learning a new language, the language of my body. I had spent so many years overriding my internal signals to follow diet rules that I honestly couldn't tell if I was hungry or full. I had to start very simply. Before I ate, I would pause and ask myself, am I hungry? And I would try to notice the physical sensations in my body. Sometimes I wasn't sure, and I had to guess. I had to give myself permission to eat and just see what happened. And if I ate when I wasn't physically hungry, I practiced being curious instead of critical. What was I feeling? What did I really need in that moment? The answer was often a walk, a rest, or a conversation with a friend, not food. Over time, I got better at understanding what my body was telling me. I began to notice the subtle signs of gentle hunger and the pleasant feeling of comfortable fullness. I started to trust myself to eat when I was hungry and stop when I was full. And I practiced this over and over again, one meal, one snack at a time.

Nova: I also gave myself unconditional permission to eat all foods. This was terrifying at first. I was so used to labeling foods as good or bad. But I realized that restriction was what made forbidden foods so alluring. When food was no longer off-limits, it lost its power over me. I could have ice cream in the house and not be consumed by the thought of it. I could eat one cookie and stop because I knew I could have another one tomorrow. Food finally became just food, not a moral issue. The noise in my head quieted. The cycle of restricting and bingeing stopped. And I was able to relax around food for the first time in my life. I had found food freedom.

Nova: But the most profound change was not in how I ate, but in how I lived. All the mental energy I had been spending on dieting and obsessing about my body was suddenly available for the things that truly mattered to me: my relationships, my passions, my purpose. I had more space for joy and connection. If you are struggling with food, I want you to know that you are not broken. The system is. Our culture has taught us to distrust our bodies and to buy into a multi-billion dollar diet industry that profits from our repeated failures. What if you could step off the roller coaster? What if you could rediscover the intuitive eater you were born as? A child doesn't count calories. They eat when they're hungry and they stop when they're full. They can be trusted with their bodies, and you can too. Reconnecting with your body's wisdom is a radical act of self-care in a world that tells you that you can't be trusted. It's a journey of unlearning and coming home to yourself. And it's possible for you. Thank you.