practice intuitive eating

Had string cheese around dinner time today and then didn’t eat dinner cuz I wasn’t hungry. Last night I ate cheese and crackers at dinner time while working, so no real dinner. When I woke up in the middle of the night I was hungry so I had a banana. Now I’m not hungry but a candy bar sounds good and I don’t eat much sweets anymore so I’m gonna go ahead and have a candy bar :)

Ok maybe I haven’t been eating quite enough. I’ll work on that a little better tomorrow.

It’s hard to do this in my house because my husband really values making dinner for everyone. But he is willing to deal with it because he values me not having an eating disorder even more. Eventually I hope to get to point where we can have normal dinners but I’m still doing intutive eating.

This is not a huge goal for me right now. Most of my other goals are more important, but it’s still nice to do good on this one too.

I read the book a few years ago and it worked great. At some point along the way, I fell off the wagon now I need to re-read and start living it again.

Sometimes I don’t trust myself to make healthy decisions about eating, and I am sorely tempted to go back to counting calories, just to take off a few more pounds. That worked for me in the past, after all. But I know that that isn’t sustainable, and I need to heal my relationship with food and create healthy habits that will last a lifetime. I need to be able to trust myself and my understanding of my body and its needs, rather than relying on an arbitrary external system to tell me what I need.

I have finished reading the book, and I think my next step will be to more consistently ask myself how hungry I am, so I can become more intimately familiar with my body’s hunger signals and won’t get sideswiped by hunger that seems to come out of nowhere like a tsunami.

They often go something like this:
“So I know I can have as many Christmas cookies as I want, whenever I want, and there’s no reason to feel bad about enjoying delicious Christmas cookies. That said, is this cookie right here what I really desire right now? And if I’m not sure… well, evidence seems to indicate that there will be plenty of Christmas cookies around later too. I can always have one then.”

I’m still not self-aware enough to do this every time. Sometimes mindless gobbling still happens. But I feel really good about where this is taking me. It seems like a more sustainable relationship with food that I will be able to rely on for the rest of my life.

All this and I haven’t even read the whole book yet!

(though I admit I haven’t finished the book yet either)
I have been doing a lot of emotional eating to medicate stress and anxiety. I guess my job right now is not to judge or try to stop the emotional eating through force of will, but just to observe and learn about my eating patterns.

Since reading the book I have become a lot more aware of feelings of scarcity I have around food, and the way I often overeat because I am anxious about not having enough. I don’t know where that comes from but I feel like that’s something I can heal, with time.

I had to return the book to the library, and because of careful budgeting (thanks, Deni!) I decided not to buy it. So, equipped with only part of the theory (Reject the diet mentality: damn straight! Honor your hunger: hell yeah!) and not the part that certainly will help with establishing a sustainable rhythm, I find myself eating more sweets. Actually, I am probably eating about the same amount of sweets, but feeling less guilty about it. And when I do overindulge, I am not skipping dinner or compensating in some unhealthy way.

So, in the interest of getting a more complete picture of this theory, I have the book on hold again at the library.

If I don’t judge my health and fitness success by the number on the scale, how do I measure it? If I don’t know for certain that I have lost weight (or at least kept off the weight I previously lost), how do I know whether to feel good about myself? Whether to strut my stuff in my shortest skirt or slink around apologetically in something baggy?

I know this is all ridiculous, and I am exaggerating a little about how I feel. So making changes in this area is bringing up some feelings for me. I’m taking that as a good sign. I’m sure they were there all along, but I didn’t notice them until now. I truly hope my seemingly-healthy body image isn’t so fragile that it needs constant reassurance in the form of numbers on a scale.

I trust that eventually I will find my way to a pattern of eating that feels good and is good for me, but right now I am in an in-between place and that’s a little scary.

That’s what I usually have for breakfast. My backup: instant oatmeal, kept in the drawer of my desk at work. But on the way to work I couldn’t get the thought of an almond croissant out of my head. I really wanted an almond croissant. With the tasty filling and powdered sugar on top. So I went to 4 different coffee shops until I found exactly what I wanted. Mmmmm! It was so good!

I honestly feel like honoring my craving helped me eat in a more healthy way the rest of the day. Did I go in a sugar frenzy and buy some crappy cookies out of the vending machine later in the day like I often do (even though not only are they empty calories and fat, but they don’t even taste especially good)? No! Did I raid the candy dishes around the office in a systematic way until all the free chocolate I could get my hands on was gone? No! Did I overeat at dinner? No, I stopped when I was full and sipped my tea.

Certainly I need more practice communicating with my body and interpreting its signals. I think dinner was too late last night; I have a stomach ache this morning. But I am pleased with these steps in this direction, even if they may add up to more calories and fat for a few weeks or months while I am learning.