Intuitive Eating...and the process of doing it...reminds me of a rubber band. There is the same elasticity. And for me the concept of hunger and satiety is a bit like a rubber band too. It is flexible...it changes day to day.
There are days I am comfortable being a little on the edge of hungry most of the day. There are other days that I want to feel the comfortable warm sensation of satisfaction. I want hunger to be soft, and short lived, not edgy and ragged. It isn't that being on the edge of hungry is better than being satisfied or that it is worse. It is that it is different. The beauty is being able to accept the elacticity of it...being able to accept that it is okay to want a softer, fuller feeling some days and to be comfortable with a more edgy feeling just on the edge of hunger some days.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Saturday, November 24, 2007
It Just Feels Good
I've been away for a few days, visiting family for Thanksgiving. While I was away I did not focus very much on eating when I was hungry or stopping when I was satisfied. Though there have been many Thanksgivings when I have maintained an iron grip focus on hunger and satiety and I have managed to eat in accordance this year I decided not to focus for these few days...instead to enjoy family, to enjoy a much needed break from work.
Though my eating was far from clean, and though I may gain a pound or two as a result I am happy with my choice. Eating when we aren't hungry is something that normal eaters do from time to time. They do not ALWAYS eat when they are hungry and stop when they are satisfied. Sometimes they enjoy eating socially, when they are not particularly hungry. Sometimes they gain a pound or two from their social eating. They don't get wacky and worry that they are going to go crazy and never stop eating. They know that they will return to what is normal for them.
For me one of the crucial tenents of successful intuitive eating is trusting myself. I need to trust that if I relax for a day or two and do not focus as tightly on hunger and satiety as I normally do, that I will not go off the deep end and forsake intuitive eating in favor of unrestrained eating.
What I have learned is that I looked forward to the return to what has become normal to me. Though I enjoyed the freedom of not checking in with myself and not trying to schedule my eating around everyone else's schedule for the past four days I am happy to be back to listening for hunger and satiety and eating in harmony with my body's signals.
Eating in harmony with hunger and satiety just feels good.
Though my eating was far from clean, and though I may gain a pound or two as a result I am happy with my choice. Eating when we aren't hungry is something that normal eaters do from time to time. They do not ALWAYS eat when they are hungry and stop when they are satisfied. Sometimes they enjoy eating socially, when they are not particularly hungry. Sometimes they gain a pound or two from their social eating. They don't get wacky and worry that they are going to go crazy and never stop eating. They know that they will return to what is normal for them.
For me one of the crucial tenents of successful intuitive eating is trusting myself. I need to trust that if I relax for a day or two and do not focus as tightly on hunger and satiety as I normally do, that I will not go off the deep end and forsake intuitive eating in favor of unrestrained eating.
What I have learned is that I looked forward to the return to what has become normal to me. Though I enjoyed the freedom of not checking in with myself and not trying to schedule my eating around everyone else's schedule for the past four days I am happy to be back to listening for hunger and satiety and eating in harmony with my body's signals.
Eating in harmony with hunger and satiety just feels good.
Monday, November 19, 2007
More on Enoughness
A bit more on Enoughness....because it is a big issue for me...
One of the things I have found over time is that if I listen carefully, a lot of the time the things that are food issues are also echoed in other areas of life. Yes, I have issues around enoughness with food...but I also have them around other things...the biggest one right now is that there is never enough time to do everything I would like to do and that makes me feel squished, closed in, claustraphobic sometimes. What I think I have been learning the past few weeks is that it isn't so much about what I have or don't have...it is about my attitude toward myself and what I have that makes the difference. A few weeks ago I was stressing about work...I work very long hours...and still there are always dozens of things I would like to do...and I am always finding myself limited by the lack of time to do them.
I think sometimes it isn't about taking a class and learning to manage time better, it is about learning to give ourselves space and time. It's about not driving ourselves nuts with all the tasks we didn't get done but giving ourselves a pat on the back for the ones we did accomplish.
One of the things I have found over time is that if I listen carefully, a lot of the time the things that are food issues are also echoed in other areas of life. Yes, I have issues around enoughness with food...but I also have them around other things...the biggest one right now is that there is never enough time to do everything I would like to do and that makes me feel squished, closed in, claustraphobic sometimes. What I think I have been learning the past few weeks is that it isn't so much about what I have or don't have...it is about my attitude toward myself and what I have that makes the difference. A few weeks ago I was stressing about work...I work very long hours...and still there are always dozens of things I would like to do...and I am always finding myself limited by the lack of time to do them.
I think sometimes it isn't about taking a class and learning to manage time better, it is about learning to give ourselves space and time. It's about not driving ourselves nuts with all the tasks we didn't get done but giving ourselves a pat on the back for the ones we did accomplish.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Holidays -- A Time for Triggers
I've been having difficulty the past couple of days with stopping when I'm satisfied...or even judging how much to cook to begin with. There has been a little devil on my shoulder urging me to cut up a bit more bacon to put into the scrambled eggs...and add another egg or two too...and more toast.... I haven't done the out of control quickly bingeing that I have sometimes been known to do...but I have been eating more than I need at most meals for the past couple of days.
As often happens, I have been working out on the issue...mentally questioning why I am having such a hard time with this when a week ago I was peaceful and centered and was finding it very easy to wait till I was hungry and to eat just enough to satisfy.
This morning the answer I have been searching for came to me kind of suddenly, out of the blue.
It's the holidays....it's the fact that I will be traveling to my parents home...it's the fact that I will be out of control of my own food. I will be a guest in their home...I will not have the ability to as easily eat on my own schedule. It's partly returning to a setting that reminds me of times in the past that were similar...when it was important to "stock up" on food because meals were eaten on an irregular basis at restaurants or at my grandmother's house. There wasn't usually food in our house. Snacks were not an option as we were not snackers. There were times in the past when I was hungry and it was not yet time to eat or when my parents would be embroiled in a heated argument and when everything else took second, third, or tenth place to their battle of wills.
The threat of returning to a situation that was problematic in my childhood has triggered a fear of being hungry and not being able to eat...and that has triggered me to almost compulsively want to "stock up" by eating more now...as if that will help me two days from now. :-)
The situation is much different now than it was when I was a child...there is now no real danger of being hungry. If I really wanted to I could get in the car, drive to town, dine at McDonalds or Pizza Hut. But the compulsion isn't really about whether there is enough food now...it is about the feelings that are left over from the past. It's about reacting now to a feeling that has its roots in my childhood 35 years or more ago.
So often we go along oblivious to all the things that lie just under the surface....not really realizing that though 35 years have passed and we have grown up, we are still triggered by things that happened when we were children.
If I look at the reality today I know I can arrange things so that there is sufficient food to eat whenever I choose to eat it. However, my actions the past few days have not been based on the reality of today...they have been based on the leftover feelings (and the reality of childhood). I have been "stocking up," eating more than I have needed to eat because of emotional triggers I was not even aware I was feeling until the knowledge hit me this morning...after I had been trying to figure out why I've been wanting more than I need for the past couple of days.
Holidays are prime time for triggers as many of us travel, many of us return to people and places that contain emotional triggers. We may not feel the trigger...we may not know that we feel uneasy or fearful...we may simply realize that we are eating a little more than we normally do. We may be quite stumped about why we are doing this and we may not be quite sure what to do about it.
Understanding the triggers helps...because knowing that I'm going back to a situation where I feel out of control and uneasy about the availability of food gives me some specific options for dealing with the feeling and making myself more comfortable with the situation. It is important that I make myself comfortable with the situation in a way that doesn't include eating more food than I need.
As often happens, I have been working out on the issue...mentally questioning why I am having such a hard time with this when a week ago I was peaceful and centered and was finding it very easy to wait till I was hungry and to eat just enough to satisfy.
This morning the answer I have been searching for came to me kind of suddenly, out of the blue.
It's the holidays....it's the fact that I will be traveling to my parents home...it's the fact that I will be out of control of my own food. I will be a guest in their home...I will not have the ability to as easily eat on my own schedule. It's partly returning to a setting that reminds me of times in the past that were similar...when it was important to "stock up" on food because meals were eaten on an irregular basis at restaurants or at my grandmother's house. There wasn't usually food in our house. Snacks were not an option as we were not snackers. There were times in the past when I was hungry and it was not yet time to eat or when my parents would be embroiled in a heated argument and when everything else took second, third, or tenth place to their battle of wills.
The threat of returning to a situation that was problematic in my childhood has triggered a fear of being hungry and not being able to eat...and that has triggered me to almost compulsively want to "stock up" by eating more now...as if that will help me two days from now. :-)
The situation is much different now than it was when I was a child...there is now no real danger of being hungry. If I really wanted to I could get in the car, drive to town, dine at McDonalds or Pizza Hut. But the compulsion isn't really about whether there is enough food now...it is about the feelings that are left over from the past. It's about reacting now to a feeling that has its roots in my childhood 35 years or more ago.
So often we go along oblivious to all the things that lie just under the surface....not really realizing that though 35 years have passed and we have grown up, we are still triggered by things that happened when we were children.
If I look at the reality today I know I can arrange things so that there is sufficient food to eat whenever I choose to eat it. However, my actions the past few days have not been based on the reality of today...they have been based on the leftover feelings (and the reality of childhood). I have been "stocking up," eating more than I have needed to eat because of emotional triggers I was not even aware I was feeling until the knowledge hit me this morning...after I had been trying to figure out why I've been wanting more than I need for the past couple of days.
Holidays are prime time for triggers as many of us travel, many of us return to people and places that contain emotional triggers. We may not feel the trigger...we may not know that we feel uneasy or fearful...we may simply realize that we are eating a little more than we normally do. We may be quite stumped about why we are doing this and we may not be quite sure what to do about it.
Understanding the triggers helps...because knowing that I'm going back to a situation where I feel out of control and uneasy about the availability of food gives me some specific options for dealing with the feeling and making myself more comfortable with the situation. It is important that I make myself comfortable with the situation in a way that doesn't include eating more food than I need.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Enoughness
Enough...and having enough...trusting that there is enough... These are sometimes difficult things for people who suffer from eating disorders. Many of us overeat simply because we do not trust that there will be enough. We feel that if we don't eat whatever we want right now it will be gone and there will be no more. So we eat more than we need...stocking up for that future time when there won't be any more. While the behavior may (probably does) stem from a time when that was a positive action to protect us from the lack we may have suffered as children, when we keep practicing the behavior into adulthood when we have ready sources of food and other things we need, we get into a cycle of continually eating more than we need...continually stocking up. With food...the excess that we "stock up" on is stored in our bodies as fat.
Clearly, if we want to reach a place with intuitive eating where we are releasing excess weight we need to find peace with the issue of enough...and it isn't just about stopping when we have reached satiety, although that is the goal. In order to reach the goal we need to move ourselves to an emotional space where we trust that there will be enough of all the things we need. Enough food, enough love, enough intimacy, enough material things. In order to reach a space where we feel confident that we will have enough of whatever we need we need to begin to reparent ourselves...to step into the emotional breech that exists within us...and begin to foster a relationship with ourselves in which we always give ourselves exactly what we need.
Whether it is fortunate or unfortunate I am not sure...but food is a metaphor for many other things in our life. If we suffer from issues of not trusting there to be enough when it comes to food there is a good likelihood that we will suffer the same fear of lack in other areas of our lives as well. One of the things I have learned in following the intuitive eating approach is that food issues are rarely isolated. They are most often very interrelated and what we are doing with food is often a metaphor for other areas of our lives.
There is a good likelihood that feelings of lack in areas not directly related to food will trigger us to want to "stock up" with food as well. For example, if one feels a lack of love in their life, not only will they want to stock up on love when they find it...and not only will they not really trust that there will be enough...it will trigger feelings of lack that relate to food too...and they will find themselves stocking up in terms of food even though the area that initially felt a lack had nothing to do with food. Food is a metaphor for many other things.
Clearly, if we want to reach a place with intuitive eating where we are releasing excess weight we need to find peace with the issue of enough...and it isn't just about stopping when we have reached satiety, although that is the goal. In order to reach the goal we need to move ourselves to an emotional space where we trust that there will be enough of all the things we need. Enough food, enough love, enough intimacy, enough material things. In order to reach a space where we feel confident that we will have enough of whatever we need we need to begin to reparent ourselves...to step into the emotional breech that exists within us...and begin to foster a relationship with ourselves in which we always give ourselves exactly what we need.
Whether it is fortunate or unfortunate I am not sure...but food is a metaphor for many other things in our life. If we suffer from issues of not trusting there to be enough when it comes to food there is a good likelihood that we will suffer the same fear of lack in other areas of our lives as well. One of the things I have learned in following the intuitive eating approach is that food issues are rarely isolated. They are most often very interrelated and what we are doing with food is often a metaphor for other areas of our lives.
There is a good likelihood that feelings of lack in areas not directly related to food will trigger us to want to "stock up" with food as well. For example, if one feels a lack of love in their life, not only will they want to stock up on love when they find it...and not only will they not really trust that there will be enough...it will trigger feelings of lack that relate to food too...and they will find themselves stocking up in terms of food even though the area that initially felt a lack had nothing to do with food. Food is a metaphor for many other things.
Friday, November 16, 2007
About Binges
Binges don't just happen...they stem from something. The key to stopping the bingeing behavior (for me at least) is to dig down to the root cause. The digging may not all happen in one day...and the relief from the desire to binge may not happen all in one day either but I have noticed that the urgency to binge lessons once I stop and think...okay...something is going on here...what is it? A good place to start digging into the root cause of the current desire to binge is to look at what are you feeling right now.
Start with the current feeling then dig. I use some combination of the following questions to help me get at the feeling. Here are some of the questions that I ask myself. Sometimes if the feeling is really strong I will write or journal the answers...letting myself vent all of my thoughts with no internal censoring.
So...what am I feeling right now? What do I feel physically? Emotionally?
Is this a new feeling I haven't felt before? If not, when was the first time that I can remember feeling this feeling?
What was going on at the time I felt this feeling for the first time?
How did I react to the emotion the first time I felt it?
How did others around me react to the same feeling, the situation, or my reaction to the feeling?
What positive and negative messages did I receive about the feeling?
Are any of those messages playing into what I feel now?
Are any of those messages playing into how I am coping with the feeling now?
Are any of those messages playing into my desire to binge in any way?
What triggered this feeling on this occasion?
Is it reasonable for me to feel this emotional reaction in this situation or am I reacting based on old tapes?
Is there something constructive that I can do to help myself cope with this emotion in a healthy, centered, balanced fashion?
Is there something besides food that will help me deal with this feeling?
As I have said before, there are two parts to intuitive eating...there is the part you must do to manage weight within the intuitive eating appraoch...that is the eat when hungry, stop when satisfied part. The reason why I say that this is the part you must do to manage weight is that there is no way around the fact that weight gain and weight loss are a refelction of the balance between calories consumed and calories expended through activity. The theory behind intuitive eating is that our bodies instinctively know how much, and which types of fuel it needs at any given time and we will know what to eat and when to eat it if we listen to our bodies.
The problem is that we have spent years, and years, and years NOT listening to our bodies and using food for things other than nutrition. This has tangled the intuitive knowledge of our bodies with other physical and emotional cues which we now interpret as a signal to eat. This makes eating intuitively, eating when hungry, stopping when satisfied, very difficult. And brings us to the hard fact that once was automatic is no longer automatic. Many of us have not felt hunger in a good long time, and many of us have almost entirely lost the ability to know when we are satisfied because we are so used to ignoring the satisfaction messages of our bodies.
So...we have to go back...often to where things began to go haywire...which is often in our childhoods. We have to patiently and diligently begin to untangle all of our emotions and the emotional cues to eat which go with them so that we can gradually, through compassion, understanding, and knowledge begin building a positive relationship with our bodies, which many of us have secretly (and sometimes not so secretly) hated because of their inability to remain slim, trim, and healthy in spite of the years of abuse we have dealt them.
Much of the work of intuitive eating is about rebuilding the relationships we have with all of the parts of ourselves so that we can honor both the emotional parts of ourselves (in healthy ways that don’t rely on too much food) and our bodies (by listening to and heeding the signals it gives us about when it needs fuel and when it has received enough fuel).
Start with the current feeling then dig. I use some combination of the following questions to help me get at the feeling. Here are some of the questions that I ask myself. Sometimes if the feeling is really strong I will write or journal the answers...letting myself vent all of my thoughts with no internal censoring.
So...what am I feeling right now? What do I feel physically? Emotionally?
Is this a new feeling I haven't felt before? If not, when was the first time that I can remember feeling this feeling?
What was going on at the time I felt this feeling for the first time?
How did I react to the emotion the first time I felt it?
How did others around me react to the same feeling, the situation, or my reaction to the feeling?
What positive and negative messages did I receive about the feeling?
Are any of those messages playing into what I feel now?
Are any of those messages playing into how I am coping with the feeling now?
Are any of those messages playing into my desire to binge in any way?
What triggered this feeling on this occasion?
Is it reasonable for me to feel this emotional reaction in this situation or am I reacting based on old tapes?
Is there something constructive that I can do to help myself cope with this emotion in a healthy, centered, balanced fashion?
Is there something besides food that will help me deal with this feeling?
As I have said before, there are two parts to intuitive eating...there is the part you must do to manage weight within the intuitive eating appraoch...that is the eat when hungry, stop when satisfied part. The reason why I say that this is the part you must do to manage weight is that there is no way around the fact that weight gain and weight loss are a refelction of the balance between calories consumed and calories expended through activity. The theory behind intuitive eating is that our bodies instinctively know how much, and which types of fuel it needs at any given time and we will know what to eat and when to eat it if we listen to our bodies.
The problem is that we have spent years, and years, and years NOT listening to our bodies and using food for things other than nutrition. This has tangled the intuitive knowledge of our bodies with other physical and emotional cues which we now interpret as a signal to eat. This makes eating intuitively, eating when hungry, stopping when satisfied, very difficult. And brings us to the hard fact that once was automatic is no longer automatic. Many of us have not felt hunger in a good long time, and many of us have almost entirely lost the ability to know when we are satisfied because we are so used to ignoring the satisfaction messages of our bodies.
So...we have to go back...often to where things began to go haywire...which is often in our childhoods. We have to patiently and diligently begin to untangle all of our emotions and the emotional cues to eat which go with them so that we can gradually, through compassion, understanding, and knowledge begin building a positive relationship with our bodies, which many of us have secretly (and sometimes not so secretly) hated because of their inability to remain slim, trim, and healthy in spite of the years of abuse we have dealt them.
Much of the work of intuitive eating is about rebuilding the relationships we have with all of the parts of ourselves so that we can honor both the emotional parts of ourselves (in healthy ways that don’t rely on too much food) and our bodies (by listening to and heeding the signals it gives us about when it needs fuel and when it has received enough fuel).
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Good Days and Bad Days
There are good days with intuitive eating and days that for whatever reason don't feel as good. Today has been one of those days when I have felt like I was flubbing up...and yet when I looked back over the day I realized that in spite of the kind of general feeling of blah-ness in relation to food and eating I hadn't flubbed up. I was hungry when I ate breakfast. I didn't have lunch and so was really hungry when I had a cup of hot chocolate an hour or so before dinner. I was hungry again by dinner. I wasn't massively hungry for dessert...but was just on the edge...where eating a small piece of pie was completely satisfying.
Not sure why I sometimes give myself negative marks when my eating has actually been pretty good.
It probably bears consideration and perhaps a later post.
Not sure why I sometimes give myself negative marks when my eating has actually been pretty good.
It probably bears consideration and perhaps a later post.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Looking Beyond the Food to the Message
I am always amazed by the things I can learn simply by paying attention to my urges to eat when I am not physically hungry. Over the years that I have followed (and not followed as well) the principles of intuitive eating (basically eat when hungry, stop when satisfied) I have learned a few things.
The first thing I learned was that I didn't have a weight problem because I lacked willpower or because I loved food and eating more than thinner people do. I learned that I had spent a lifetime chasing the wrong guidelines and applying my willpower to solutions from outside of myself rather than looking inside for the answers that are there and have been all along.
Somewhere along the way, I had another realization when I "woke up" with the refrigerator door open, and found myself looking inside for something to eat. After checking in with myself to see what I wanted to eat I realized that I didn't want to eat at all. I was not hungry.
As is often the case, the urge to eat when I am not physically hungry was an indication that there was something brewing that I was avoiding. I don't remember specifically what that thing was, but I do remember the realization that I had made a habit of using food to procrastinate...and that I used it often for that purpose.
Nowadays when I find myself looking for food when I am not physically hungry I ask myself what it is I am trying to avoid or put off. Once I ask myself the question, the answer is usually there...and I know...okay I am avoiding writing a rejection letter to an author whose book I am not going to publish. Once I know what I am trying to avoid I can remind myself that eating won't make the unhappy task go away...that I will still have it to face after I have overeaten...and I can gently direct myself to the task at hand, get it done, and move on with other more pleasant tasks.
I find that what is usually most important in stalling overeating for me is to interrupt the behavior. If I am looking for food and I am not really hungry, that is the time for me to stop and ask myself what is going on, what I am trying to avoid, and then once I know the answer I can attack the problem itself instead of trying to avoid it.
The first thing I learned was that I didn't have a weight problem because I lacked willpower or because I loved food and eating more than thinner people do. I learned that I had spent a lifetime chasing the wrong guidelines and applying my willpower to solutions from outside of myself rather than looking inside for the answers that are there and have been all along.
Somewhere along the way, I had another realization when I "woke up" with the refrigerator door open, and found myself looking inside for something to eat. After checking in with myself to see what I wanted to eat I realized that I didn't want to eat at all. I was not hungry.
As is often the case, the urge to eat when I am not physically hungry was an indication that there was something brewing that I was avoiding. I don't remember specifically what that thing was, but I do remember the realization that I had made a habit of using food to procrastinate...and that I used it often for that purpose.
Nowadays when I find myself looking for food when I am not physically hungry I ask myself what it is I am trying to avoid or put off. Once I ask myself the question, the answer is usually there...and I know...okay I am avoiding writing a rejection letter to an author whose book I am not going to publish. Once I know what I am trying to avoid I can remind myself that eating won't make the unhappy task go away...that I will still have it to face after I have overeaten...and I can gently direct myself to the task at hand, get it done, and move on with other more pleasant tasks.
I find that what is usually most important in stalling overeating for me is to interrupt the behavior. If I am looking for food and I am not really hungry, that is the time for me to stop and ask myself what is going on, what I am trying to avoid, and then once I know the answer I can attack the problem itself instead of trying to avoid it.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Some Thanksgiving Thoughts
TwinkleAs we approach Thanksgiving my thoughts have frequently turned to the things that I am thankful for. There are many. I am blessed.
I'm thankful for my husband and his love and support. I am thankful for my parents who raised me to be compassionate and caring. I am thankful for my nieces and nephews and am hopeful that I have passed on to them some of the qualities my parents instilled in me. I am thankful for good friends, for the bond of friendship that makes me feel connected rather than separate. I am thankful for my business, and for the fact that I get to do work that I LOVE doing. I'm thankful for the kids I mentor. I'm thankful for the richness, diversity, and excitement that they bring to my life. I'm thankful for my home and for my cats Addy and Twinkle. I'm thankful for the affection of Twinkle which is shared widely with everyone she meets. Twinkle has never ever met a stranger. I am thankful for Addy who is more timid with her affection and am thankful that she is gradually learning to trust us more and as she does she is more affectionate with us.
I'm also very thankful for the intuitive eating/no-diet approach and for the changes that the approach has brought into my life.
I am thankful that I can look forward to the holidays without worrying about what I will or won't eat and how much weight I will gain. I am really thankful that I can give up worrying about food and weight...that my thoughts no longer need to be consumed with thoughts of losing weight because I know that if I eat when I am hungry and stop when I am satisfied the weight will take care of itself.
I am thankful that I can enjoy the holidays, that I can enjoy special holiday foods without bingeing on them. I'm thankful that I can relax this holiday season and enjoy good food and good times with friends and family without food (not eating "bad" things) occupying most of my focus. I'm thankful that I no longer count calories, weigh food, and that there are no longer forbidden foods.
Most of all I am thankful for sanity -- for peace with food. I am thankful for the ability to simply eat when I am hungry, stop when I am satisfied...and I'm thankful that I know that that is really all that is required. I am thankful for the simplicity...for something so natural...so intuitive that I was doing it naturally when I was a baby.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Food -- The Substitute
Food...ever notice how many things food stands in for?
One of the reasons that we use food as a convenient substitute for sleep, sex, love, time to relax, or time to be creative is that it is easier to eat something than it is to tackle the bigger issues in our lives. It's easier to eat or drink something with caffeine than it is to find time to take a nap or get enough sleep that we don't need one. It is easier to eat when we are lonely and want love or intimacy than it is to find a partner who will give us those things. Food is by far easier than finding time to relax. And yet, eating to fulfill our need for sleep, intimacy, relaxation, or time to follow our creative muse leaves us unsatisfied and emotionally empty because our basest of needs have not been met, only covered up for a time with too much food.
One of the things that it is important for us as we follow an intuitive eating approach is how food is standing in for other things...and how we can give ourselves the things we really want and need so that we will not need to use food to satisfy needs that it was never intended to satisfy.
One of the reasons that we use food as a convenient substitute for sleep, sex, love, time to relax, or time to be creative is that it is easier to eat something than it is to tackle the bigger issues in our lives. It's easier to eat or drink something with caffeine than it is to find time to take a nap or get enough sleep that we don't need one. It is easier to eat when we are lonely and want love or intimacy than it is to find a partner who will give us those things. Food is by far easier than finding time to relax. And yet, eating to fulfill our need for sleep, intimacy, relaxation, or time to follow our creative muse leaves us unsatisfied and emotionally empty because our basest of needs have not been met, only covered up for a time with too much food.
One of the things that it is important for us as we follow an intuitive eating approach is how food is standing in for other things...and how we can give ourselves the things we really want and need so that we will not need to use food to satisfy needs that it was never intended to satisfy.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Taking Back Our Trust
There are many things that I love about the no diet/intuitive eating approach. But one of the biggest is that the approach teaches us to look inside ourselves rather than looking to something outside ourselves for the solution to our issues with food.
It is empowering to listen to our own bodies, to trust our own physical sensations of hunger and satiety rather than ceding our power to some outside authority so that they can tell us what, when, and how much to eat of which foods so that we can attain the ever elusive thinness.
It stuns me to think how much power I have handed over to outside authorities over the years...simply because I wanted to believe that some diet plan, some diet guru, some weight loss center had the elusive answer that would magically make me thin.
I believe that part of the work we do as we work through an intuitive eating process is to take back control... finally take back our own power and take responsibility for our own relationship with food.
Taking back the trust that has been misplaced in a bevy of diets, diet doctors, diet centers, diet books, diet pills, and other diet hoopla and placing the trust instead, in ourselves and in our body's ability to tell us when we are hungry and when we are satisfied empowers us.
It is empowering to listen to our own bodies, to trust our own physical sensations of hunger and satiety rather than ceding our power to some outside authority so that they can tell us what, when, and how much to eat of which foods so that we can attain the ever elusive thinness.
It stuns me to think how much power I have handed over to outside authorities over the years...simply because I wanted to believe that some diet plan, some diet guru, some weight loss center had the elusive answer that would magically make me thin.
I believe that part of the work we do as we work through an intuitive eating process is to take back control... finally take back our own power and take responsibility for our own relationship with food.
Taking back the trust that has been misplaced in a bevy of diets, diet doctors, diet centers, diet books, diet pills, and other diet hoopla and placing the trust instead, in ourselves and in our body's ability to tell us when we are hungry and when we are satisfied empowers us.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
It Doesn't Have to be a Full Meal -- Snacking is Good
One of the problems that I face on a regular basis, and that I expect anyone who has a family or an active social life will also face is how to wait for hunger when my hunger doesn't occur at the time that everyone else is planning to eat.
There are several options...the first and in my opinion, worst... is to just shuck waiting for hunger and eat with everyone else in spite of not being hungry ourselves. Though this one can be done, it reinforces the disconnection between physical hunger and eating which is in the long term harmful to the new relationship with food that we are trying to build through the intuitive eating process. I have used this one, but do try hard to avoid it.
Another option is to sit with the rest of the family or group of friends while they eat, without eating ourselves. This choice honors our own bodies, our own hungers, and strengthens the new relationship we are trying to build with food. The problem is that families and friends are sometimes uncomfortable with this. Many friends and families do not have the insight that we have gained through our no diet approach and are still approaching food in old ways -- seeing meal time as more of a social event than something to do with satisfying hunger.
A third option is to prepare to be hungry at the time that others will be eating so that you can enjoy the meal and the company of friends and family. For many of us the old diet mentality still persists and intrudes here. We were taught that meals were good and snacks were bad. So when we think of eating we think of eating a meal...
Timing our food intake so that we will be hungry at dinner time or hungry after a movie or meeting when everyone will go out to eat entails being willing to throw aside the idea that snacks are bad and should be avoided in favor of feeding oursleves just the right amount of food to curb our hunger until the time that we will be eating...so that we can be hungry when everyone else is eating.
For example, if I am hungry at 3 but I know that I will be going to dinner with my husband at 5, I will not want to eat a whole meal at 3 because then I will not be hungry at 5. It makes sense to eat something very small to satisfy my hunger -- when this came up yesterday I had about 3 bites of leftover spaghetti about 10 peanut M&M's, a swig of soda which was just the right amount for me to be perfectly hungry at 5 when my husband and I had dinner.
Snacking, though getting a bad rap from many diet gurus and diet plans is actually a very healthy approach and is just one of many ways that we can honor our bodies by giving ourselves just the right amount of food at just the right time.
There are several options...the first and in my opinion, worst... is to just shuck waiting for hunger and eat with everyone else in spite of not being hungry ourselves. Though this one can be done, it reinforces the disconnection between physical hunger and eating which is in the long term harmful to the new relationship with food that we are trying to build through the intuitive eating process. I have used this one, but do try hard to avoid it.
Another option is to sit with the rest of the family or group of friends while they eat, without eating ourselves. This choice honors our own bodies, our own hungers, and strengthens the new relationship we are trying to build with food. The problem is that families and friends are sometimes uncomfortable with this. Many friends and families do not have the insight that we have gained through our no diet approach and are still approaching food in old ways -- seeing meal time as more of a social event than something to do with satisfying hunger.
A third option is to prepare to be hungry at the time that others will be eating so that you can enjoy the meal and the company of friends and family. For many of us the old diet mentality still persists and intrudes here. We were taught that meals were good and snacks were bad. So when we think of eating we think of eating a meal...
Timing our food intake so that we will be hungry at dinner time or hungry after a movie or meeting when everyone will go out to eat entails being willing to throw aside the idea that snacks are bad and should be avoided in favor of feeding oursleves just the right amount of food to curb our hunger until the time that we will be eating...so that we can be hungry when everyone else is eating.
For example, if I am hungry at 3 but I know that I will be going to dinner with my husband at 5, I will not want to eat a whole meal at 3 because then I will not be hungry at 5. It makes sense to eat something very small to satisfy my hunger -- when this came up yesterday I had about 3 bites of leftover spaghetti about 10 peanut M&M's, a swig of soda which was just the right amount for me to be perfectly hungry at 5 when my husband and I had dinner.
Snacking, though getting a bad rap from many diet gurus and diet plans is actually a very healthy approach and is just one of many ways that we can honor our bodies by giving ourselves just the right amount of food at just the right time.
Friday, November 9, 2007
Children as the Mentors
I've written quite a lot about the emotion connected to food over the past few days and something happened last evening when I had the kids that I mentor over that to me demonstrated the normality of the food/emotion connection so I thought today I would share that in today's post.
Back before the 4 moves back and forth across the country last year, we lived in a large house in a nice neighborhood with two cars in the drive. Every Thursday my husband and I would have the five inner city kids that I have mentored and tutored for the past 4 1/2 years over for supper, tutoring, and play station games, the occasional movie or other fun activity. As the children have grown up I have noticed more and more through the things they say, the important role we have played. They often talk about the things we have done together...the times they have spent the night and have had an Uncle Remus story and what the youngest little boy calls "a bednight snack", the trip to my parent's farm summer before last where they rode horses and paddled the canoe around the pond, caught frogs in the mud, and searched for treasure in the pasture. They talk fondly of lighting sparklers in the driveway, riding elephants and ponies at the state fair, and feeding the giraffes at the zoo. Their chatter about these things is frequent and often goes on between the children with me quiet in the background. It is a joy to hear because it tells us that we have given them memories that will be with them for a long time.
Last night the youngest little boy, Stanley, discovered the snacks in the fridge. He immediately wanted to know if he could have one of the cinnamon streusal coffee cakes that were in there. Since it was before dinner I said he'd have to wait until after dinner but that he could have something after dinner. I noticed that he ate less dinner than he normally does...and it struck me that he just naturally "saved room for dessert." He planned so that he would still be a bit hungry when it was time for the coveted cinnamon streusal cake.
After dinner he had his cake which he enjoyed with gusto. The evening went on...but he kept talking about the cakes and wondering if he could have another. Since he was struggling with the motivation to learn to spell electricity I said that he could have three cakes to take home with him that he could eat during the week if he could ace his spelling test.
The evening went on...he aced the test...and when it was time for him to go home the drawer with all the treats came out and he was allowed to choose his three goodies. Choosing is a hard task for a boy of 8 when there is quite a bit of variety in the snacks available. He hemmed and hawed. He took things, he put things back. He talked steadily as he deliberated. Did I remember when the kids used to stay all night and I would let them have a "bed night snack?" Did I remember how he ALWAYS chose the cinnamon cakes? (I don't remember that -- I remember he had a fondness for hot cheetos -- but my memory of it isn't important.) Those were fun times weren't they? And on and on...a continuous stream of dialogue...the point of which when it all got down to it was that he chose three cinnamon streusal cakes because they reminded him of getting a streusal cake and having a "bed night snack" along with a story before going to bed when they used to spend the night and go to school from our house in the morning. (Something we have not done recently because we have one car now and it would be difficult to get everyone out the door, dropped off, and my husband to work on time.)
The connection between emotion, memories, and food is a strong one...and is something that we should enjoy as part of our process of caring for ourselves better. We are after all integrated wholes...we are not just our bodies or just our emotions...we are comprised of both....and it is a natural and wonderful thing to sometimes honor our emotions and our memories by choosing (when we are hungry) to eat something that reminds us of a happy time. It is a natural thing to do. It's a joyous thing...and one of the pleasures that we can fully enjoy again as part of the intuitive eating/no diet path.
Back before the 4 moves back and forth across the country last year, we lived in a large house in a nice neighborhood with two cars in the drive. Every Thursday my husband and I would have the five inner city kids that I have mentored and tutored for the past 4 1/2 years over for supper, tutoring, and play station games, the occasional movie or other fun activity. As the children have grown up I have noticed more and more through the things they say, the important role we have played. They often talk about the things we have done together...the times they have spent the night and have had an Uncle Remus story and what the youngest little boy calls "a bednight snack", the trip to my parent's farm summer before last where they rode horses and paddled the canoe around the pond, caught frogs in the mud, and searched for treasure in the pasture. They talk fondly of lighting sparklers in the driveway, riding elephants and ponies at the state fair, and feeding the giraffes at the zoo. Their chatter about these things is frequent and often goes on between the children with me quiet in the background. It is a joy to hear because it tells us that we have given them memories that will be with them for a long time.
Last night the youngest little boy, Stanley, discovered the snacks in the fridge. He immediately wanted to know if he could have one of the cinnamon streusal coffee cakes that were in there. Since it was before dinner I said he'd have to wait until after dinner but that he could have something after dinner. I noticed that he ate less dinner than he normally does...and it struck me that he just naturally "saved room for dessert." He planned so that he would still be a bit hungry when it was time for the coveted cinnamon streusal cake.
After dinner he had his cake which he enjoyed with gusto. The evening went on...but he kept talking about the cakes and wondering if he could have another. Since he was struggling with the motivation to learn to spell electricity I said that he could have three cakes to take home with him that he could eat during the week if he could ace his spelling test.
The evening went on...he aced the test...and when it was time for him to go home the drawer with all the treats came out and he was allowed to choose his three goodies. Choosing is a hard task for a boy of 8 when there is quite a bit of variety in the snacks available. He hemmed and hawed. He took things, he put things back. He talked steadily as he deliberated. Did I remember when the kids used to stay all night and I would let them have a "bed night snack?" Did I remember how he ALWAYS chose the cinnamon cakes? (I don't remember that -- I remember he had a fondness for hot cheetos -- but my memory of it isn't important.) Those were fun times weren't they? And on and on...a continuous stream of dialogue...the point of which when it all got down to it was that he chose three cinnamon streusal cakes because they reminded him of getting a streusal cake and having a "bed night snack" along with a story before going to bed when they used to spend the night and go to school from our house in the morning. (Something we have not done recently because we have one car now and it would be difficult to get everyone out the door, dropped off, and my husband to work on time.)
The connection between emotion, memories, and food is a strong one...and is something that we should enjoy as part of our process of caring for ourselves better. We are after all integrated wholes...we are not just our bodies or just our emotions...we are comprised of both....and it is a natural and wonderful thing to sometimes honor our emotions and our memories by choosing (when we are hungry) to eat something that reminds us of a happy time. It is a natural thing to do. It's a joyous thing...and one of the pleasures that we can fully enjoy again as part of the intuitive eating/no diet path.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
We Were Born Practicing Intuitive Eating
there are about as many different ways of practicing no diet/intuitive eating as there are people who practice it. This is because there aretwo parts to the process. There are the tenents of the process which are what makes it work. This is the eat when hungry, stop when satisfied part. There is no argument that what you eat has an effect on what you weigh. Food is energy, it is the means by which we power our bodies. If we do not take in enough energy to power ourselves we become weaker and weaker and will eventually die. If we take in more fuel than our body needs the excess is stored as fat.
The theory behind no diet/intuitive eating approaches is that if we listen to our bodies and eat in accordance with what they need we will consume neither too much nor too little because our bodies are wired to crave the right foods in the right amounts at the right time. We run into problems when we listen to people and things outside of us and eat because it is time to eat, or because the latest diet guru said that we need 5 small meals instead of 2 large ones, or because the diet we have chosen to follow says we must not skip meals.
We were born practicing intuitive eating. It is what is natural to us...and is what we did before our thinking and eating became confugled by well meaning outside forces that urged us to eat without regard to our own body's signals of hunger and satiety. The problem we face at the point that we discover no diet and intuitive eating is that our thinking and our eating HAS BECOME confused and disordered...not because this is the normal state for us...but because there has been too much input from outside sources which has separated us from the practice of listening to and eating in response to our own hunger and satiety signals. The more disconnected food becomes from the signals our body gives us to regulate the food we eat the more other ways we use food until eventually we use it for many things other than to power our bodies. And added to that, this has become a deeply ingrained habit that is modeled by most everything around us. Eating when hungry and stopping when satisfied is no longer the easy, natural, normal thing it was when we were children. It is now a difficult thing that we must think and focus to do.
This brings us to the second part of the process...those things that you do which enable you to do what at one time was the most natural thing in the world...following the innate signals of hunger and satiety that are wired into you.
What that entails is different for everyone but a large component of eating is emotional for most people...and there are emotional connections for most of us that tie into eating in general and to eating specific foods as well. Since many of us have learned to eat because we are stressed, or unhappy, or excited, or because it is time we now have to find other ways to cope with negative emotions so that we don't eat at them...and other ways of celebrating happy things so that gorging on cake and ice cream is not synonomous with celebration.
I find journaling helpful in dealing with negative emotions and find it works for me to plan to eat cake and ice cream at a celebration so I eat a little less and time my meal before the celebration so that I am hungry when it is time to eat cake and ice cream.
Other people find hypnosis helpful, or meditation, or go for a drive or a walk when they are stressed. The thing is...to be successful (to eat when you are physically hungry, and to stop when you are physically satisfied) you have to find a way of interrupting the urge to reach for food at times when you are not physically hungry. Using food is the habit...it has become what feels normal. It didn't start out that way....we were born knowing instinctively what to eat and when and how much...but the world around us was disordered...and the disorder has worn off onto us...and we have taken it inside...and that is why we need to "follow no diet." If we hadn't taken on the disorder pressed at us from outside...we would already be following no diet/intuitive eating....as that is what is normal.
The theory behind no diet/intuitive eating approaches is that if we listen to our bodies and eat in accordance with what they need we will consume neither too much nor too little because our bodies are wired to crave the right foods in the right amounts at the right time. We run into problems when we listen to people and things outside of us and eat because it is time to eat, or because the latest diet guru said that we need 5 small meals instead of 2 large ones, or because the diet we have chosen to follow says we must not skip meals.
We were born practicing intuitive eating. It is what is natural to us...and is what we did before our thinking and eating became confugled by well meaning outside forces that urged us to eat without regard to our own body's signals of hunger and satiety. The problem we face at the point that we discover no diet and intuitive eating is that our thinking and our eating HAS BECOME confused and disordered...not because this is the normal state for us...but because there has been too much input from outside sources which has separated us from the practice of listening to and eating in response to our own hunger and satiety signals. The more disconnected food becomes from the signals our body gives us to regulate the food we eat the more other ways we use food until eventually we use it for many things other than to power our bodies. And added to that, this has become a deeply ingrained habit that is modeled by most everything around us. Eating when hungry and stopping when satisfied is no longer the easy, natural, normal thing it was when we were children. It is now a difficult thing that we must think and focus to do.
This brings us to the second part of the process...those things that you do which enable you to do what at one time was the most natural thing in the world...following the innate signals of hunger and satiety that are wired into you.
What that entails is different for everyone but a large component of eating is emotional for most people...and there are emotional connections for most of us that tie into eating in general and to eating specific foods as well. Since many of us have learned to eat because we are stressed, or unhappy, or excited, or because it is time we now have to find other ways to cope with negative emotions so that we don't eat at them...and other ways of celebrating happy things so that gorging on cake and ice cream is not synonomous with celebration.
I find journaling helpful in dealing with negative emotions and find it works for me to plan to eat cake and ice cream at a celebration so I eat a little less and time my meal before the celebration so that I am hungry when it is time to eat cake and ice cream.
Other people find hypnosis helpful, or meditation, or go for a drive or a walk when they are stressed. The thing is...to be successful (to eat when you are physically hungry, and to stop when you are physically satisfied) you have to find a way of interrupting the urge to reach for food at times when you are not physically hungry. Using food is the habit...it has become what feels normal. It didn't start out that way....we were born knowing instinctively what to eat and when and how much...but the world around us was disordered...and the disorder has worn off onto us...and we have taken it inside...and that is why we need to "follow no diet." If we hadn't taken on the disorder pressed at us from outside...we would already be following no diet/intuitive eating....as that is what is normal.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Success With No Diet/Intuititive Eating Requires a Series of Decisions
Something struck me this morning as I was driving around doing some errands that needed to be done. That I was thinking about No Diet rather than where I was going might account for why I forgot to drop the dry cleaning at the dry cleaners -- but well--that's another story.
What struck me is that the process of eating when hungry and stopping when satisfied really breaks down into a series of decisions which either make it easier to wait for hunger and stop at satisfaction or make it more difficult.
For me, stopping at satisfaction is way easier if I order small portions in restaurants or put small portions on my plate. It isn't about the portion I eat...or limiting the quantity that I do eat. What it is about is making it easy to stop when I am satisfied.
I'm in a little bit of a unique situation in that I lost nearly a hundred pounds with my first attempt at ND. The weight loss took about 5 years and was maintained for awhile after the weight loss stopped. Then there were 3 years of absolute chaos with food (and everything else in life)...and I gained back about 85 of the hundred or so pounds I lost. So though I have just returned to ND I am returning with a bit of a headstart because I have the knowledge and insights that I gained while doing the 5 years that were successful.
Somewhere in the middle of the first appraoch...I became aware that though I believe in stopping when satisfied it was hard for me to do it under certain circumstances. For example, if I'd ordered a large sandwich. as opposed to the small one, at a restaurant it was hard for me to stop eating and leave a portion of it on my plate when I reached satisfaction.
My thinking at some point changed. I became less worried about not having enough to eat and more worried about having too much to eat.
At this point I am again in the place where I am more worried about enough than too much...but I also realize that I make it easier to stop eating at satisfaction if I pave the way for that decision by choosing smaller portions to begin with.
There are some things that one can do which make it easier to stop at satisfaction.
What struck me is that the process of eating when hungry and stopping when satisfied really breaks down into a series of decisions which either make it easier to wait for hunger and stop at satisfaction or make it more difficult.
For me, stopping at satisfaction is way easier if I order small portions in restaurants or put small portions on my plate. It isn't about the portion I eat...or limiting the quantity that I do eat. What it is about is making it easy to stop when I am satisfied.
I'm in a little bit of a unique situation in that I lost nearly a hundred pounds with my first attempt at ND. The weight loss took about 5 years and was maintained for awhile after the weight loss stopped. Then there were 3 years of absolute chaos with food (and everything else in life)...and I gained back about 85 of the hundred or so pounds I lost. So though I have just returned to ND I am returning with a bit of a headstart because I have the knowledge and insights that I gained while doing the 5 years that were successful.
Somewhere in the middle of the first appraoch...I became aware that though I believe in stopping when satisfied it was hard for me to do it under certain circumstances. For example, if I'd ordered a large sandwich. as opposed to the small one, at a restaurant it was hard for me to stop eating and leave a portion of it on my plate when I reached satisfaction.
My thinking at some point changed. I became less worried about not having enough to eat and more worried about having too much to eat.
At this point I am again in the place where I am more worried about enough than too much...but I also realize that I make it easier to stop eating at satisfaction if I pave the way for that decision by choosing smaller portions to begin with.
There are some things that one can do which make it easier to stop at satisfaction.
- Order small portions at restaurants. Order dessert if you need more food to reach satisfaction.
- Purchase smaller packages and quantities of things when grocery shopping. This will pave the way to preparing smaller portions which will pave the way to putting less on your plate.
- Serve yourself smaller portions. Put less on your plate than you think you will need. You can always get another portion if you are still hungry...but as you begin listening to hunger and satisfaction you will find that you require less food. Not facing the question of wasting food by throwing it away versus wasting it by consuming it will cease to even come up.
- At buffets, be selective. Choose small portions of the 3 or 4 things that look the best. Eat those. If you need more food choose small portions of some other items or more of your favorites.
- Pay attention to the emotions associated with food. If you are having problems stopping at satisfaction with certain foods ask yourself what those foods represent emotionally. Sometimes just understanding what emotions are tied to a particular food and why it is coonected will diminish the attraction of that particular food.
- Lay expectations with friends and family. Let friends and family know that you are working on your relationship with food and that the particular approach you have chosen to follow requires that you eat when hungry and stop when satisfied. Let them know that you are working on guaging your hunger and how much food you need at any given time. Let them know that there will be times when you will judge incorrectly and have either too much or not enough. If they know the issue may present itself it will be less of an issue when it does and you will feel much more empowered to stop when you are satisfied.
It's really all about paving the way to good decisions about food.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
The Emotional Energy Food Connection
Eating is an emotional activity for most people, both those who eat "normally" and those who suffer from disordered eating. People who eat "normally" occasionally eat for emotional reasons. They sometimes choose foods based on how the specific foods make them feel. The term "comfort food" wasn't invented entirely by those who suffer from so-called disordered eating.
While the intuitive eating/no-diet approach demands that we shift our eating more toward eating to fuel our bodies it is like most everything else related to the approach. Nothing is all black or all white. There are shades of gray. While we need to time our eating to coincide with hunger and satiety there is no reason that we need to ignore the emotional reasons that we choose certain foods over others.
Like other emotions, those connected to food can offer a great deal of insight.
One of the great benefits of the intuitive eating/no-diet approach is flexibility and freedom to choose from among all the foods on the planet and to derive both physical and emotional pleasure from the choices we make. The goal is to eat when hungry, stop when satisfied so that whatever food we choose it benefits us rather than harming us.
I find that my food choices are often emotionally driven. Many foods have connotations, memories, and emotional energy surrounding them. For some people, Twinkies are very highly emotional...maybe because they were denied them as a child...or maybe because they were a favorite summer time treat.
I cannot eat oatmeal, a favorite winter comfort food, without thinking of my grandparent's home, the way it sat in the darkness of early morning when my mother would drop me off on her way to work. The darkness of the rest of the house and the warm and beckoning light of the kitchen, the security of my grandmother's presence as she served up a bowl of oatmeal and a piece of toast are memories that go back at least to the year I started kindergarten...over 35 years ago...
Before I began my no-diet process I was oblivious to the connection between food and emotion. I didn't realize that there even was a connection. I realized that I liked oatmeal...that I particularly liked it on cold blustery days and on days when I needed to calm or center myself. I didn't realize then that it was connected emotionally to my grandparents and the memory of their kitchen and the safety I felt there.
Nowadays I pay attention to the emotional energy associated with my food choices. I try to hear what the food says to me...what emotions a given food triggers. Does it remind me of celebration, safety, being denied? In understanding why I seek out one food over another, the food choices themselves can indicate that I need to provide myself a more serene space...or a moment of quiet...or I need to remind myself that there is enough...that I don't have to eat everything I want to eat in my lifetime on this one day. There will be more available tomorrow...and if there isn't I can go to the store or restaurant where it is sold and acquire more.
While the intuitive eating/no-diet approach demands that we shift our eating more toward eating to fuel our bodies it is like most everything else related to the approach. Nothing is all black or all white. There are shades of gray. While we need to time our eating to coincide with hunger and satiety there is no reason that we need to ignore the emotional reasons that we choose certain foods over others.
Like other emotions, those connected to food can offer a great deal of insight.
One of the great benefits of the intuitive eating/no-diet approach is flexibility and freedom to choose from among all the foods on the planet and to derive both physical and emotional pleasure from the choices we make. The goal is to eat when hungry, stop when satisfied so that whatever food we choose it benefits us rather than harming us.
I find that my food choices are often emotionally driven. Many foods have connotations, memories, and emotional energy surrounding them. For some people, Twinkies are very highly emotional...maybe because they were denied them as a child...or maybe because they were a favorite summer time treat.
I cannot eat oatmeal, a favorite winter comfort food, without thinking of my grandparent's home, the way it sat in the darkness of early morning when my mother would drop me off on her way to work. The darkness of the rest of the house and the warm and beckoning light of the kitchen, the security of my grandmother's presence as she served up a bowl of oatmeal and a piece of toast are memories that go back at least to the year I started kindergarten...over 35 years ago...
Before I began my no-diet process I was oblivious to the connection between food and emotion. I didn't realize that there even was a connection. I realized that I liked oatmeal...that I particularly liked it on cold blustery days and on days when I needed to calm or center myself. I didn't realize then that it was connected emotionally to my grandparents and the memory of their kitchen and the safety I felt there.
Nowadays I pay attention to the emotional energy associated with my food choices. I try to hear what the food says to me...what emotions a given food triggers. Does it remind me of celebration, safety, being denied? In understanding why I seek out one food over another, the food choices themselves can indicate that I need to provide myself a more serene space...or a moment of quiet...or I need to remind myself that there is enough...that I don't have to eat everything I want to eat in my lifetime on this one day. There will be more available tomorrow...and if there isn't I can go to the store or restaurant where it is sold and acquire more.
Monday, November 5, 2007
An Analogy For the Hunger Scale
Food is energy. It's purpose is to provide our bodies energy on which to operate.
Much like our cars, our bodies carry us around, using up the fuel we have put into them. But unlike our cars, our bodies do not have an orange hand on a guage or an alarm that tells us to refuel. Instead we are left to figure out for ourselves when we need to refuel our bodies.
Some of us grew up in situations where we needed to eat before we were truly hungry. Perhaps the family's scheduled meal times did not coincide with when we were physically hungry or meal times were haphazard and irregular...so we adapted. We learned to fill up our fuel tanks when our hunger scale said half full instead of waiting until it dropped to a quarter of a tank.
The problem with eating when our hunger guage says half full is that we never really feel hunger and eating becomes something that is disconnected from hunger. It is something we do because it is time to do it, or because everyone else is doing it, or because something looks or smells good, and when our eating is disconnected from the physical cues our body gives us to refuel we are in danger of overeating and gaining weight.
The other down side of filling up a half full fuel tank is that half full is pretty close to satisfaction...which is where we should stop eating...so it leaves us little room to eat before we are pushing the bounds of having eaten too much.
So, where is an appropriate fill up point...and what constitutes full?
Most of the gurus who have written books on the no-diet/intuitive eating approach use a 10 point scale but all eating is ideally confined between 3 and 5 on the scale.
Using our car gas tank analogy...we would fill up when the guage sinks to the 1/4 tank mark...and stop eating at about half full....never getting either to the bottom of the tank or to the top of the tank.
The bottom of the tank is ravenous. It is that stage where we would cheerfully eat anything. We don't much care what it is...we just need food NOW! This level is often marked by crankiness, tiredness, irritability, a lack of ability to focus. We don't want to let our hunger get to this point because when it does we put ourselves in danger of eating past the half full mark where we want to stop pumping fuel into ourselves.
The top of the tank is stuffed...the uncomfortable, bloated feeling we get after a large holiday meal or a binge.
We want to avoid eating at the two extremes. We want to begin eating when we are certain we are hungry, but before we are ravenous. We want to avoid eating to the point that we are stuffed and uncomfortable. That level is beyond satisfaction and satiety and if we routinely eat past satisfaction and satiety we will not lose weight and will probably gain some.
Hunger and satisfaction is like many things in the intuitive eating realm...it is subject to slow and gradual change. What starts out feeling like the ideal level of hunger at which to eat may later be replaced by a deeper level of ideal hunger. What once feels like satiety may over time be replaced by a different level. While early in the process one might need to feel physically full to feel satisfied they may over time find the full feeling not a necessary component of satisfaction.
Much like our cars, our bodies carry us around, using up the fuel we have put into them. But unlike our cars, our bodies do not have an orange hand on a guage or an alarm that tells us to refuel. Instead we are left to figure out for ourselves when we need to refuel our bodies.
Some of us grew up in situations where we needed to eat before we were truly hungry. Perhaps the family's scheduled meal times did not coincide with when we were physically hungry or meal times were haphazard and irregular...so we adapted. We learned to fill up our fuel tanks when our hunger scale said half full instead of waiting until it dropped to a quarter of a tank.
The problem with eating when our hunger guage says half full is that we never really feel hunger and eating becomes something that is disconnected from hunger. It is something we do because it is time to do it, or because everyone else is doing it, or because something looks or smells good, and when our eating is disconnected from the physical cues our body gives us to refuel we are in danger of overeating and gaining weight.
The other down side of filling up a half full fuel tank is that half full is pretty close to satisfaction...which is where we should stop eating...so it leaves us little room to eat before we are pushing the bounds of having eaten too much.
So, where is an appropriate fill up point...and what constitutes full?
Most of the gurus who have written books on the no-diet/intuitive eating approach use a 10 point scale but all eating is ideally confined between 3 and 5 on the scale.
Using our car gas tank analogy...we would fill up when the guage sinks to the 1/4 tank mark...and stop eating at about half full....never getting either to the bottom of the tank or to the top of the tank.
The bottom of the tank is ravenous. It is that stage where we would cheerfully eat anything. We don't much care what it is...we just need food NOW! This level is often marked by crankiness, tiredness, irritability, a lack of ability to focus. We don't want to let our hunger get to this point because when it does we put ourselves in danger of eating past the half full mark where we want to stop pumping fuel into ourselves.
The top of the tank is stuffed...the uncomfortable, bloated feeling we get after a large holiday meal or a binge.
We want to avoid eating at the two extremes. We want to begin eating when we are certain we are hungry, but before we are ravenous. We want to avoid eating to the point that we are stuffed and uncomfortable. That level is beyond satisfaction and satiety and if we routinely eat past satisfaction and satiety we will not lose weight and will probably gain some.
Hunger and satisfaction is like many things in the intuitive eating realm...it is subject to slow and gradual change. What starts out feeling like the ideal level of hunger at which to eat may later be replaced by a deeper level of ideal hunger. What once feels like satiety may over time be replaced by a different level. While early in the process one might need to feel physically full to feel satisfied they may over time find the full feeling not a necessary component of satisfaction.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Recognizing Satiety
Recognizing satiety is an area of the no diet approach that many people who come to the no diet approach hoping to end compulsive overeating and bingeing struggle with. For many there is a strong feeling of just constantly eating a little or a lot more than they need at each meal. .
It is really no wonder that many of us can't recognize a satiety signal to save our souls. We were taught from childhood to ignore them. We were told to clean our plates, to eat our peas, to drink our milk, and that if we didn't eat now we shouldn't expect a snack later. So, rather predictably, the behavior became a habit, something so ingrained that we no longer even thought about it. So now, when we want to hear our satiety signals we have difficulty hearing them at all.
Many people expect the satiety signal to be a sensation they feel...either in their stomach...or to be a click in their mind that says they have had enough. Many of us will never feel that...because for some of us our signals aren't like that. In fact, for some of us it is a whole lot more subtle, and a lot easier to miss.
It makes sense, when working on the stopping when satisfied portion of the approach to spend some time focused on what you feel just prior to feeling full...which is usually well past satisfaction.
For me the cue is that the food no longer tastes as good as it once did. When I find myself searching for the flavor or the texture that was so good at the outset of the meal it is my cue that I have had enough...that I am satisfied. For me, that's the only cue there will be. There will be no sensation in my stomach, no magic click that says enough at the point of satiety. If I am not paying attention and I miss the satiety clue the next thing I will feel is the familiar sensation of being over full.
It is really no wonder that many of us can't recognize a satiety signal to save our souls. We were taught from childhood to ignore them. We were told to clean our plates, to eat our peas, to drink our milk, and that if we didn't eat now we shouldn't expect a snack later. So, rather predictably, the behavior became a habit, something so ingrained that we no longer even thought about it. So now, when we want to hear our satiety signals we have difficulty hearing them at all.
Many people expect the satiety signal to be a sensation they feel...either in their stomach...or to be a click in their mind that says they have had enough. Many of us will never feel that...because for some of us our signals aren't like that. In fact, for some of us it is a whole lot more subtle, and a lot easier to miss.
It makes sense, when working on the stopping when satisfied portion of the approach to spend some time focused on what you feel just prior to feeling full...which is usually well past satisfaction.
For me the cue is that the food no longer tastes as good as it once did. When I find myself searching for the flavor or the texture that was so good at the outset of the meal it is my cue that I have had enough...that I am satisfied. For me, that's the only cue there will be. There will be no sensation in my stomach, no magic click that says enough at the point of satiety. If I am not paying attention and I miss the satiety clue the next thing I will feel is the familiar sensation of being over full.
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Adding Tools To The Toolbox
When people come to intuitive eating looking to find peace with food and eventual weight loss and the health benefits that come with weight loss they want success right now. Perfection.
They want the no diet approach to work like a diet with clear cut rules about what to eat, what not to eat, when to eat. They want to see immediate results. Unfortunately intuitive eating doesn't work like that for most people. For most people the process is a slow one.
A normal person beginning the approach may spend weeks learning what hunger feels like and getting comfortable with the sensation, learning to trust that they can wait until they are truly hungry to eat, because when they are truly hungry they will be able to eat whatever they choose, that they can stop when they are satisfied because they'll be able to again eat whatever they choose when they are again hungry. It takes a period of time for most people who have lived dieted, binged, dieted, binged, dieted and binged to really learn to trust that they can have peace and sanity with food, that they do not need to eat all the good stuff before the next diet.
Once one has learned to recognize hunger and has moved toward waiting for it most of the time, trusting that they can eat normally without having to fit all the good stuff between diets they will become more attuned to the bouts of emotion that seem to swell and sabotage the fragile trust with food.
Binges are not failures. They should be avoided, but they are a natural part of the journey and they signal a need to add new tools for coping with stress, anger, frustration, sadness, and other negative feelings to their toolbox.
Early in the process the person who has struggled with emotional eating for most of their life knows one thing that works to anesthetize the ugliness of negative feelings. Food.
Because the feelings are so negative, so overwhelming, the compulsion to end the negative feeling is stronger than most anything else and will usually win out over sheer willpower.
What this means is that one must gradually integrate and practice new ways of dealing with negative emotions so that they no longer need to eat in order to deaden them.
There are many tools for dealing with negative feelings and each person needs to develop their own strategies. I find that if I can interrupt the intense emotion with something else, I can usually avoid eating over it. Sometimes taking a walk when I am angry allows my ire to melt and my feelings to become more moderate so that I can face the task of talking to the person who angered me. Sometimes curling up with a book if I am sad, or journaling about a troubling incident is all I need to do. As I am able to process the negative feelings they melt and I am able to get on with things without using food to calm emotions.
They want the no diet approach to work like a diet with clear cut rules about what to eat, what not to eat, when to eat. They want to see immediate results. Unfortunately intuitive eating doesn't work like that for most people. For most people the process is a slow one.
A normal person beginning the approach may spend weeks learning what hunger feels like and getting comfortable with the sensation, learning to trust that they can wait until they are truly hungry to eat, because when they are truly hungry they will be able to eat whatever they choose, that they can stop when they are satisfied because they'll be able to again eat whatever they choose when they are again hungry. It takes a period of time for most people who have lived dieted, binged, dieted, binged, dieted and binged to really learn to trust that they can have peace and sanity with food, that they do not need to eat all the good stuff before the next diet.
Once one has learned to recognize hunger and has moved toward waiting for it most of the time, trusting that they can eat normally without having to fit all the good stuff between diets they will become more attuned to the bouts of emotion that seem to swell and sabotage the fragile trust with food.
Binges are not failures. They should be avoided, but they are a natural part of the journey and they signal a need to add new tools for coping with stress, anger, frustration, sadness, and other negative feelings to their toolbox.
Early in the process the person who has struggled with emotional eating for most of their life knows one thing that works to anesthetize the ugliness of negative feelings. Food.
Because the feelings are so negative, so overwhelming, the compulsion to end the negative feeling is stronger than most anything else and will usually win out over sheer willpower.
What this means is that one must gradually integrate and practice new ways of dealing with negative emotions so that they no longer need to eat in order to deaden them.
There are many tools for dealing with negative feelings and each person needs to develop their own strategies. I find that if I can interrupt the intense emotion with something else, I can usually avoid eating over it. Sometimes taking a walk when I am angry allows my ire to melt and my feelings to become more moderate so that I can face the task of talking to the person who angered me. Sometimes curling up with a book if I am sad, or journaling about a troubling incident is all I need to do. As I am able to process the negative feelings they melt and I am able to get on with things without using food to calm emotions.
Friday, November 2, 2007
Perfectionist Thinking
Perfectionist thinking...it's one of the mindsets that causes problems for people practicing an intuitive eating/no diet lifestyle.
Perfectionist thinking is that thinking that whispers seductively when a little more has been consumed than was needed, "Ah come on, you've already blown it today, you might as well have dessert, you know you want it. Even if you aren't technically hungry." It's that little voice that says, after a binge, "Well, you've undone all the good you did all week. You might as well start fresh on Monday."
Perfectionist thinking is about attaining perfection...it's about doing it right... It's a mindset in where nothing but absolute perfection is acceptable, and when following this approach it's pretty much deadly as perfection is hard to identify and hard to attain.
Perfection is not required to be successful with a no diet approach. Rather, what is important is embracing the process and the journey and being willing to measure success in small increments that may not at first be measured on the scale or in one's dress size.
Success in this process is measured in small incrments. The first step for most is to become attuned to their body's hunger and satiety cues. For some people the eating has become so disordered that it is difficult to even recognize true physical hunger and even more difficult to recognize satisfaction.
Many of us have been schooled to disregard our hunger and satisfaction signals and to eat because it is time to eat, or to clean our plates because it is what good boys and girls who want dessert do. But being forced to clean our plates when we are not hungry teaches us to disregard our body's signals of satisfaction. The more we are forced to practice that unnatural behavior the more we learn to disregard our body's cues in favor of what is correct behavior at the time. Eventually we become so disconnected from the signals themselves that we no longer hear them at all, or if we do it is only with a great deal of focus.
This post is not about blaming our parents for our weight, our compulsions, or our behavior with food. It is about beginning a journey. It is about taking control and responsibility. It is about looking at where we are and how we got here. It's about plotting a course that takes us to a new relationship with food.
It's not about celebrating the journey or the self discovery that can stem from this approach.
We've probably all practiced that kind of thinking in our dieting days. We're probably all familiar with the promises to start a diet tomorrow, or on Monday or after the first of the year. And then we put off starting till the next day...or the next Monday or the next year because we are after that feeling that comes from doing it right...experiencing perfection.
With intuitive eating it is helpful to recognize perfectionist thinking as a negative thinking pattern that can and will lead you down a negative path.
Perfectionist thinking is that thinking that whispers seductively when a little more has been consumed than was needed, "Ah come on, you've already blown it today, you might as well have dessert, you know you want it. Even if you aren't technically hungry." It's that little voice that says, after a binge, "Well, you've undone all the good you did all week. You might as well start fresh on Monday."
Perfectionist thinking is about attaining perfection...it's about doing it right... It's a mindset in where nothing but absolute perfection is acceptable, and when following this approach it's pretty much deadly as perfection is hard to identify and hard to attain.
Perfection is not required to be successful with a no diet approach. Rather, what is important is embracing the process and the journey and being willing to measure success in small increments that may not at first be measured on the scale or in one's dress size.
Success in this process is measured in small incrments. The first step for most is to become attuned to their body's hunger and satiety cues. For some people the eating has become so disordered that it is difficult to even recognize true physical hunger and even more difficult to recognize satisfaction.
Many of us have been schooled to disregard our hunger and satisfaction signals and to eat because it is time to eat, or to clean our plates because it is what good boys and girls who want dessert do. But being forced to clean our plates when we are not hungry teaches us to disregard our body's signals of satisfaction. The more we are forced to practice that unnatural behavior the more we learn to disregard our body's cues in favor of what is correct behavior at the time. Eventually we become so disconnected from the signals themselves that we no longer hear them at all, or if we do it is only with a great deal of focus.
This post is not about blaming our parents for our weight, our compulsions, or our behavior with food. It is about beginning a journey. It is about taking control and responsibility. It is about looking at where we are and how we got here. It's about plotting a course that takes us to a new relationship with food.
It's not about celebrating the journey or the self discovery that can stem from this approach.
We've probably all practiced that kind of thinking in our dieting days. We're probably all familiar with the promises to start a diet tomorrow, or on Monday or after the first of the year. And then we put off starting till the next day...or the next Monday or the next year because we are after that feeling that comes from doing it right...experiencing perfection.
With intuitive eating it is helpful to recognize perfectionist thinking as a negative thinking pattern that can and will lead you down a negative path.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
It's Simple Really -- But Is It?
The "No Diet" process that I use, the one which enabled me to lose nearly 100 pounds over a five year span is really simple...in theory.
I would say that there are two parts to the process....there are the "rules" or the "guidelines." Then there are the things you do that enable you to follow the rules.
The rules are simple....
1.) Eat when hungry
2.) Stop when satisfied. (Notice I didn't say full.)
3.) Exercise. (I use 15 minutes a day as kind of my benchmark -- because at that level I can fit it in even on my most busy day.)
4.) Drink at least 2 litres of water ever day.
Those are the rules...the guidelines...the pieces that have influence on the balance between energy taken in through food and energy expelled through exercise or other activity. These aspects are important because regardless of the process or lack of process...whether one follows a diet of measuring and weighing, or whether they follow a process of intuitive eating (eating when hungry, stopping when satisfied) they will be bound by the same laws of physics. There is no way around the fact that if one takes in more calories than they expend they will store the excess calories (energy) as body fat.
What the "no diet" philosophy says is that if one consciously pays attention to their body's cues of hunger and satiety and eat in accordance with them they will naturally return to more ordered eating patterns and will begin to eat more in harmony with what their body needs and will slowly lose weight. I have found this to be true.
The second aspect of the process is bigger because it encompasses all the things you do that enable you to do the 4 things outlined above. I personally use journaling as something that I do every day because it helps me to focus on where I am, where I have been, and where I am trying to go. It is also a good place to explore emotions which are often at the root of overeating and bingeing. Some people find meditation helpful. Others find other things helpful. The hard part of the process is discovering why you overeat and then figuring out ways to keep yourself from eating at times when you are not physically hungry.
More on why we eat when we are not physically hungry in future posts.
I would say that there are two parts to the process....there are the "rules" or the "guidelines." Then there are the things you do that enable you to follow the rules.
The rules are simple....
1.) Eat when hungry
2.) Stop when satisfied. (Notice I didn't say full.)
3.) Exercise. (I use 15 minutes a day as kind of my benchmark -- because at that level I can fit it in even on my most busy day.)
4.) Drink at least 2 litres of water ever day.
Those are the rules...the guidelines...the pieces that have influence on the balance between energy taken in through food and energy expelled through exercise or other activity. These aspects are important because regardless of the process or lack of process...whether one follows a diet of measuring and weighing, or whether they follow a process of intuitive eating (eating when hungry, stopping when satisfied) they will be bound by the same laws of physics. There is no way around the fact that if one takes in more calories than they expend they will store the excess calories (energy) as body fat.
What the "no diet" philosophy says is that if one consciously pays attention to their body's cues of hunger and satiety and eat in accordance with them they will naturally return to more ordered eating patterns and will begin to eat more in harmony with what their body needs and will slowly lose weight. I have found this to be true.
The second aspect of the process is bigger because it encompasses all the things you do that enable you to do the 4 things outlined above. I personally use journaling as something that I do every day because it helps me to focus on where I am, where I have been, and where I am trying to go. It is also a good place to explore emotions which are often at the root of overeating and bingeing. Some people find meditation helpful. Others find other things helpful. The hard part of the process is discovering why you overeat and then figuring out ways to keep yourself from eating at times when you are not physically hungry.
More on why we eat when we are not physically hungry in future posts.
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