Celebrating 6 Months of Intuitive Eating

Yep, SIX months! I said I'd revisit the subject in a few months, so here I am.

It started even earlier, but this book really put it in perspective for me. Since then I've read other books, including the wonderful HEALTH AT EVERY SIZE by Linda Bacon, PhD. But it was INTUITIVE EATING by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch, two nutrionists, who started me on the path of making peace with my weight. I could hug those ladies!!!

But I don't want to give the impression that this been easy, either. There've been times when I thought, "Maybe I shouldn't trust myself to eat right and exercise without dieting." And of course, "I'll probably gain all this weight unless I diet stringently, blah blah blah." And let's not forget the old, "Wasn't I a lot happier when I weighed 117 - 120???"

Okay, now, here are only some of the changes that eating intuitively--that is, when you're hungry, stopping when you're full, honoring your health and your hunger, and making room for those "play foods" (i.e. chips and my beloved M&Ms!)--have wrought:

1. I rarely weigh myself now, but the times that I have I notice my weight has stabilized around 133 - 136 pounds. That's what I weigh now NATURALLY, without starving myself or overeating. And I'm just as happy as when I weighed 117 - 120 because over these months I've come to realize that happiness (and the even more valuable "joy") come from sources other than a machine called a "scale".

2. It has been months--scratch that, let's just say I can't remember the last time I binged. There are days when I eat more than others, days when I eat less. Now that I gave myself permission to eat potato chips, I'm satisfied with a portion of chips rather than half the bag.

3. I have attended parties and get-togethers, plus a church dinner, all places where there was food, and each time I stopped when I was full. If I did have more than that, I didn't waste time beating myself up over it. I can trust myself around food and food is not an "enemy". Both are VERY empowering revelations!

4. I've learned that I have a terrific, supportive family doctor who agrees that it's not about diets, it's about moderation.

5. Though I don't go to the gym excessively anymore, I still go...when I'm not walking out in the sunshine or at my belly dance class. I am now moving from the beginners' class to the advanced class! AND I'm learning the choreography for my first belly dancing performance. This isn't exercise; this is TRUE LOVE. :D

6. Dieting and beating yourself up for not being 10 pounds (or more) thinner takes up a LOT of time and energy. That's time and energy that is better spent paying attention to your spiritual needs, and just enjoying those you love, and throwing your whole heart into your creativity.

7. Finally, intuitive eating has allowed me to be gentler to myself.

So for me, thank you, Evelyn Tribole, Elyse Resch and Linda Bacon. It's been an inspiring, eye-opening and wonderful 6 months. Here's to never dieting again!

Diet, Interrupted

Remember my blog back in February, where I said that's it, I'm done with dieting for good?

Well, firstly...has it really been 8 months since I posted that?? Wow. I hadn't realized that much time had passed. Just wanted to share my little journey with any woman who's ever had a love/hate relationship with food, who's ever had body image issues, and--yes, I'm gonna go there--ever let a number on a scale ruin your day while obsessing over whether you had enough points/calories/carbs left over to eat a small salad for dinner.

Maybe it helps to go back further. I suspect my mom, easily one of the sweetest people I've ever known, had an eating disorder. They didn't call it that back then; you were just fat because you lacked the self-discipline to do anything about it. Back in the 1960s, well-meaning "friends", coworkers and even family members thought they were doing their part to help Mami by pointing out her compulsive eating so that she would be shamed into losing weight. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

Over the years I watched my mom do things that today would send up red flags to any medical professional. My mom would actually hide food in strange places, including our dresser drawers. She would go against the advice of her doctors--including, in her later years, her cardiologist--and eat food that was unhealthy for a young woman who was already battling heart disease. When I was in my late teens and her closest confidante, Mami would tell me that food was to her what the bottle was to the alcoholic, and that people just didn't understand the control it had over her.

At the age of 47, my mother suffered a massive heart attack. One year later she had a stroke that cruelly took her life.

Suffice to say, besides the heartbreak of having lost my wonderful mother at a young age (I was 24), I inherited some of her food and weight issues. The media is a major culprit for most of us women, too. Apparently, according to the genuises in TV, the movies and marketing in general, a woman approaching 50 is supposed to be able to easily slip into the skimpy bikini that you'd find in a 20-year-old's closet. Because you can never be too rich or too thin, and everybody is supposed to be the perfect size 2, blah, blah, blah.

Fortunately there comes a point when you realize, You know, I think I'm opening my 5,000th can of diet soda, and I still haven't lost those pesky 10 pounds? That's sobering. Guys, come on, all that aspartame can NOT be good for you. There also comes a point where it finally dawns on you that maybe God didn't mean for us to count every single calorie or point or carb we put into our mouths FOREVER. And most of all, there comes a point when you decide that you are worth so much, much more than just a stupid number on a scale says you are.

So I've fallen off the wagon over the past 8 months. I started point-counting and relying on diet soda again.

But then I got serious again. I'm not dieting anymore; I'm just learning to trust myself to take good care of the person that I am, not who Madison Avenue thinks I should be. I am allowed to eat whatever I'd like, whenever I'd like to eat it, but I can't live on a diet of junk food when what I need is fuel, aka proper nutrition.

Instead of that once-a-week, oh-my-God-please-let-me-have-lost-something weigh-in, I started weighing myself every day. First of all, the pressure's off. There's no, "Oh, rats, I screwed up today, let me just keep nibbling for the rest of the week." There is no "rest of the week," it's just one day at a time. As I've done for many years, I continue to go to the gym and on my walks, bikerides and hikes, because I enjoy exercise, not because it'll make me look like the latest underfed waif on People magazine.

Something very interesting has happened: My weight has stabilized. It hasn't gone up; it hasn't gone down. It fluctuates between 128 and 130. Which, after all, is not fat. It may not be the number I'd like to see on the scale, the number I saw a few years ago. But it's a number I can live with. It sure seems to be the number that this 49-year-old body feels comfortable and healthy at.

I drink a soda--the real thing, not diet--three times a week or so rather than the 3 or 4 diet sodas I'd have daily. But who wants soda when you can have juice, which I drink more often now. Yes, there's natural sugar in juice. I wish that was my biggest problem in life, don't you??? Snacking can consist of a "normal" size bag of Raisinettes--and I refuse to feel guilty over that--or a small fat-free yogurt. Whatever I'm craving or need at the moment.

The best part? It's like I'm free. For the first time since I was a kid, when I equated being skinny with self-worth, I can devote my mental energy to other things besides stressing over having eaten one lone, evil cookie for dessert.

To keep things honest, I'll revisit this subject in a few months, just to see how this newfound freedom is going. For now, I'm grateful that I'm no longer Girl, Interrupted.

That 20-year-old can keep her size 2 bikini. It's so much more comfy in this, my own skin.