Intuitive Eating....excellent book
highwood1968
Posts: 61 Member
Just started reading this and it just reiterates why diets don't work and simply lead you to bad eating habits.
Love this book and highly recommend.
Love this book and highly recommend.
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Replies
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Except it doesn't work for people who have hunger cues skewed up in the first place, which is probably most of the overweight people. And it also won't work if you eat a lot of high calorie/non filling foods (which, again, a lot of overweight people do).
Nice try though.5 -
It is a great book! With time, I believe it can heal food issues and help one have a healthy perspective to eating with no foods being bad but also not overeating because you work to heal the core issues around why you overeat. I have it in hard copy and audio. I also love all Geneen Roth's books...very highly recommended for anyone with eating disorders or disordered eating!
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I agree! This book and Geneen Roth's books helped me ton!2
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Can someone explain what intuitive eating entails? In a nutshell?0
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So FrancI27...what is the solution then? My thought is people I know who have never dieted and exercise and eat in moderation are the ones that do not have weight issues.0
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Here are the main principles from the book! I also found a couple groups on here but not active:
1. Reject the Diet Mentality Throw out the diet books and magazine articles that offer you false hope of losing weight quickly, easily, and permanently. Get angry at the lies that have led you to feel as if you were a failure every time a new diet stopped working and you gained back all of the weight. If you allow even one small hope to linger that a new and better diet might be lurking around the corner, it will prevent you from being free to rediscover Intuitive Eating.
2. Honor Your Hunger Keep your body biologically fed with adequate energy and carbohydrates. Otherwise you can trigger a primal drive to overeat. Once you reach the moment of excessive hunger, all intentions of moderate, conscious eating are fleeting and irrelevant. Learning to honor this first biological signal sets the stage for re-building trust with yourself and food.
3. Make Peace with Food Call a truce, stop the food fight! Give yourself unconditional permission to eat. If you tell yourself that you can't or shouldn't have a particular food, it can lead to intense feelings of deprivation that build into uncontrollable cravings and, often, bingeing When you finally “give-in” to your forbidden food, eating will be experienced with such intensity, it usually results in Last Supper overeating, and overwhelming guilt.
4. Challenge the Food Police .Scream a loud "NO" to thoughts in your head that declare you're "good" for eating minimal calories or "bad" because you ate a piece of chocolate cake. The Food Police monitor the unreasonable rules that dieting has created . The police station is housed deep in your psyche, and its loud speaker shouts negative barbs, hopeless phrases, and guilt-provoking indictments. Chasing the Food Police away is a critical step in returning to Intuitive Eating.
5. Respect Your Fullness Listen for the body signals that tell you that you are no longer hungry. Observe the signs that show that you're comfortably full. Pause in the middle of a meal or food and ask yourself how the food tastes, and what is your current fullness level?
6. Discover the Satisfaction Factor The Japanese have the wisdom to promote pleasure as one of their goals of healthy living In our fury to be thin and healthy, we often overlook one of the most basic gifts of existence--the pleasure and satisfaction that can be found in the eating experience. When you eat what you really want, in an environment that is inviting and conducive, the pleasure you derive will be a powerful force in helping you feel satisfied and content. By providing this experience for yourself, you will find that it takes much less food to decide you've had "enough".
7. Honor Your Feelings Without Using Food Find ways to comfort , nurture, distract, and resolve your issues without using food. Anxiety, loneliness, boredom, anger are emotions we all experience throughout life. Each has its own trigger, and each has its own appeasement. Food won't fix any of these feelings. It may comfort for the short term, distract from the pain, or even numb you into a food hangover. But food won't solve the problem. If anything, eating for an emotional hunger will only make you feel worse in the long run. You'll ultimately have to deal with the source of the emotion, as well as the discomfort of overeating.
8. Respect Your Body Accept your genetic blueprint. Just as a person with a shoe size of eight would not expect to realistically squeeze into a size six, it is equally as futile (and uncomfortable) to have the same expectation with body size. But mostly, respect your body, so you can feel better about who you are. It's hard to reject the diet mentality if you are unrealistic and overly critical about your body shape.
9. Exercise--Feel the Difference Forget militant exercise. Just get active and feel the difference. Shift your focus to how it feels to move your body, rather than the calorie burning effect of exercise. If you focus on how you feel from working out, such as energized, it can make the difference between rolling out of bed for a brisk morning walk or hitting the snooze alarm. If when you wake up, your only goal is to lose weight, it's usually not a motivating factor in that moment of time.
10 Honor Your Health--Gentle Nutrition Make food choices that honor your health and tastebuds while making you feel well. Remember that you don't have to eat a perfect diet to be healthy. You will not suddenly get a nutrient deficiency or gain weight from one snack, one meal, or one day of eating. It's what you eat consistently over time that matters, progress not perfection is what counts.
As found here https://www.intuitiveeating.com/content/10-principles-intuitive-eating
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I realize this goes against a lot here and I am sure many others will have lots to criticize about the points above.
Keep in mind this is a lifestyle choice to follow or not follow. If not in agreement, that's perfectly fine.
I am not currently following this (I'm here afterall) but I do strongly agree with this book and Geneen Roth's for those with food issues. I do know these principles have been deeply healing for those needing help.2 -
snickerscharlie wrote: »Can someone explain what intuitive eating entails? In a nutshell?
Hi here is a link:
https://www.intuitiveeating.com/content/what-intuitive-eating1 -
It is not easy for sure....but can't be any harder than any "diet". Like anything takes consistency and practice. I have done the "last supper" thing that is discussed in the book where people tend to go and binge on all of their favorite foods because the next day or two days from now they will not have those foods again. It is such a destructive cycle and I am tired of doing it...hoping that today will be the day where all of a sudden losing weight is easier but it never is.
I also hate the "good" vs "bad" food things that we tend to do.
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I have not read the book.
From https://www.intuitiveeating.com/content/what-intuitive-eatingWhat is Intuitive Eating?
Intuitive eating is an approach that teaches you how to create a healthy relationship with your food, mind, and body--where you ultimately become the expert of your own body. You learn how to distinguish between physical and emotional feelings, and gain a sense of body wisdom. It's also a process of making peace with food---so that you no longer have constant "food worry" thoughts. It's knowing that your health and your worth as a person do not change, because you ate a food that you had labeled as "bad" or "fattening”.
The underlying premise of Intuitive Eating is that you will learn to respond to your inner body cues, because you were born with all the wisdom you need for eating intuitively. On the surface, this may sound simplistic, but it is rather complex. This inner wisdom is often clouded by years of dieting and food myths that abound in the culture. For example, “Eat when you're hungry and stop when you're full” may sound like basic common sense, but when you have a history of chronic dieting or of following rigid “healthy” rules about eating, it can be quite difficult. To be able to ultimately return to your inborn Intuitive Eater, a number of things need to be in place—most importantly, the ability to trust yourself! Here is a summary of the 10 principles of Intuitive Eating, from our book, Intuitive Eating, 2nd ed, 2003. With these principles, comes a world of satisfying eating and a sense of freedom that can be exhilarating!
Intuitive Eating Principles
1. Reject the Diet Mentality. Throw out the diet books and magazine articles that offer you false hope of losing weight quickly, easily, and permanently. Get angry at the lies that have led you to feel as if you were a failure every time a new diet stopped working and you gained back all of the weight. If you allow even one small hope to linger that a new and better diet might be lurking around the corner, it will prevent you from being free to rediscover Intuitive Eating.
2. Honor Your Hunger. Keep your body biologically fed with adequate energy and carbohydrates. Otherwise you can trigger a primal drive to overeat. Once you reach the moment of excessive hunger, all intentions of moderate, conscious eating are fleeting and irrelevant. Learning to honor this first biological signal sets the stage for re-building trust with yourself and food.
3. Make Peace with Food. Call a truce, stop the food fight! Give yourself unconditional permission to eat. If you tell yourself that you can't or shouldn't have a particular food, it can lead to intense feelings of deprivation that build into uncontrollable cravings and, often, bingeing When you finally “give-in” to your forbidden food, eating will be experienced with such intensity, it usually results in Last Supper overeating, and overwhelming guilt.
4. Challenge the Food Police. Scream a loud "NO" to thoughts in your head that declare you're "good" for eating under 1000 calories or "bad" because you ate a piece of chocolate cake. The Food Police monitor the unreasonable rules that dieting has created . The police station is housed deep in your psyche, and its loud speaker shouts negative barbs, hopeless phrases, and guilt-provoking indictments. Chasing the Food Police away is a critical step in returning to Intuitive Eating.
5. Respect Your Fullness. Listen for the body signals that tell you that you are no longer hungry. Observe the signs that show that you're comfortably full. Pause in the middle of a meal or food and ask yourself how the food tastes, and what is your current fullness level?
6. Discover the Satisfaction Factor. The Japanese have the wisdom to promote pleasure as one of their goals of healthy living In our fury to be thin and healthy, we often overlook one of the most basic gifts of existence--the pleasure and satisfaction that can be found in the eating experience. When you eat what you really want, in an environment that is inviting and conducive, the pleasure you derive will be a powerful force in helping you feel satisfied and content. By providing this experience for yourself, you will find that it takes much less food to decide you've had "enough".
7. Honor Your Feelings Without Using Food. Find ways to comfort , nurture, distract, and resolve your issues without using food. Anxiety, loneliness, boredom, anger are emotions we all experience throughout life. Each has its own trigger, and each has its own appeasement. Food won't fix any of these feelings. It may comfort for the short term, distract from the pain, or even numb you into a food hangover. But food won't solve the problem. If anything, eating for an emotional hunger will only make you feel worse in the long run. You'll ultimately have to deal with the source of the emotion, as well as the discomfort of overeating.
8. Respect Your Body. Accept your genetic blueprint. Just as a person with a shoe size of eight would not expect to realistically squeeze into a size six, it is equally as futile (and uncomfortable) to have the same expectation with body size. But mostly, respect your body, so you can feel better about who you are. It's hard to reject the diet mentality if you are unrealistic and overly critical about your body shape.
9. Exercise--Feel the Difference. Forget militant exercise. Just get active and feel the difference. Shift your focus to how it feels to move your body, rather than the calorie burning effect of exercise. If you focus on how you feel from working out, such as energized, it can make the difference between rolling out of bed for a brisk morning walk or hitting the snooze alarm. If when you wake up, your only goal is to lose weight, it's usually not a motivating factor in that moment of time.
10. Honor Your Health--Gentle Nutrition. Make food choices that honor your health and tastebuds while making you feel well. Remember that you don't have to eat a perfect diet to be healthy. You will not suddenly get a nutrient deficiency or gain weight from one snack, one meal, or one day of eating. It's what you eat consistently over time that matters, progress not perfection is what counts.
I don't disagree with any of those points. I think using a tool like MFP and working on these things can lead to sustainable weight loss. I think a lot of us need to see how many calories we are consuming though to begin with because we don't recognize hunger/fullness cues. Does the book say no to calorie monitoring?3 -
highwood1968 wrote: »So FrancI27...what is the solution then? My thought is people I know who have never dieted and exercise and eat in moderation are the ones that do not have weight issues.
Well, sure. There's no doubt many people can eat intuitively and maintain weight. That doesn't mean that everyone else could too. Like anything else in biology, your hunger/satiety system doesn't necessarily work right. Some people have great vision and never need glasses, but that doesn't mean everyone else can learn to "intuitively see". And with hunger and appetite, there are solid evolutionary reasons to favor an appetite that wants more energy than the body needs - food stability is a very recent thing, and for most of history, being fat in a time of plenty keeps you alive during the next time of famine. The problem now becomes that your body anticipates a famine that isn't ever coming.
The solution is, like with the use of glasses, to use tools to fix or compensate for biological problems. For many of us, that's calorie counting.
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Those are some good points that can (and should) be integrated into weight loss.
However, eating when my body (which includes my brain) wanted to eat is what got me nearly 200 pounds overweight in the first place.
These are the people who can (and already do) eat intuitively.highwood1968 wrote: »My thought is people I know who have never dieted and exercise and eat in moderation are the ones that do not have weight issues.
Intuitive eating isn't a workable answer for most overweight people. Some type of calorie constraint (through a specific diet or some sort of calorie tracking) is required as an outside source of limiting intake.3 -
highwood1968 wrote: »It is not easy for sure....but can't be any harder than any "diet". Like anything takes consistency and practice. I have done the "last supper" thing that is discussed in the book where people tend to go and binge on all of their favorite foods because the next day or two days from now they will not have those foods again. It is such a destructive cycle and I am tired of doing it...hoping that today will be the day where all of a sudden losing weight is easier but it never is.
I also hate the "good" vs "bad" food things that we tend to do.
Wishing you all the best on your journey!! Take it one day at a time! I did try following the principles and will likely return once at my goal, but for now I'm following MFP and liking the caloric structures I've set for myself.0 -
Unless I have gone a really long time without eating and am feeling lightheaded/faint (and I can count on one hand the amount of times that has happened in my life) I honestly don't know what hunger feels like. Am I hungry? Thirsty? Bored? Looking to eat because it's noon and that's "lunchtime"? Also, once I am eating, I have no "off" switch. I don't recognize the cue that tells me that I've had "just enough".
So, tell me, please, how "intuitive eating" will work for me.4 -
I think MFP is an excellent way to track..I have been doing it for a few days and I like the fact that you can see your fiber/sodium intake as well...it has led me personally to think wow that snack I have every day has a really high sodium intake maybe I can swap it for a different snack with less sodium.
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rankinsect wrote: »highwood1968 wrote: »So FrancI27...what is the solution then? My thought is people I know who have never dieted and exercise and eat in moderation are the ones that do not have weight issues.
Well, sure. There's no doubt many people can eat intuitively and maintain weight. That doesn't mean that everyone else could too. Like anything else in biology, your hunger/satiety system doesn't necessarily work right. Some people have great vision and never need glasses, but that doesn't mean everyone else can learn to "intuitively see". And with hunger and appetite, there are solid evolutionary reasons to favor an appetite that wants more energy than the body needs - food stability is a very recent thing, and for most of history, being fat in a time of plenty keeps you alive during the next time of famine. The problem now becomes that your body anticipates a famine that isn't ever coming.
The solution is, like with the use of glasses, to use tools to fix or compensate for biological problems. For many of us, that's calorie counting.
Hey whatever works that is awesome!0 -
I expect most of the comments against intuitive eating made in this thread will be from people who either haven't read the book or haven't understood it, or the other behavioral approaches to weight control like mindful eating or cognitive awareness of negative thoughts. If diets and magical pills and programs worked, folks, Americans wouldn't be so fat since we've been doing them non-stop since the 1960s. Yet Americans are fatter than ever.
These principles are valid even if you log your food and count calories, and most valuable in maintenance when you'd better "make peace with food" and the rest if you don't want to end up fatter than when you began. Face it: if most of us had healthy attitudes toward food and eating, we would' be here.3 -
Except it doesn't work for people who have hunger cues skewed up in the first place, which is probably most of the overweight people. And it also won't work if you eat a lot of high calorie/non filling foods (which, again, a lot of overweight people do).
Nice try though.
I'm learning this. I was fat and ate disorderly and felt miserable about it. My healing process started with calorie counting and portion control, and no other considerations than calories and macros removed lots of "shoulds" - and gave me instead freedom to observe which foods make me satisfied or hungry, as I steadily lost weight and hit goal weight. I learnt about "the hunger scale" and adapted it to my personal cues. Suddenly, "mindful eating" didn't sound so stupid anymore. Overall better food choices makes it relatively easy for me to keep a normal weight even without tracking (I still log, but that's mostly because I meal plan). Intuitive eating both is and isn't the same as mindful eating. You observe yourself and aim to do what's good for you. Tracking your food intake is one way to observe what you do and do yourself good. No need to see this as either/or.4 -
Except it doesn't work for people who have hunger cues skewed up in the first place, which is probably most of the overweight people. And it also won't work if you eat a lot of high calorie/non filling foods (which, again, a lot of overweight people do).
Nice try though.
I believe it has something to do with HAES, that whatever weight your body settles at is good and dandy as long as you have a healthy relationship with food.
I personally believe it has merit as a part of a holistic weight loss program, but that it does not guarantee weight loss on its own. I mean I practice it to some extent during dieting, in the sense that I try to eat food that allows me to not be hungry all the time, eat as much of it as is satisfying and THEN log it. I also allow myself higher calorie things and don't feel bad for eating them.
Where I part ways with this is when they say you shouldn't count calories, and that you should eat every time you are hungry. I find counting calories gives me far more freedom than trusting my judgement, and being a little hungry every now and then (like when I'm saving up calories for a heavy evening) is not a bad thing or the end of the world.3 -
I read an interesting book once that suggested that the reason we overeat when we eat "junk" (and the definition of junk is another topic) is because we haven't satisfied our real hunger.
Our bodies tell us to eat when they need nutrients, vitamins, minerals, "macros", but when we choose to fill that hunger with white flour and sugar etc.our brains never send the full signal.
If we choose to feed nutrient-rich foods, our bodies stop telling us we are hungry all the time.2 -
eveandqsmom wrote: »I read an interesting book once that suggested that the reason we overeat when we eat "junk" (and the definition of junk is another topic) is because we haven't satisfied our real hunger.
Our bodies tell us to eat when they need nutrients, vitamins, minerals, "macros", but when we choose to fill that hunger with white flour and sugar etc.our brains never send the full signal.
If we choose to feed nutrient-rich foods, our bodies stop telling us we are hungry all the time.
That's far from true. I can honestly say that I ballooned to more than 300 pounds eating predominantly nutrient rich foods and only the very occasional "junk". The book you read extrapolates conclusion from a narrow very limited field view of a narrow very limited population section. Not everyone who eats junk is obese, and not every obese person gained weight on junk.3 -
highwood1968 wrote: »So FrancI27...what is the solution then? My thought is people I know who have never dieted and exercise and eat in moderation are the ones that do not have weight issues.
Those people are the ones for whom intuitive eating works.
I don't know what *the* solution for most people is, but for me it was counting calories (and learning what fills me up the most for the calories, the best macro balance for me etc).2 -
amusedmonkey wrote: »Except it doesn't work for people who have hunger cues skewed up in the first place, which is probably most of the overweight people. And it also won't work if you eat a lot of high calorie/non filling foods (which, again, a lot of overweight people do).
Nice try though.
I personally believe it has merit as a part of a holistic weight loss program, but that it does not guarantee weight loss on its own. I mean I practice it to some extent during dieting, in the sense that I try to eat food that allows me to not be hungry all the time, eat as much of it as is satisfying and THEN log it. I also allow myself higher calorie things and don't feel bad for eating them.
Where I part ways with this is when they say you shouldn't count calories, and that you should eat every time you are hungry. I find counting calories gives me far more freedom than trusting my judgement, and being a little hungry every now and then (like when I'm saving up calories for a heavy evening) is not a bad thing or the end of the world.
I too think the demonizing of calorie counting is a bad thing. Seeing black on white how much I have eaten and how much more I can eat without gaining weight (or hinder loss) made me feel safe, and contributed to my learning how much food was appropriate for me...
which leads me to that the perception of hunger is individual and interpreting it and acting on it even more, and can be adjusted by changing habits and attitudes.
In my experience, it's the dieting industry that's been touting eating all the time to not allow yourself to become hungry (and "keep that metabolism going"
). It's a good thing to not get so hungry that you eat the kitchen, but to be hungry before meals is not to be feared, in fact it can feel good, and make you enjoy your meal more. "Easyweigh to lose weight" by Allen Carr taught me this. And that we're not supposed to stop eating, just stop overeating 
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amusedmonkey wrote: »eveandqsmom wrote: »I read an interesting book once that suggested that the reason we overeat when we eat "junk" (and the definition of junk is another topic) is because we haven't satisfied our real hunger.
Our bodies tell us to eat when they need nutrients, vitamins, minerals, "macros", but when we choose to fill that hunger with white flour and sugar etc.our brains never send the full signal.
If we choose to feed nutrient-rich foods, our bodies stop telling us we are hungry all the time.
That's far from true. I can honestly say that I ballooned to more than 300 pounds eating predominantly nutrient rich foods and only the very occasional "junk". The book you read extrapolates conclusion from a narrow very limited field view of a narrow very limited population section. Not everyone who eats junk is obese, and not every obese person gained weight on junk.
Fair enough, I didn't quote it as gospel, I just thought it was an interesting theory.0 -
kommodevaran wrote: »I too think the demonizing of calorie counting is a bad thing. Seeing black on white how much I have eaten and how much more I can eat without gaining weight (or hinder loss) made me feel safe, and contributed to my learning how much food was appropriate for me...
For some/many this is good, but for some any time where they've over eaten and then see it in numerical format can create feelings of guilt and panic and a need to make up for it. Where as normal behaviour should be sometimes you over eat but don't dwell on it, don't make some recording of it. You just get on with your life and things will balance out. Because you'll eat a lower amount throughout your normal routine, you'll do some exercise regularly and everything is fine.
Whether people admit it or not, tracking calories is either for people with specific athletic goals where exact amounts of macronutrients is the difference between success and failure...and people whose relationship with food is broken. No matter how at ease and happy you are at using MFP, the fact you're using it means you and food are not on great terms and you need an intermediary. I read so many people on here who seem really positive about doing this that you wouldn't ever think of this in any negative light. But it is a bad thing that any of us have felt the need to have to go to this extent just to do what our body and minds were supposed to be able to do without assistance in the first place.3 -
It's true that dieting doesn't work and the statistics prove it. The problem is mindset. Intuitive eating is another mindset approach. If your mindset is set to dieting, changing that is the key and there's no easy answer.0
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A friend of mine handed me this book saying it was awesome. I went into it highly skeptical. She also thinks Lustig is a genius. It was soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo dumb. I wouldn't be down 50 if I'd followed that tripe.
But if it works for you, go bananas. But if it doesn't work for you, don't be discouraged. I doubt it is a successful weight loss strategy for many people. It's more like a strategy for mentally accepting and holding onto the status quo. Screw the status quo.4 -
kommodevaran wrote: »I too think the demonizing of calorie counting is a bad thing. Seeing black on white how much I have eaten and how much more I can eat without gaining weight (or hinder loss) made me feel safe, and contributed to my learning how much food was appropriate for me...
For some/many this is good, but for some any time where they've over eaten and then see it in numerical format can create feelings of guilt and panic and a need to make up for it. Where as normal behaviour should be sometimes you over eat but don't dwell on it, don't make some recording of it. You just get on with your life and things will balance out. Because you'll eat a lower amount throughout your normal routine, you'll do some exercise regularly and everything is fine.
Whether people admit it or not, tracking calories is either for people with specific athletic goals where exact amounts of macronutrients is the difference between success and failure...and people whose relationship with food is broken. No matter how at ease and happy you are at using MFP, the fact you're using it means you and food are not on great terms and you need an intermediary. I read so many people on here who seem really positive about doing this that you wouldn't ever think of this in any negative light. But it is a bad thing that any of us have felt the need to have to go to this extent just to do what our body and minds were supposed to be able to do without assistance in the first place.
I do agree, but I don't see this as a problem in the meaning "disaster", but as something that must and can be solved. Much like I don't think that the fact that there are doctors means that we are sicker than we "should" have been. They just are. Calorie counting is a tool that can make some people find food peace. I wouldn't have set out to lose weight and track food intake if I didn't need it. But I ate badly, and it helped me. I learnt to eat better and don't need it any more. Some people don't "believe"in doctors and see naturopaths or healers or whatever. We're just different in our history and what has brought us here, and we may need and want different approaches to go on.0 -
kommodevaran wrote: »I too think the demonizing of calorie counting is a bad thing. Seeing black on white how much I have eaten and how much more I can eat without gaining weight (or hinder loss) made me feel safe, and contributed to my learning how much food was appropriate for me...
For some/many this is good, but for some any time where they've over eaten and then see it in numerical format can create feelings of guilt and panic and a need to make up for it. Where as normal behaviour should be sometimes you over eat but don't dwell on it, don't make some recording of it. You just get on with your life and things will balance out. Because you'll eat a lower amount throughout your normal routine, you'll do some exercise regularly and everything is fine.
Whether people admit it or not, tracking calories is either for people with specific athletic goals where exact amounts of macronutrients is the difference between success and failure...and people whose relationship with food is broken. No matter how at ease and happy you are at using MFP, the fact you're using it means you and food are not on great terms and you need an intermediary. I read so many people on here who seem really positive about doing this that you wouldn't ever think of this in any negative light. But it is a bad thing that any of us have felt the need to have to go to this extent just to do what our body and minds were supposed to be able to do without assistance in the first place.
What our body and mind are supposed to do is see food, eat it, store it, burn it off looking for more food, repeat. In a sense, those who are naturally thin are the disadvantaged ones from an evolutionary standpoint. In a sense many of us were already doing what we were supposed to be doing.
Do people need to work on reacquainting themselves with their hunger and satiety cues? Sue! In a world of abundance and convenience it's easy to lose sight of this. But just like modern life has afforded us the luxuries we didn't always have like safely and slowly enjoying our food, savoring it, consciously thinking about our eating experience and stopping to think how full we are after each bite, it has also made available for us the tools to guarantee weight loss through calorie counting and the ability to recognize the calorie footprint of each food without having to play the guessing game with our individual and varying appetites.4 -
I know for me the reason I am 40 lbs overweight is for years I had an all or nothing mentality about eating..i.e. if I ate a tablespoon of something i considered bad that would send me on a bender for the rest of the day as I would think okay blow it today and start fresh tomorrow....only to have the same thing happen. I expected myself to eat perfectly and to exercise.
In the last couple of years I have gotten way better at exercising even when I eat like crap that day...I used to only exercise when it was an "on" day and everything was going right with eating.
I have also blown it for a couple of weeks/days, etc. before say a family function/dinner as I think shoot we are going to a buffet I might as well blow it and eat whatever crap I want then start fresh after the family function is over...the ironic thing is I am sure that that one meal would not have affected my weight however a week or two of overeating in anticipation of starting fresh again when the event was done that is where I gained weight.
Anytime I feel I might not have control over what is being services or what I will eat that tends to send me on a downward spiral...
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