Intuitive Eating

I stumbled across some information on intuitive eating: http://www.intuitiveeating.org/ and I find it quite fascinating. From my limited understanding, it is a non-dieting approach to eating, which involves listening to your body's internal cues to decide when, what and how much to eat.

What I really like about this approach is that for me, it would mean that I wouldn't have to obsess about counting calories, fat grams, etc. I think I mentioned in an earlier post that a few months ago I was very unfocused on what I was eating, in fact I gave myself permission to eat whatever/whenever I wanted. My weight stabilized, which really surprised me. What was also surprising was that the more permission I gave myself, the less I actually wanted unhealthier foods. When I gave myself permission to eat as much chocolate as I wanted, I had it once a week, or twice a week in smaller portions. Knowing that I could have it at any time took away my usual tendency to want to binge on it, because I would normally tell myself, "I'll have this now and then get back on track." It was almost as if I had to make it worth my while if I was going to 'cheat.'

It's not totally clear to me how this is all going to fit into my goals of getting healthy and losing weight. I have some internal conflict over giving up 'counting' and relying on my body to regulate my eating. What if I don't lose any weight? Or, gasp, what if I actually gain more weight? I'm afraid of giving up that control, despite the fact that I so often lose the control, beat myself up, and then start the control process all over again.

I found the intuitive eating information this morning, just in time, since a group of us were going out to a food festival at lunch. I was worrying about what I was going to eat that would be healthy/low-fat, etc. Once I read a bit of that site, I relaxed and felt much happier thinking about how maybe I could still reach my goal of health without the anxiety and stress involved with tracking everything. We went for lunch and I just picked what I wanted, instead of worrying or obsessing about it. I enjoyed myself!

The jury is still out, but I'm giving this some serious consideration. I've also been reading some information on the fat acceptance movement, and the size acceptance movement. I'm not really that informed in these areas, but I think for me, I tend to learn towards the size acceptance movement, for my situation. I know that I'm not super healthy where I am and that needs to change, but at the same time, I am very tired of beating myself up for being fat. So I'm trying to understand how to love and appreciate my body, and work at changing it. In some ways that is really the key: when I decide that my body is precious and a valuable part of my being, I can see that it deserves to be well taken care of with good food, exercise, adequate rest, and play. Loving my body does not really align with eating way too much, or neglecting to get any exercise for months at a time. The impression I get with the fat acceptance movement, is that it would advocate accepting where I am at the moment, and not necessarily trying to change it. That's just not working for me - even if I get why other people would do it. I come back to everyone being different and needing different approaches.