One step at a time

I recently finished listening to Geneen Roth’s Women Food and God and it completely resonated with me and at the same time overwhelmed me. Yes - soul searching is probably a critical step when it comes to healing an unhealthy relationship with food. I just don’t have time for that now. The way I do it just takes too much time.

Savor by Thich Nhat Hahn suggests slowing down and sitting with the uncomfortableness of not eating when you want to but aren’t hungry. Breathing. I like that. And am working on incorporating it in my daily life.

The thing is, I do have an unhealthy relationship with food and my body. I do believe that if I lose weight without healing that relationship, I’ll continue to struggle with my weight the rest of my life and I don’t want that. So, I’m working on the soul searching a little bit at a time. And I’m learning to incorporate some healthy food practices in my life - one step at a time.

If you haven’t listened to Two Fit Chicks and a Microphone I highly recommend you do so. I’ve subscribed and listen on my way into the office. And their episode on intuitive - mindful - eating really made it seem doable and normal. Not some lofty goal that sits on a pedestal so high it could never be reached. (Roth’s way sort of seems like that to me)

Anyway, I’ll be listening again to get the next step. The first step to be to fully aware, without judgement, of everything you eat and how you feel after you eat it. And that is my practice for this week.
And so far, being aware and knowing I need to acknowledge how I’ll feel after I eat, has kept me from 1) overeating and 2) eating a sausage biscuit. Progress.

And I’m moving again. I’m slowly incorporating exercise back. No more lofty goals with it for me. 25 minutes of cardo 3-4x per week. Followed by light and I mean light strength training. It’s good enough for now.

A rant of sorts

I posted this on MFD in response to the ever present fear “you’ll slow your metabolism if you don’t eat enough” that was posted in response to another poster’s success with eating intuitively.

My two cents worth...

I think changes to the metabolism occur over extended periods of altered fuel intake. A few days (or even weeks) of a lower than externally prescribed calorie count will not necessarily slow down the metabolism. However years of yo-yo dieting, over or under eating and over or under exercising will wreak havoc on the metabolism, as well as many other of the body's systems.

I think that while it is very important to know the difference in nutrition a baked potato offers vs french fries, and generally how many calories one needs, the diet industry, including this website has made it all about numbers. And when the numbers don't work, rationalization starts:

- My metabolism slowed down because I had a week of low calorie days

- I gained weight this week because I ate a high sodium meal yesterday

- I gained weight because I started a weight training regime

- I gained weight because my hormones are out of whack

Rarely does anyone not rationalize away the weight gain. Reality is we gain weight because we eat too much and don't move enough, with some very few medical exceptions.

As we grow older our bodies' caloric requirements(metabolism) lower. This is a natural process of aging. I haven't been paying attention to my body so I didn't feel the reduced appetite and kept eating my normal amounts. I gained weight. Almost 10 lbs this year. I'm listening now.

And yes, my metabolism is very slow. Part of it is naturally slow - like Cindy, I run a lower than normal temperature. And I had years of dieting - phen/fen, Atkins, Weight Watchers, and lastly Optifast. Weight was lost and gained each time - this is HORRIBLE for the body. Yes, exercise physiologists will tell us to gain muscle mass and we'll can eat more. And don't we all want to be able to eat more?

While having strong toned bodies is important, I do not think exercise should ever be the key to eating. I was exercising to the point of being miserable just to be able to eat what I wanted - not what I needed. How our bodies feel should be the key to eating. Eat when you are hungry. Not because it's a habit. (There are a few medical conditions that require frequent eating - but I think the body can actually cue that as well, but if it can't then eating on a schedule must occur)

And oh gees - that is SO very hard for me. Eating is a habit. And if I'm stressed and eat, it can very easily go into a full session of overeating.

In the past I haven't been willing to work on the internal aspects of why I don't listen and heed my body's hunger cues. I think feeling absolutely miserable after eating way too much peanut butter one day a few weeks ago was what triggered my throwing my hands up in the air with calorie counting.

Intuitive & mindful eating, will for me, actually be harder than over-exercising or counting calories. I've a life of unhealthy habits to replace.

Nina - I think there is part of you that likes the structure of a diet. Can you integrate the 'guidelines' that Roth offers into a structure that would work for you?

edited to fix the stupid typos I did catch and to add another thought - if we continue to allow external sources to guide our weight management instead of the wisdom of our own bodies, won't we always be a slave to the diet industry? And I honestly believe the diet industry only wants us to be successful enough to 'break' under the constant pressure of eating in an externally prescribed manner. The "breaking" tends to undo all the success and off we go back to look for another set of guidelines. Learning to listen to our bodies and eat when hungry and only until satisfied will help us break free from that money and sanity zapping industry. I'm writing this mainly to myself - I LOVE to spend hours looking for the next take on weight management. Unfortunately, I haven't spent those hours looking to myself, but to others.