Finals are over

So I know that I'm not supposed to step on the scale but I did. I can tell that I am still gaining weight which is frustrating. I try to tell myself that it is ok but I don't really believe it. So last week at the gym I wanted to know how much I've gained so my curiosity got the best of me and I weighed myself. I've gained 10 pounds since I started doing intuitive eating and that sucks. So for the last week, my weight has been at the back of my mind and I've felt really crappy and so for whatever reason, I've been eating a lot - more than my body wants or needs. Maybe I'm punishing myself, maybe I'm letting myself get too hungry or eating before I'm hungry so I can't tell when I'm full. Basically I have not been focusing on me or my body for the last few weeks and now that finals are over and I have a second to think about these things, I don't feel so good - physically or emotionally. 

BUT - I'm not done. Believe me, I've thought about it. Do you know how easy it would be for me to go on diet right now and lose those 10 pounds in no time? Wow - even saying that makes me cringe because I really do believe in these Intuitive Eating principles. I'm writing this blog post to remind myself that this is a process and I can learn from my experiences.

Happy Holidays and eat whatever you want!

I overate in Baton Rouge, LA

I was out of town last week. I overate. I figured out why. I ate at chains - because I was alone and didn't know where the good places were to eat were. I thought if I ate at Chilis, Taco Bell and Quiznos I'd be safe because at least I know what I was getting into. Well they were all gross. Why would it be so much worse than the chains in Utah? I don't know. But because I didn't love the food, I felt deprived so I went to Walmart and bought peanut M&Ms, Oreos and Hot Tamales. It is important to eat something that makes you not only full but satisfied because it tastes good.

Discovery

OK so this may seem like a big DUH to everyone out there. It was a real enlightening discovery for me. So obviously I have some body image issues. I know that in order to make peace with food and truly be happy I need to be able to accept myself as is and not ever focus on losing weight. So I was thinking about this and trying to come up with ways I can accept myself and this thought came to me:

"Take care of yourself (eat well and exercise) because you love your body."

I know, not anything new but it sure was to me. I realized that sometimes I overeat because I don't think I deserve to feel good (physically or emotionally). It is like I am punishing myself or something. I've been thinking about this for the last few weeks and it has helped. I still have to remind myself of this everyday but I think it is working. IE - we are on our way.

Blindfold Eating

In my last session with J we did a little experiment called "Blind fold eating". It is a bit embarrassing because you have to eat without looking at the food and you are likely to make a mess. I brought a bacon burger and cheese fries from here:

Then she put one of these on me:

I took a few deep breaths, checked in with my hunger and fullness level and started eating. During each bite, J asked me questions about what the temperature, smell, taste was like. Was it as good as I expected? What foods stand out in each bite? I loved really thinking about what I ate. I thought it was a cool experience. I thought I was eating pretty slowly but at one point J told me to stop and wait. We talked about the experience for a bit and then asked me to check in with my hunger and fullness. Wow - I was satisfied and if I hadn't stopped, I would have eaten the whole thing. I took the blindfold off and realized that I ate about 2/3 of the hamburger and not much at all of the fries. It was amazing. My assignment this week was to do something similar twice a week with my own meals - not necessarily blindfold myself but to really try and be mindful while I eat. It works when I actually take the time to do it. I learned that I eat at a 3 and I thought it was a 2. I eat too fast. I don't focus on the tastes, smells, temperature and textures enough.

Intuitive Eating #3

I would like to have another IE meeting next Thursday, November 29th at 8:00 PM. I know this is a busy time of year but it will be good to discuss holiday strategies for eating intuitively as well as Chapter 7 - Making Peace With Food. Who is in?

Intuitive Eating Meeting 2

This was the group that met tonight and discussed chapter 9.

This meeting went well - it started out on completely different topics and I wondered if we'd ever get around to discussing the chapter - Feel Your Fullness. We did and it seemed that everyone had a lot of good things to say. I know it helped me to refocus and try hard to listen to my body and stop when I should. M even suggested, getting up and going to the bathroom to be sure that you take that "time out" or break from eating - to check in away from the food and away from the conversation. There was a discussion about wasting food and how we have been taught to clean our plates etc. The principle of permission came up. When we give ourselves permission to eat anything or to allow ourselves to come back to the food later if we want, we really can stop eating. I have read this chapter probably three times and I still have a really hard time with it. I started taking this IE thing seriously back in May and I'm sure I have only gained weight and not lost any. I know I have made progress in other ways - like making peace with different kinds of food and learning from my experiences. These meetings really help me. Meeting with J also really helps me - I haven't seen her for three weeks and I can feel it. I'm seeing her tomorrow - thank goodness. It is always nice to have someone to talk to about these things - someone who knows, who gets it.

Positive Eating Experience #4 - or was it?

Monday night I was at dinner with S and we both ordered the salad and one slice of pizza deal. I ate both and still felt hungry - now because I am an intuitie eater, I thought I should order another slice of pizza so I did. It was soooooo good. I ate the whole thing and surpassed my fullness level and felt sick after. Should I have waited a bit before ordering the second piece of pizza or should I have simply stopped midway throgh the second piece? This IE thing is really hard.

Positive Eating Experience #3

I got home from work and wasn’t too hungry. I waited for an half an hour and then realized that I was hungry so I opened my pantry and realized that I did not want anything in there – candybars, chips, chocolate, cheezits etc. so I opened the fridge and looked at the fruit I had – I actually wanted to eat an apple so I ate an apple with caramel dip.

Intuitive Eating Club

We will have meeting #2 on Thursday, October 25th - same time same place. Email me at katy_knight@mac.com if you want to know what the time and place were for meeting #1. Anyone is invited - you just have to be open to IE ideas - no dieters please. We will be discussing chapter 9 - Feel Your Fulness.

Positive Eating Experience #2

Yesterday for lunch I had a tuna fish sandwich, doritos and raspberries. I can actually say that I wanted to eat those things - normally I'd just go get a J dawg. Maybe I'll get a J dawg for lunch today - that sounds good.

Positive eating experience #1

J wants me to stop focusing on the negative eating experiences and write down all my positive eating experiences. I told her that I feel like I'm at a stand still but then I guess I feel that way cause I'm not losing weight. This activity might help me realize that I'm making progress just not in the way I expect or hope to. So I will share all these positive experiences with anyone who reads my blog.

I went to dinner with Ann Dee and K. We decided that each of us would pick a yummy appetizer and we'd all share and then we'd get dessert as well. It was so darn fun to taste everyone else's food and not be so obsessed with whichever one I chose. I stopped when I was full and didn't overeat. I know if we hadn't shared, I would have eaten much more. I was satisfied and happy. Chalk that one up for sure.

Recipes Please

So I'm going to try something new ... once a week I will cook. For real - I want to try new things. I need recipes though. Please be so kind and email me: katy_knight@mac.com with yummy, relatively easy recipes. I'm not so concerned about healthy recipes, just delicious ones. If you don't mind sharing them with lots of people, just post them in a comment.

Thanks - seriously. I know some people like to keep their very best recipes secret but come on, this is for a good cause.

IE Meeting #1 - Respect Your Body

The meeting went well. I brought cheese fries and onion rings from the Training Table. M brought chicken tacos from Del Taco, M brought vanilla oreos, and Ann Dee brought chocolate milk and spinach dip. The four of us sat around and talked about body image - chapter 12. It was emotional for some (ok just me) but nonetheless it was therapeutic. Next month we'll discuss the "feel your fullness" chapter.

Yahoo Group posting

I am a member of an Intuitive Eating yahoo group. They are very active and I seldom post anything but enjoy reading everyone else's posts. Today someone posted something that I could totally relate to so I responded. Here is the original post and my response

ORIGINAL POST:
Well, I've been embracing Intuitive Eating for about two months, and have been making my peace with cookie dough, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, potato chips, salty nuts, bleu cheese dressing, Chinese spareribs, Fritos, and Nutella. I've been trying to stay positive about the process I am in, and mostly it's been working. But today when I went to buy new fall clothes myweight gain was undeniable. I have gone up TWO pants sizes. It's hard not to be depressed over this, and hard to go shopping when my selection of clothing is that much more limited. I'm trying not to let it get me down, but I could use some encouragement.

thanks,
Lena

MY RESPONSE:
I have had almost the exact same experience. After about four months of making peace with food, I planned a shopping trip with my friends for my birthday. I was so upset to find that I had also gone up in size. My whole life I have told myself that I would never let myself gain enough weight that I had to shop at the "plus size" stores. I have gotten close before and that is when I would start a new diet and lose some weight. This time I bit my lip and walked in those stores and I was so pleased to find many clothes that FIT and LOOKED GOOD. Now when I get ready in the morning, I am actually excited to get dressed. I am still discouraged that I am gaining weight but I know that making peace with food is a necessary process. I remind myself often that I have dieted and over eaten my whole life - I can't expect to learn this new way to eat in just a few months. Because it might take years, I have to accept myself and RESPECT my body. This is easier to say than to do. Good luck and thanks for your post - I can totally relate.

Katy

Hunger/Fullness Chart

I am now going to promise that I will post on this blog at LEAST once a week. Please keep reading. Now I'm doing this for me and not for you but knowing someone is counting on my posts will give me motivation.

So awhile back I posted about eating every time you are hungry - honor your hunger. This is all true and good but I forgot that I should wait until I actually was hungry. I'll explain later ...



In the book on page 72 and page 127 is a chart for tracking your hunger and fullness. J gave me a more descriptive chart and then told me to create my own with my own descriptions of each level. Here they are:

J's chart:


My chart:


Ideally you should eat when you are at a 3 and finish when you are at a 7. I tend to stop at a 7.5 and sometimes an 8. Stopping at an 8 is ok - REMEMBER this is a learning experience!!!

A lot of times people skip breakfast and then don't eat a mid-morning snack so by the time they eat lunch they are at a 2 and they stop eating lunch when they are at an 8. Or they will eat a light lunch - still not getting to a healthy fullmess level and then are at a 2 again before they eat dinner. This is a hard habit to change. J had me chart my hunger and fullness for a week - I also wrote down what emotion I was experiencing as I ate. The pattern I found was that if I ate at a 2, I would stop when I was at an 8. But if I ate at 3, I could stop at a 7. This was very enlightening. So I figured out that I should not let myself get to a 2 - no problem. That led to my next problem ...

I've been eating before I get hungry - like I thought I could talk myself into it when I was at a four or a five. I was looking at the clock and deciding I should be hungry so I'd eat. Let me tell you that if you eat when you are not hungry it is really hard to stop when you are full because there is not really a contrasting feeling - do you know what I mean? I was eating at a 4 or even a 5 and then having a hard time knowing when to stop. Here is part of the problem for me: I'll be coming home from work and think - what am I going to have for dinner? Then I'd have to figure out some place to pick up some food on the way home cause I knew I didn't have much at home. Well I wasn't hungry but I didn't want to go home and then have to go out again. It finally occured to me that I should go to the grocery store and buy food to prepare for when I was hungry. It is so key to have good food on hand so you will have something you want to eat WHEN you are hungry. So I know now I should WAIT until I am at a 3 to eat.

You only learn these things by experience - I can't stress that enough. Keep at it - who's in for the meeting? We're going to read the chapter on respecting your body (chapter 12)

First Meeting

Ok so we are going to plan the first meeting. So far it is just me and Ann Dee and C Jane - the three of us will have a great time. Dan you can come if you don't fart. If you don't want to comment that you are interested, email me at katy_knight@mac.com and we'll get you the details. I'm thinking Thursday, September 27th or Saturday September 29th. I'd like to talk about the chapter on respecting our bodies or the chapter on honoring hunger because those are the principles I'm working on right now. Any other suggestions? Let me what you think.

Intuitive Eating Club

So I've been thinking ...

I want to start an Intuitive Eating club. We'll meet once a month and have a great meal and then discuss one of the chapters in the book. Becoming an intutive eater is hard and I could use as much support as possible. Who's in? I could even record the discussions and start a podcast from our meetings so anyone who cannot attend can at least hear the discussion. I got the idea from ieating.net - the lady that started that site has a Intuitive Eating peer group in Los Angeles. I'll get it going iif enough people are seriously interested. Let me know.

Honor your hunger

I haven't posted for awhile - it might mean that I've been struggling with Intuitive Eating or maybe it doesn't mean that at all.

Lets just say I need to post more often!

Anyway, HONOR YOUR HUNGER (Chapter 6, principle 2) ---
Although you should eat only when you are hungry, you should "honor your hunger" and eat every time your body tells you to. It's all about how you feel - if your stomach is sending signals that it is hungry then your body must need energy so HONOR YOUR HUNGER and eat. If you let yourself get too hungry you are in danger of over eating. I'll talk about the hunger and fullness chart in another post. Don't you know people who eat all day long but they never eat too much? Aren't they also skinny? I think they are intutive eaters.

This concept takes planning cause you always have to have snacks available. I usually over eat at dinner because I haven't eaten anything since lunch and that was like 5 or 6 hours ago.

Now that I'm trying to become an intutive eater, I've made a conscious effort to have a snack around 3:00 or 4:00 so I'm not starving for dinner. It helps.

I also take snacks to church and will eat cheezits or fruit snacks during Sunday School. I feel a little bit like a baby - maybe I should pack baggies of cheerios. Doesn't this make sense because kids are intutive eaters and if they need a snack mid morning or mid afternoon, then wouldn't we as adults?

I've also started to eat breakfast first thing in the morning before I do anything else. This has helped because I'm not rushed and I'm honoring my hunger.

Charley Horse - what do I do?

I woke up in the middle of the night with a Charley Horse. I get them every so often and it always wakes me up and I have to stretch and rub out my calf. I hate getting woken up from a great sleep with pain like that. Is this part of Intuitive Eating? Is my body telling me something? I've always heard I need more potassium - eat bananas. But ... I don't really like bananas and they go bad so quickly. Any ideas? I want to be intuitive and give my body what it needs.

Gyosa - my birthday eve dinner

It was a struggle ... Here's how it went down:

We were planning to have gyosa (a family favorite food for years) the night before my birthday. I was worried. Kristi, who had been claiming that she has been eating intuitively said, "I'm not going to eat gyosa intuitively." This sacred me. I started to wonder if I could eat gyosa intuitively.

In the book, they classify this type of eating as "once in a lifetime" or "one last shot" (pg 80). Because this is such a traditional, family favorite meal and because we don't have it often, we all seem to have the need to finish every bite.

I had a plan - variety. Lets have 2 or 3 other things to eat at the same time so we don't all scarf the gyosa batch by batch. Once I got to Karen's house I thought of something else we could do to make the eating experience more enjoyable - and encourage intuitive eating. My idea: set the table, sit down and have all the food on the table. This doesn't happen much - especially when eating gyosa. There was some resistance but I used the excuse, "this is my birthday dinner". After all my demands, we finally all sat down at the table and ate intuitively. We had a great discussion during dinner about intuitive eating and I think it made more sense about why I insisted that we sit and eat together and have options available. I explained the hunger and fullnes scale and everyone seemed to get into it.






Mr. Baby always eats intuitively.

I felt good emotionally after the dinner as well - which J said I can use as a gauge as to whether or not I over ate.

Ah ... success. We'll see if I can do it again tomorrow on my 31st!

Why do I over eat?

J is helping me realize that I overeat for many reasons. In the past I would just overeat and feel bad, sick and guilty and not care why I did it. I would just eat more- it was a destructive cycle. I honestly thought that I simply really like food and I have no self control or willpower. Since I've been trying to eat intuitively, my binging has gone from every night to once or twice a week. I admit, I feel a little bit guilty for that once or twice a week binge.

The book tells me to lose the guilt and to be nice to myself and learn from these experiences.

From page 31: "It's important to be kind to yourself and appreciate the learning that comes out of the experience. This process involves coming from a place of curiosity rather than a place of judgment, so whatever you do, don't beat yourself up mentally!"

From page 32: "As with any process, it's important to stay focused in the present, and grow from the many experiences you will encounter. If, however, you focus on the end result (which for most people is the amount of pounds lost), it can make you feel overwhelmed and discouraged and end up sabotaging the process. Instead, if you acknowledge small changes along the way and value the learning experiences (which can be frustrating), it will help you stay on the Intuitive Eating path and move forward."

Ok so now that I'm not going to beat myself up for overeating, lets look at why I do it.

1. EMOTIONS - way too big of a topic to discuss here (more will follow, I promise). I will say that this is the main reason I overeat and now I am conscious of it so I'm doing better.
2. "One Last Shot" (pg.80) - I eat out a lot but every Sunday I eat dinner at my brother's house and his wife is the best darn cook - I know I won't have food that good again until next Sunday so I keep eating.
3. People make fun of me and my new approach to eating. This one was hard to figure out - J helped me here. I felt dumb when I was around people that poked fun at Intuitive Eating so I started joking about it too and eating more and exclaiming, "I can eat this, I can eat whatever I want. I'm being intuitive." In reality I was already full and didn't actually want anything more to eat. PLEASE DON'T TEASE PEOPLE ABOUT EATING ISSUES. I mean even if they are still in the dieting mode, I can see the same thing happening. I could also try not telling people about my new approach to eating ... Lets face it, that is impossible for me - I started a blog about it. Come on.
4. Rebellion - I want to prove to myself that I am in control of my life not someone else telling me what to eat. This is actually part of #1 above (emotions).
4. Food lacked the satisfaction factor (Chapter 10, principle 6). This one happened to me awhile ago. I ate dinner - it was fine, not particularly good but I checked in with my fullness and I was done so I stopped. About an hour later, I was dying for something more tasty and when I finally decided what I wanted, I couldn't stop.
5. I let myself get too hungry (Chapter 6, principle 2).

I NEVER feel good (physically or emotionally) after I overeat, if I'm honest with myself. And because my new goal is NOT weight loss but feeling good, it makes no sense for me to overeat anymore.

From page 33: "You'll find that your body feels so much better when your stomach isn't overfilled, when your muscles are toned and your heart is fit. If you focus on how you feel as the goal, rather than on weight loss, you'll find, ironically, that you can't help but lose weight."

From page 30: "Intuitive Eating depends on ... how willing you are to make weight loss a secondary goal and learning to become an Intuitive Eater the primary goal"

Make peace with food

Chapter 7, principle 3:
My first meeting with J, she had me read this chapter. Making peace with food was going to be easy, I thought. J had me make a list of my "challenge" foods or at least the snacks that I've been craving. I did this and when I showed J my list, she made me add to it. What about candybars? What about chocolate pudding? What about hostess cupcakes? Then she told me to go out and buy all this stuff - so I did. I have to admit I was a little embarassed as I was checking out at Smiths - but then I didn't really care what the check out lady thought anyway. J also told me to order multiple sides when going out to eat - variety is key. Order more than I know I can finish so I can get used to "not cleaning my plate". Don't worry about waste, don't worry about money. Focus on the taste - only eat what I really want to and don't eat anything I don't want to.

It works - I swear. I still have lots of frozen treats in my freezer and "junk" (J would be mad at me for calling it that) food in my pantry. I may be eating foods that aren't "good for me" but I'm eating a lot less. For example, today I've eaten one Ego waffle with butter and syrup, 2 pieces of pizza, a cupcake and left over Thai food. After the Thai food, I wasn't satisfied so I dished up a bowl of ice cream and ate only half of it. Never before have I ever stopped half way through a bowl of ice cream. Because I know I'm never going to diet again and ice cream is never going to be off limits, I could stop.

WARNING: You must experience these things. From page 87: "The only way you will come to believe that you will be able to stop eating is to go through the food experience, to actually eat. This is not about knowledge of food, but rather rebuilding experiences with eating. You cannot have an eating experience through knowledge; rather, you need to go through it, bite by bite,"

Making peace with food is not as easy as I thought but I am learning by doing - Hmmm that reminds me of John 7:17.

To weigh or not to weigh

To weigh: Weight Watchers does - every week. If you are a lifetime member you have to stay within a small range of your goal weight to remain a lifetime member. I used to weight myself everyday... naked. I was obsessed. If I was dieting, I'd watch the scale go down if I was not dieting I'd watch the scale go up. I used to call Rachel every Wednesday night after my weigh in and report. We bonded over my weight watchers experience.

Not to weigh: Intuitive Eating says to lose the scale. I threw mine away. I'm committed to becoming an Intuitive Eater but I have a few relapses. Last week at the gym I weighed myself - the scale was right there in front of me and I let my curiosity get the best of me. I was exactly what I thought I was - what I was when I last weighed myself two months ago.

This morning I woke up feeling trim - well at least not fat. I've been trying to eat intuitively for awhile now and I'm starting to catch on. I wanted to weight myself to see if I really am losing weight. NO! Respect your body - reject the diet mentality. If I weighed and I had lost weight, I'd start to become obsessed with the scale again. If I weighed and I hadn't lost weight then I'd be sad and the happy good feeling I woke up with would be gone. It's all about how you feel.

Rejecting the diet mentality will take sometime - they say that breaking up is hard to do. Will I ever step on the scale again?
Probably

Here goes ...

So maybe I'll start a blog about trying to eat intuitively. I'm supposed to trust myself, listen to my body and eat whatever and whenever I want to. Reject the diet mentality.

The book: Eat when you are hungry and stop when your full.
Me: No duh sherlock
Me after trying: Help

(I stole the above formatting style from my little sister's book, "This is What I Did:"- buy it and read it, you won't be sorry)

Here is what I've done so far ...

1. I've Read the Book - converted, didn't even have to pray about it
2. Live the book? - nope, but I hired someone to help me with this one ... more posts to follow on this