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!