Chapter 8 - Challenge the Food Police

A couple of days ago I reread one of the longest chapters in the Intuitive Eating Book. I was long overdue to read this chapter. This chapter outlines the various voices that tell us about how we should eat and feel about food. Some of these voices come from people in our lives and some come from the world around us. The most important voices are the ones in our heads. These voices include:

• Food Police - dieting and food rules
• Nutrition Informant - provides nutrition evidence to keep you in line with dieting
• Diet Rebel - screw you, I'll eat what I want
• Food Anthropologist - neutral observer w/no judgment
• Nutrition Ally - helps you make healthy choices without an agenda (no deprivation or dieting)
• Rebel Ally - help protect your boundaries in a direct and polite manner - "use your mouth for words instead of food"
• Nurturer - soft, gentle, soothing, friend, not critical or judgmental
• Intuitive Eater - speaks your gut reactions, combines Food Anthropologist, Nurturer, Nutrition Ally, and Rebel Ally
• knows how to argue the negative voices out of your head

I think for me the diet rebel has been a big voice in my head since I was young. I'm just now learning how to access the rebel ally voice instead. Its amazing how much better I feel when I can do that. The food police is a hard one to get rid of - that is why it is important to constantly challenge this voice and replace it with another more helpful voice.

One of my favorite sections of this chapter is on page 119 about linear thinking.
"The cure for linear thinking is process thinking, which focuses on continual change and learning rather than just the end result. If you start thinking in terms of what you can learn along the way, and accept that there will be many ups and downs, you will go forward."

I like that section because although I know this, I seem to forget it all too often.

Goals

My goals for the next two weeks:

1 - Another week without soda
2 - Drink 56 oz. (7 glasses) of water
3- Stop eating at a 6.5
4 - Extend meals (especially lunches) to go longer than 15 minutes
5 - Make a punch chart to keep track of when I stop eating at a 6.5 and when I take longer than 15 minutes to eat a meal
6 - In addition to my usual exercise (walking with Larry and lifting with my PT), I will play either racquetball, basketball, or go on a bike ride 2 times.

7 - Read Chapter 8

Soda update

So since Monday I have not had any soda and I will admit that I feel better and that is most likely due to the fact that I've been drinking much more water.  I have been extremely tired in the afternoons. So do I need to wait a bit longer before my energy comes back? Or will I always be tired in the afternoons? I'm not sure I can keep this up if I do not have my diet soda.

I told my personal trainer about this on Thursday and he told that he bet I had already dropped a few pounds. I replied, "wouldn't know and wouldn't care." How intuitive of me ...

One week

I'm going to go without soda for one week. It's only an experiment. Today I met with J and she told me that diet sodas (like I drink every day) can mess with my ability to feel my hunger and fullness levels. So I 'm just going to try it out.

I'm slowly learning how to do this intuitive eating thing.

These are the other things I have committed to this week:

1. Buy new clothes for spring on Saturday
2. Drink 48 oz of water a day - I bought a bunch of flavored add-ins
3. Drink NO soda
   
4. Read Chapter 9 of the IE book by Thursday
   
5. Extend my lunches to 20 minutes - actually take 20 minutes to eat and stop at 6.5
6. Go on ONE bike ride

It's time for another intuitive eating meeting - who is in? Email or comment. I need one!

I don't believe in ...

The other day one when I told one of my friends I had to pee she replied:

I hope you don't believe in "Intuitive Peeing."

I thought that was funny and no I can hold it until the proper time.

NO NO NO NO NO

It's when I see pictures of myself like this that I want to go on a diet.

Then I have to remind myself to "just say no"!

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!