New kinds of goals

So my meetings with J have changed a bit and although it is clear that I still have some body image issues, we have started to talk more about nutrition and health.

I'm going to:

1. cook once a week
2. read the exercise chapter again
3. Watch one episode of the food network - either Rachel Ray or Robin Miller
4. Try more whole grain foods - try to find some that I actually like
   

WARNING - do not read this post if...

you do not have a healthy relationship with food. After more than a year of meeting with J at least every other week, she finally said I was ready to read chapter 14, "Honor Your Health - Gentle Nutrition." While I feel I still have a long way to go to really make peace with food, I have come a long way. This chapter was important for me to read now because I can experiment with different kinds of food to find healthy foods that are still easy to swallow.

Before I get into the things I learned in chapter 14 - I want summarize some of points that came from my discussion with J about making goals. Goals should be "SMART."

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Realistic
• Timely

We also talked about the four "p"s which are:

• purpose
• personality
• principles
• passions
  

For my next meeting with J, I am going to make a "bucket list" for my life and reasonable goals for this summer and read chapter 14. I'll post my bucket list in another post. Here are some of the important points from chapter 14:

• Honor your health and taste buds at the same time, always remembering to focus on how it makes you FEEL
• Consistency over time - progress not perfection is what matters
• BE CAREFUL - nutrition guidelines could be embraced as a diet
• Healthy eating = eating primarily healthy foods and having a healthy relationship with food
  
• Remember:
• variety - try new a new kind of bread or cereal or whatever
  
• balance = to be achieved over time, not every day or every meal
  
• moderation = does not mean elimination, not too much or too little of anything
• Build muscles - raise your metabolic rate
• FOOD PYRAMID
• Grains
• best kind of food to fuel your body
• carbohydrates are your friends
• whole grains provide vitamins and minerals
• Fiber is really good for your GI tract
  
• Fruits and vegetables
• 5 servings a day (think volume - this is easier to get than you think)
• loaded with antioxidants and fiber
• fruit tastes better when they are eaten in a non-diet manner (I'm starting to believe this one)
• Protein
• Beans are a good source of protein
• high protein diets are not good - if you aren't eating other kinds of foods, it doesn't matter how much protein you eat, your body will take energy from your muscles
• It's easy to get the protein needed - men need 63 grams a day and women need 50
• Dairy
• we need calcium even if we've stopped growing because if you don't consume the calcium our body needs, it will be leached from our bones
• Water - duh
• Fat
• fat is a nutrient. Come on you "fatty acids."
• be careful of the "fat-trap" - if you eat non-fat foods, you think you can eat all you want and you might not listen to your satiety clues plus non-fat foods are usually filled with sugar. If you eat the regular foods you are more likely to be satisfied earlier (without eating as much)
  
• Learn to balance fat in your diet by
• cutting the fat without losing taste or feeling deprived (applesauce instead of oil in cooking)
• choose healthy fats (low in saturated fats - those from animals)
• canola, corn, safflower, sunflower, salmon, avocado, nuts and seeds
• when you eat fat, make sure its worth it - ask yourself how it tastes - savor it@
• Ask yourselves these four questions
1. Do I really like the taste of these foods?
2. How does this food or type of food make my body feel?
3. How do I feel when eating consistently in this manner?
4. Am I experiencing differences in my energy level?
• REMEMBER DEPRIVATION DOES NOT WORK!!!
• REMEMBER WE ARE ALL HUMAN AND WE ARE NOT EXPECTED TO BE PERFECT!
  

New goals

Yesterday J and I talked about some different things than we usually do. She wants me to think about my definition of healthy living (like they teach in health class in junior high). She wants me to think about my passions and goals in life that are not related to school or work and make a list. Her point is that while it is important to focus on Intuitive Eating it is also important to keep on living and incorporate other things into my life that I enjoy. I'm not sure I get it actually. We'll see. I thought about maybe learning to play the guitar but then I think wait, I don't have time for that. We did talk about Intuitive Eating as a process. You never stop this process, you become better at it and just like life you have to work at it every day. I think J wants me to be able to focus on other passions and goals so that IE will be come natural and easily incorporated.

The other thing we discussed was some questions I could ask myself as I near the end of a meal:

• If I stop, will I feel deprived?
• What are the benefits if I keep eating?
• What are the benefits if I stop now?
  

OK so here is my bulleted list of things I'm going to work on for the next two weeks:

• Make a list of my goals and passions (not related to school or work)
• Write my definition of healthy living (relaxation, sleep, physically, stress)
  
• Ride my bike to work at least once a week
• Try yoga at least once a week
• Read chapter 5 (Reject the Diet Mentality) - I'll blog about this after I read it
  
• Keep trying to take 20 minutes to eat
  

Chapter 13 - Exercise - Feel the Difference

Here are some thoughts from this chapter:

• Focus on how it makes you feel...
• Start slow or you might not enjoy it
• Don't look in the big mirrors at the gym
• Compare how it feels to exercise to how it feels to not exercise
• Exercise helps prevent health problems
• Incorporate physical activity into your everyday life
• stairs
• ride bike to work
• walk to class
• walk around the airport while waiting for flight
• Exercise is a NON-NEGOTIABLE PRIORITY
• Exercise to take care of yourself - reevaluate your priorities - make time to take care of yourself
• make an appointment with yourself and keep it just like you would keep an appointment with a friend
  
• Make exercise fun
• walk with a friend = uninterrupted talk time (Larry and me every morning at 5:30 AM)
• basketball
• racquetball
• biking
• Exercise can be a good way to channel anxiety while learning to eat intuitively
• Remember to REST - be smart
• Sometimes taking care of yourself means choosing not to exercise.
  

Goals for the next 3 weeks

My next appointment with J isn't for three weeks because I'm going out town all next week for work and it kinda threw the schedule off a bit. Here are my goals for this period of time:

1. Blog about chapter 8 (check - see previous post)
2. 8 glasses of water a day
3. Try to add veges to foods I'm already eating (sandwiches, salads, pastas)
4. Bike once a week
5. Swim once a week
6. Read chapter 13
   
7. Sign off card for stopping at 6.5 and taking 20 minutes to eat
8. Do my best while out of town this next week
1. access the Food Anthropologist voice and make observations and NO judgments
2. Try to exercise but do not feel guilty if I can't find time

A word about my lack of soda. It has been getting easier and I feel better. I'm not sure why - maybe its all out of my system or maybe I'm finally getting enough water. I still have lots and lots of soda stocked in my fridge and pantry and I refuse to get rid of it. I have not sworn off soda forever. If I really want a soda I will have one and I will not feel bad about it. Deprivation is NOT intuitive. I'm actually and truly choosing to not have soda right now. Who knows - I might have one while I'm out of town, I might not.

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