Rejecting the diet mentality

[Guest guest]

Hi, I am back to the intuitive eating approach after doing some

" research, " as they say, back in the diet mentality. I am here to

report that it doesn't work, yet again. For me, the diet mentality

extends both to the calorie/point counting and to Overeaters Anonymous

and other 12 step food fellowship food plans. They are so attractive

to me. I am so unsure of my own ability to feed myself, and feel so

much self doubt when I am doing IE and have the pulls toward bingeing.

But I have proved to myself (yet again) that I won't stick to any of

these plans. I think I want someone to tell me what to do around food,

but then I won't do it.

My thought for today is that I can't just reject the diet mentality; I

have to embrace an alternative approach. Over the past couple of days,

I have been attempting to separate in my mind my eating from my

weight. Both my restricting (dieting) and my bingeing are directly

related to my over-focus on weight. I haven't weighed myself in a few

days (I don't keep a scale in my house, but I could weigh myself at

the gym, but I have been resisting that tug, as it is a real trigger

to counter-intuitive eating for me). And I have been thinking, okay,

if weight weren't an issue, then how would I like to eat? What kind of

relationship do I want to have with food? And the answer is that I

want to have the kind of relationship that my kids have around food.

They have preferences and foods they won't eat, and they eat sometimes

when they aren't hungry, but mostly they wait until they are hungry to

eat and don't stay hungry for very long without everybody hearing

about it. Then you give them food, they take however many bites they

want, say " I'm full " and run to play.

It's good to be back.