Hi everyone, I am a new member!

[Guest guest]

My name is Debra and I have been "dieting" since I was 13 - that is over 40 years! I am a great dieter, I have reached goal many times, but keeping it off and not being in control of food is my problem. I went to a nutritionist who recommended this book, Intuitive Eating, and I am reading it for the second time and thought that I would join the group.

I want to be able to enjoy food (I also am working on slowing down, I eat way too fast), maintain my weight and enjoy life without thinking about calories, fat grams, fiber grams, etc. I am doing pretty well, however, there are times when I don't do well and then the cycle of guilt, low self esteem, failure, etc. creep in and the vicious cycle begins all over again. I am an emotional eater. I love to cook and entertain and am not a picky eater (although I was as a child). I was forced to be a member of the "clean your plate club" as a child and was rewarded with food or entertained with food. Working hard was shown in in my family, but exercising or enjoying sports was not. Hard habits to break.

I never want to diet or join any diet program again - never!

So, that is a brief introduction to me.

To: IntuitiveEating_Support Sent: Friday, May 20, 2011 9:34 PMSubject: Re: Re: The Feeling of Thin/Intuitive Exercising

I continue to struggle with this. I think the body and brain don't always agree about what feels good. And you think, yay, I'm exercising, I feel great, it MUST be good for me.

Alas, not always.

Try to throw in some caution and proceed SLOWLY. not to say you shouldn't exercise, but increase slowly.

for running, the rule of thumb is no more than an increase of any ONE of the following: distance, speed, and frequency. so if you were running 7 miles a week, you shouldn't run more than 8 miles the following week AND you shouldn't increase the speed or frequency that week, either.

running is harder on the body than walking, so i'm not saying the same rule applies... but just that "exercising" caution is important too, even while LOVING the feeling of being active!

please don't be discouraged! just slow down a LITTLE. "hurry slowly" as the great runner Grete Waitz, who died last month, always said.

best,

abby

I am forever making that mistake. If I ride my bike for one loop around my park every night for three nights, then I go four the next night and always end up with some minor injury and have to give it up for weeks. Same if I walk. I think I will learn some day, but when I'm doing it, it feels so good and no pain. So I want to do more. Last year at this time I could barely walk at all due to fluid on my brain and terrible balance. With the shunt in now I just feel like I could walk miles and miles. Maybe some day.

Well, the "funny" thing is the day I wrote this, I went for a very slow, short walk after work. I started feeling a pull in my left knee. OK, I guess I wasn't listening to my body as much as I thought I was! So yesterday I did no walking. Today I will see how I feel after work, and possibly try the shortest loop I can from my house. If I don't do it today, I'll try it tomorrow.So even when we are listening to our body, we can get overuse injuries. Especially since those overuse injuries can start slowly, over time.There's the idea of the Nutritional Ally (is that the right term?) that uses what you know about nutrition to HELP you, not harm you. I suppose I should've used my Exercise Ally to know not to increase my distance so quickly. But hey, lesson learned, I suppose. (Not saying that it might not have to be

relearned again in the future!)

I can't thank you enough for writing. I have been stuck in a "should" cycle for as long as I can remember in almost every facet of life. For several years now that has been exercise. To be honest I don't know how to get out of the should mentality. I don't even know what intuition IS when it comes to exercise and movement. That may sound funny, but I don't know what my body wants, what it is saying or really even what it can really handle or when I'm pushing too hard. Thank you for your experiential encouragement!http://www.memorablescents.wordpress.comhttp://www.benjity.wordpress.com Abby>> Sorry this post is so long!> > Interesting about "feeling thin" when you're getting more movement.

> > About six weeks ago (before my post about how it seemed like I was finally making peace with food), I decided that if I couldn't "control" my eating, I could at least get off my butt and start moving more.> > Roth says to consider what you would do if you were a kid sent outside to play. Well, I'd sit on the curb and read a book, so that obviously wasn't going to work! Ten years ago I liked running, but I destroyed my knee doing so. So I decided to just start walking. ......