Re: chapter 2 discussion

[Guest guest]

>

> Hello everyone! It's time to move on to chapter 2...and if you have

> any comments on 1 feel free. As always, if any question makes you

> uncomfortable just skip it.

>

> So, some questions:

>

> 1. What kind of eating personality are you? Do you have a

> secondary? Please explain!!!

>

I am definitely an Unconscious Eater. I graze without thinking and have always

eaten too fast.

> 2. When, if ever, were you an intuitive eater in your life?

I started gaining weight at about 5 years old. I would say I was an intuitive

eater until then. My parents are both overweight so I think I followed the

example.

>

> 3. Did your parents every try to control your eating habits in

> childhood? Anyone else? How?

My parents went out to eat a lot so that was kind of controlling. However they

never tried to put me on a diet. I did that when I was about 11. I'm 34 now and

still haven't lost all the weight.

>

> 4. How has dieting " buried " your intuitive eater? Personal

> experience, I mean.

>

I eat when bored, lonely, and for entertainment. I would say 30 years of eating

like that has killed my intuitive eater.

> 5. Do you encounter many " eat-healthfully-or-die " messages? Do you

> internalize them? How does this affect you?

I always feel like I should eat something healthy. I am so used to weight

watchers points that I always seem to think in those terms. But, it never helped

me with the reasons why I eat. Yes I internalize those messages that it I should

be eating something else. It makes me crazy!

>

> Thanks all, and I look forward to reading the responses!!!

>

> Cheers,

>

>

[Guest guest]

Here are my responses!

1. I am every kind of unconscious eater. Primary right now is Chaotic

Unconscious because of my stressful job, but on any given day (or hour!) I could

be any of the others. I've probably had very short periods when I've been a

Careful Eater, too, but unconscious is the primary.

2. During my time in France, as discussed in previous posts. Also, during a

prior attempt at IE, I definitely was picking it up, but don't think I ever

fully mastered it.

3. No, my parents never did that. Though my mother occasionally commented on

my weight, she never pressured me to diet as a child (she did once later when I

gained a lot of weight after college). Though I have one funny story related to

my mother and food. My freshman year in college, I gained 20 pounds. When I

would come home for the weekends, my mother would often exclaim something along

the lines of " You're gaining so much weight! Look at your face; it's so round! "

(Yeah, thanks, Mom. Nice to see you, too.) But when I left on Sunday to return

to school, she'd hand me bags full of home-made chocolate chip cookies and

quiches full of cream and cheese! To my naturally thin mother, it was all the

" junk food " that I was eating at college that was making me gain weight. But to

her mind, her home made foods were healthy and nutritious and could never be a

problem. Talk about mixed messages. LOL

4. Mostly, it just makes me not trust myself and think that if I have something

" bad " I'll never be able to stop (which is actually kind of true when I'm

dieting because it's so forbidden). But also, when I hear advice from " experts "

who insist that you have to eat every four hours or your metabolism will shut

down and you'll never lose, that kind of thing can be confusing, because I know

that when I eat intuitively (or as close to it as I've been able to come), I

don't want to eat that often. So then I start to question whether I can trust

my natural eating patterns and still lose weight.

5. Yes. I'm really interested in food and nutrition and read a lot of books

like Fast Food Nation and Omnivores Dilemma. Which I think are great books and

send really important messages about the quality of our food supply and some of

the dysfunctions of factory farming. As a result, it's really important to me

to do things like eat organic unprocessed foods and whole grains whenever I can,

and shop at farmers markets. And I don't think these are bad things, BUT they

can make me feel really bad when I do give in to things like Mcs or tv

dinners or sodas or something. Because I really do think those foods aren't

very good for me. But I realize that restricting things for " health " reasons

can sometimes be as bad as restricting because you're on a diet.

Josie

*visit www.artofintuitiveliving.blogspot.com. New posts went up Thursday and

Saturday.*

>

> Hello everyone! It's time to move on to chapter 2...and if you have

> any comments on 1 feel free. As always, if any question makes you

> uncomfortable just skip it.

>

> So, some questions:

>

> 1. What kind of eating personality are you? Do you have a

> secondary? Please explain!!!

>

> 2. When, if ever, were you an intuitive eater in your life?

>

> 3. Did your parents every try to control your eating habits in

> childhood? Anyone else? How?

>

> 4. How has dieting " buried " your intuitive eater? Personal

> experience, I mean.

>

> 5. Do you encounter many " eat-healthfully-or-die " messages? Do you

> internalize them? How does this affect you?

>

> Thanks all, and I look forward to reading the responses!!!

>

> Cheers,

>

>

[Guest guest]

Here are my responses!

1. I am every kind of unconscious eater. Primary right now is Chaotic

Unconscious because of my stressful job, but on any given day (or hour!) I could

be any of the others. I've probably had very short periods when I've been a

Careful Eater, too, but unconscious is the primary.

2. During my time in France, as discussed in previous posts. Also, during a

prior attempt at IE, I definitely was picking it up, but don't think I ever

fully mastered it.

3. No, my parents never did that. Though my mother occasionally commented on

my weight, she never pressured me to diet as a child (she did once later when I

gained a lot of weight after college). Though I have one funny story related to

my mother and food. My freshman year in college, I gained 20 pounds. When I

would come home for the weekends, my mother would often exclaim something along

the lines of " You're gaining so much weight! Look at your face; it's so round! "

(Yeah, thanks, Mom. Nice to see you, too.) But when I left on Sunday to return

to school, she'd hand me bags full of home-made chocolate chip cookies and

quiches full of cream and cheese! To my naturally thin mother, it was all the

" junk food " that I was eating at college that was making me gain weight. But to

her mind, her home made foods were healthy and nutritious and could never be a

problem. Talk about mixed messages. LOL

4. Mostly, it just makes me not trust myself and think that if I have something

" bad " I'll never be able to stop (which is actually kind of true when I'm

dieting because it's so forbidden). But also, when I hear advice from " experts "

who insist that you have to eat every four hours or your metabolism will shut

down and you'll never lose, that kind of thing can be confusing, because I know

that when I eat intuitively (or as close to it as I've been able to come), I

don't want to eat that often. So then I start to question whether I can trust

my natural eating patterns and still lose weight.

5. Yes. I'm really interested in food and nutrition and read a lot of books

like Fast Food Nation and Omnivores Dilemma. Which I think are great books and

send really important messages about the quality of our food supply and some of

the dysfunctions of factory farming. As a result, it's really important to me

to do things like eat organic unprocessed foods and whole grains whenever I can,

and shop at farmers markets. And I don't think these are bad things, BUT they

can make me feel really bad when I do give in to things like Mcs or tv

dinners or sodas or something. Because I really do think those foods aren't

very good for me. But I realize that restricting things for " health " reasons

can sometimes be as bad as restricting because you're on a diet.

Josie

*visit www.artofintuitiveliving.blogspot.com. New posts went up Thursday and

Saturday.*

>

> Hello everyone! It's time to move on to chapter 2...and if you have

> any comments on 1 feel free. As always, if any question makes you

> uncomfortable just skip it.

>

> So, some questions:

>

> 1. What kind of eating personality are you? Do you have a

> secondary? Please explain!!!

>

> 2. When, if ever, were you an intuitive eater in your life?

>

> 3. Did your parents every try to control your eating habits in

> childhood? Anyone else? How?

>

> 4. How has dieting " buried " your intuitive eater? Personal

> experience, I mean.

>

> 5. Do you encounter many " eat-healthfully-or-die " messages? Do you

> internalize them? How does this affect you?

>

> Thanks all, and I look forward to reading the responses!!!

>

> Cheers,

>

>

[Guest guest]

Hello! I'll respond before I move on:

1. My eating personality is definitely Unconscious Eater. and ALL

subsets of the unconscious eater, too! My schedule is very full, so

I eat on the go most of the time, even when I have good intentions

and a refrigerator full of fruits and veggies. I'm a " refuse-not "

unconscious eater who has a hard time rejecting cakes, cookies,

candies that are offered at work or at parties. I'm a " waste-not "

in that I feel really strange leaving food on the plate. And

finally, I'm an emotional unconscious eater as I know that food is my

tool to reduce stress. Whoo! All at once.

2. I don't think I was ever an intuitive eater in my life. My mother

had eating disorders since I was born (chronic dieting, etc.) and I

don't know if I ever had good feelings or rules about food. Perhaps

as a baby? I don't know. I've been neurotic about food since I

remember!

3. I remember my mother being super-conscious of food. We never had

junk in the house, and then when we'd go out for ice cream or some

such thing we'd have a huge serving. It was " good vs. bad " food,

lots of polarity. Then my mother would fight my grandmother when my

grandmother would want to give me an ice cream bar, and it became a

badge of honor to be able to eat the ice cream at Grandma's house.

It was all very silly. So it was covert, not overt.

4. Dieting " buried " my intuitive eater, which was buried from the get-

go. As soon as I could I adopted the belief that I needed an

external gauge on what was healthy food...that I couldn't decide how

to eat by myself. So I've been superimposing diets upon myself.

Still, my inner self also has refused such limitation, so I've never

been able to stick to a diet for more than a few weeks. Funny how

that works!

5. Media!!! I'm very pro-vegetarian, and have had literal fear that

I would give myself a horrible disease if I ate any foods that were

not in line with my diet. It was out of control, really! I still go

through " fear " of eating certain foods. Oh well! I'll get over

that...already getting better.

Thanks!

[Guest guest]

Hello! I'll respond before I move on:

1. My eating personality is definitely Unconscious Eater. and ALL

subsets of the unconscious eater, too! My schedule is very full, so

I eat on the go most of the time, even when I have good intentions

and a refrigerator full of fruits and veggies. I'm a " refuse-not "

unconscious eater who has a hard time rejecting cakes, cookies,

candies that are offered at work or at parties. I'm a " waste-not "

in that I feel really strange leaving food on the plate. And

finally, I'm an emotional unconscious eater as I know that food is my

tool to reduce stress. Whoo! All at once.

2. I don't think I was ever an intuitive eater in my life. My mother

had eating disorders since I was born (chronic dieting, etc.) and I

don't know if I ever had good feelings or rules about food. Perhaps

as a baby? I don't know. I've been neurotic about food since I

remember!

3. I remember my mother being super-conscious of food. We never had

junk in the house, and then when we'd go out for ice cream or some

such thing we'd have a huge serving. It was " good vs. bad " food,

lots of polarity. Then my mother would fight my grandmother when my

grandmother would want to give me an ice cream bar, and it became a

badge of honor to be able to eat the ice cream at Grandma's house.

It was all very silly. So it was covert, not overt.

4. Dieting " buried " my intuitive eater, which was buried from the get-

go. As soon as I could I adopted the belief that I needed an

external gauge on what was healthy food...that I couldn't decide how

to eat by myself. So I've been superimposing diets upon myself.

Still, my inner self also has refused such limitation, so I've never

been able to stick to a diet for more than a few weeks. Funny how

that works!

5. Media!!! I'm very pro-vegetarian, and have had literal fear that

I would give myself a horrible disease if I ate any foods that were

not in line with my diet. It was out of control, really! I still go

through " fear " of eating certain foods. Oh well! I'll get over

that...already getting better.

Thanks!

[Guest guest]

Hello! I'll respond before I move on:

1. My eating personality is definitely Unconscious Eater. and ALL

subsets of the unconscious eater, too! My schedule is very full, so

I eat on the go most of the time, even when I have good intentions

and a refrigerator full of fruits and veggies. I'm a " refuse-not "

unconscious eater who has a hard time rejecting cakes, cookies,

candies that are offered at work or at parties. I'm a " waste-not "

in that I feel really strange leaving food on the plate. And

finally, I'm an emotional unconscious eater as I know that food is my

tool to reduce stress. Whoo! All at once.

2. I don't think I was ever an intuitive eater in my life. My mother

had eating disorders since I was born (chronic dieting, etc.) and I

don't know if I ever had good feelings or rules about food. Perhaps

as a baby? I don't know. I've been neurotic about food since I

remember!

3. I remember my mother being super-conscious of food. We never had

junk in the house, and then when we'd go out for ice cream or some

such thing we'd have a huge serving. It was " good vs. bad " food,

lots of polarity. Then my mother would fight my grandmother when my

grandmother would want to give me an ice cream bar, and it became a

badge of honor to be able to eat the ice cream at Grandma's house.

It was all very silly. So it was covert, not overt.

4. Dieting " buried " my intuitive eater, which was buried from the get-

go. As soon as I could I adopted the belief that I needed an

external gauge on what was healthy food...that I couldn't decide how

to eat by myself. So I've been superimposing diets upon myself.

Still, my inner self also has refused such limitation, so I've never

been able to stick to a diet for more than a few weeks. Funny how

that works!

5. Media!!! I'm very pro-vegetarian, and have had literal fear that

I would give myself a horrible disease if I ate any foods that were

not in line with my diet. It was out of control, really! I still go

through " fear " of eating certain foods. Oh well! I'll get over

that...already getting better.

Thanks!

[Guest guest]

hi,

my eating personality - I have pretty much done all of them at one point in my

life. sometimes I've been a permitter other times a restricter.

At times I've been a careful eater, planning out " healthy " meals with very low

fat or calories or carbs. you name it, I've tried it until it got too much & I

would throw in the towel & become a permitter again ( & gain it all back). I have

also been a professional dieter (you should see my collection of books &

magazines, not to mention all those library requests). LOL. Unconscious eater

aptly describes me, too. Pretty much all of the unconscious categories fit me at

some point. WELL, I guess I have pretty much done it all where the yoyo dieting

& eating are concerned.

Now I am really working on becoming an intuitive eater FULL TIME. This will be

my new " role " . I just have to look to my 3 year old grandson to learn how to do

it. It comes so naturally to him. He eats when he is hungry, he eats only what

he likes ( & it is generally healthy) & he stops when he has had enough. He has

NO problem leaving food on his plate & I have NEVER seen him eat food off other

people'ss plates (which is something that I have been known to do in the past)

lol.

that's it for eating type for me

mj

>

>

>

> My responses are below. Answering these was helpful! Sorry I went on so long.

>

> Laurie

>

>

> 1. What kind of eating personality are you? Do you have a

> secondary? Please explain!!!

>

>

> I come from a family of what Geneen Roth would call " permitters, " who not only

ate however much they wanted whenever they wanted, but also had no sense of

certain foods being unhealthy. I definitely revolted against the unhealthiness

of the diet I ate at home, and became a Careful but still Unconscious Eater. I

am careful about quality and unconscious about quantity. I have for some time

been an Unconscious Eater, paying no attention whatsoever to my level of hunger,

eating instead when it was " time " or because there was an occasion (I have until

late been a Refuse-Not Unconscious Eater), or in response to stress, or because

I was just not paying attention to whether or not I was hungry.

>

> I am to some extent a " Waste-Not Unconscious Eater, " which is why I choose to

use smaller plates and bowls when I eat at home, because I find I get just about

the right amount of food if I am using these smaller items (and cleaning my

plate/bowl). At some point I suppose I should learn more consistently not to let

how much I serve myself determine how much I eat, but for now I'm content being

able to do that in restaurants where I don't have so much control over how much

is being served. In restaurants, I regularly don't eat the whole amount I'm

given, because it's usually too much.

>

> I am also an Emotional Unconscious Eater, usually eating in response to small

or large stresses. I rarely eat because of boredom or loneliness, because I am

rarely bored or lonely. If I keep food easily available, I find I reach for it

in response to the smallest stress, and so I try to keep food not so readily

available (i.e., not in easy reach, and not out on the counter), so that I will

have to make a conscious decision to eat it. Still, I'm not above making myself

a sandwich and eating it before I even realize I've done so!

>

> I have until recently (with IE) very rarely had any success restricting the

quantity of what I eat; for the last 15 or so years I've been unable to diet for

more than a week or so. On the other hand, I am a compulsive and fitful

exerciser. Either I'm exercising too much or not at all. It is very hard for me

to strike a balance with exercising, because I have the attitude that if I don't

do it excessively, it's not worth the effort. I am working to adjust that

attitude, especially since I am now nursing a swollen Achilles tendon from

overdoing my exercising after a hiatus from it.

>

>

> 2. When, if ever, were you an intuitive eater in your life?

>

> I don't think I've been an intuitive eater since I was a toddler. My mother

told me that at one point I threw down my tippy cup of milk and refused to drink

milk from that time on. I suspect that may have been my very last intuitive

eater act! I learned very early to overeat, following my parents' examples, so I

would say that past that point I was no longer eating intuitively.

>

> 3. Did your parents every try to control your eating habits in

> childhood? Anyone else? How?

>

> My parents were compulsive overeaters, so no, there was never any attempt to

control my eating habits, and I don't remember anyone else ever trying to do so.

At some point, though, I became aware that I was eating more than people outside

my family, and became ashamed of that, and started hiding the quantities of what

I ate.

>

> 4. How has dieting " buried " your intuitive eater? Personal

> experience, I mean.

>

> I think attempts to diet simply added another layer of cement over my

intuitive eater. Since I've been an adult, I've been a careful eater in terms of

quality of food (eating mainly a " healthy " diet), so my diet challenges have

always been ones of trying to restrict quantity of food. Restricting inevitably

had me labelling foods like sweets and breads and anything with fat in it as

" bad " ; dieting episodes caused me for the first time to binge (as opposed to my

habitual, simple overeating) in rebellious response. When I dieted, I restricted

quantities and banned entirely certain classes of foods (those containing sugar,

white flour, and fat), I almost immediately began craving more of whatever foods

I'm restricting, even if they are foods that I normally don't eat. Dieting turns

me from an overeater into a compulsive overeater, one who is obsessed about food

and can never get enough. So in this way there's one more layer burying my

intuitive eater!

>

> 5. Do you encounter many " eat-healthfully-or-die " messages? Do you

> internalize them? How does this affect you?

>

> For a very long time I have had a lot of self-imposed rules about what I will

and will not eat (in terms of food quality), in the name of eating healthfully,

because I do care about my health and do think that a healthy diet goes a long

way towards making me feel better on a day-to-day basis. I do not drink sodas

or, for the most part, eat sweets (I don't have much of a sweet tooth, so eat

them sometimes); I avoid if possible anything made with white flour or white

rice, and do not eat anything that contains trans fats, or anything with

unidentifiable/unpronouncable names--in short, processed foods. Usually I'm not

terribly careful about fats, though, since I don't have to watch those much

because if I eat too much, I get sick, so it's self-controlling. I don't drink

coffee and don't eat in fast food restaurants unless there is no way to avoid

doing so. I don't eat anything with artificial sweetners in it. I know all the

foods that are unhealthy (I read a lot about health) and most of the time I

avoid those foods like the plague, because I want to, not because I think I

ought to. I am (ironically) very health conscious in this regard, and so I'd say

that these food rules are entrenched in my psyche, and I don't find them at all

problematic. I don't crave or miss eating unhealthy foods, as I never anymore

think of myself as restricting them--this is simply the " way I choose to eat. "

I've lost my taste for those foods. If I'm someplace where food options are poor

and I'm hungry and have to eat something unhealthy, I find I do not enjoy the

food and tend to eat as little as possible; I often end up throwing most of it

out. I am, however, not a " food Nazi " : I could care less what other people

(exception: my husband) eat. My husband also likes to eat healthfully, so there

is no conflict.

>

> I do work for a rather amateur food Nazi, though--my boss's wife (who is the

VP of our company). I admit it amuses me that my she goes on and on about why

people shouldn't eat iceberg lettuce, while she herself is eating lunch meat

with all sorts of preservatives and nitrates in it, on cheap processed white

bread, with that " healthy " romaine-based salad of hers, on which she puts highly

processed bottled diet salad dressing, and then she trolls for candy others have

in their desks just about every afternoon. I choose simply to avoid her and her

lectures, and I don't care to tell her what I think of the way she eats, because

it's none of my business.

>

[Guest guest]

Josie,

Your post made me laugh after a dreadful weekend (dreadful for reasons OTHER than food obsession, I'm proud to say!). I bet we all have similar stories that, in hindsight, are as funny as they're head-shakingly sad. Thanks for sharing your Cheez Whiz obsession and mound of broccoli story!

Laurie

Laurie,

I can SO relate to this! I have a very vivid memory of going on a diet about ten years ago and developing a craving for Cheez Whiz! Cheez Whiz!!!! Under normal circumstances, I would run away screaming before I'd eat Cheez Whiz, but I was on a diet and for some reason it caught my eye while grocery shopping and I knew that it wasn't allowed on my diet and all of a sudden, I couldn't think of anything else. I've had this happen many times when dieting. I always thought it was so weird to develop such intense cravings for foods that I didn't even really want.

That was the same diet where I used a tip I'd learned from a fellow Weight Watcher member of taking an entire bag of frozen vegetables and eating it with some sort of saucy frozen dinner (like beef stroganoff) in order to crank up the volume of food for as few calories as possible. Plus, the sauce made the vegetables more palatable since adding butter was "bad". I remember one night coming home from work and having my big plate full of nuked frozen broccoli topped with this miniscule portion of some frozen diet beef stroganoff and very literally shoveling it into my mouth like I was crazed. I was so hungry I simply could not eat it fast enough.

You'd think I would have realized then that this was not normal, healthy behavior, but I just thought the problem was with me!

Josie

>

>

>

> 4. How has dieting "buried" your intuitive eater? Personal

> experience, I mean.

>

> ..... dieting episodes caused me for the first time to binge (as opposed to my habitual, simple overeating) in rebellious response. When I dieted, I restricted quantities and banned entirely certain classes of foods (those containing sugar, white flour, and fat), I almost immediately began craving more of whatever foods I'm restricting, even if they are foods that I normally don't eat. Dieting turns me from an overeater into a compulsive overeater, one who is obsessed about food and can never get enough. So in this way there's one more layer burying my intuitive eater!

[Guest guest]

Josie,

Your post made me laugh after a dreadful weekend (dreadful for reasons OTHER than food obsession, I'm proud to say!). I bet we all have similar stories that, in hindsight, are as funny as they're head-shakingly sad. Thanks for sharing your Cheez Whiz obsession and mound of broccoli story!

Laurie

Laurie,

I can SO relate to this! I have a very vivid memory of going on a diet about ten years ago and developing a craving for Cheez Whiz! Cheez Whiz!!!! Under normal circumstances, I would run away screaming before I'd eat Cheez Whiz, but I was on a diet and for some reason it caught my eye while grocery shopping and I knew that it wasn't allowed on my diet and all of a sudden, I couldn't think of anything else. I've had this happen many times when dieting. I always thought it was so weird to develop such intense cravings for foods that I didn't even really want.

That was the same diet where I used a tip I'd learned from a fellow Weight Watcher member of taking an entire bag of frozen vegetables and eating it with some sort of saucy frozen dinner (like beef stroganoff) in order to crank up the volume of food for as few calories as possible. Plus, the sauce made the vegetables more palatable since adding butter was "bad". I remember one night coming home from work and having my big plate full of nuked frozen broccoli topped with this miniscule portion of some frozen diet beef stroganoff and very literally shoveling it into my mouth like I was crazed. I was so hungry I simply could not eat it fast enough.

You'd think I would have realized then that this was not normal, healthy behavior, but I just thought the problem was with me!

Josie

>

>

>

> 4. How has dieting "buried" your intuitive eater? Personal

> experience, I mean.

>

> ..... dieting episodes caused me for the first time to binge (as opposed to my habitual, simple overeating) in rebellious response. When I dieted, I restricted quantities and banned entirely certain classes of foods (those containing sugar, white flour, and fat), I almost immediately began craving more of whatever foods I'm restricting, even if they are foods that I normally don't eat. Dieting turns me from an overeater into a compulsive overeater, one who is obsessed about food and can never get enough. So in this way there's one more layer burying my intuitive eater!

[Guest guest]

Hi alamako.doumbia,I personally feel that dieting contributes to a lot off disordered eating but it is not necessarily what causes using food as a way of moderating emotion. I am not in any way saying that this is the case for you but do think that a long history of using food to cope with strong emotions is more the realm of the actual eating disorder. If you think this is possible then you could approach this by throwing yourself into IE and then deal with anything that does not get solved through this approach, after. Or at the same time. The normal way to approach it is to learn new coping skills so that one has an alterative way to deal with things. CBT and DBT are helpful for this. Just a few thoughts for you which may not apply. Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless deviceSender: IntuitiveEating_Support Date: Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:59:22 -0000To: <IntuitiveEating_Support >ReplyTo: IntuitiveEating_Support Subject: Re: chapter 2 discussion Well, I've been trying to actually reread the chapter the past couple of nights before I go to bed, but I keep drifting off to sleep before I finish. Nevertheless, I have some time on my hands right now, so I thought I would give my best answer to these questions:1. What kind of eating personality are you? Do you have asecondary? Please explain!!!I would say mostly the unconscious eater, and a bit of the dieter. I tend to overeat because 1) I am feeling down, anxious or bored 2) Situational- I'm at a celebration and I want to eat the good food 3)Habit 4) Post-diet binge. I am not really the " professional dieter in terms of ascribing to diet mythology. For the most part in my life, I've never done the " grapefruit diet " or the " Zone " or whatever, but I have been an avid calorie counter at various points.An interesting question that I just thought of to ask myself is, what kind of eater am I when I am not overeating? My immediate response to this question was to jump to my overeating tendencies to describe my eating personality, but maybe it would be just as useful to look at the times when I don't overeat. Usually I feel like most of the times I don't overeat are when I am trying consciously not to overeat, if that makes sense. I feel like I don't just automatically not overeat. I think my Intuitive Eater is in there somewhere and does surface occasionally. More so since I've been into the IE stuff.2. When, if ever, were you an intuitive eater in your life?Maybe when I was a young child, but not any time within my memory. I remember feeling the same way about food that I do now from a young age, when I would often feel unsatisfied with what I had eaten and look forward to eating more. I remember being at daycare when I was maybe 9 or so, when a new girl started there one day and my babysitter told her that we kids could pretty much eat what we wanted from the cookie jar in the kitchen. I remember taking about four cookies from it not long after and feeling self-conscious when the new girl said she didn't want any. I remember eating as entertainment . . . maybe this is normal stuff to do, but I wouldn't describe it as an intuitive style of eating.3. Did your parents every try to control your eating habits inchildhood? Anyone else? How?I think they probably exerted the normal pressures when I was a kid. I remember having to sit at the table once until I ate my lima beans (bleh!). When it became apparent that my weight was a real issue, in middle school sometime, I remember going to Weight Watchers with my mom and then another time when I did a program at a local clinic with a couple of other kids to learn about nutrition/weight loss, etc. I don't think my parents put a huge effort into stopping me from overeating or saying, you can eat this but you can't eat that, which is good because I think it would have just made me angry at them and not stopped me from overeating anyway.4. How has dieting " buried " your intuitive eater? Personalexperience, I mean.Reading back over what I wrote above, about having been an overeater from an early age one, I'm not sure that it was dieting that buried my intuitive eater. Certainly in middle school/high school, it did make it worse and I did experience the whole end of the diet/binging cycle as well as eat sometimes because the forbidden food seemed tempting, but I feel like that's not all. I feel like it was more my tendency to use food as a comfort that buried my intuitive eater, whether because I was bored or sad or what. I don't think it was just dieting that had that effect on me.5. Do you encounter many " eat-healthfully-or-die " messages? Do youinternalize them? How does this affect you?Recently, I've been feeling this a lot, that I would be a lot more healthy if I wasn't overweight or hadn't been morbidly obese in the past. Just looking at my main ailments at age 26 make me feel nervous for my future. I developed a herniated disc in my back within the past year, and for the past three months or so, it has had a major impact on my quality of life. I can't walk farther than a block or two before stopping to relieve the pain, and sometimes an even shorter distance than that. Even though I think I can expect that this issue will resolve in the next six months (I hope!) or so, it is causing me a lot of pain, a lot of worry, and a lot of money quite frankly. It has me questioning a lot whether I shouldn't try to lose weight again, as it seems logical that my weight has played a role in giving me this problem this early on. I've had one doctor that tells me that this is the case, another that says no not necessarily. But in any case, it's one thing to get this message from people in general and internalize it, it's another to actually experience what seems like the result of my eating habits.Maybe I'm being too hard on myself, but I think there is a reason that these messages are out there and while it is best to not freak out over them or let them become your main focus, it is hard to ignore the fact that eating habits and health are correlated to some extent (although I think it is valid to question in what ways they are correlated).I don't know, I've been doing a lot of questioning about all of this lately. I really like the idea of intuitive eating and I think if I gave it enough time and enough thought it could be a really positive thing, but sometimes there seem to be other factors in play that make me unsure if I don't need a different solution.Any thoughts about this? Especially about the health question?

[Guest guest]

I don't doubt that weight impacts health. I have several health conditions that

are exacerbated (but not caused) by my weight, as well. But the important thing

to understand is that there are any number of things you can do to improve your

health that have nothing to do with what your pants size is. Improving the

quality of your diet and engaging in regular exercise will make you healthier

even if you're no thinner. Things like yoga, weight training, and pilates do

wonders for bad backs. The media does a great job of making us think that

skinny = healthy, when in fact, that's not necessarily the case.

After years and years of having seriously crappy doctors (I could rant about bad

doctors, but I'm not even going to start!), I'm incredibly lucky to have found

one that's encouraging me to stop focusing on the scale and restricting food and

to start focusing on the positive things I can do for myself, like just adding

healthier foods to my diet (and not necessarily taking away " bad " foods) and

just getting outside and walking more instead of thinking that I have to kill

myself in the gym for hours every day in order for it to matter. That's a huge

perspective change for me.

The thing you should ponder is *how* you want to get to healthy. I want to lose

weight myself and I know how many conflicting messages we get about how best to

do that, so I *completely* understand where you are. As a matter of fact, I was

probably in much the same place at your age. All I can say is that I *wish* I'd

known about intuitive eating when I was 26. With a little patience (which I

don't have much of, so that would have been a challenge in itself) and hard

work, I think I could have changed my relationship with food and reached my

natural weight ages ago. And maybe my 30s would have been a heck of a lot

happier than they were. Instead, I'm 43 and I'm fatter and more unhappy than I

was at 26 and all I did was waste another 17 years hating my body and beating

myself up for not being able to succeed at dieting. Sometimes when I think

about that, it's kind of heart breaking.

I get the doubts. This is scary stuff and I sometimes ask myself if I'm falling

for yet another supposed miracle cure that won't work any better for me than

Atkins or Zone or WW and any of the thousands of other diets I've tried. I

really really hope that's not the case, but who knows? But I figure that I have

to give it a try and give it 100% effort to see if it works. That's why I've

committed to following IE for one full year to see where it takes me before I

make any decisions. I figure if I can give 30+ years of my life to dieting with

no discernible progress whatsoever, I can give one year to IE. Worst case

scenario is that I'm in exactly the same place in a year that I am right now.

And if that's the case, as history has demonstrated, I'll be no worse off than

if I had dieted.

Josie

>

> 5. Do you encounter many " eat-healthfully-or-die " messages? Do you

> internalize them? How does this affect you?

>

> Recently, I've been feeling this a lot, that I would be a lot more healthy if

I wasn't overweight or hadn't been morbidly obese in the past. Just looking at

my main ailments at age 26 make me feel nervous for my future. I developed a

herniated disc in my back within the past year, and for the past three months

or so, it has had a major impact on my quality of life. I can't walk farther

than a block or two before stopping to relieve the pain, and sometimes an even

shorter distance than that. Even though I think I can expect that this issue

will resolve in the next six months (I hope!) or so, it is causing me a lot of

pain, a lot of worry, and a lot of money quite frankly. It has me questioning a

lot whether I shouldn't try to lose weight again, as it seems logical that my

weight has played a role in giving me this problem this early on. I've had one

doctor that tells me that this is the case, another that says no not

necessarily. But in any case, it's one thing to get this message from people in

general and internalize it, it's another to actually experience what seems like

the result of my eating habits.

>

> Maybe I'm being too hard on myself, but I think there is a reason that these

messages are out there and while it is best to not freak out over them or let

them become your main focus, it is hard to ignore the fact that eating habits

and health are correlated to some extent (although I think it is valid to

question in what ways they are correlated).

>

> I don't know, I've been doing a lot of questioning about all of this lately. I

really like the idea of intuitive eating and I think if I gave it enough time

and enough thought it could be a really positive thing, but sometimes there seem

to be other factors in play that make me unsure if I don't need a different

solution.

>

> Any thoughts about this? Especially about the health question?

>