chapter 4 answers

[Guest guest]

2. The second paragraph of the chapter states that "your journey back

to Intuitive Eating depends on" the following questions that I'll ask

everyone.

a. How long have you been dieting? since I was 19 (atkins diet)

b. How strongly entrenched do you feel your diet thinking might be? very, & it is very hard to get passed it

c. How long do you feel that you've been using food to cope with life? I think most of my life at least since I can remember

d. How willing are you to trust yourself? Truly self-examine here... I'm not that willing to trust myself where food is concerned (everything else, sure, but food is a stumbling block for me still

e. How willing are you to make weight loss a secondary goal and

Intuitive Eating a primary goal? That is my goal, for sure & I REALLY want to do that & am trying very hard

3. What do you think of the diagrams on p. 33? Does it disappoint

you to think that the process won't be linear? Have you come to a

level of peace that recovery goes back and forth a bit? No,

it isn't disappointing that IE will have it's ups & downs, I've come to the realization that even weight loss through "diets" has to have it's ups & downs. It took my wii weigh ins & progress charts for the past year to hit that idea home. The graph is always up & down (especially when I weighed in every day in the beginning) now

I only weigh in once a month & I hope I won't be upset if it goes up at times. In fact, I'm expecting that it probably will go up for awhile until i get the hang of it & my body gets over WANTING the foods that it has been denied for so long.

4. Finding out if you're a good candidate for weight loss:

a. Have you routinely eaten beyond your comfortable fullness level? Oh yes

b. Do you routinely overeat when you're getting ready for your next

diet, knowing there will be a lot of foods you won't be allowed to

eat? No

c. Do you overeat as a coping mechanism in difficult times? I have

d. Do you overeat to fill up time when you're bored? big YES here

e. Have you been resistant to exercise?

Sometimes, I just realized after reading the book that my exercise habits follow my "diets" when I start a new "diet" I also start an exercise program then I can't maintain either & I completely let both of them go.

f. Do you only exercise when you diet? Mostly, yes.

g. Do you skip meals or wait to eat until you're ravenously hungry,

only to find that you overeat when you finally do eat? Not anymore, used to & working on that now

h. Do you feel guilty, either when you overeat or when you eat a

"bad food" which results in more overeating? Oh yeah

5. Are you ready to focus on HOW YOU FEEL as the goal, rather than

weight loss? How does that make you feel now? Any reservations? that IS my goal but I'm finding it difficult still because my mind wants to see numbers & results still.

6. Anything else you want to add about the stages? Have your

insights changed as you answered these questions? One thing that became clear is that I have eat out of boredom (a lot) that I eat unconsciously (a lot) & that I have a lot of really self-defeating habits around "food" & "eating" that are going to take time to replace with better ones. I am worth giving myself that time!mj