Re: The Line Between Intuitive Eating and Binging

[Guest guest]

Hi ,

Gillian offered some wonderful advice. May I also share that it has been

helpful for me in this process to keep some kind of eating log/calendar/success

list.

I understand (though I haven't experienced it) that some people are sour on the

idea of an eating journal because some of the diet programs use this tool in a

judgmental way.

However, I am not talking about keeping a record in order to judge one's self.

It is a record or notes in order to capture all the positive baby steps that one

is doing with intuitive eating/eating in tune.

We can't build on the positive if we don't acknowledge it. If we don't have it

down somewhere in black and white--then when the critic and the discouraged part

comes up--it is very difficult to counter it.

Also, it is easy to go from a fuzzy kind of (ungrounded) feeling when we let go

of precepts and rules to fuzzy eating.

The main point of the eating log is to find the positive in anything you do with

this--even if it's pausing for one second before eating out the entire

refrigerator. If that were the case you could write, " well I did eat the entire

contents--but I paused for one second before doing this. That's a lot better

than last week. Wow. I'm making progress [i always like to use comparisons

to highlight some improvement from a prior time.]

The writing/thought is deliberately slanted to highlight the positive baby step

that I took.

There's a lot of positive steps you just wrote about. You are listening to what

your body wants! Perhaps you ate and enjoyed it (enjoying one's food is a

positive step). You ate something you liked and didn't turn it into a " what the

heck " binge.

I then set some little goal to work on for the next meal/day (which I might

forget about or adjust--but it gives a direction).

I might say--I'm doing well with listening to what my body wants. It wants fish

sandwiches and ice cream and I ate them with enjoyment without letting the " food

police " sabotage the meal. But I stopped at a bit too full--so perhaps I'll

see if I can stop a bit sooner.

Or perhaps a step could be--I will work on savoring the meal.

If you're eating fish sandwich and ice cream --you know (I am telling you this)

you can lost weight with that if it is within your body signals. (Also, I

believe it is much more stressful and unhealthy for our bodies to overreat

(whether that food is spinach or candy)--than it is to eat ice cream or anything

else in tune with our signals. Our bodies love moderation.)

Also--turn it into a curious somewhat amusing game. I often have eating jags.

(Last week I must have eaten the same turkey burger sandwich five days in a

row). What's helpful here is to just get curious and watch. It's interesting to

see how long the craving for the food will go on--because there is a limit to

it. I eventually moved (wow, big change) from turkey burger sandwiches to

chicken sandwiches (I'm finding my eating at times is pretty boring--but

actually delicious and satisfying too because it's what my body wants).

>

> Good Evening All,

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> I'm having a mild crisis of confidence here.

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> I'm doing everything IE teaches. I'm eating what I think my body is asking

> for when it's asking for it without restriction. But at the same time this

> feels an awful lot like how I used to eat. I'm not binging per se but

> tonight my body ordered up a fried fish sandwich, fries and an ice cream

> sundae. If I eat that every night for the rest of my life I'll be dead in a

> decade.

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> I know it's a process and where it's supposed to lead. I guess I just need

> some reassurance.

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> Thanks,

>

> Jon

>