Re: chapter four: Awakening the Intuitive Eater: Stages

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Good evening all,My responses follow below. >> 1. What stage are you at? Any others? Do you go back and forth as > they mention, for instance? Do explain!> Definitely stage two, all the way. Rereading this just now was actually so helpful to me. I'm reading so many different IE books right now that I'm kind of starting to forget what was in the first books I read and as I have mentioned, I have been struggling with things like not being able to stop at satisfied and eating too many foods that are not nutritionally sound and not feeling particularly healthy as a result. That's everything that this stage is about and I totally hadn't remembered this from having read the book. Finding out that this is all part of the process makes me feel a hundred times better.> 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?> Forever. My first conscious memory of restricting food with a goal of losing weight is in second or third grade. So from about the age of 7 or 8 right up to the present (age 43).> b. How strongly entrenched do you feel your diet thinking might be?> *Very* entrenched. It's still a struggle to try to not get sucked back into it without realizing it. > c. How long do you feel that you've been using food to cope with life?> This is a harder question. Until recently, I never would have said that I use food to cope with life. I was firmly in the camp of I'm fat because I just like food too much and want to eat things that taste good. I think it's going to take a while for me to fully recognize the ways in which food has been a coping mechanism, and what it was a coping mechanism for.> d. How willing are you to trust yourself? Truly self-examine here...> I'm a little bit willing right now, but it changes from day to day depending on my mood. I'm trying to get moreso, but it's hard. I'm not in a particularly trusting state right now since I realized I had gained three pounds, but I just keep telling myself to trust the process and not freak out. > e. How willing are you to make weight loss a secondary goal and > Intuitive Eating a primary goal?Again, a hard one. I think I'm okay with it being a secondary goal, as long as it's a goal. I can't stomach the idea of it not being a goal, at all.> 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, I'm okay with that. As much as I wanted it to be, dieting was never really linear for me, either, so I'm okay with this. As long as the general direction indicates progress, I'm good.> 4. Finding out if you're a good candidate for weight loss:> > a. Have you routinely eaten beyond your comfortable fullness level?> 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?Yes.> c. Do you overeat as a coping mechanism in difficult times?> Sometimes, but not always.> d. Do you overeat to fill up time when you're bored?> Yes.> e. Have you been resistant to exercise?> YES!!!> f. Do you only exercise when you diet?> No, I try to always exercise whether dieting or not, but it's almost always grudging and sporadic and pretty much never anything I look forward to.> 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?> Sometimes, but that pretty much only happens when I get busy and don't get a chance to stop and eat. I don't do it to lose weight (though sometimes when I am on a diet, even when I am eating whatever the approved meals may be, I will feel ravenously hungry).> h. Do you feel guilty, either when you overeat or when you eat a > "bad food" which results in more overeating?> YES, often.> 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?> I have reservations, but I'm definitely willing to give it a try.> 6. Anything else you want to add about the stages? Have your > insights changed as you answered these questions?Nothing more to add about the stages, but just want to thank you again for starting the book club. It has been really helpful to go back and go over these and realize what I missed when I read the book the first time around. It's really easy to let life take over and slip back into old habits without even realizing it. This is a really great process to keep the steps and principles fresh in my mind.> > As always answer what is comfortable and omit what is not. Opening > up may help your fellow Intuitive Eater-in-Training feel comfortable > in their process...some personal questions here but worth it!> > Cheers,> >