Re: chapter four: Awakening the Intuitive Eater: Stages

[Guest guest]

Here are my answers for this week:

1. What stage are you at? Any others? Do you go back and forth as

they mention, for instance? Do explain!

I think I'm somewhere between Sages 2 and 3. I made a list just now of what I've

been doing/thinking lately, which includes:

- honor my hunger most of the time; big binges are rare

- recently started working on thinking more about fullness and getting a better

handle on what is " enough " for me

- I think I'm better at recognizing/dealing with my emotions than at the start,

more relaxed about this

- feeling recently like I have fully committed to IE as a method/process and am

willing to make weight loss secondary to living my life to its fullest and

learning to respect myself better

- I still think about food a fair amount and I do have feelings of guilt

associated with eating certain foods/quantities

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?

I started dieting when I was 11 or 12, at weight watchers with my mom. I tried

to diet through adolescence with little success, then had one successful diet in

college. Since then I have kept the majority of the weight off, but have tried

to go on diets (diets meaning counting calories with a goal in mind of

restricting myself).

b. How strongly entrenched do you feel your diet thinking might be?

Honestly, I don't think my diet thinking is that strongly entrenched. Aside from

sometimes automatically counting calories, feeling guilty for binges, etc. I

don't think I do that much " dieting. " I've become more and more convinced ever

since college that dieting is not likely to work in the way it's supposed to.

c. How long do you feel that you've been using food to cope with life?

Since I was a kid, maybe 8 or 9.

d. How willing are you to trust yourself? Truly self-examine here...

Very willing to trust myself. The combination of IE and some soul searching

about how I treat myself in the past few years has convinced me that I am worthy

of my own trust and respect.

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

Intuitive Eating a primary goal?

I think I'm definitely willing. The thing is, I think I'll have to constantly be

reminding myself that weight loss is a secondary goal. I think I've lost some

weight recently, and it's hard not to get caught on the high I get from seeing

the number go down.

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?

Well, I think the graph on the dieting reality is actually a little simplistic.

I don't think people's weight goes straight up with dieting; it yo-yos around a

lot and it's a crapshoot as to whether you will have a squiggly line going up

(yo-yoing but ultimately gaining weight) or one going down or staying the same

on average. Probably more likely to go up. I mean, the graph gets the idea

across so that's good, just wanted to comment because this occurred to me the

other night.

As far as the IE line, I am fine with the process not being linear. I am willing

to put in the necessary time and to acknowledge that I'm not going to magically

be an intuitive eater today, no matter how resolved I feel.

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

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

Yes. More in the past than the present, but yes for the present as well.

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?

Not in a while. Maybe up until a few years ago.

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

Yes.

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

Yes.

e. Have you been resistant to exercise?

In the past. Not now, though I'm not always regular with my exercise- that's

usually more because I'm busy or distracted, though.

f. Do you only exercise when you diet?

No.

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?

No.

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

" bad food " which results in more overeating?

Yes.

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?

Yup, more ready than ever, though I'm still trying to figure out how to do this.

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

insights changed as you answered these questions?

No and no.

Thanks!

Meg