10 Principles of Intuitive Eating

[These principles are from intuitiveeating.com]

1. Reject the Diet Mentality Throw out the diet books and magazine articles that offer you false hope of losing weight quickly, easily, and permanently. Get angry at the lies that have led you to feel as if you were a failure every time a new diet stopped working and you gained back all of the weight. If you allow even one small hope to linger that a new and better diet might be lurking around the corner, it will prevent you from being free to rediscover Intuitive Eating.

2. Honor Your Hunger Keep your body biologically fed with adequate energy and carbohydrates. Otherwise you can trigger a primal drive to overeat. Once you reach the moment of excessive hunger, all intentions of moderate, conscious eating are fleeting and irrelevant. Learning to honor this first biological signal sets the stage for re-building trust with yourself and food.

3. Make Peace with Food Call a truce, stop the food fight! Give yourself unconditional permission to eat. If you tell yourself that you can't or shouldn't have a particular food, it can lead to intense feelings of deprivation that build into uncontrollable cravings and, often, bingeing When you finally “give-in” to your forbidden food, eating will be experienced with such intensity, it usually results in Last Supper overeating, and overwhelming guilt.

4. Challenge the Food Police Scream a loud "NO" to thoughts in your head that declare you're "good" for eating under 1000 calories or "bad" because you ate a piece of chocolate cake. The Food Police monitor the unreasonable rules that dieting has created . The police station is housed deep in your psyche, and its loud speaker shouts negative barbs, hopeless phrases, and guilt-provoking indictments. Chasing the Food Police away is a critical step in returning to Intuitive Eating.

5. Respect Your Fullness Listen for the body signals that tell you that you are no longer hungry. Observe the signs that show that you're comfortably full. Pause in the middle of a meal or food and ask yourself how the food tastes, and what is your current fullness level?

6. Discover the Satisfaction Factor The Japanese have the wisdom to promote pleasure as one of their goals of healthy living In our fury to be thin and healthy, we often overlook one of the most basic gifts of existence--the pleasure and satisfaction that can be found in the eating experience. When you eat what you really want, in an environment that is inviting and conducive, the pleasure you derive will be a powerful force in helping you feel satisfied and content. By providing this experience for yourself, you will find that it takes much less food to decide you've had "enough".

7. Honor Your Feelings Without Using Food Find ways to comfort , nurture, distract, and resolve your issues without using food. Anxiety, loneliness, boredom, anger are emotions we all experience throughout life. Each has its own trigger, and each has its own appeasement. Food won't fix any of these feelings. It may comfort for the short term, distract from the pain, or even numb you into a food hangover. But food won't solve the problem. If anything, eating for an emotional hunger will only make you feel worse in the long run. You'll ultimately have to deal with the source of the emotion, as well as the discomfort of overeating.

8. Respect Your Body Accept your genetic blueprint. Just as a person with a shoe size of eight would not expect to realistically squeeze into a size six, it is equally as futile (and uncomfortable) to have the same expectation with body size. But mostly, respect your body, so you can feel better about who you are. It's hard to reject the diet mentality if you are unrealistic and overly critical about your body shape.

9. Exercise--Feel the Difference Forget militant exercise. Just get active and feel the difference. Shift your focus to how it feels to move your body, rather than the calorie burning effect of exercise. If you focus on how you feel from working out, such as energized, it can make the difference between rolling out of bed for a brisk morning walk or hitting the snooze alarm. If when you wake up, your only goal is to lose weight, it's usually not a motivating factor in that moment of time.

10 Honor Your Health--Gentle Nutrition. Make food choices that honor your health and tastebuds while making you feel well. Remember that you don't have to eat a perfect diet to be healthy. You will not suddenly get a nutrient deficiency or gain weight from one snack, one meal, or one day of eating. It's what you eat consistently over time that matters, progress not perfection is what counts.

Intuitive eating is not so popular

Intuitive eating is not popular. I think this is for a number of reasons:

1. We have all been brainwashed to think that we all need to diet (it's all over the media).

2. We have learned to distrust ourselves with food - so we think we have to institute strict rules about what we do and don't eat.

3. It's easier to start a new diet that tells you exactly what you can and can't do. It is much more difficult and time consuming to address the issues related to emotional eating and the pain that is often behind it - and take the time to re-learn how to listen to your body.


Yet, intuitive eating works. Research done on intuitive eating found that in general, high intuitive eating scores were associated with an

increase in the enjoyment and pleasure of food,

lower bmi scores, and

fewer dieting behaviors and food anxieties. (Smith and Hawks, 06)

I will discuss more on how to implement intuitive eating tomorrow.

intuitive eating

Instead of dieting, I am in favor of intuitive eating.

What is intuitive eating?

Intuitive eating is an approach that teaches you how to create a healthy relationship with your food, mind, and body--where you ultimately become the expert of your own body. You learn how to distinguish between physical and emotional feelings, and gain a sense of body wisdom.

It's also a process of making peace with food---so that you no longer have constant "food worry" thoughts. It's knowing that your health and your worth as a person does not change because you ate a so-called "bad" or "fattening" food.

On the surface this may sound simplistic, but it is rather complex. For example one of the basic principles of Intuitive Eating is the ability to respond to inner body cues, “Eat when you're hungry and stop when you're full”, which may sound like a no-brainer. But when you have history of chronic dieting or rigid “healthy” rules about eating it's quite difficult because a number of things need to be in place, including the ability to trust yourself! (intuitiveeating.com)

diets

If you have been following this blog, you know that I am not a fan of diets. I think that diets create an unrealistic restrict and then binge attitude towards food. And studies are with me on this, indicating that after 5 years 95% of folks will have gained back all the weight they loss and more.

Research demonstrates that a decrease in dieting decreases risks of obesity and eating disorders. Dieting increases our obsession with food and eating. This is the opposite of what the diet industry would tell you. (and by the way, there is a popular diet group that emphasizes that diets don't work, and that this particular type of diet is not a diet, but let's be honest here - it IS.) Of course the diet industry is biased considering all the $$ they make off all of us trying to figure out this food thing.

So what is there to do if you have a problem with eating or need to live healthier?

Stay tuned because we will be discussing all of this and more this week.

For now tell me: What do you think about diets?

Does it trigger something in you when you are told diets are not THE way to approach eating?

Budget cuts to state mental health

We all know the economy has not been going so great lately. And due to this budget cuts in government are likely. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution,

"The budget for mental health was trimmed in several areas, despite heightened awareness of problems across the state. The spending plan for this fiscal year and next contains a combined $15 million in cuts to mental health services for children and adolescents, consumer advocates say. And there was no new money in the budget for the state’s psychiatric hospitals, even though Georgia reached an agreement last week with the U.S. Department of Justice to improve care in those facilities."

I have written about the difficulty with state hospitals in Georgia before and I'm very concerned about budget cuts to state mental health. I'm concerned because there have already been so many problems with Georgia state mental health and now the governor is proposing cutting the budget further.

I'm not sure what the answer to the problem is. I'm not sure where funding can come from during the tight economic time. But I do know that I hate to see these marginalized people in society going without much needed care.

in honor of MLK

One person has the power to initiate change.

Breakaway 09

This past weekend I was at a retreat called Breakaway (put on by Family Discipleship Ministries). It was my second year attending and definitely a time of refreshment for me.

There is power in being in a group of loving authentic people.

A shout-out and big thank you to those who put in the hard work for the retreat!

2 of the folks from Family Discipleship Ministries have blogs that you might want to check out:

bethbrawleytaylor.blogspot.com

ednbeth.blogspot.com

on wishes

When we finally get a wish granted.... Is it as good as we hoped? Do we bask in the warm glow of our happiness? OR do we just notice we've got a long list of other wishes waiting to be wished?
- Meridith Grey "Grey's Anatomy"

As I listened to this quote at the beginning of Grey's last week, I realized how often we don't take the time to appreciate and enjoy when good things happen.

So rarely in life do we take time to celebrate our successes, accomplishments, answers to prayer, and dreams that come true. Instead, we find ourselves always wanting more. Praying for the next thing. Hoping for circumstances to change.

Never content.

I don't want to live life always wanting more. I want to... bask in the warm glow...

is there such a thing as too much pink?

I recently read an article in the BBC news about researchers debating if too much pink is bad for girls. I have to admit that pink is EVERYWHERE for girls.

Just walk down the "girls" toy isle. (I still think it's a little funny to have all gender specific toys. Wasn't there a time when toys could be for boys AND girls?)

Still, I highly doubt that wearing pink will cause trouble for girls. Instead, I think problems come when we have too strict of ideas of what it means to be a girl versus boy.

I wonder about our socially constructed ideas and stereotypes about gender. It seems much marketing to children aims to further particular social stereotypes that can be problematic for both girls and boys. I looked into the top toys recommended for girls in 2008 and the top 5 all had to do with jewelry, fashion, make-up, makeovers, and food.

An interesting and little known fact is that society used to find pink far too powerful for girls and believed that the color blue was more dainty and feminine. It's funny how our ideas can be socially prescribed.

What do you think? Is there ever such a thing as too much pink?

the line

I found this interesting quick video that demonstrates the close line between love and control in a dating relationship.

I've talked to many girls who find this kind of behavior "sweet" because they believe it demonstrates that their boyfriend must really love them to be so concerned.

What do you think?

help for domestic violence

**Around the world, at least one in every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused during her lifetime.

**Nearly one-third of American women (31 percent) report being physically or sexually abused by a husband or boyfriend at some point in their lives.

**Thirty percent of Americans say they know a woman who has been physically abused by her husband or boyfriend in the past year. (endabuse.org)The statistics can be overwhelming, to say the least.

Most of us know someone who has suffered from partner abuse. Domestic violence is all too prevalent. Not only do I see married women who are abused, but I've also seen many teen girls who are in abusive relationships. If you have children make sure and educate them about what is okay and NOT okay in relationships. And if you are in an abusive situation, please know there is help.

Here are some warning signs of abuse:

Does your partner:

• Insult you in public and private?
• Check up on where you've been and whom you've talked to?
• Put down your friends and family?
• Limit where you can go and what you can do?
• Destroy your belongings?
• Tell you jealousy is a sign of love?
• Touch you in a way that hurts your or scares you?

If you are in immediate danger, call 911.
If you are being hurt by your partner, it is NOT your fault. You deserve to be safe and healthy. For help and information anytime, contact:

National Domestic Violence Hotline

www.ndvh.org 1-800-799-SAFE (7233)

TTY 1-800-787-3224

National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline

www.loveisrespect.org 1-866-331-9474

TTY 1-866-331-8453

help for insomnia

Insomnia is a pretty common problem these days.

Approximately 10-20% of people suffer from insomnia. Only 35% of Americans sleep eight hours or more per night during the work week. About 56% have one or more symptoms of insomnia a few nights a week or more.

Trouble sleeping can be from a variety of problems, and it is also a symptom of depression. I don't know about you all, but when I haven't gotten enough rest I feel plain ol' grouchy!

I recently came across a great article on helping insomnia. I like it because it incorporates all the major aspects of helping insomnia that I teach folks, and the tips have been researched.

To view the article, Sleep like a baby, wake like a baker, click here.

thankful Thursday

Once again, here's my continuing attempts to foster a spirit of gratitude - not just at Thanksgiving, but throughout the year.

Today's top 5 thankful list:

1. my husband and partner in life
2. my support sytem - friends, family, and yes, dog
3. my job. yep, I like it
4. nutritious food
5. resources

What tops your list of thankful things today?

don't give up just yet

Well, the New Year is heavily upon us. I'm guessing that many of you are wondering how we managed to almost make it 10 years into this new century. (I know I am!)

We've made it past our first week in the New Year so I have to ask, "How are your resolutions going?" Remember that if you want to change it can take several tries before habits are changed. So if you have slipped up don't give up too soon.

On that note, I have noticed that one of the problems marriages have is that couples give up on their relationship too soon. Research has shown that if couples in crisis stay together and work things out - the vast majority report high satisfaction in their relationships 5 years later. It takes some time, but most couples report the hard work is worth avoiding a painful divorce and rescuing love and commitment.

As a marriage counselor I have the unique privilege of helping couples on the brink of divorce find their way back towards marital satisfaction. It is the most wonderful job to help folks restore their love and devotion to one another. And trust me, it can happen!

All that to say, if you are struggling...

Keep Trying,

Don't Give up Hope, and

Keep the Faith.