Eating what I want

The best bit of intuitive eating is being able to eat whatever you want. It's the best bit and yet at the same time it is the worst. Being able to gobble down large quantities of gooey cakes, sugary chocolate and salty crisps sounds fantastic. And yet it isn't because it has consequences. And those consequences are exactly the same as for anyone else eating in that fashion: sluggishness, bloating, damage to teeth, nausea, weight gain. Those aren't nice experiences whether you're eating 'guilt free' or not. 

What does 'eat what you want' actually mean anyway? Broadly it means eating what works for you as an individual rather than what is recommended by a generic weight loss plan or what has the fewest calories/fat grams/carbs per serving.  We all have different tastes, different sensitivities to foods, different ethical, cultural or religious beliefs to take into account. Eating what you want makes a lot of sense. Why eat something you hate the taste of or which you have ethical concerns over? Why exclude something that tastes good and makes you happy? Of course, I'm excluding items which induce serious medical reactions in an individual but those seem to rarely be the reasons we hear people vocalising what they are 'cutting out'.

The problem I find, even ignoring items I dislike and those I exclude on ethical grounds, is finding a balance between the foods my mouth wants and the food my body wants. Does 'eat what you want' mean eating what tastes good to you or what leaves your body feeling good immediately afterwards and in the longer term? For me they seem to be almost mutually exclusive. My tastebuds will opt for processed foods which are high in fat and either sugar or salt almost every time. I like those tastes a lot - as do a lot of other people. I know though that, an hour after eating them, I'll be bloated and tired. Furthermore, longer term, my weight creeps up and I have to have yet another filling in my teeth. I could instead choose 'healthy' foods which I like but don't love. I know they'll make me feel healthier, but I'll feel deprived every single time and it will lead to a binge (which then leaves me back with bloating/tiredness/weight gain and a nice does of guilt and shame on top of it all).

I hate the way I feel in my body and how torn I feel on what to eat. I am literally over thinking it every single day. I know that I need to experiment with this more - properly. However, there also needs to be a time limit. I can't waste more years of my life feeling this bad. So, I'm giving myself the summer - July and August. I will allow myself to eat what I want (taste bud wise) for that time period with the caveat that I must do it in conjunction with the other principles of Beyond Chocolate. I will also properly commit to tuning in to my feelings and seeing what I notice. This is my promise to myself. If, come 1st September, I have lost some weight and/or I notice other positive changes in how I feel, I'll continue as I am for the rest of the year and then review again. If by September there's no change (or I feel worse), then I have to start looking at making healthier choices a deliberate action and find a way to deal with any deprivation which arises. I hope that using the other principles will allow me to find balance. I really do.

Jealous of the weight loss crowd

Intuitive eating is hard for so many reasons. Social conditioning is one I struggle with a lot. When the rest of the world seems to be talking about 'being good' or dieting and weight loss, it's really hard not to join in. More than that, it's really hard not to want to be one of the gang. I want it so badly. To weigh in each week and lose weight and know it's because I've worked hard. To have people admire me and tell me how great I'm doing and how fantastic I look. I see other women posting their 'before' and 'after' pictures on Facebook and the deluge of gushing comments about how amazing they look, how tiny they look and, gosh, it's hard not to want a piece of it. To be validated and adored.

It seems everyone is at it. My Facebook timeline sometimes seems full of Weight Watchers and Slimming Worlders. Befores and Durings and Afters. Those on my Twitter feed seem to favour the 5:2 diet - the #fastday hashtag a regular appearance. I toyed with the idea of 5:2. Eating what I want five days a week and fasting on two seemed like an easy way to go with my 'all or nothing' personality. If I picked days my son was in preschool and had my 500 calories as an evening meal with my husband, nobody would even have to know I was doing it. Swapping secret binges for secret dieting. Hmmmm...

At home is not always much easier. My husband has a naturally slim build and doesn't diet but he does want to eat more healthily. Of course, that makes me panic as it's like I'm losing my partner in crime. I'll casually ask if I should get something in for us to have for dessert or whether he'd like a chocolate bar and he'll say "I'm going to resist because I already had a beer earlier". I still go ahead and have what I was going to have, but suddenly I feel guilty about it. He's resisting and I'm not. He's being good and I'm not. He's going to end up fit and healthy and I'm not. Well well, little gremlin on my shoulder - what green eyes you have. Jealousy is a tricky emotion isn't it? It's not fair that these other people eat healthier or look prettier or lose weight and look amazing. I want that too...I just don't want to put in the hard work. Or at least, if I'm not going to get to be slim, I don't want anyone else to either.

Oh what a horrid feeling. This jealousy and anger. Of course, I could be part of the gang if I wanted. Count calories, cut out food groups and giggle about how naughty I'm being eating a biscuit. And the dividends would come - the weight loss, the admiration of other women. But if I could do that - if that was sustainable for me - wouldn't I already be doing it? Ultimately, that's not my journey and that's not how I want to 'belong'. Maybe one day, I'll lose weight again and people will tell me how amazing I look and want to know my secret. And if that's the case, then the secret is going to be listening to my body not counting calories or carbs. That might be someone else's journey, but this is mine, And that's ok.

Starting again...again

My erratic blogging came to a grinding halt again last year and now has come the time to give it another bash. There were enough posts on my generic blog ('lifestyle blog' they're apparently called - sounds a bit posher doesn't it) on the subject of overeating that I decided to import them into a separate blog. So here's my new home for all things overeating and intuitive eating... Kerry on Eating.

So, starting yet again with the blog and starting yet again with my journey into intuitive eating and understanding my overeating. I feel a bit of  failure. I've 'started again' so many times and never last more than a day or so. The Beyond Chocolate principles, which I was introduced to eight years ago, make so much sense to me and yet I can't seem to let go and allow myself to embrace them. Maybe that means that they aren't for me. But dieting isn't for me and I sure as heck don't want to spent the next fifty years overeating day in, day out. I'm so angry at myself for wasting the last eight years. Or maybe that's just the gremlin talking. I need to find a way forwards though. I don't want to spend the rest of my life overeating and hating my body. I'm the heaviest I've ever been and I don't like the way I look. My love of sugar has also led to a lot of damage to my teeth - at least ten fillings (I've actually lost count) in the last five years.

Where to start then? Back to basics I suppose. Care for the body I have the best I can. Revisit the Beyond Chocolate principles. Reread some of the intuitive eating books I have. Pick one tiny thing and experiment with it. For one day. One meal. One bite. Whatever it takes.

Evolution not resolution

Ok, so I'm about a week too late to do a post on New Year's resolutions. Although, as revealed by the kind of scientific research known as "doing a quick Google search", it seems the average resolution lasts only about a week; so perhaps I'm actually being rather timely.

I ummed and ahhed this December (or is it now 'last' December given it's a new calendar year...?) about whether to make any New Year's resolutions this time around. I always used to do it and yet ne'er has a resolution been kept long - or even medium - term (bar the one to stop biting my nails when I was about 13 - that's still going strong two and a bit decades on). So a couple of years ago I decided that I wouldn't make any New Year's resolutions and that's been that for the past few years. On the bright side it means I haven't broken any resolutions so I can feel smug about that. However, it also means that nothing in my life has really changed. Of course, we shouldn't strive to change our lives or 'better ourselves' if we are happy with things as they are - but most of us have a few things we'd like to work on or achieve. Hence this year I waivered between whether to make resolutions or not.

Eventually I decided I would walk the middle path. Resolutions have the flavour of being unyielding and specific and oh-so breakable. And indeed 'resolute'. Absolute. And I have been guilty of making these kinds of resolutions in the past - not just at New Year either (check out my '35 by 35' post - I hardly achieved any of that stuff!) - and I've found it just leads to a horrible sense of failure when I don't achieve my goal. On the other hand, not bothering to do anything at all differently didn't work out so well either and so it seems that some kind of plan/goal/sense of direction is still required. So I have gone down the route of making looser plans and having broad ideas as to what I'd like to achieve in the coming year and beyond. Not so much 'lose two stone by July' but rather just a broad idea that I'd like to get my weight down this year. I'm also keen to look into some free online courses this year - and have indeed already started the process - but didn't want to make a resolution to do anything more specific than that. I don't want to feel a failure because I didn't successfully finish three courses or get a qualification in a specific subject.

Another aspect to I've considered in making goals and plans is in looking at the process rather than the results. To use weight loss again as an example (since I'm a little overweight myself and it also seems to be a perennial favourite resolution with an awful lot of people): instead of setting a resolution to "lose two stone", consider the more process-based "eat more fruit and veg and join a gym". You could make the latter more specific if you wanted but the point is that  your goal is the HOW of losing weight and not the hoped-for end result. Firstly, you can actively control whether you go to the gym or eat a piece of fruit but you can't really control whether ultimately your body will respond by getting you to the weight that you've randomly decided appeals to you. Secondly, what if you didn't hit the exact weight you wanted? I know I would personally feel a failure if I only lost a portion of the weight I have aimed to lose. Whereas hopefully the weight loss is just a fantastic side effect of all that fruit-eating and gym-going (should I elect to do that...) and who gives a stuff about the precise number of ounces if it's in the right ball park...or even the right direction!

So, for me, I'm not making any firm resolutions. I want my life to gradually evolve. I don't believe in the New Year, New You rubbish that's peddled out by the magazines year after tiresome year. I don't want to be a whole new person. I just want the person I already am to continue to grow (though preferable not girth-wise) and to explore what life has to offer. And for me, in 2015, the things that spring to mind are: working on my relationship with food in the hope that this will both help my self-esteem and reduce my weight; looking at ways to be more organised in a bid to reduce stress; explore mindfulness; look into courses and volunteering opportunities; and try and make some headway with that huge stack of unread books...