7 things I learned during my first week of intuitive eating

  

  
  When you are hungry, the food seems very simple.  After dieting for several decades, it was not.

  
  Health and wellness touch each of us differently.  This is a story of a person.

  I am an old dietitian

  I first started limiting my calorie intake to junior high, and I have been on some kind of diet since then.  I have tried low-carb diets, calorie counting, tracking my macros, keto and Whole30. I am committed to increasing my exercise and eating less than I can count.

  Originally after nearly two decades of nonstop restriction, I have found that I almost always gain weight back.  Dieting also creates a lot of negativity in my life, damaging my body and my relationship with food.

  I am worried about my body and what I am eating.  I often beat myself up when presented with "off-limits" foods and feel guilty about it too often.

  I was familiar with spontaneous eating for some time, but it was not until I started following a registered dietitian on social media who is an advocate for the practice that I realized that it helped me step away from the diet culture.  Can help

  Spontaneous eating provides a framework for an emotionally and physically healthy life by asking people to listen to their bodies as they make decisions about what they eat and how much they eat.  Although intuitive food is based in making personal choices about food, it is more complex than anything you want.

  Spontaneous eating also pushes for acceptance of body diversity, eating based on cues from the body rather than cues from dietary culture, and movement for enjoyment rather than for the purpose of weight loss.

  On their website, the founders of the practice outline ten guiding principles for intuitive eating that help shed light on their way of life.  Here is an overview:

  Break up with dieting with the understanding that the following diet culture takes time to correct over the years.  This means no calorie count and no off-limit foods. It also means that you are allowed to eat as you wish.

  Eat when you are hungry and when you stop completely.  Trust your body and the signals it sends you instead of relying on external signals like calorie count to tell you to stop eating.

  Eat for satisfaction.  Instead of food being low-calorie or low-carb, keep it in good tasting food.

  Respect your feelings.  If food has been used to cover, suppress, or relax difficult emotions, then it is time to relieve those feelings and focus on using food for your intended purposes - nutrition and satisfaction.

  Move because it makes you feel good and gives you pleasure, not as a modification to burn calories or eat high-calorie food.

  Follow basic nutritional guidelines such as eating more vegetables and eating whole grains.

  Everything I learned over 10 days of spontaneous eating

  I committed to 10 days of spontaneous eating with the hope that this practice would become part of the rest of my life.  Here is a look at all the things I learned during my time with intuitive eating and how I hope to move forward.

  1. I like rice a lot

  I am a ketogenic dieters and rice has been off-limits to me many times throughout my life.  not anymore!

  During the first day's meal of this challenge, I wanted to eat a bowl of rice with stewed vegetables, fried eggs, and soy sauce.  When day two rolled around, I wanted it again.

  During the entire 10 days of spontaneous eating, I was a little fixated on certain foods that were off-limits and it was really fun to follow those cravings without any guilt. 

 I'm not sure if this is because my body really wanted rice, or if it was a side effect of the ban in the past.

  2. Good food is fun to eat

  A pleasant surprise from days three and four was my craving for some foods that I usually associate with dieting.


  There is a specific chocolate protein powder that I like but I have always included in the diet plan for the diet.


  Living a diet-free life a few days, I found myself wanting for a smoothie because it looked good, not because it was a part of my meal plan.

  The important thing about gentle nutrition is that it does not mean that you suddenly remove other foods. 


 You can make daily food choices that feel satisfying and true without getting too restrictive about other foods.

  3. The signs of my hunger are a mess

  By day two, one thing became very clear - exaggeration and excesses have completely eradicated the signs of my hunger after being confined for years.


  I loved eating, but knowing when I was really hungry and when I was satisfied was incredibly challenging during the entire 10 days.

  After a few days, I stopped eating and after ten minutes realized that I was still hungry.  On other days, I did not realize that by the time it was too late, I had eaten and I was feeling sad. 



 I think it is a learning process, so I kept trying to be kind to myself.  I want to believe that over time, I will learn to listen to my body and feed it well.

  4. I am not ready for body acceptance yet

  This can be the hardest lesson during this experience with intuitive eating.  Even though I can see the value of accepting my body, it is not really sinking in yet for me.  If I am completely honest, I still want to be thin.

  On day five, I experienced a significant amount of anxiety about not weighing myself and had to hop extensively before leaving with the rest of my days.  I expect that over time a specific size will be less of a priority for me.

  For six days, I spent time in my journal writing how I feel about the people I think have nothing to do with the size of what I feel about them  . My hope is that I will learn to feel the same about myself soon.

  5. Special days are triggering AF

  During this 10-day experiment, I celebrated my anniversary with my husband and went on a weekend trip with my family. 


 It was no surprise to me that I used to feel really insecure and worried about food during these special days.

  In the past, celebration has always meant either depriving ourselves of any "special" foods and feeling pathetic or exaggerated in particular foods and feeling guilty.

  Navigating special days on spontaneous meals was not easy.  In fact, it really deteriorated. I still do overtake and feel guilty about what I did when I did all this and ate.

  I think this is one of those things that is time consuming to find out.  Hopefully, once I get a handle on giving myself unconditional permission to eat, I feel less anxious these days.

  6. I'm Bored

  Afternoons often become a time of mindless snacking for me.  Committing to eating only when hungry meant that I was seeing that I was bored and alone in the afternoon.


  My children were napping or their screen time was happening and I felt like I was just wandering home, looking for something to do.

  I think the solution is two-fold.  I feel that I need to learn to be more comfortable with not filling each moment with fun, but I believe that I have not done a great job in making time for enjoyable, fulfilling activities.


  I spend my afternoon picking up a book during these lulls, listening to podcasts and writing for fun.

  7. It's time consuming, and maybe even medical

  For nine and ten days, it was clear that this experiment was only the tip of the iceberg.  About 20 years, entangled in diet culture, did not miss 10 days of easy food and fine with me.

  I am also open to the idea that I might not be able to do this.  It was a doctor who mentioned spontaneous eating for me for the first time and I might reconsider this idea with him in the future. 


 Overall, I am willing to take a lot of work and medicine on my part for this - but liberating from the hamster wheel of dieting is worth it for me.