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Story time! If you would prefer to skip ahead to the book review, go to The Book!
This book came to me at just the right point. A few months ago I got around to reading The Gift of Fear (yup, different book. Bear with me). The main takeaway for me was understanding that my body is super-clever and on the ball, and it will protect us. It notices details that my brain is too busy thinking cleverly stupid thoughts for, so I should trust it. My body will tell me if or when I am in danger, so I can relax and the only thing I need to do - besides take normal precautions, is to listen to it.
This started a habit where I checked in with my body to see how I am doing, and my body started telling me other things. It said it wants to move, alcohol isn't really all that interesting, and green vegetables are delicious.
In other words I connected to myself. Because I started listening to myself I didn't need to overeat to force the emotions down. I began eating healthily because I wanted to, and I arranged to meet a personal trainer to get me moving better.
I told her how I was eating and she said, "oh, intuitive eating is good..." and so I discovered that not only am I not alone in this, but two women wrote a book! Intuitive Eating.
The Book! - (though I confess, I've not finished reading it yet! I'm enjoying taking my time and absorvbing the lessons)
I bring it to your attention, beautiful ladies, because this book is about accepting who you are and listening to yourself. Your body knows what it needs and is capable of telling you, but the way many of us live suppresses that. Society tells us we ought to be thin, and having extra weight makes us lazy / immoral / unattractive / whatever, and we lose connection to ourselves. We listen to outside sources of information, eg the clock, our parents, magazines, instead of our own internal cues. We don't trust ourselves, and that is a huge problem.
It is possible to re-establish that connection, but it will take challenging a lot of preconceptions. The good news is you are a RadFem so you are perfectly capable of THAT!
So if you struggle in your relationship with food I highly recommend Intuitive Eating. Alwyas remember that you are the best judge of what is good for you. Never someone else.
I think it’s good when intuitive eating works for someone!
I can’t do it because I’m a binge eater and the only way I was able to lose weight and keep it off was calorie counting/meal planning. If I ate intuitively I’d probably never stop eating. I’d like to hopefully get to a place where I can do this.
I find the community around intuitive eating is usually fat activist types who I find very toxic and I feel like I wouldn’t belong if I ever wanted some support with eating my feelings and binging.
Im open to a lot though , what’s the name of the book?
Great recommendation! I have a good appetite and eat a lot for a woman (2000-2200 calories a day). The good thing is that the metabolism is fast when the body gets a good amount of food. The body knows best.
This is a great topic. Intuitive eating is obviously difficult (if not dangerous) for people with eating disorders or other health problems that could be aggravated by eating certain foods, but I think everyone else can only profit from re-learning to listen to our body. And not just regarding how much you eat but also what you eat. Animals will seek out certain foods if they are ill or need specific nutrients for a reason, too (like birds seeking out minerals while producing eggs, cattle prefering certain plants when their stomach is upset). We have that instinct as well but are basically told from childhood on to disregard it in favor of fixed meals and mealtimes and whatever diet is the rage now. There are no one-size-fits-all diets because every person and metabolism has different needs.
I am slightly anemic, for example, and when I am on my period - which obviously makes the anemia worse - I absolutely crave foods that are rich in iron, like meat. I don't have meat at home and am 99% vegetarian otherwise but I suddenly find myself craving steak and salami. That craving goes away when I take an iron supplement. So it's definitely my body trying to correct a deficit by telling me to eat certain foods.
I've also always had a low blood pressure and have always loved food on the saltier side. It took years and a failed but well-meant attempt to cut out salt (because of all the "salt is the devil" propaganda in the media) that caused me to actually faint to make the connection and it was my GP who told me: people with blood pressure on the lower side often crave saltier food (and other foods that drive up the blood pressure) and self-medicate without even realizing it this way. She told me to eat like I did before again and I am fine to this day. I don't eat processed food with huge amounts of salt, I just cook on the saltier and spicier side. But this diet may be dangerous for a person with different dietary needs, high blood pressure or kidney problems.