If you eat only when you 're hungry, if you don't feel guilty about what
you're eating, and if you stop eating when you're full---you are an
"intuitive eater."
Tips on how to change
..Reject the "diet mentality"
Throw out the diet books and magazine articles that make rosy promises.
If you allow even one small hope to linger that "a new and better diet"
is just around the corner, you won't be free to discover intuitive
eating.
..Honor your hunger
Keep your body well-fed; otherwise, you can trigger a primal drive to
overeat. If you become very hungry, all your good eating intentions
will vanish.
..Make peace with food
Give yourself unconditional permission to eat.
..Respect your body
Accept your genetic blueprint. It's difficult to reject the diet
mentality if you're overly critical of your body shape.
..Feel your fullness
Listen to your body for signal that you are no longer hungry. Pause
in the middle of eating and ask yourself how the food tastes and what
your current "fullness" level is.
..Discover satisfaction
When you eat that you really want in a pleasant environment, you feel
satisfied and content. By giving yourself this experience, you'll find
that it takes much less food to decide when you've had enough.
..Cope with your emotions with out using food
Find non-food ways to resolve stress, frustratrion, fatigue, anger,
loneliness, etc.
..Challenge the food police
Put your foot down and say "NO!" to thoughts that say you're "good" for
skipping lunch or "bad" because you ate a piece of cake.
..Exercise
Keep it simple--a little goes a long way. Try 15 min of exercise before
work and 15 minutes before dinner.
..Honor your health
Make food choices that honor your health and you taste buds--while
making you feel good.
Source: Intuitive Eating: A Recovery Book for the Chronic Dieter, Evelyn
Tribole and Elyse Resch, $21.95
