Intuitive Eating: Chapter 1

I thought I'd share some thoughts and summaries of the book, Intuitive Eating, since it's a book I'm currently studying and a practice I'm trying to learn more about.

Chapter 1, "Hitting Diet Bottom", discusses the issue of going on diets , "failing," and then experiencing dieting backlash. Have I been there? Yes.

Some signs that you have hit diet bottom are:
-becoming more preoccupied with food
-food becomes the enemy
-you become guilty when not eating diet-type foods
-slowed metabolism
-the harder you try to diet, the harder you fall

I think I've really experienced all of these things, so for me this is a sign that it is time to change my mindset.

This chapter also discuss symptoms of diet backlash:
-having little trust in self with food (this is me completely because I second guess what I eat all the time)
-feeling that you don't deserve to eat (yes, yes, yes)
..............to give an example of this....yesterday I ran in the morning on the treadmill and I didn't have any other activity planned for the day besides an evening walk. I was tired (hadn't slept much the night before) and I hit a panicked point midday where I thought I had to come up with a more intense exercise plan for the evening to "earn" my dinner that night. I actually said that I didn't deserve the meal that I was eating. I did manage to push these thoughts aside and stick to my original plan of a walk and the same dinner, but all those thoughts did run through my head.
-social withdrawal (experienced this a little last year, but no longer thankfully)
-sluggish metabolism (I feel I am experiencing this)
-using caffeine to survive the day (yes, but I think this is due to my sleep schedule)
-eating disorders (I've never had an eating disorder, but I will definitely say I've struggled with disordered eating patterns that were not healthy)

Another important part of the chapter is the discussion of what the dieting (long term) process does to the body. The book discusses how our bodies shift into a survival mode and our metabolism slows down. Our food cravings can escalate (I experienced this when I severely reduced calories, thankfully now that I've raised my calories I have average, normal cravings). There is also discussion about how with each diet, our body learns and adapts and this can result in rebound weight gain. I have experienced rebound weight gain after I increased my calories to a normal level after dieting. I've gained back about 20-25 pounds from the lowest weight I reached while dieting. This 20-25 lb increase was over the course of 1 year.

Basically this chapter encourages you to look at what dieting can do to your body and that by restricting calories below your needs, leaving yourself in a hungry state most of the time, just isn't a good idea.

Has anyone else read this book/chapter? Have you experienced any of these dieting backlash symptoms? I feel like I may have fell harder than most because I was clinging to a diet as a comfort, way to soothe my anxiety, but I think many people go on and off diets and experience some of these symptoms as well.