Intuitive Eating: Chapter 5

The fifth chapter of Intuitive Eating introduces the first principle of intuitive eating: Reject the Diet Mentality.

As much as I want to believe that I was just making healthy lifestyle changes over the past year and a half, there was also a period of time, a somewhat long period of time, that I really was in a diet mentality. I wanted the extra weight off quickly and I felt my eating had to be very very controlled. I basically forgot how to eat "normal" during this time because my thinking had become so warped.

This chapter explains the diet void and how people often use dieting as a way to cope with life, fill up their time, or to use as control over your life. I think I used dieting for all of these reasons. Things in my life aren't exactly going smoothly right now, and since my weight was getting more and more out of control I wanted to do something quickly and I wanted a sense of accomplishment. I wanted something in my life to go right, because it felt like everything else wasn't. I also had good intentions-I wanted to feel better, feel like myself again, establish healthy habits for my present and future, etc. The dieting void means having to give up the thrill and excitement of dieting, and yes, in some ways dieting did bring me some excitement at first and I loved seeing the number on the scale go down. It has been hard to let that go.

Psuedo-dieting is also explained in this chapter. Basically, you think you have rejected the dieting mindset, but are still practicing unconscious dieting which could be:
-counting carbohydrate grams closely
-eating only "safe" foods (fat-free or low-cal)
-eating only at certain times of day
-paying penance for eating "bad" foods
-cutting back on food
-pacifying hunger by drinking coffee or diet soda
-limiting carbohydrates
-putting on a "false food" face in public
-competing with someone else who is dieting
-second-guessing or judging what you deserve to eat.

I have been guilty of many of those acts on the list. I don't meticulously count carbohydrate grams now, but I think I am conscious of what is high/low carb for the most part. I am breaking free of "safe" foods, though I still have my favorite "go to" foods. I am working on not second-guessing all my food choices and while I still have some work to do, I'm making progress.

The authors point out the dieter's dilemma, which is a great graphic, depicting the dieting trap that so many people fall into. First, it starts with a desire to be thin, then you go on a diet, this is followed by cravings and reduced self-control, then you have a loss of control and overeat which leads to regain of the lost weight.
I definitely have fell victim of the dieting dilemma at several points in my life. The yo-yoing is no fun at all.

I especially liked the steps outlined for rejecting the diet mentality:

• Step 1: Recognize and Acknowledge the Damage that Dieting Causes
• The body considers dieting a form of starvation
• Chronic dieting teaches the body to retain more fat when you start eating again
• Chronic dieting slows the rate of weight loss with each successive attempt to diet
• Decreased metabolism
• Increased binges and cravings 
• Increased risk of premature death and heart disease
• Causes satiety cues to atrophy
• Causes body shape to change (tend to regain weight in the abdominal area)

 After putting myself through a strict diet for many months I regret damaging my body the way I did.  I'm sure I've harmed my metabolism and now weight loss will be a bigger challenge for me in the future. Initially after dieting I did have increased cravings, but thankfully now I don't really have an issue with that. I definitely had trouble with satiety cues during and immediately after the dieting process. I would say I probably do carry more weight in my abdominal area than I would like, but before losing weight I had a lot more weight around my middle, so it's hard to say if my body shape is really permanently in a "changed" state.

• Step 2: Be Aware of Diet Mentality Traits and Thinking
• Forget willpower
• Dieting is an attempt to ignore natural desires and replace those desires with rules
• Dieting becomes a set of rigid rules which can trigger rebellion = overeating

• Forget being obedient
• Nobody can be the expert of "you"-you should be responsible for when, what, and how much of eating

• Forget about failure
• Diet mentality reinforces feelings of success or failure

 I'm definitely tired of trying to have enough willpower to diet. I'm also tired of following a set of food rules and feeling like a failure if I don't follow the rules perfectly. It's just too hard and exhausting!

• Step 3: Get Rid of the Dieter's Tools
• The scale as a false idol
• A "good" or "bad" scale # can both trigger overeating-congratulatory eating or can trigger a consolation party
• A scale ritual can sabotage mind and body efforts

• When a pound is not a pound
• Scales do no reflect body composition
• Fluid shifts in body

I do still weigh myself, but try not to weigh myself as often. Usually once during the week and once on the weekend. I do this mainly to see if I'm maintaining or gaining, and though I'm still unhappy with the number I see on the scale, I'm tying to not let it define my level of happiness or how I feel about myself. This is a challenge for me!

• Step 4: Be Compassionate Toward Yourself

This is so important! I feel through dieting I did gain some confidence, but I also gained even more self-hatred, because as I lost weight I just kept thinking the lower number still wasn't low enough and I kept finding more flaws or ways I could be better. It is so important to be kind toward yourself. I feel at the beginning of my weight loss journey I was kind to myself and really started out on the right foot, but after a couple months things took a turn for the worse for me and I no longer was nice to myself.

I think I'm on the right path to adopting this principle and I've been trying to change my way of thinking for awhile now. At first, I think I liked the idea of rejecting the diet mentality, but felt there was no way I could let it go completely because I felt something was wrong with me and I needed to stay on a diet to try to control my eating habits. I'm now trying to not be so hard on myself, trust myself with establishing better eating habits, and being compassionate toward myself so I don't live in a constant state of self-hate.