Principle 3: Make Peace with food

My book report on Chapter 7 of Intuitive Eating.

Call a truce; stop the food fight! Give yourself unconditional permission to eat. If you tell yourself that you can't or shouldn't have a particular food, it can lead to intense feelings of deprivation that build into uncontrollable cravings and often bingeing. When you finally give in to your forbidden foods, eating will be experienced with such intensity, it usually result in last supper overeating and overwhelming guilt.

Ok - this is me. Strict deprivation when I am dieting and then binge. I could really relate to this chapter. Makes sense. I feel I am really far from being able to give myself permission to eat anything but that is probably from years of not trusting myself. This book talks about how it is NORMAL for anyone who deprives themselves of something they then want that something with immense longing. Reminds me of when I go on vacation. By the end I want a home cooked meal so bad! Not junk food because I have that on vacation just a home cooked meal. Because I was deprived of that while on vacation.

Here is when I binge:
The moment a forbidden food is eaten.
The moment my calorie level is exceeded.
The moment a diet rule is broken.

How many of you have the LAST SUPPER before starting your diet? I do. Usually a buffet. I gorge myself like I am never going to eat again! Thinking about it I think I have had 50+ LAST SUPPERS in my 37 years of life. Yikes!

Here is what it means to give yourself permission to eat:
Throwing out the perconceived notion that certain foods are good and others bad. No one food has the power to make you fat or thin.
Eating what you really want.
Eating without obligatory penance. (OK I can have this cake now but tomorrow I diet).

Five Steps to making Peace with Food
1. Pay attention to the foods that appeal to you and make a list of them.
2. Put a check by the foods you actually eat, then circle remaining foods that you have been restricting.
3. Give yourself permission to eat one forebidden food from your list. Then go buy this food or order it in a restaurant.
4. Check in with yourself to see if the food tastes as good as you imagined. If you find that you really like it - give yourself permission to buy or order it.
5. Make sure you keep enough food in your kitchen so you know it will be there if you want it.

Live Healthy at thinchic.com!