Intuitive eating-- some final thoughts as I bid this journey kinda-sorta goodbye.

So as any reader around here knows, I read a couple books this past fall that changed my thinking about my relationship with food.

These couple books made it sound SO easy to just "Eat when you're hungry... Stop when you're full!" Which makes complete sense.

These books also all preach...

• NEVER diet again! 
• NEVER get on a scale!
• NEVER count calories!

My life has changed since reading those books and I will use a lot of the tools for the rest of my life.  My biggest take-always that I still use every day...

1. Checking in with myself to see WHY I am eating.  Am I actually hungry or am I anxious, bored, sad, angry.......  I have learned that boredom/droned-on-the-couch-in-front-of-tv eating is my biggest problem area.  And while I still eat when I am not hungry... I at least take a minute to recognize what I am doing and why... and then make a CONSCIOUS CHOICE to do it anyway.  I am no longer a mindless eating factory.
2. The scale.  I have been on the scale ONCE since last fall.  And to be honest... it wasn't pretty.  But I didn't need the scale to tell me that.  I KNEW I was eating too much and being lazy... and I knew why.   I wholeheartedly agree with not letting a tiny little electronic box tell you how you are going to feel about yourself today.
3. Really taking the time after eating to think about how foods make me feel.  I have actually stopped eating several foods that made me feel sluggish, bloated, shitty-about-myself-the-day-after.
4. EXERCISE! A big part of 'the books' was a push to help people to realize that exercise is incredibly important but NOT FOR WEIGHT LOSS.  (there are whole chapters with science and studies and shit explaining this... read it yourself if you want to.)  Exercise is for you MIND and SPIRIT.  And I KNOW this is true.  When I am exercising, I just feel better about EVERYTHING.  My body feels strong.  I am not stressed.  And even though I AM fat, I don't FEEL fat when I exercise regularly.

BUT....

I can't agree with everything they say, for myself anyway.   The books constantly discuss "what naturally thin people do."  They talk about how naturally thin people eat when they are hungry and stop when they are full.  They don't count calories.  They don't diet.  They rarely eat for emotional reasons.

Well I call bullshit.

I have been observing the "naturally thin people" in my life for months now and guess what!??

• They ALL watch what they eat.  
• They ALL go "off the rails" a bit and gain weight... then they watch what they eat (i.e. DIET) to take it back off again.
• They ALL eat for the same reasons I eat... but because they 'watch what they eat' ...they don't go crazy.

And guess what else!?  Lots of them are just as fucked up as I am when it comes to food... maybe even more-so! 

So....  I rejoined My Fitness Pal!!  I am a person who just needs a guideline.  I am not being crazy about it... and if I overeat, I still put it in my journal, but I am ok with who I am and when I overeat, I know it was my choice to do so.  But using that little app helps me to be more accountable.  It helps me to see that Tuesday I ate almost an entire bag of pretzel rods, so Wednesday, maybe I should check myself before I wreck myself ;-)