Addressing a few Key Questions and Comments

So since I feel like these are pretty important questions addressing my attempt at "self discovery" with this book, I thought I'd address these questions/comments here as well as in the comments because they are some key questions that I bet are common ones.

Marisa asked: One thing that keeps coming up in my mind is the phrase that it repeated in the book , "you will reach your natural weight". What if your natural weight is something you are not happy with? And I'm talking "realistic" not some supermodel weight. What if you would like to see yourself be a bit thinner? Does the book address this issue? I'm only on Chapter 8 and haven't looked ahead,but I have been thinking this the whole time reading the book! What do ya think??

First of all, you're farther in the book than me! I thought about the exact same thing and I think the answer is what goes along with how to truly find your "goal weight." I believe that your "natural weight" is the place where your body feels comfortable maintaining. Lots of people set goal weights for themselves that they end up realizing that they have difficulty maintaining and end up going back up 5 - 10 lbs. I think if you are listening to your body it will want to go to a place that is a healthy place to be and perhaps that will be your "goal" weight. Really the "goal" we set is kind of arbitrary and one set not by our bodies but by our perception of what the chart tells us it should be. I would think that we should be striving for optimal health which includes mental health even though we somehow put that on the back burner. To be honest, I'd rather be 150 or 160 and completely satisfied with my eating patterns and not be agonizing over counting everything than say at 140 (just throwing those numbers out there) and have to be meticulous about it to keep it. I dunno, it's so much to absorb when "the way you currently think" conflicts with everything! But now that I re-read your question I know what you mean. I just realized now that there's Appendix sections. Check out Page 249 in the Appendix where there are some FAQ's, and #5 & #6 "kind of" addresses the question:

Q5: "Will I ever loser weight doing this?"

A5: "It depends on your natural healthy weight - the weight your body will maintain with normal eating and normal exercise. If you've fluctuated between periods of dieting and overeating, you can probably reach your natural health weight. If you 've used food to cope emotionally, you can reach your natural healthy weight. But if you're already at your natural healthy weight and have an unrealistic view of what you should weight and are trying to be even thinner, you won't lose weight through Intuitive Eating. Also, for some people, their metabolism has been altered and damaged by years of excessive dieting and weight yoyos. For them, exercise combined with gradually increasing the food they eat might be the only means for speeding up the metabolism and getting some of the extra weight off."

Q6: "What if I can't lose weight? What's this all worth?"

A6: "If you are someone who is genetically destined to weigh more than society's standards and therefore cannot lose weight, you will derive a great deal of peace and contentment with this process. You will get off the 'treadmill' of deprivation and guilt. You will eat in a way that's pleasurable and satisfying. You will stop feeling guilty about your eating and stop blaming yourself for being overweight. You will stop overeating and with that stop feeling bloated and uncomfortable. You'll stop intermittently undereating and with that stop feeling starved and uncomfortable. Achieving an intuitive eating style will free your time for more enriching thoughts and feelings (rather than food-worry and guilt). For many peole, that means ultimately feeling happier."

I think the take home from this whole thing is that it's really a mental approach to eating when the "dieting rules" are no longer serving you any good? I'm trying to figure it all out as I go! :-D

Tasha asked/mused: Isn't intuitive eating a kind of diet too? If you have to read about it and follow principles it seems like another form of diet to me. I think I'd like it better if they called it "common sense eating in moderation" and left it at that :) Of course, if for some reason a person never learned how to do that (not talking about anyone in particular here), they need to read about it and follow rules :) I think that you should put the scale away (drop out of your own challenge LOL) and just try this for a few months. You've skipped around on the different "diets" lately, and maybe your body just needs one thing done for long enough to get used to it. Your body may need longer than others to get into the grove. I think you are knowledgeable enough about healthy foods, portions sizes and the need for exercise so that you can just listen to your own body and common sense from now on.

Yes I get your point. This is the exact same reason why many of us stop calling it a "diet" and a "lifestyle" but really sometimes we do that just to make it sound more politically correct and dieting behaviours can still be present and are negating the efforts made. We could call this "common sense eating in moderation" and leave it at that, but that's really a platitude without teaching a person "how" to do it when your cognition is going in a completely different direction if your eating has been dictated by external factors since forever, right? Like with WW it was points and all the guidelines dictating how much and what, then it was calories telling me essentially the same thing, then back and forth simply because my success would be minimal or up and down as a result of the same cycle of mental stamina being defeated over and over which is kind of like the "yo-yo dieting" cliche really. It's not my body that needs longer to get into the "groove" it's my head that has had enough of the "rules" and making all the "stars align" to be successful. This book is different than a "diet" because it's not telling me what and how much to eat, it's helping me manage the way I'm thinking in my approach to food and ultimately, hopefully, to weight loss. Know what I mean? I realize this is a difficult thing for people to understand if they don't struggle with it and/or they haven't read the book and that's why I'm trying to at least be as descriptive as possible in the posts to put it into context.

Oh yeah, and yesterday was "WI Monday" and if you'll notice, there was none :-) At this point I think it would be defeating the purpose. I know no matter what it said, I'd either be happy or disappointed at the result and that IS being affected by it and right now I don't want to be.

Wow you guys, I LOVE your input! It makes me think and it helps to understand and sort it all out as I go along.