Information Gathering...by Liimu

To some, it may look like I'm not doing anything. And in a certain sense, they'd be right. I'm not enduring punishing workouts in the gym. I'm not counting every calorie that goes in my mouth. I'm not weighing and measuring my food. I'm not eliminating sugar, carbs or fat from my diet.

I'm focused on intuitive eating and so most of what's happening is in my own mind. I'm focusing on eating what my body wants, when it wants it, honoring its cues of when I'm hungry and perhaps even more challenging, when it is full. (Still working on that one, if I'm being honest.) I'm finding new ways to exercise, including dancing with my kids, like last night, long walks in the park, Zumba, kickboxing and spinning. I still love running, so I signed up for Broad Street - I consider myself one of the lucky ones as it sold out in a record-breaking five hours this year - but I'm totally open to walk/running it rather than feeling like I'm a failure if I don't run or jog every step.

What's perhaps even more important about this phase of my journey is that I'm gathering tons of information and processing it all, applying it when it feels pertinent. I went back to my holistic doctor, Dr. Michael Cheiken, and he ordered labwork to test for every imaginable vitamin deficiency or metabolic disorder. Twenty-three vials of blood in all. I've been finding incredibly interesting articles and eBooks on the internet, and I've talked to tons of people who have made this journey and been successful at achieving and maintaining their ideal weight through intuitive eating. Here are some of the things that seem to be important recurring themes, across all my conversations and reading:

1. Stress is a huge obstacle in weight loss and being generally healthy, so I mostly need to just CHILL OUT and trust the process

2. Statistically, it is a proven fact that dieting has a 98% failure rate and if it were a medical practice, it would be banned. It continues to thrive essentially due to the 68 billion dollar industry that profits as a result of its continuation.

3. There are real obstacles at play, related to my age and having just recently had a baby, but most of them are in my own head.

4. I will likely be successful in my efforts but it could take awhile for me to achieve my ideal weight and even longer for my head to really be healed from all the years of yo-yo dieting.

I have to say that learning all these things, hearing them from people I respect and admire (and people who aren't afraid to tell me things I might not want to hear) had a surprising effect on me. In my heart, I felt relieved and happy, much the way I felt when I was told I would need to abstain from a drink one day at a time for the rest of my life. It's not an easy path, but it feels a whole lot easier than the one I was on.

I will continue to share with you guys my progress. I am loving this life I've been blessed with and am so excited for the newest leg of the journey.

Intuitive Eating Isn't a Diet...by Liimu

As many of you know, I made the decision late last year to chronicle my journey back to my pre-pregnancy weight here on this blog. At the same time, I realized that I was completely fed up with diets and punishing exercise and I began to get immersed in the world of Intuitive Eating, including reading Geneen Roth and others. What was frustrating is that rather than settling on my ideal weight, as the books and articles promised would eventually happen, I watched the scale go up and up. I was already 50 pounds over what I consider to be my ideal weight, so this was totally not sitting well with me.

I combed the internet to see if I was doing something wrong. Every fiber of my being screamed out for me to go on a diet and yet, the truth is I'm done with dieting. I just am. I sort of wish I weren't, but I totally am. So, I prayed. I prayed for the answer because I was sick and tired of being at that jumping off point of being ready to let go of my old way of doing things but not knowing yet how to do things the new way.

And then the answer came to me like a smack in the forehead:

Intuitive eating isn't a diet...

...but it's not NOT a diet.

The wikipedia definition of a diet (the noun, that is, not the verb), is "the sum of the food consumed by an organism or group." That doesn't say anything about restricting or starving or controlling. In fact, it's only when diet is used as a verb that even any mention is made of how dieting relates to weight loss.

I realized that what I had been doing was still just sort of eating whatever I wanted. Intuitive eating for maintenance, I guess, when what I want is to lose weight. I'm not ashamed or afraid to admit it. I. Want. To. Lose. Weight. So, I need to adjust my diet so that it supports that goal. Simple as that.

So for the past week, that's what I've been doing and by gum, I think it's working. I can tell you, it's working inside my head. I'm no longer worried about whether or not I'm doing this right. I just wake up every morning and pray for the willingness to do it right. Because I know what to do, I just need to do it.