(Almost) One Whole Healthful Year

Around this same time last year I got a new pair of running shoes (replacing this funky, cute-but-highly uncomfortable pair. The intention was to start running--something I'd always wanted to do, and friends on Facebook who DID run at my age had just fueled that fire. Ultimately, I'm glad that I gave it a wholehearted try, but it seemed just a bit too high-impact for me. Afraid that I would injure myself and that would impede on running and hiking, I dropped running, and instead became more dedicated to walking. (And hiking whenever I can get to a mountain!)

A friend from work, one of our wonderful midwives whose passion is yoga, told me, "Connie, high-impact is good, but exercise doesn't have to be high-impact to keep you healthy and feeling good. It just has to be something you love." This is a woman who's been doing yoga for years; she even goes on yoga retreats. She's also healthy and in great shape.

I took her advice. And here is the result: a brand new pair of running shoes to replace the ones I've worn out, both on pavement and on mountain trail.

Something clicked this year for me. Besides making a point to walk--or do some form of exercise, including bowling, hiking, Zumba, or biking--three to five times a week, I've begun eating more healthfully. More mindfully. Despite what I said earlier on this blog, I did return to Weight Watchers for a few months and dropped a little over 12 pounds.

I sort of hit a plateau at that point. My weight got "stuck" at 124 - 127 pounds. It was frustrating at first, since I was doing "all the right things."

So I decided to just maintain. Just combine what I'd learned in the past, between Weight Watchers, Intuiting Eating, and even Intermittent Fasting.

What ensued was one whole healthful year. Almost one whole year.

To be continued...

I Love Intuitive Eating

Cute thing that happened today at work: I bumped into a friend and coworker who works in a different department, who interrupted her chat with someone else to tell me, "Ooooh! You lost weight--you look so skinny and curvy!"

Vicky is the fourth person in the space of a month to notice I've dropped a little weight over the past month, dropping from 136 to 129. (In actuality, though, I fluctuate between 129 and 131, depending on if there's cheesecake around. Just teasing! More on that in a second.) What is most amazing to me is that I haven't done anything in particular for that to happen. I'm exercising, yes, because exercise is part of my life. It's something I enjoy and don't have to force myself to do--but I'm not doing it obsessively. Neither am I counting points, carbs, or calories and swearing off favorite foods.

That said, the way I look at food and eating HAS changed...and it's all due to Intuitive Eating.

Let me back up. I've been practicing IE longer than I've been blogging about it, bringing me to almost two years since I first discovered the book and subsequently waved goodbye to dieting. In that time, I've watched friends drop weight on diets, then regain it, then return to that diet or a different method of losing weight. My own weight has fluctuated, and at one time it went as high as 138 (at the beginning of my journey), with my weight slowly beginning to drop and hover around 129 and 131 for, literally, weeks. I have been maintaining that weight effortlessly, and I can't take the credit when it goes directly to IE.

Where am I now on this journey? Well, there are better benchmarks than what the scale has to say, for one thing. I no longer measure myself by what digital numbers show up in that little square. For one thing, I and my family are eating less processed food, less fast food, and less eating out in general. We're enjoying more the fruits (and vegetables!) from our garden and local farmer's market. If it's not delicious, I don't have time for it. I do indulge in what is referred to in Intuitive Eating as "play foods" (chips, ice cream, Snickers and such, usually a Friday or Saturday treat), but I no longer feel the urge to go overboard. My portions are smaller than they used to be. I don't need a diet to tell me how much I can put on my plate. If anything, I am satisfied with less naturally, by just honoring my natural hunger and fullness.

Interestingly, though I'm no longer dieting, I still stock my fridge with yogurt and I still ask the young lady on the other side of the counter at Subways for a little extra lettuce on my sandwich. Jeans that I haven't worn in a long time are fitting me perfectly again, and if I'm lost in a book my Kindle is reading to me, I can stay on the treadmill for an extra 15 minutes and not even notice!

Because of IE, I've discovered that I'm a foodie. I never would have admitted that to myself when I was dieting because, according to diets, there are Good Foods and Bad Foods. When you're a foodie, you acknowledge that grilled cheeses made with Gruyere cheese are even sexier than those made with American cheese!

And also because of IE, I've sort of become my own nutritionist. I had a professor in college who once told us, "I make it my business to know all there is about cars so that I know what the mechanic is talking about." (Don't ask me why she was going on and on about cars; the class was Children's Literature! Heh!) To paraphrase her, I've made it my business to know all I can about nutrition, so that I know my family and I are getting the best nutrition we can."

Besides, there's something about eating homemade creamy tomato soup that you can't quite get in a can. It's especially delicious after an invigorating walk out in the fresh air, under God's blue sky and a brilliant sun!

Are you an intuitive eater? How has your journey been? Feel free to share them!

Odd Woman Out...er, diet-wise, that is

Seems like a lot of my coworkers are on the Diet that Shall Remain Nameless. The ones that aren't are losing weight (or trying to) by other means, and they give progress reports. Then there are the ones who *want* to be on a diet, but aren't on one currently, though they express guilt that they're not dieting. This week, one of the ones on the DTSRN had a small loss, though I have to say, she remained positive (at least outwardly) and my other friend was disappointed because she "only" maintained. She did everything right, according to the "rules" set by the DTSRN, and yet she didn't gain, but she didn't lose, either.

I'm going to be honest here, because I know there are readers who lurk specifically because of IE. I don't want it to seem like this has all been smooth sailing for me. Along the way on my Intuitive Eating journey, I've almost fallen off the wagon a few times. I've seen people with their little books and materials from the DTSRN, or announcing triumphantly how they've dropped a size, and sometimes I've almost gotten swept up in all the diet-generated excitement. The keyword there is almost.

The thing is, once you've tasted freedom, it's really hard to willingly march back into the emotional jail cell otherwise known as the diet mentality. And sometimes it feels like I'm Odd Woman Out, because after over a year, I've come to embrace Intuitive Eating. For over a year, I've maintained my weight, which has fluctuated anywhere between 130 and 136.

Only recently did I realize that I LIKE this weight. It's not what the charts say is right for me, but it seems to be the natural healthy weight that my body returns to again and again. It's not the "ideal" weight that I always believed I was supposed to adhere to, but it is what I weigh naturally.

This morning I could barely wait to get my exercise clothes and sneakers on and then hit the pavement! It is an amazing thing, exercising because you WANT to, because you know how good it feels to have those endorphins bursting through you, because you've been stressed out and need exercise to de-stress. It's been unseasonably cold here in North Carolina, and last week my schedule was kinda packed, so I didn't make it to the gym as often as usual. That's okay: There's a beautiful park, complete with a track that runs all the way through it, within walking distance of my home. All the flashy little diet books and materials and even a golden number popping up on a scale can't compare with knowing that you're exercising not because you're trying to erase some of yourself, but because it's a pleasure to move a body that is healthy.

And after a year, what would you find when you open my fridge or my pantry? How about a carton of fresh sliced baby portabella mushrooms...red beans prepared Cuban-style...fat-free yogurt...a large bottle of apple juice...fresh carrots, both for cooking and snacking...gourmet coffee ground from the beans...strawberry preserves...a loaf of pumpernickel bread and one of whole grain...strawberry ice cream...lean chicken breasts...sweet peppers, to be sliced up with onion and sauteed in olive oil--a heart-healthy fat!..instant apples-and-cinnamon oatmeal...granola...organic Chai tea...and Diet Mountain Dew, because I'm used to diet soda now and find the "regular" stuff too sweet for my taste.

In short, you'd find a blend of healthy choices and "guilty" pleasures, which now don't make me feel so guilty anymore, because I find myself eating less of them than when they were "forbidden" and therefore more attractive to me. That's where I am now on this journey. I've come to a point where I now consider myself an intuitive eater. Food is now both fuel for the body and a pleasure to be savored.

And at times, I'm Odd Woman Out. But I was at one time One of the Girls, right there with my diet books and materials and giving progress reports, feeling like a failure when I "only" maintained or "only" lost .5 pounds after a week of "doing everything right."

In light of that, it's not so bad at all, being Odd Woman Out.

More Intuitive Eating Adventures!

Nine months now & counting. If it was a relationship, I'd have to say it's not just a fling anymore!

I promised to check back in on intuitive eating, so here I am. To this day, I have yet to count a calorie, point, carb or anything else, and yet my weight is now fluctuating between 128 and 130. Since my weight had gone as high as 138, that's been interesting to me. The only thing that I have changed is that I've started going back more regularly to the gym, and that's because I notice that I feel better on the whole when I go to the gym. The key word there is regularly--I'm not exercising obsessively.

Did going back to the gym speed up my metabolism, hence the loss of 10 pounds? Honestly, I don't know. I tend to think it has more to do with the fact that at this point in my journey with intuitive eating, I'm no longer stress-eating, i.e. treating a chocolate sundae like a therapist after a rough day at work. Something else is that I've stopped thinking of eating as something done on a weekly cycle, with a weekly allotment of points, so if I "mess up" I then have a feast day and glumly decide I'll start over the next day, only to "mess up" again two days later. As any ex-dieter can tell you, nothing will pile on the pounds and keep them on more than emotional eating and the I've-messed-up-but-I'll-do-better-tomorrow-so-pass-the-Doritos mentality.

Now it's like that old Christian song goes: one day at a time. Obviously, that's not just a good way to approach intuitive eating, but that's a good way to live! I no longer have an "allowance" of points or calories that I'm "permitted" to eat each day, with some surplus at the end of the week as a "reward" for being good. At this stage, looking back at dieting, that's a bizarre way to live. It's almost like life revolving around food...which it doesn't.

Instead of an allowance, now I have FREEDOM! I have a long way to go on this journey, but I've come to the point where I trust myself. Food is no longer The Enemy. I can go out to a get-together at a restaurant with friends and not worry about eating "point-friendly" meals. On the contrary: I have what...I...want. Not what I'm "allowed" to have or what I'm "supposed" to have.

In light of the fact that I now look at a fresh salad served with a light vinagrette dressing with the same anticipation as a Dairy Queen Blizzard--and sometimes I consider the salad more inviting--why would I ever want to return to the frustration, expense and enslavement of dieting?

Would you believe that I'm also trying out more recipes now than I ever did before? Here's one I found for zucchini bread that is out of this world! Our garden was producing more zucchinis than we could humanly eat (even with giving some away to friends and family), but look what happens when you add some cinnamon, flower, walnuts and other ingredients!

I have no idea how many calories are in it. But I do know a slice of it goes perfectly with a great cup of coffee and it makes a good, filling breakfast!

Next time: Some interesting observations about intuitive eating, otherwise known as how we were really meant to eat before the multi-billion dollar diet industry told us we were doing it all wrong.

Till next time!