I haven't been keeping up with my goal of one book per week this month--May has been a little crazy. But I had to read at least one book to make sure I wanted to pick it for my book group. So the book I read was Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program that Works, by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch.
I first heard about this book a few months ago at a class that my daughter's school sponsored about body image. She's at an age when girls really start to care about how they look. The doctor who presented the ideas took a fairly radical approach, I thought. It wasn't information I had previously heard before. But he took a lot of ideas from this book, it turns out. The doctor works a lot with women and girls who have eating disorders so I'd say he has stronger feelings on the subject than most. I can't really summarize all he said in the class but his basic message was, don't listen to the media about what your body should look like, don't exercise too much, eat as much as and whatever you want, and most of all, be happy with the body you have.
One piece of advice he gave was never read the popular magazines. I don't usually, but recently I had read one while waiting somewhere, and all the articles I perused made me feel self-conscious about how I look. I agreed with many of his ideas such as our culture's unhealthy obsession with physical appearance. My question was, what about the obesity epidemic we hear so much about? What about healthy eating? What role does that play?
So I'm glad I read this book because it is more thorough in explaining the philosophy of Intuitive Eating. These two women work as nutritional therapists helping people with eating disorders and/or weight problems. The premise of their book is that each of us is born with basic instincts that tell us how much and when and what we need to eat and we need to tune into that. Think about a baby and how good they are at recognizing when they're hungry and when they're full.
They have come up with a ten-step program they call Intuitive Eating. Here are the steps:
1. Reject the diet mentality--recognize that dieting doesn't work. Almost all dieters will regain the weight. When you go on a diet, your body goes into famine-mode and will slow down your metabolism.
2. Honor your hunger--keep your body fed with adequate energy and carbohydrates
3. Make peace with food--give yourself permission to eat whatever you really like.
4. Challenge the Food Police--don't make unreasonable rules about eating; there are no good foods or bad foods.
5. Feel Your Fullness--learn how to recognize when your body has had enough.
6. Discover the Satisfaction Factor--learn how to enjoy eating.
7. Cope with your emotions without using food.
8. Respect your body--accept your genetic blueprint. Don't weigh yourself and think about your body in positive ways. Instead of constantly criticizing the way your body looks, recognize all the amazing things your body can do and has helped you do.
9. Exercise--feel the difference. Enjoy moving your body and enjoy the stress-reducing benefits.
10. Honor your health with gentle nutrition.
So there they are. The ideas are somewhat new to me but they make sense. I don't know what would happen if more Americans followed these principles; I would hope that obesity would decline, but it's hard to know for sure. I suspect this book oversimplifies the issues related to obesity. For example, just today I read an article about a study of children born to previously obese women who had been born after their mothers had gastric surgery to encourage weight loss. They compared those children to siblings born before the weight loss surgery and the post-surgery children were significantly thinner.
In my own family, weight has not been a big issue. My husband and I are both fairly small and on the thinner side, so we have not worried about it too much. I have two children that are actually a little underweight, largely due to health issues they were born with. I'm trying to figure out how this philosophy fits into their lives. I actually have to work fairly hard to get them to eat enough calories.
But besides all that, I think I will try to follow many of the ideas in the book, especially when it comes to my children. I do believe that we focus way too much on physical appearance and I want my children (and myself) to be happy with the bodies we have while striving for good health and taking good care of this gift we have been given.
For example, my daughter played in the mud today. It was probably the first time ever (we don't get a lot of mud where we live) and she absolutely loved it:
I first heard about this book a few months ago at a class that my daughter's school sponsored about body image. She's at an age when girls really start to care about how they look. The doctor who presented the ideas took a fairly radical approach, I thought. It wasn't information I had previously heard before. But he took a lot of ideas from this book, it turns out. The doctor works a lot with women and girls who have eating disorders so I'd say he has stronger feelings on the subject than most. I can't really summarize all he said in the class but his basic message was, don't listen to the media about what your body should look like, don't exercise too much, eat as much as and whatever you want, and most of all, be happy with the body you have.
One piece of advice he gave was never read the popular magazines. I don't usually, but recently I had read one while waiting somewhere, and all the articles I perused made me feel self-conscious about how I look. I agreed with many of his ideas such as our culture's unhealthy obsession with physical appearance. My question was, what about the obesity epidemic we hear so much about? What about healthy eating? What role does that play?
So I'm glad I read this book because it is more thorough in explaining the philosophy of Intuitive Eating. These two women work as nutritional therapists helping people with eating disorders and/or weight problems. The premise of their book is that each of us is born with basic instincts that tell us how much and when and what we need to eat and we need to tune into that. Think about a baby and how good they are at recognizing when they're hungry and when they're full.
They have come up with a ten-step program they call Intuitive Eating. Here are the steps:
1. Reject the diet mentality--recognize that dieting doesn't work. Almost all dieters will regain the weight. When you go on a diet, your body goes into famine-mode and will slow down your metabolism.
2. Honor your hunger--keep your body fed with adequate energy and carbohydrates
3. Make peace with food--give yourself permission to eat whatever you really like.
4. Challenge the Food Police--don't make unreasonable rules about eating; there are no good foods or bad foods.
5. Feel Your Fullness--learn how to recognize when your body has had enough.
6. Discover the Satisfaction Factor--learn how to enjoy eating.
7. Cope with your emotions without using food.
8. Respect your body--accept your genetic blueprint. Don't weigh yourself and think about your body in positive ways. Instead of constantly criticizing the way your body looks, recognize all the amazing things your body can do and has helped you do.
9. Exercise--feel the difference. Enjoy moving your body and enjoy the stress-reducing benefits.
10. Honor your health with gentle nutrition.
So there they are. The ideas are somewhat new to me but they make sense. I don't know what would happen if more Americans followed these principles; I would hope that obesity would decline, but it's hard to know for sure. I suspect this book oversimplifies the issues related to obesity. For example, just today I read an article about a study of children born to previously obese women who had been born after their mothers had gastric surgery to encourage weight loss. They compared those children to siblings born before the weight loss surgery and the post-surgery children were significantly thinner.
In my own family, weight has not been a big issue. My husband and I are both fairly small and on the thinner side, so we have not worried about it too much. I have two children that are actually a little underweight, largely due to health issues they were born with. I'm trying to figure out how this philosophy fits into their lives. I actually have to work fairly hard to get them to eat enough calories.
But besides all that, I think I will try to follow many of the ideas in the book, especially when it comes to my children. I do believe that we focus way too much on physical appearance and I want my children (and myself) to be happy with the bodies we have while striving for good health and taking good care of this gift we have been given.
For example, my daughter played in the mud today. It was probably the first time ever (we don't get a lot of mud where we live) and she absolutely loved it:
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