Let’s Talk About Intuitive Eating
By: Shaunta Grimes
Tags: Health, Mental Health, Food, 2019 Challenge, Weight Loss

Here’s the thing.

Every single diet plan — every one of them — has a single goal. To make you lose weight. And every single one does it the same way, no matter what it is. By getting you to eat fewer calories than you need to maintain your weight.

Almost all fat, very few carbs. High carbs, almost no fat. High protein, low fat. Low carbs, high protein. All plants.

All the combos all boil down to trying to find a way to eat fewer calories without suffering, in a way that can be maintained.

What works best for me is high-carb, low fat.

Crunchy, dry food is the easiest for me to eat after weight loss surgery. Too much fat or sugar make me queasy now. Too much protein hurts, because it packs into my little stomach.

The idea of keto (very high fat, very, very low carb) makes me green.

I like the idea of plant-based, but so far I haven’t wanted to go completely vegan. And I cook for a bunch of people who are decidedly not plant-based.

But what really, really works (when I do it) is intuitive eating.

Intuitive eating is just what it sounds like.

Eating what you’re hungry for, when you’re hungry for it, and stopping when you’re full. No food off limits. No ‘bad’ foods.

Intuitive eating helps binge eaters especially, because binging is so often triggered by going off some plan and eating something wrong.

“Well, you ate ice cream,” the binger’s brain says, “What a loser. You might as well eat all the ice cream. And since you’ve gotten started, might as well eat twenty bucks worth of chicken nuggets and I’m pretty sure there’s half a bag of salt and vinegar potato chips under the bed. You can start over tomorrow.”

And next thing you know, you’ve eaten yourself sick. And you feel like such a shitty human being, that it’s entirely possible you might not get past it for a while. In other words, “You c an start over tomorrow” might actually become finally getting a handle on things in a week.

The intuitive eater’s brain has been re-wired to think, “Ice cream is good. It’s okay to have some without eating yourself sick. It’s even okay if tonight you eat ice cream for dinner. You still don’t have to eat yourself sick. You can eat ice cream and still be a good person.”

With a name like Intuitive Eating, you’d think it would be . . . well, intuitive.

It’s not though. It’s hard. Super hard. And it requires constant awareness.

I think I like the term mindful eating better.

Being mindful of what I eat, of whether or not I’m actually hungry, of what I really want to eat, of when I’ve eaten enough to be full. Of how I feel when I’m eating and after I’ve eaten.

It’s weird. I can’t binge anymore, not really. I’m not physically able to eat the volume of food that constitutes a real binge. But I still have a binger’s mind. I still need to remember to eat mindfully.

It still matters.

These are my four personal rules. I have no idea if they’re general rules for intuitive or mindful eating — but it seems to me like they’d help pretty much anyone who struggles with binge eating.

Enjoy every bite, instead of eating without noticing.

One of my biggest issues is grazing. I can’t eat a box of Triscuits in one sitting, because I get uncomfortably full after say ten crackers. But I can eat a box of crackers one at a time, over the course of a day, without even being aware that I’m eating them.

If I eat two or three at a time, I never get full. It’s kind of like eating popcorn at a movie — you’re not paying attention, just popping the kernels into your mouth. And by the time the end credits roll, you’ve got an empty tub.

One of my biggest goals is to only eat when I eat. No work. No phone. Conversation is okay, but no TV. No reading. Just enjoy my food. Be aware of every bite.

Eat what I’m hungry for, instead of some substitute.

Here’s what happens. I think — man, ice cream would be super nice right now. Only ice cream makes me feel guilty. So I eat a kale smoothie or something else that’s supposed to be ice-cream-like, but is healthy for me.

Something that isn’t sugar and fat. Something that isn’t ice cream.

And whatever I ate doesn’t do the trick. So I eat something else. Nope.

And finally, when I’m tired, when I’m warn down from fighting myself, I eat ice cream. Only, instead of eating a couple of spoonfuls, I eat a bowlful. Because most of my stomach is gone, I can’t eat a whole pint — but that’s how it used to be.

I can still eat enough to make me sick. And sometimes I do. Less now than in the past, but it happens.

Whenever I talk about this, someone inevitably says, “well, if I did that I’d only ever eat ice cream.”

But they’re wrong. Ice cream (or whatever) is only tempting because it’s off limits. Take everything off the no-no list and after a while what you want to eat is what will make you feel good.

Eat regularly, instead of waiting until I’m super hungry.

The thing about weight-loss surgery is that it changed the way I experience hunger.

Used to be, hunger felt like an aching, rumbling stomach. It felt like light-headedness and hangry anger and a sort of desperation.

Guess what. All of that is a hormonal response. Even the rumbling stomach. The hormone is called ghrelin and it’s produced in the stomach lining. Most of my stomach lining was removed from my body.

Now hunger feels like low blood sugar. Weakness. It’s mild by comparison. But if I get all the way to hunger, it’s disconcerting. Because it means my blood sugar really is low.

But because I don’t have the earlier, hormonal signs of hunger, it can be relatively easy to just not eat at all until the low blood sugar happens. And then I eat too fast, which means too much, and it hurts. And bleh.

Eating three meals a day is better for me. It helps me to be mindful and it normalizes things.

Stop eating when I’m full, instead of when it hurts.

THIS one is the hardest.

Before weight loss surgery, my body worked like this: I’d eat until I was full. If it was good food, I’d eat more. I could eat maybe a cup of food past full. Maybe even more if it was really, really good.

Post-weight loss surgery, my body works like this: I eat and then I take one more bite and I feel like I want to die. I go from not full to I-just-ate-three-Thanksgiving-dinners full from one bite to the next. Usually with half my food still on my plate.

I am not good at judging how much food is enough. I’m getting better at it. I try to use a smaller plate and serve myself the right amount instead of getting I’m-dying full with half of a delicious dinner still in front of me.

Weird factoid: I hiccup when I’m full. Just one hard hiccup. Unfortunately, it’s never in time to do me any good. It always comes after I’m too full.