Learning To Listen To Your Body

Jul 17 19:01 UTC 2007

I found these seven ideas about 10 years ago.  The idea behind them is
that restricting food intake is not the solution for people who no
longer can tell when to stop eating instinctively.

Rather than rely on portion-size control or other food-related
techniques, they can learn to rely on their own body signals, once they
are retrained.

I'll post each of these as separate responses.

1. Listen to your body, not your mind.
2. Eat with awareness, not judgment.
3. Eat only when you are physically hungry.
4. Stop eating when you are satisfied, not full.
5. Eat what you want most.
6. Notice how your body feels after eating.
7. Honor your feelings, don't bury them under food.

response 2 of 36:

Jul 17 19:02 UTC 2007

Technique Two
Eat with awareness, not judgment.

A Conscious Eating Experiment: Select an assortment of your favorite
foods and put a small amount on a plate. 
 
For Example: A pickle slice, a potato chip, a small piece of cheese, a
raisin, an apple slice, a piece of salami.  

Ask a friend or mate to do this with you if possible.  If not, do it on
your own.   Close your eyes, pick up a piece of food and hold it under
your nose.  

Smell it.  Smell is an important part of taste.  When it goes in your
mouth, keep your eyes closed - this helps you concentrate on the food
and not on your surroundings.  

Suck on the piece of food first.  Move it around in your mouth - feel
the texture and different flavors at different locations in your mouth.
  Then, chew the food, swallow and notice the aftertaste.  Take your
time and continue until the plate is empty.  

Did each item taste like you expected it to?  Did it smell better than
it tasted?  Did it taste better than it smelled?  Did you really like it
like you thought?  Did you like certain textures better than others? 
Did you like sucking better than chewing?  Did you experience the
aftertaste? 
 
Each bite is a total experience - keep experiencing the totality.

response 4 of 36:

Jul 17 19:04 UTC 2007

Technique Four
Stop eating when you are satisfied, not full.

Too full is:
You can feel the food in your body.  

Ways to know you are satisfied:
You are not hungry any more.  You feel comfortable.  
You do not feel the food in your stomach.  
You feel light and energetic after eating.  
You could eat more, but you could also wait.  
You find the flavor of food begins to fade.  It goes from fabulous to
tasteless.  
You are finding it hard to give each bite your full attention.

If you are having trouble stopping at satisfaction (5 on the scale):
You didn't wait for hunger before you started eating.
You were too hungry when you started eating.
You are eating mediocre food.
Eating is more interesting than what you plan on doing next.
You are suppressing an emotional hunger. 
You aren't eating a food as much as you want.

response 6 of 36:

Jul 17 19:06 UTC 2007

Technique Six
Notice how your body feels after eating.

Your body will tells you what is wants and needs through appetite
cravings.  You will be able to recognize these when you learn to listen
to your body.  

If you are sure you are hungry, but not sure what you want shut your
eyes and imagine asking your stomach to signal its preference among
theses choices.  
1) Hot or cold? 
2) Hearty or light? 
3) Creamy or crunchy? 
4) Sweet, sour or salty? 
5) Spicy or bland? 
6) Protein, carbohydrate or fat? 


Drink for thirst, not to cover hunger.

If you drink while you are eating, it may make it difficult to recognize
satisfaction signals.   Do not think that no-calorie liquids have no
impact on your body and how it feels.  Everything you put into your body
will have an effect on it.  

If you stopped eating at satisfaction and then had a cup of coffee or a
soda, you have just pushed your body into discomfort.  You haven't added
any calories, but you have made your body uncomfortable. 

response 8 of 36:

Jul 17 19:08 UTC 2007

The stages of becoming a normal eater:

You distinguish between physical and emotional hunger and start making
appropriate matches.  

You begin to get in touch with your feelings and begin to honor them. 
 
You learn to stop eating at satisfaction rather than at fullness and you
feel light at the end of a meal.  

You no longer deprive yourself of any food and you experience more
pleasure and satisfaction with eating than ever before.  

Your life begins to change dramatically and this may feel very chaotic
and upsetting.  You may eat to help you cope. 

You learn to judge yourself less and less and you learn how to encourage
and support yourself more and more.  

You notice that you spend less and less time thinking about food.  You
are learning to trust your body.  

Because you are listening to and honoring your feelings and listening to
and honoring your body you are eating less and less frequently for
emotional reasons.  This change is gradual.  

response 10 of 36:

Jul 17 21:46 UTC 2007

So that people wouldn't be overwhelmed by 8 long posts at once.  

I'm a little uncertain about how backtalk displays things.  I know if I
see an extremely long post 0, or 8 long responses at once, I skip over
reading them.

I thought if I displayed them one at a time, rather than all at once,
they wouldn't be so easily skimmed through.  

Suggestions about how to do something like this are very welcome.  I
toyed with the idea of posting one, then waiting for comments, then
posting the next, getting comments, etc.  

That makes it very difficult to come back later and read through them
all at once.  This is the kind of information that is likely to be
useful for a long time, unlike "what's on sale this week".  

Anyone got suggestions on how to do this?  Should I just unhide
everything right now?

response 12 of 36:

Jul 17 21:54 UTC 2007

This is exactly the approach I have been trying to follow for a while 
now. I first heard of it in a book written by some eating disorder 
specialists. The book is called The Diet Survivors Handbook. 

I still emotionally overeat sometimes but very rarely. Mostly I eat 
what I want and when I want. The hardest part for me and what I am 
working on constantly is the "stop eating when satisfied, not full" 
part. I generally either stop eating when I am full and really cant 
eat another bite or I stop eating when the food is gone. In this way, 
small portions help me. I usually dole out small portions but always 
with permission to go back and get more if I want to. 

response 14 of 36:

Jul 18 16:17 UTC 2007

nharmon, that problem is doubled if you are trying to match your hunger
patterns to someone (or ones) you live with.  

The way I dealt with it was to keep things in my desk or the fridge that I
could eat while I worked.  A couple boiled eggs, some cheese cubes, some
fruit, even a sandwich cut into quarters.  

Remember the idea is to eat after level 2 hunger but before level 5 hunger.
I seldom had to work without any break during that whole 2-5 procession.  

At home, I ate when I was hungry.  I felt that family meals were
social/nurturing events.  Everyone had to be at the table when meals were
served.  You could eat as much or as little as you liked, but only what was
on the table.  There was no "Mom, I don't like this, fix me something else".

What was in the refrigerator for everyone else was healthy food for me, just
lots of it.  If you weren't hungry at dinner time, you could have leftovers
later.  (Thank god for microwave ovens).  

Fortunately, my kids were (mostly) adventurous (sp?) eaters.  Everyone was
allowed to have a list of 2 things they refused to eat.  You had to give the
cook 24 hours notice if you changed your list.  One kid went through a
no-onions stage that made cooking a real challenge.  

response 16 of 36:

Jul 18 20:09 UTC 2007

I think that since sick people arent in danger of overeating, it is 
probably ok for them to eat even when they are not hungry. 

response 18 of 36:

Jul 19 04:46 UTC 2007

Well who wudda thunk it?
------------------------
Feed a cold, starve a fever" may be right

    * 09:30 11 January 2002
    * From New Scientist Print Edition. 
    * Michael Le Page

The maxim "feed a cold, starve a fever" may be right after all,
researchers have discovered.

Until now, most doctors and nutritionists have rejected the idea as a
myth. But Dutch scientists have found that eating a meal boosts the type
of immune response that destroys the viruses responsible for colds,
while fasting stimulates the response that tackles the bacterial
infections responsible for most fevers.

response 20 of 36:

Jul 20 12:39 UTC 2007

Glad you're finding it useful.  It was a welcome addition to my ways of
thinking about food.  

response 22 of 36:

Jul 20 14:25 UTC 2007

Denise,

Get the book mentioned by slynne.  What I've posted is just snippets. 
The book has a whole series of exercises and techniques to help you
learn to listen more clearly.  

The book is available to you through your local library.  If they don't
have it on their shelves, they can request it through the Michigan E
Library system.  Ann Arbor has it I think because I can't imagine where
else I read it.  (I couldn't afford to live with myself if I didn't have
a library nearby).  

response 24 of 36:

Jul 21 00:58 UTC 2007

Sure, I'd love to check it out!  Maybe we can meet up at a HH sometime
as your schedule  permits?