In the days before Purim, we are accustomed to hearing about avoiding dangerous drinking. But Purim is also a time when we are surrounded by plentiful and especially tasty food – from mishloach manos goodies to gourmet seudos – and keeping to their diets is a battle for many people. But does it have to be that way? That’s the question I face as a nutritionist.
It is no secret that today’s society has become obsessed with fad diets and losing weight. Being skinny has become synonymous with being healthy, which is certainly not always the case! Sadly, these ideals are affecting kids at younger and younger ages every year. In fact, research shows that “half of American children between first and third grade want to be thinner, and half of nine- and ten-year-old girls are already dieting.” (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2011) Just think about that for a minute. Is this really the message we want to be sending to our children? Is this what we want them to be focused on as something of value and importance? Even if we don’t verbalize these messages directly, our children are very clever, and you can bet that they pick up on our behavior and how we speak about our own bodies and ourselves as people.
So what is the alternative? What does true health entail? I realize that a different way of looking at our relationship with food may be difficult, as the cultural ideals have become ingrained in our minds and are certainly the norm. But what if we could step back and find a way to remove ourselves from the thoughts, figure out what being healthy really means, and discover how to integrate these new ideals into our lives? The answer lies in Intuitive Eating.
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The Intuitive Eating movement was founded by two dieticians, Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch. After years of working with clients, they found that the “weight loss” approach was not successful, and clients kept returning to them because they had regained the weight that they had previously lost. Not only was this yo-yo dieting harming their clients physically, it was also reeking emotional havoc by enforcing to their clients that they had failed and should be ashamed. After much consideration, the women came up with the Intuitive Eating process, and have successfully implemented the program with their clients for many years.
What exactly is Intuitive Eating? And what does it look like when put into practice? Judging by the name, it seems to encourage listening to our bodies and eating what we intuitively feel is right. This is definitely true, yet there is so much more to the Intuitive Eating process. In their book, Intuitive Eating (2012), Tribole and Resch focus on 10 principles, which, if followed, can lead us to true health and a positive relationship with food. What are these 10 principles and what do they entail?
1) Reject the diet mentality: Most people who have been on a diet will tell you that once they stopped the diet and gained back the weight, they felt like a failure, that something was fundamentally wrong with them. Research shows that 95% of diets fail, and most people will regain their lost weight in one to five years” (The Council on Size and Weight Discrimination, 2011). It is time to stop hoping and believing that the next diet will be different somehow, solve our problems, or make us happy.
2) Honor your hunger: Allow yourself to eat at the first sign your body tells you that it is hungry. When our bodies are starving, which will happen on pretty much any diet to some degree, there is a biological drive to find food and overeat in order to survive, because our body doesn’t know when it will be fed again. So, in actuality, it is the restricting of our food intake in the first place that causes the drive to overeat.
3) Make peace with food: If someone kept telling you that you couldn’t do something you really wanted to do, chances are you would want to do it even more. And if you finally did it, you would do it with gusto and desperation. The same thing is true when we constantly tell ourselves we can’t have certain foods that we deem “bad.” Once we finally get our hands on that chocolate cake or tub of ice cream, chances are we will feel so deprived that we will overeat it, whereas, if we had allowed ourselves to eat the very same food right when we had a craving for it, we probably could have eaten an appropriately sized portion and have been satisfied.
4) Challenge the food police: We hear people say all the time that they are being “good” today so they can’t eat this food, or they were “bad” today because they ate that food. Food holds no morality, and you are not fundamentally a good or bad person just because of what you have chosen to eat or not eat. There are no “good” or “bad” foods. Labeling them as such only creates more feelings of deprivation and guilt. All foods can be part of a healthy diet.
5) Discover the satisfaction factor: When you crave a certain food and choose to eat it, enjoy the experience! Savor the taste of the food, the ambiance around you, and anything else that makes eating a pleasurable experience. You will be much more satisfied having enjoyed eating than harping on how guilty you feel for what you have already eaten.
6) Feel your fullness: Just as we need to listen to our bodies when they send us signals that we are hungry, we also need to pay attention to our bodies telling us that we are comfortably full. Instead of eating mindlessly and going back for bite after bite on autopilot, pause in the middle and ask yourself if you are still hungry or if you are already comfortably full. This will help you avoid becoming overly full and uncomfortable, which can produce more feelings of shame and guilt. Imagine how empowering it would feel to see that there are three bites of food left on your plate but choosing not to eat them because you are already satisfied. (This should not be confused with leaving food on your plate uneaten because you are trying to restrict your intake.)
7) Cope with your emotions without using food: Address your feelings in ways that do not involve eating to cover them up or escape from them. Find things that help you feel better, such as talking to a friend or taking a walk. Learning these coping skills will be much more effective in the long run than always running to food in an effort to solve your problems.
8) Respect your body: People come in all different shapes and sizes, and that is okay! Respect and honor the body you have been given without trying to change it. Your worth is defined by who you are and not by how you look.
9) Exercise – feel the difference: Find a type of physical activity that you enjoy, and do it because it feels good to move your body or because it energizes you, not because you want to burn calories or lose weight.
10) Honor your health with gentle nutrition: Choose to eat food that are nutritious, but also eat foods that you enjoy. Eating healthy does not mean having to choose nutritious foods all of the time. There is room in a healthy diet for all types of foods. The key is finding balance and moderation. Eat what makes you feel good, both physically and mentally.
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Now that we understand the fundamental ideas behind Intuitive Eating, how can we apply it to our lives? A perfect example is Purim. People often tell me that they are nervous around all that food but try to “be good” and not indulge in any of the mishloach manos treats they receive, although they really want to. What ends up happening, more often than not, is that they get to a point, whether the next day or the next week, that they cannot take it anymore and delve into those treats. Feeling deprived, they eat way more than they would have had they simply allowed themselves to eat them in the first place. So, I challenge you to leave behind old habits, and not restrict yourself entirely from the food on Purim. Try to choose two or three things that you really like or that look particularly good, and partake in them mindfully on Purim day. See what happens. My guess is that, by addressing the craving right away, you will be satisfied and won’t be thinking about those foods for hours or days afterwards.
This is a new way of thinking about food for many people, and I realize it is not easy to change your mindset all at once. What I have written in this article is just the tip of the iceberg; there is a lot more information available on this topic. If anything in this article resonated with you, I urge you to find out more about Intuitive Eating and see if you would like to make it a part of your life. Free yourself from the tug of war and find your true path to healing and ultimate health.
Shuli Barenbein is a Licensed Social Worker and has a master’s degree in Nutrition. She is currently looking for clients to work with at no cost as part of her nutrition internship. She is looking to work with clients relating to all nutrition issues, not just Intuitive Eating. She can be reached at shulibarenbein@gmail.com
References:
Rate of Eating Disorders in Kids Keeps Rising, US Department of Health and Human Services, Retrieved July 18, 2011, from (http://www.healthfinder.gov/news/newsstory.aspx?docID=646574)
Statistics on Weight Discrimination: A Waste of Talent, The Council on Size and Weight Discrimination, Retrieved July 18, 2011, from (http://www.cswd.org/index.html)
Tribole, E. and Resch, E. (2012). Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program that Works. St. Martin’s Press: New York, NY
