LiveBlog: Annual Re-reading of "Health at Every Size" by Dr. Linda Bacon

I try to read this book every year or so to get myself back into the mindset needed for effective mindful eating.  I've found that mindful eating works the best for me.  Other people's mileage may vary, but overall following this philosophy has given me a much healthier relationship with food.  I don't obsess about it any more, I don't do fad diets any more, and I enjoy my food for what it is instead of what it SHOULD be.

On that note, this passage from page 106 always strikes home with me, so I post it here:

There's one nutritional concept that seems to make a healthy relationship with food particularly difficult, and that's the idea that some foods are good while others are bad.  Labeling a food good or bad stops you from questioning and discovery.  If you label a Twinkie as bad, you are not able to observe its effects on you, and you lose the opportunity to learn from it.  On the other hand, if you maintain a neutral attitude, you can watch your response to that Twinkie.

You can be more perceptive to its flavor, noticing whether it really tastes good to you, or if it was just the idea that tasted good (my emphasis).  Perhaps you learn that it doesn't satisfy your craving - that there was something else you really wanted that the Twinkie can't provide.  Perhaps you become more sensitive to your taste buds toning down after the first few bites, making the next bites less pleasurable.  Or perhaps you notice that half an hour after indulging in that Twinkie, your energy crashes and you start craving sugar again.  This information will ultimately affect your taste for Twinkies in the future.

Is eating that Twinkie good or bad?  It all depends on how frequently you eat it, how much you eat, what else you eat it with, whether you were attentive to it...Rather than eliminating these variables, we need to listen to them.  By staying connected to your body, some foods may lose their appeal or you may no longer be driven to over-indulge.

So, in answer to the questions, "Is [fill in the blank] bad?," the response is, "Of course not."  We simply need to respect it.  Let it teach us whether or not we want to indulge or when enough is enough.

It may sound crazy at first, I know that when I first began attempting to follow this way of life, my concern was that I would go crazy and eat chocolate, ice cream, and so on without stopping and I would just end up killing myself with high blood sugar or a heart attack or whatever.  The funny thing is that I found out something:  when you listen, I mean really slow down and LISTEN, to what your body is telling you, the things you find yourself eating vary across the full spectrum of foods.  Nowadays I find myself craving salads and fruit as much as I find myself craving sweets.  But more importantly, when I DO crave sweets, I go ahead and have them!  Instead of shoving them into my mouth as fast as I can eat them because I'm not sure when I will get them again, though, I eat slowly.  I actually take the time to enjoy the flavor and the texture of things.  This allows me to also pay attention to my body's responses to them.  There really is a moment when things go from tasting amazing to tasting 'meh', when my body signals that the craving has been satisfied and enough has been eaten.

In the past, I would have just kept eating until all of the food I was eating was gone, whether it made me nauseous or not, whether I was full or not, it didn't matter because I was so used to depriving myself that my instinct was to binge when I had the chance.

I feel free now, and it is wonderful.  I am free to have chocolate when I want it.  I am free to eat an apple when I want it.  I am free to make steak for dinner one night, and veggie stir fry the next, all because I am learning how to listen to those signals that I spent years suppressing by following the instructions of so many diet plans.  Eat this, don't eat that, eat now, don't eat then, none of that matters.  What matters is that my body actually KNOWS what is best for it and now that I've begun trusting it again, the signals just keep getting stronger.

This is why I re-read this book so often.  It reminds me of thoughts and ideas that can get drowned out by the constant pounding of our "thin is in" society against our brains.  It is easy to give in to the pressures brought to bear by that society.  This book helps me fight those pressures and stay true to myself.