intuitive eating

I've been reading a bunch of fat acceptance blogs lately, which has made me think about how I eat. These blogs promote intuitive eating, which means eating exactly what you want, when you're hungry, and stopping when you get full. The idea is that, if you listen to your body and do some exercise, you'll settle at a natural weight that is healthy for you, and it doesn't matter what that weight is.

I'd like to think I don't care about my weight, as long as I'm healthy, but really it does make me smile a little when I weigh myself (although I don't do that often) and see a smaller number or when my clothes are looser (except, I like some of my clothes and don't want to have to stop wearing them). I'm not going to actually do anything to try to lose weight, because I know I don't need to, but I still notice that I'm not as skinny as some people (or that I actually was the thinnest person in my last tap class).

My mum was always telling me (and sales assistants...) that I just needed to lose 5 kg (~10 lb), which now seems too little to worry about, but it was enough to make me feel bad. When I was in high school, she would plan diets and morning walks for us sometimes, but they never lasted long. I always enjoyed the pre-diet binge phase, at least... I used to think that if I had more will-power, I'd become anorexic, and then she'd be sorry, but I leaned more towards overeating just to pretend I didn't care. Looking back at photos now, I can barely see the difference between me and the ballet classmates I felt so enormous beside and I'm sad that my mum could see it then (although, I understand she has her own issues with weight).

For the most part, I've gotten over worrying about whether I should or shouldn't eat something I want, or what people will think if I don't ask for just a tiny piece of cake and I'm mostly happy enough with my body. But, given how much I worry about what people will think in general, I still have trouble with that sometimes.

Even though I'm not actively trying to control my weight, I am trying to control what I eat. A lot of the disordered thinking about food that fat acceptance bloggers write about sounds familiar to me. I feel like, if I didn't have my rules about eating 5 fruits and vegetables a day and only one treat, I would devour the world, too. I have trouble with feelings of scarcity, as though, if I don't eat as much cake as I can while it's there, I'll miss out in some lasting way. Unfortunately, when I don't get a star for a day now, I automatically eat extra, just because there's no penalty so I might as well stock up while I can. I also tend to eat too much of something just because it tastes good, even if I'm not hungry.

Aside from thoughts of scarcity, I also don't eat whatever I want because I'm lazy (and frugal - I hate throwing stuff out once I've paid for it). I cook a whole week's meals at once so I don't have to do anything when I get home from lab. If I were to try to figure out what I wanted to eat on a particular day, I'd have to cook a lot more often, and really, I wouldn't. I'd just decide I wanted toast for dinner, the way I did for a long time before instituting the vegetable rule.

Despite reading many blog entries by people who have learnt to eat well by paying attention to what they actually feel like eating, I'm sceptical about whether it would work for me. They still sound as naturally virtuous as my housemate who claims he has a sweet tooth because he likes fruit a lot (who irritated me yesterday by acting horrified at the pile of 4 or 5 chocolate wrappers after I'd eaten my (generous) treat). I don't trust that I would get used to being able to have whatever I want and not eat too much junk. Plus, I'm pretty sure that I dislike vegetables enough that I'd never decide I actually wanted to eat 5 servings of them in a day. Is it worth not being intuitive about eating, in order to ensure I get enough nutrients?

Right now, my food is being controlled more by the farm share we signed up for than anything else. I've been eating salads for lunch, even though I usually hate salad, just because they keep giving us lettuce. Last year, when I wasn't cooking, I threw out most of my share of farm vegetables, so I've been proud of myself for eating everything so far (except the cilantro that shrivelled before my weekly cooking day). Would it be better to throw out what I don't actually like?

I think I would also have trouble figuring out what it is I would like to eat. If I'm going out to eat and therefore have unlimited choices, I can never pick a restaurant I specifically feel like (and not entirely because I don't want to impose my choices on others), although I do better at picking from a finite menu. I very rarely have specific cravings for anything, I don't ever get bored of eating several meals of the same leftovers and I've pretty much eaten the same breakfast every day for the past few years. I don't know if that means that I shouldn't bother with intuitive eating, or that I should really try to develop the ability to figure out what I want to eat.

In any case, I'm not giving up on the 5-a-day rule now, because I do feel better eating this way. Maybe I'll try think about what I really want to eat more, though.