Losing Weight

I have been aiming at Intuitive Eating for a couple years now. Trust me, it is not easy. Far, far better than dieting, but NOT easy. First off, you have to deal with the fact that we live in a society full of hyper-dieters. For instance, not a single day goes by at work where people don't talk about their bodies in nasty ways, imply that they or someone else is not good enough, judge foods and eating choices negatively, or focus on the number on the scale. Last week I spent several minutes on the phone with a woman whose husband had a heart attack, and while that is very alarming, vowing to only allow him to eat lettuce is equally so. Additionally, this woman is only going to eat lettuce herself...and in between telling me this and the fact that LUNA bars for pete's sake, are bad for you because they have a whole 200 calories (eek!), she was watching the home shopping channel, drooling over chocolate brownies and cakes while putting herself down for drooling over them, while also telling me that brownies are evil in and of themselves. This is the kind of torture that our society encourages. It is very difficult to fight this!

It is difficult to re-learn a relationship with food that doesn't cause you to feel guilty for your choices. It is difficult to make choices in front of other people. It is difficult to listen to, or read, other people putting down normal eating as if it were a death knell. And it's really difficult, for me at least, to keep my mouth shut when they do. I especially feel at times like I need to either hide or be defensive about some of my food choices because I am fat and people see me eating things and, with the background noise of the tasty-food-is-evil culture we live in, I assume they are judging me (or they just plain do judge me out loud). Pardon me, I am trying to listen to my stomach, so quit interrupting what it is telling me with your nonsense about carbohydrates, thankyouverymuch! And, no, I don't wish to participate in the office-wide group flagellation that is the Biggest Loser contest!

Anyway...so, I weigh myself on or about the first of every month. Probably I shouldn't, as it always gives me a day or two of having to work harder at Intuitive Eating. Some months I do forget, actually, which I never thought would happen. But the last couple months I have remembered and as it happens, I have lost a couple pounds each month. Not much. Nothing any diet advertisement would feel the need to post 'results not typical' about. Nothing even noticeable had I not actually weighed myself, until this month. This month my clothes are not fitting right and it's driving me nuts! My favorite pajama pants keep falling down. My khaki skirt keeps sliding off my tummy and my shirts aren't long enough to cover it. Amazingly, I am annoyed by this weight loss. Which I am hoping means that Body Positivity is perhaps taking root in my subconscious? I am learning to love my body enough that I care more about whether my favorite clothes still fit than I do about the number on the tags or the scale? Well, I promise not to take Nate's advice (basically, eat more ice cream than I am hungry for in order to gain the weight back), but on the other hand, since I wasn't trying to lose weight and don't know how I did, I am not counting on its continuation.

Intuitive Eating is a long journey, it seems.