Trusting my body

This is quickly becoming one of those weeks, where I wish I could press the rewind button and start it all over. However as we all know life doesn’t quite work like that, so all we can do is carry on and do the best that we can to maintain sanity in the midst of madness. Part of me maintaining my sanity is making time for me, oddly enough that includes taking time every day to write whether it is in my journal or in this humble little space. Today I am in this space.

While the list of things I could bitch about is ever growing, I realized a few days ago that actually there is a bright spot. Earlier this year, I gave up my relationship with Weight Watchers; don’t get me wrong Weight Watchers didn’t do me wrong in anyway. Hell, I actually took off almost 50 pounds with WW and maintained that loss for several years until I got sloppy by their standards and eventually I gained back almost 20 of the 50 pounds.

I had planned to get back together with Weight Watchers this year but found myself resistant; the truth is I wanted to learn to trust my body to make right choices without concern about points or that dreaded weekly meeting. It’s been a journey this year as I embraced the idea of intuitive eating and trusting that my body will make the right choices.

Well after months of feeling stalled and wondering if my body didn’t know how to trust itself, all of sudden it seems my body has gotten the memo that she is a capable being who can choose what and when to eat and doesn’t need the weekly meeting or those points. I don’t know exactly when this all started to happen, but I know that I am no longer freebasing desserts daily, a simple dark chocolate square is often all I want when I feel the need for something sweet.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I baked exactly one pie, and in the end I had one slice of that pie and ended up throwing away almost half a pie. Oddly enough I didn’t feel any which way about that either. I find my body craving more fruits and veggies than ever before as evidenced by the fact that I was way more enthusiastic about the vegetarian café that opened up near my job, than I ever would have thought it possible.

I don’t step on the scale often, but I do know that all of a sudden my bigger clothes, the ones I reluctantly bought this fall now have room in them. After realizing that all my large clothes have room, I did break down and step on the scale and was pleasantly surprised. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, last year I read several of Geneen Roth’s books and learned about intuitive eating and knew that initially it would be an adjustment, one that might even cause the numbers to rise but that eventually my body would find its sweet space…guess we are heading to the sweet spot.

In the end who knows what all this means, but I admit I am digging my veggies, yoga and walking, now if I could get my seven year old to join me in the veggie love. Then again maybe I need to trust that her body will guide her and that eventually she will want to eat good healthy foods and lose her love for all things meaty and swine. Trusting my own body might actually be easier than trusting my child’s body, but that is a post for another day.

3 thoughts on “Trusting my body”

  1. Thank you for this! I kinda did this (without knowing it had a name) when I was pregnant and it served me, and the twins, well. And, I notice that my kids appetites do vary as they grow in different ways.
    But since then I often get caught up in what I “should” eat or a fear of getting “hangry” if I don’t eat enough. Or, worse, passing by pre made healthy foods that seem “too expensive”, only to waste $ on foods I enjoy less and are not as good for me. It all seems so silly now, writing it down.

    Learning about acidic vs alkaline foods has helped me recently.

    I also heard about a book “if I’m so smart, why can’t I lose weight?” by Brooke Castillo, about taking that “me” time.
    I’m gonna join Nic on google to learn more about intuitive eating 🙂

  2. I really like this! I’ve never heard of intuitive eating until now. So you basically eat what your body feels like eating? Do you supplement with a multivitamin? I guess I need to goggle!

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