Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works, Third Edition
Authors: Evelyn Tribole & Elyse Resch
Copyright: 2012
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin, New York
Pages: 344
Rating: Hangin with a Good Friend
Food Rules!
Food rules. We love food rules and we hate them. We like to impose them on ourselves and sometimes when we are feeling especially successful, we begin to impose them on others. And then true to our nature when rules are involved, we rebel. We chuck the rules out the door for the day, the week, the month, the year. When our rebellion is done, we entertain guilt, shame, disgust, and sadness. When, finally, we have had enough of those, we realize it is time to give our old friend, Mr. Diet Industry a call once again. Hello food rules, nice to see you once again. This time it will be different. This time we will be friends for all time. You will love us and we will love you and we will be happy, happy, happy….until we remember that we hate rules.
I used “we” above, but I really mean “me”. I say we because I know I’m not alone even if I feel that way about this topic sometimes. Me and the thousands of other people in our world that struggle with making peace with food, our bodies, what the world says our bodies should be, and what our own internal voice hammers into us daily. I’m saying enough now. No more rules. No more shame, guilt, despair. No more good food and bad food. No more waiting to be thankful for who I am when the scale or the clothing tag says the right number. It is enough. Today, I am enough.
Binge, Restrict, Repeat
I binge eat. There, I said it. I don’t purge, but I do cycle through restriction to overeating, and then at the most fatiguing or stressful times, binging on food. I didn’t really realize I was a binger until a couple of years ago, or at least I didn’t know there was a label for it. I’ve been on many diets including slim fast, medifast, weight watchers, calorie restriction + excessive exercise, trim healthy mama, the whole 30 to name a few. All successful at the time in helping me lose weight, but were not sustainable over the long term. I reached a point where I was tired of everything. I was unhappy with my weight, my eating habits, and the thought of going on a diet once again seem insurmountable. I think intuitively, I knew the going back on a diet was not a long-term fix, and a long term fix was what I needed. No more band-aids, but an actual fix. So, I sought professional help from a dietician that was also a certified intuitive eating counselor. It has been well worth my time and money to go and be counseled by her. With her help, I’m slowly healing from years of being beat up by the diet industry, changing my mindset about my worth and value, and changing my relationship with food.
Breaking the Rules
After telling my counselor about my avid reading skills, she generously lent me the book I’m reviewing today, Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program that Works by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch. This book was completely different than any other health or diet book I’ve ever read and is basically the antithesis of every dieting rule driven book ever written. It took my disordered view of food and completely turned it upside down, making me realize that to make peace with food, I had some major work to do in combatting the “food police” that had been allowed to run rampant in my mind for years.
Even now as I am typing this review and drinking a delicious glass of orange juice, the food police are knocking. They are trying to remind me of past food rules that I have adhered to such as “remember, don’t drink your calories away!” or “that juice has a ton of sugar in it and none of the good fiber, you should really just be eating an actual orange instead.” Seriously, can’t a girl just enjoy a glass of juice without the side of guilt? Tribole & Resch say I can, because food isn’t just about calories but that it is also about satisfaction, respecting my body, honoring my hunger, and dealing with all the emotions that I bring to the table.
After reading this book, my eyes have been opened to all the insidious ways our culture (and myself) distorts relationships with food. According to Tribole & Resch, people are born intuitive eaters. Our bodies from birth have internal mechanisms that tell us when to eat and how much to eat. Babies are great examples of self-regulated eaters, pushing the breast or bottle away when finished with no amount of cajoling to push past satiation. Toddlers and preschools will continue this pattern of eating when the body truly needs to eat, not allowing the clock to mandate hunger and easily leaving food on the plate if they sense they are full. It isn’t until outside intervention begins that our intuitive eating is dampened. Rules like “it is too late to eat” or “to get down from the table you have to clean your plate” or “you have to finish your vegetables before you can have another helping of xyz.”
Are your hackles up with the above statements? Are you saying, “wait a second, how does a parent teach their children about good nutrition if some boundaries aren’t put in place?”, or “if I left my kid to his own devices, all he/she would eat is junk.” I get where you are coming from. I had the same questions, but at the same time Tribole & Resch are bringing to light some of the food rules that shape us as eaters from an early age. It is important to examine the rules we have accepted as truth and more importantly, if we should perpetuate those rules on others. A change in the rules (or chucking of the rules) might be warranted.
Soon I will be posting a review of yet another book that addresses the parental aspect of raising good eaters, but for now, I would highly recommend you start with this book. If you struggle with food It may change the way you see food for the better, and if you don’t struggle with food it may help you be more compassionate to those that do.
I’m curious….what are your food rules? Does the thought giving up rules around food intrigue you or leave you feeling uneasy?