Chocolate and Beyond

What do you mean when you say you're eating 'healthily'?

When you talk about 'healthy eating' do you actually mean you're 'dieting', or at least switching to low-fat eating? It's become a bit of a bug bear of mine that people use the term 'healthy eating' as a euphemism for eating a low-fat diet, when there is so much evidence to show that eating the standard 'low fat diet' isn't healthy at all.

When I say I'm eating 'healthily', I mean that I'm being mindful about including nutritional foods in my diet again, when maybe I've been a bit slack for a while (such as the times I've been travelling and living off pizza!). My healthy foods include things like nuts, seeds and avocados - which are some of the most nutritionally dense foods you can eat, and are ones which dieters tend to avoid.

Also for me, a healthy diet tends to mean eating less white carbs, which don't make me feel great (though I did eat 2 slices of buttered white toast for breakfast this morning!), but I don't start using less fat, and I certainly don't start eating 'diet' foods. Again, there is so much evidence to show these do us more harm than good, and also make us hungrier in the long run because they contain so many substitute ingredients.

Of course, I do include a lot of vegetables and salads when I'm eating 'healthily' - but that's because they are the foundation of a good diet, not because they help me lose weight.

I know I'm no skinny minny, but I do now stay at a stable weight, pretty much whatever the occasion. And I am a lot happier than I used to be, when I was spending what seemed to be every waking moment thinking about how to keep the number on the scales down. For me, the way I now eat 'healthily' actually feels healthy.

 

Slimsticks - yet another 'revolutionary new weight loss aid'

How often have we heard the words revolutionary new weight loss aid'? The phrase has become deaf to my ears, not just because none of the so-called 'aids' ever actually live up to their promise, but because the term is so grossly over-used for the minimal to zero assistance in weight loss that these products offer.

I've received a press release for Slimsticks - you guessed it, another revolutionary new weight loss aid! Apparently, Slimsticks is clinically proven' to reduce food intake by up to 30%, with the claim that two to three sachets of this product a day can help an average woman (who is eating 2000 calories a day) to eat up to 600 calories less.

Anyone who has read Ben Goldacre's book Bad Science (if you haven't, it's a wonderful eye-opener) will know that such clinically proven' claims tend to be very loose indeed. Anyone selling for profit will tend to make results sit in their favour, funnily enough, and studies are usually considerably flawed.

Without testing this 'wonder aid' of course, I can't dispute that it may have some effectiveness (it apparently works as an appetite suppressant). But the fact is, that at £29.99 for a pack of 30 sachets, which individually need to be taken two or three times a day, you're likely to be paying around £30-£60 a month to use them.

And will they teach you how to tackle your emotional issues around food that cause you to overeat in the first place? Will they help you get used to eating normally and intuitively to address long-term weight management rather than a short-term goal? No.

And the chances are that after spending all that money, and having your appetite artificially suppressed (if they work), you'll put the weight back on anyhow.

Christmas with Nigella or Gillian? Hmmm...

I got the latest 'Beyond Chocolate' newsletter in my inbox this morning and had to share this blog post about choosing Christmas with Nigella or Gillian, it was pretty amusing I thought.

While like Gillian, I also have a pescetarian diet, that's certainly not through a strict adherance to a misguided notion of what is 'healthy'. It's basically because the ethical options for meat are so few and far between I choose not to eat it, and I haven't managed to give up fish yet even though I know many fish choices are not ethical.

As any reader of this blog knows though, I am far more inclined towards the thinking of Nigella, who knows how to enjoy her food, and clearly by the look of her, is likely to be an intuitive eater.

And opting for regular colonic irrigation? That's just for the anally retentive, if you ask me...

Coffee with cream and never margarine

If you have been practising intuitive eating for some time, it can occasionally hit you with just how, um, intuitive it has all become!

I haven't bought any kind of low-fat spread for over 2 and a half years now, and though I don't drink coffee an awful lot, whenever I do I have it, I have it with cream. It occurred to me that I no longer question this, whereas I used to feel guilty if I had a spread of butter even in once in a month!

I pile my shopping trolley without ever thinking about fat content. After trying full-fat milk for a while, I reverted back to semi as I hate overly milky-tasting tea, but that was purely about taste and not about fat content and that to me says it all!

I've spent the last 2 and a half years eating what I want (within reason, as I do have health problems with some foods and I need to take care with them), and yet I haven't gained weight - in the LONG-TERM! I could have been dieting those last couple of years and the chances are I'd have been the same, but with the mental torture added to it.

Honestly - please give up the ghost of dieting and take a new approach to your life. It will be worth it in the end.

From sausages to smoothies (again)

'Trust your body' is the mantra of any intuitive eater, but how can one woman go from eating sausages for breakfast day in, day out, for what seemed like about 6 months - back to fruit smoothies everyday?

I don't know. I'm just going with it - but I can barely look at a sausage now that I seem to have worked my way through every single type that exists on more or less a daily basis for about the past half a year (yes, the road to enlightenment and a diet free existence does actually seem to take this long).

What has been your most significant intuitive eating learning?

There are so many things that I've learned since I began my journey into intuitive eating that it would be very difficult to identify the most significant, because my whole attempt to ditch the diet has numerous factors that all intertwine with each other.

However, I think the thing that has really struck home with me is learning that I can stop regimenting my diet and food intake, without suddenly losing control over eating altogether. To stop planning what I'll eat for the day, stop counting fat grams, carbohydrates and calories, and end the futile task of balancing one food off against another, does not mean that all of a sudden, I will end up with food taking over completely.

Challenging greed with intuitive eating

One of the main struggles I've had with intuitive eating is grappling with the challenge of satiety verses greed. Not only is there an issue with my past (and sometimes present) unhealthy relationship with food, there is also the fact that sometimes I'm just downright greedy.

No emotions involved. No eating disorder getting in the way. No struggle with binge or starve. Just plain, old, simple greed: "I love the taste of this food, so I'm going to eat more, regardless of the fact that I'm no longer hungry."

It is easy to kid yourself that you are not yet full, and therefore want to eat more, because you actually are just being greedy. But it is hard to accept this less desirable trait in ourselves (and sometimes, for me, easier to blame it on something like 'emotional eating').

Web resources on intuitive eating

Though the frustration that comes from dieting and its failure to be the solution to long-term weight-loss increases, references and resources on the web linked to intuitive eating are still not that great. But, those resources that do exist are valuable (though it is actually we bloggers that seem to dominate in the Google searches!).

Here is my list of those that seem particularly useful:

Diet Survivors Meditations: Fabulous blog site from Linda Moran, author of How to Survive Your Diet, where Linda provides daily meditations to keep you motivated or mindful on your quest to be an intuitive eater.

Intuitive Eating: This is the site of the authors of Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works, a comprehensive site which includes a list of their principles as well as research on the subject.