being smart about eating...

last night at support group we had a guest speaker.  she was a licensed mental health counselor who promotes intuitive eating.  most of her presentation focused on defining addiction and specifically food addiction and binge eating.   we did speak a little about mindful eating and she offered the following tips:

 

use a 20 minute warning.  next time you feel the urge to eat (outside of a scheduled meal) -- take 20 minutes to be with yourself before you eat.   make yourself a non-caloric drink in a "special" glass.  sit down and breathe deeply.  gently ask yourself what's going on.  what do you need?  whom do you need it from?  what could be the kindest thing you could do for yourself now?  what are you hungry for? 

 

if you still want to eat....go ahead.  eat mindfully.  notice how you feel after you eat.  don't beat yourself up.  move on.

 

some more thoughts on intuitive eating she shared:  sit down.  pay attention  to what you are doing.  listen to signals and signs.

 

she also talked a lot about the deeper meaning of addictive eating.   what it may be an indicator of.  and let me tell you....a year ago, a few months ago...maybe even sunday...i would have said "ah, that's bullshit".....  i don't think that anymore.  and the reason why i don't think that anymore is because i caught my inner dialogue last night saying this: "maybe you should dig deeper with a professional and figure out this addiction"...and instead of saying "i don't have anything deeper"....i said "digging deeper scares me.  what if i can't handle what i find?".....  whoa.    just whoa.  i think i may reach out to this particular woman.  she seemed warm and fair.  she is young enough that she is still interested in helping people and has not heard it all.

 

oh yeah, and i will admit here by badass inner dialogue at one point thought -- "what the fuck does this skinny bitch know about food addiction".... lol...always gotta rebel....sigh.  lol.

 

tomorrow i am flying across the state for work on southwest airlines.  hoping to avoid getting kicked off for "safety" reasons....