Dieting is like a Chinese finger puzzle

Diet Backlash symptoms
1.  Eating less food, but having trouble losing weight.
2.  Dieting routine actually brings on "cravings" for "forbidden" foods.
3.  Do not trust yourself with real food.
4.  Feeling you don't deserve to eat- you are too fat
5.  Lifespan of diet gets shorter.
6.  Feeling the need to have a last supper.
7.  Need to socially withdraw.
8.  Sluggish metabolism.
9.  Using caffeine to survive the day.
10. Eating disorders


Dieting cannot fight biology
     Dieting is a form of shorter term starvation
     Eating out of control is a normal response to dieting

What Kind Of Eater Are You?

The Careful Eater
Appears to be a perfect eater
Are health and fitness conscious
Tends to undereat and monitors quantity of food eaten
Scrutinizes all food situations

The Professional Dieter
Always trying the latest diet
Knows food values, portions sizes, fat grams, etc.
Can undereat which leads to binges
Can use laxatives, pills, diuretics, etc.
Stepping stone to eating disorders

The Unconscious Eater
Uses paired eating:
Subtypes:
	Chaotic Unconscious	
	overscheduled on all aspects
	get it and go eating
	tends to go long periods w/o eating, then ravenous eating

	Refuse Not Unconscious
	can't be around food w/o eating
	usually unaware they are eating or how much is being eaten

	Waste Not Unconscious
	values getting their money worth

	Emotional Unconscious
	emotions trigger

The Careful, Professional, and Unconscious eaters all have an unhealthy relationship with food.

Intuitive Eater

1.  Mostly triggered by biological hunger
2.  Honors hunger
3.  Acquanited with fullness
4.  Enjoys pleasure of eating
5.  Healthy relationship with food

PRINCIPLES OF INTUITIVE EATING
  
1. Reject The Diet Mentality
	no magic pill, potion, or scheme

2.  Honor Your Hunger
	learn to feed you body with food
	get reacquainted with your body's hunger signals
	eat when your body tells you it needs food
	dishonoring the biological signals leads to excessive hunger
	dishonoring could lead to a chronic problem of low energy most of the time
	take the time to feed yourself

3.  Make Peace With Food
	give yourself unconditional permission to eat
	don't have a list of forbidden foods
	leads to feeling of deprivation
	then uncontrollable cravings and next binging
	end if overwhelming feelings of guilt,shame,etc.
	this person will restrict food and avoids foods that they like
	this person will have feelings of anger and fear
	this person needs to learn nurturing messages about oneself
	this person needs to make nonjudgemental decisions

4.  Feel Your Fullness
	learn how your body signals your fullness
	what signs show that you are comfortably full
	learn to pause periodically when you are eating

5.  Discover The Satisfaction Factor
	don't substitute foods that are not satisfactory
	motto "If you don't love it, don't eat it"
	learn to savor the foods you love

6.  Cope With Your Emotions Without Using Food
	food won't fix the problems causing the feelings
	comfort is very short term, but long term you have discomfort of overeating
	learn to deal with emotional hunger and emotional urges to eat

7.  Respect Your Body
	are you playing the body check game?
	concentrate on internal vs. external clues
	you can't have a body your genetic blueprint won't build
	not your fault
	stop blaming

8.  Exercise- Feel The Difference
	stop the military exercise
	stop concentration on burning calories
	are you underfeeding your body so exercise doesn't feel good
	reframe: YOU EXERCISE BECAUSE IT MAKES YOU FEEL GOOD!

9.  Honor Your Health- Gentle Nutrition
	make food choices that honor your health
	you don't have to eat a perfect diet to be healthy
	it's what you eat over time and not the one meal or the one snack or the day's worth
	progress, not perfection is what counts

Dieting has caused us to lose touch with normal body cues that
 tell us to eat when we are hungry and stop when we are full.

Recovery if finding what we have lost:
1.  Good feeling about ourselves
2.  Sense of wholeness and wellness
3.  Peace with ourselves
4.  Serenity with who we are
5.  An ability to be in charge of our own lives

Fighting against weight spiraling and diet cycling we have lost not weight, but our:
1.  Peace of mind
2.  Self-esteem
3.  Health
4.  Sense of power over our lives

Try vegetarian for variety! Do you get tired of the same old thing for dinner? Looking for something different? Dinner meals, for most people, tend to be the same twelve to fourteen meals rotated over and over. While this may be fine for nutrition, it can sap variety. Today is a good day to start something new for your evening routine. Today (March 20) is the Great American Meat Out--yes, a day to try meatless meals. If the idea of meatless is a little intimidating, start with familiar foods. Try bean soup, or pasta topped with lentils and steamed veggies, or fix chili with three different beans and leave out the meat. If you enjoy beans, use today to increase the variety of beans you use. Try chickpeas or pinto beans, or split peas and lentils for a new twist. All beans are a good source of protein, carbohydrates, iron, folic acid, calcium, magnesium, potassium and B vitamins--who could ask for more in one food?

There's almost nothing bad to be said about regular and moderate exercise.

For most people, exercise alone will be enought to prevent future weight gain. Even if exercise doesn't help you lose pounds it may help you become thinner. A pound of muscle takes up less space than a pound of fat. So as you build muscle by reducing fat, you can lose inches even without actually losing any weight.

The chief benefits of exercise come when people go from a sedentary lifestyle to a moderate activity and not when they move from a moderate to intense level of activity. Use opportunistic exercise to get more physically active.

Sedentary people are four times more likely to die from cardiovascular disease.

A little bit of exercise can make a big difference in wellness. For example, 30 minutes of moderate walking three times a week can reduce the risk of death from heart attack, stroke, diabetes mellitus, and cancer by 55%.

Only one fifth of the population currently gets enough exercise to affect health and weight positively.

How much is enough exercise? Currently the concensus seems to be that when an individual reduces his risk of death due to disease associated with sedentary lifestyle and has improved feelings of energy and well-being then that amount of exercise is adequate for that individual.

Exercise should be enjoyable, affordable, convenient, and sustainable for a lifetime. If your program or routine does not meet these qualifications then physical activity will gradually be eliminated from the lifestyle.