An alternative to dieting.

I've been thinking about this for some time now.  When I was finishing up grad school this spring, some of my classmates shared with each other that they had "given up" on dieting during school, but since graduation was coming up they were planning to "get back into dieting."

I sat there, listening to them talk, and although I didn't say anything, my brain was going into overdrive with all sorts of thoughts about dieting in general.  As someone who has survived over a decade of having anorexia nervosa -- and who is now mostly better -- I'm so out of touch with the "dieting world" that I can't even fathom what dieting entails (to a "healthy" person).  Because to me, my version of "dieting" is my eating disorder -- cutting out well over half the calories of a healthy dieting intake and going down to some ridiculously low number of calories per day.  I've "lived" that way.  I do not want to return to it.  It was hell on earth.

I've been pondering this for awhile now, and although I know that my body is one that befuddles most people, I think I might be on to something when I say that although we as humans love to think we know all there is about our physiology, I really don't think we even know half of it.  I've lost 30+ pounds (healthily) by... *gasp* ...eating 3 meals a day, not forbidding myself to have any particular type of food, not overexercising (and about 80% of the time, not exercising at all).  The only time in the past year and a half when I've gained weight back has either been when I've skipped meals and/or when I've been extremely stressed.  But then I lose that weight the next week, when I get back on track with eating enough.

In thinking this over, I think the key is moderation.  But the key to understanding what moderation is, is that you have to understand your own body.  You have to know if, when a craving comes up, if that craving is what I call "mouth munchies" (i.e., if you just want to munch and crunch on something and it doesn't really matter what), or if it's because of feeling a certain way (i.e., you're sad and you want to binge on ice cream), or if it's because your body actually needs the food type you're craving.

The first one -- the "mouth munchies" -- usually happen to me at nighttime, right before bed.  Or if I'm watching a movie. (It can also occur as a side effect of a medication, one that is known to increase appetite.) Generally I ignore it and go to bed.  Mouth munchies usually don't last overnight (unless it's a medication-related thing).  If it's still there the next morning (and I know it's not medication-related), I move on to the next step in the process.

What am I feeling?  If I can label it (and sometimes I can't), then I can usually figure out if my craving for chocolate (or fries, or chips, or whatever it may be) is emotionally related.  As a recovered (mostly) anoretic, I generally don't emotionally eat... but there are some times that just call
for comfort food (which is a totally different thing than craving something because of feeling sad).

The third one -- craving something because your body actually needs something in the food you're craving -- is the easiest one for me to figure out.  This spring I was craving fries to an ungodly extent, but although I probably would've eventually given in (since this craving was lasting for days, not going away when I wasn't thinking about it, etc.), I finally figured out that it wasn't the fries I was craving -- it was the salt.  This was discovered by me munching on some pretzels (the crunchy kind that really are rather boring unless you have dip or something for them -- and I didn't).  But in eating them, my mouth/body felt like they were The Best Thing in the World!!... so I knew that I had to have been low on sodium since pretzels rarely taste that good to me.

I know there are so many different fad diets out there right now -- the Atkins diet, the Weight Watchers diet, the Paleo diet, the Caveman diet, the Grapefruit diet, on and on and on... and on... and on...  The dieting industry has become just that -- an industry -- by making us as people feel so horrible about an extra scrap of fat there or a little bit of fat here that we'll do almost anything, no matter how ridiculous it sounds, to lose weight and try to become picture perfect.

So here is my challenge.  If you're the type who wants to lose weight -- or perhaps like me, someone who needs to lose weight because of health reasons -- this is what I want you to do.

Learn about your body.  Learn what it needs, what it likes, what it dislikes.  I'm not talking about how food tastes to you; I'm talking about how your body responds to food.  Do you feel heavy and sluggish after eating a lot of carbs, even though they taste wonderful?  Okay, learn moderation.  Figure out how many carbs you can have in a meal that satiate your desire for them yet don't cause you to feel sluggish.  Figure out what you can do to replace those carbs.  Or, for some of us, maybe it's vegetables.  I can't eat a lot of fresh vegetables because my gut doesn't respond well to fiber.  But I love salads -- so I've figured out how much salad I can have in a sitting, and what not to mix it with (yay IBS for making me think about this sort of thing) -- i.e., I can't have salad and soda in the same sitting.

Then learn what moderation means for you.  Even though my body is a peculiarity -- in that I lose weight when I eat rather than when I cut calories out of my meal plan (and yes, there is a scientific explanation for why this happens) -- I don't believe in cutting out entire food groups.  Partially because I know that's just asking for a binge to occur down the road, but partially because I know how unhappy that makes you (both you and your body).

And then learn about what it feels like when you need something (salt, fat, sugar) rather than just wanting it.

This probably all sounds very odd to those of you who have grown up thinking about dieting, planning on dieting, trying out different diets.  The thing is, for a diet to succeed, it needs to be a lifestyle change.  And I'm pretty sure that most people couldn't survive for the rest of their lives (or at least, a large portion of the rest of their lives) on the Paleo diet, or the Atkins diet, or the Caveman diet, or whatever diet is being advertised this week.

But what I'm saying is something that you can turn into a lifestyle change.  It means that you have to learn about yourself and your body; it means that you have to be in tune with your body, which seems to be something that many people in our culture today want to avoid.  It means that you have to be willing to ask yourself, "Am I not giving my body the nutrients it needs?"  It means that you have to be willing to do some introspection, however painful that may be.  But in my opinion -- which is not expert, by any means, although I have learned a lot from life experiences -- this is the best way to go about not only losing weight, but being happy with your body.

Don't count calories.
Don't cut out entire food groups.

Eat with moderation.
Eat with understanding and knowledge.

And exercise as you see fit.  Currently I don't need to exercise to lose weight, but if I exercise (and keep my intake appropriately increased), I lose weight with more regularity.  I'm not saying run 5 miles a day -- unless you want to.  I'm not saying spend 4 hours lifting weights -- unless you want to.  But when you do exercise, eat to compensate.  Jack up your protein and carb intake if you're exercising.  You might be surprised at the changes that will occur -- fat may turn to lean muscle, so you won't actually lose scale weight, but you'll trim down whatever fat to muscle and therefore you will be smaller.  You may actually weigh more, if fat --> lean muscle... but you'll be smaller in size, stronger, and healthier (and as a side benefit, you'll also passively burn more calories).

I hope this makes some sense and isn't just me rambling on about something that works for me but never would ever work for anyone else.  I'm sure I'll be revisiting this topic.

Cheers,
Addison.