Recently, an article on “intuitive dieting” led me to look for my worn copy of “Fat is a Feminist Issue,” by Susie Orbach. I can’t find it. It should be on the shelf devoted to books about eating and cooking — Laurie Colwin’s “Home Cooking” and “More Home Cooking,” “The Man Who Ate Everything,” Ruth Reichl’s memoirs, “Julie/Julia” “Candy Freak,” the Amanda Hesser book, “Fat Girl” and “The Fat Girl’s Guide to Life.” “My Kitchen Wars” Francine Prose’s “Gluttony.”
FIAFI, if you’ll allow the shorthand, was a hot book in the early 1980s and I recall reading that Princess Diana sought help from Orbach for her eating problems. The premise is simple. Your body knows what it wants, so give it to it. But first, you have to relearn what hunger and satiety are.
This idea is making the rounds again under the rubric “intuitive dieting” and it’s no longer just for women. And I’ve decided to try it again. In fact, I’ve been living this way for about a month. I’m good at the first part, knowing when I’m hungry. I’m hopeless at the second, knowing when I’m full, but I’m trying.
Is anyone else here tired of dieting? Tired of Scarsdale and cabbage and low-carb and good carbs and no-white-food, just to name a few of the “disciplines” I’ve tried. (Looking back at the archives of the Memory Project, I see that I termed my early 2005 regimen “the Edgar initiative,” because I so hate the concept of dieting.) And isn’t the indulgence that precedes and follows a diet sort of sad? The point of FIAFI is that we won’t overeat once we give ourselves permission to have what we really, truly want. Is it better to eat ten rice cakes and still feel hollow, or to eat double-chocolate breading pudding and push the bowl away halfway through? Last week, I opted for the latter, and I hope you did, too. But what are you doing this week? Did you ever fast? Or do something equally stupid? Because I sure did.
My primary New Year’s resolution is to “Get over it.” You?
Heh! Only diet I ever did was Atkins, because a diet where you could eat all the meat you wanted sounded ideal for this carnivore. Then I found out just how many things have carbs in them. I also discovered that having a big ol’ plate of nothing but protein and washing it down with a glass of sweetened iced tea sort of defeated the purpose. (It’s a Southern thang). I kept at it for two weeks, lost fifteen pounds…but felt sick as a freakin’ dog when it was over. I couldn’t even look at an egg for months.
My resolution vis a vis food this year is to eat slower. That way, maybe I’ll feel full faster and eat less.
The only good thing about dieting is that it creates an instant sense of community among people who may have little else in common. People of all ages, income levels, and professions can talk endlessly with one another about the Great American Battle with Food.
Of course I’ve dieted. I’m human. The first successful “diet” for me involved group hypnosis. About 20 of us (all women) gathered in a room filled with reclining chairs, and after the lights were turned low and the “white noise” was turned up, the hypnotist put all of us under at the same time. Then she went from chair to chair, whispering our personal hypnotic suggestions in our ears. After the first week, I was more than eight pounds lighter. I lost 20 pounds without ever feeling hungry. I had to force myself to eat at mealtimes because I was, literally, never hungry.
Of course I gradually gained the weight back. I didn’t diet seriously again until a few years ago, when I got back down to 125 and decided it was too late in life for me to keep abusing my body by going up and down. I’ve been more or less successful at keeping the weight off, altho right now I’m dieting again, sort of, to lose five or so holiday pounds before Malice Domestic.
My downfall is sugar in almost any form, especially if it’s combined with chocolate. I went to a Smithsonian exhibit once that included a section on the man who discovered that cocoa beans can be turned into something edible called chocolate, and I felt an urge to prostrate myself in worship before his photo. I cannot get rid of this craving. I want chocolate all the time. I could give up anything else, but not chocolate. So when I’m eating in an otherwise healthy fashion, I still allow myself half a cup of chocolate-containing ice cream once a day.
I do believe we should all be concerned about overweight and try to avoid it. I’ve seen too many people die too young from diabetes, heart attacks,and other obesity-linked diseases to believe that it’s okay to be fat. We’re even trying to slim down our fat cat, Emma, for the same reason. (She’s lost three pounds in the last year.) Emma is only four, and I’d like her to be around for another 15 or so years. That won’t happen if she stays fat.
Pardon the long post!
Sandy
i’m totally with you here. To me, Weight Watchers is the “diet” equivalent of what that’s talking about, because it was all about eating good things, enjoying them, and even having “bad” things in moderation. it taught you very healthy eating habits, and I’ve gotten away from it. I did it after college and lost 30 lbs., but I’ve been lazy for about a year and I’m starting to feel it. Not even in the way I look, more in the way I see myself eat! I’d rather have half the ice cream dish than 40 paper-thin diet cookies that taste like sugared cardboard.
plus my friend told me today that I have to keep going to the gym just so that I can keep telling her funny stories about the crazies there. That’s motivation.
Atkins made me sick, too. And mean. And kind of evil. I have never felt more evil than the time I was supposed to be doing Atkins and I sneaked off to Dairy Queen and ate a Peanut Buster Parfait.
To answer the question in the journal entry, I’m more tired of hearing how fat all Americans are than I am of dieting. I’m especially tired of hearing how Europeans scorn us tubby U.S. folks. The one thing I never hear is that Americans have less leisure time than Europeans (longer work hours, less vacation) and thus don’t have all that free time for the recreational activities that might help keep us slender. Why hasn’t anyone made that connection?
As far as New Year’s resolutions go, I never make any about food. Actually, I try not to make them at all. I feel that anything worth doing shouldn’t be left till New Year’s to start anyway. If it needs doing, I should start it right as soon as the internist/my mother/Dear Abby/my conscience tells me to. (Not that I do; I merely say that I “should.” Hey, nobody’s perfect!)
FWIW, you can count me among those tubby Americans who should lose 10 to 15 percent of their body weight. And nope, I didn’t eat rice cakes (well, no more than usual) during the holidays. I ate reasonable amounts of what I like, which doesn’t seem to have done me that much harm. I’m back to my normal twice-a-week exercise routine (martial arts classes) now and am hoping that’ll be enough to restore the equilibrium. (Fingers crossed.)
I’ve never been one to have to diet. I guess I got my Mom’s genes. That is until I hit 55. Now for the first time in my life I think about losing weight 24/7. I’ve found that no matter how much you think about it though, you must actually DO SOMETHING about it! Because yesterday was a rainy day , I watched the all day marathon of one season of “The Biggest Loser” for inspiration. I’m also reading lots of articles on the web re the “sensible” way to lose weight. Seems to me it’s a life change that must occur, not just trying the latest fad diet.
I’m going to start eating dinner off the salad plates, since this idea makes sense to me. Portion control is probably a good idea. I am even going to start walking again ( as soon as my knee heals!).
I really didn’t appreciate how hard it is to lose weight.
I’m also going to stop eating anything after 7:00pm even give up my coffee after that time of day!
Hopefully, I will lose some weight because then I have to stop smoking!
Well unfortunately, I would love to get over it – but I am too chubby to do so … I have to diet for my health, and you know what has worked really well Weight Watchers. I’ve learned all sorts of things, and I am doing well on it. It is just sensible eating.
I think that the most interesting thing with dieting is how the people around you react when you start losing weight. It also makes you relate to the world differently I suppose. I’ve just lost 20 pounds, and sometimes, it’s a little weird because you feel like there is a difference in how you are treated, but you are the same person inside — or are you? Because the inside person changes too. THAT is what I think people need help with, at least that is what I think
Oh, and a new chubby book is out .. Tales From The Scales.
Well, after many years and many ‘diets’, I finally figured out what the AMA and Weight Watchers have been saying for years: eat sensibly and exercise. It’s much easier said than done, of course…I have closets full of ‘thin’, ‘normal’ and ‘fat’ clothes, and am hating my treadmill
The problem, in my opinion, is that our culture has it pounded into us that there’s only one acceptable body type, and if we just ‘diet’ enough, we can get there. But metabolisms differ, and body types differ, and we can’t all be an air-brushed size 6. So to heck with ‘em. My goal is to be as healthy as I can, physically, mentally, emotionally, etc. etc. If being healthy makes me cuter, groovy…beyond that, I don’t have time to worry about it.
I do think that the idea behind ‘intuitive dieting’ is a good one…it feels to me like another way of saying “all things in moderation”, which I’ve always thought made a lot of sense….
Diets are useless. Adjusting food intake and exercise is the only answer. I began laps at a pool about 2 years ago and have lost about 8 pounds. These are pounds I expect to keep off as long as I exercise, and maybe a few more over time. My food intake has not changed that much, but this seems to work. Of course, it is a long-time weight loss program
No instant results, darn!
In my adult lifetime, I have gained, lost, regained, relost, etc. an NFL team. THIS TIME, I’m going to reform and do it right. I got off to a good start, losing over 40 lb. on Weight Watchers over the past year. Then the BAD part. Trying to eat a little more to maintain my weight was very hard, and by the end of the holiday season I felt like Don Birnem off the wagon.
SO..I’m starting again (still about 35 lb. to the good).
Weight Watchers isn’t bad at all. I tried the Atkins diet in its first incarnation in the late 1960s–lost a good bit of weight, felt terrible, and would have killed for a bowl of Cheerios. I have periodically tried fads and even one or two day fasts to break my
bad eating habits and craving for just about everything bad for me.
I agree with Rae on the acceptable body type issue, but for me weight is part of the “healthy as I can be.” At my age, it might make me “groovier,” but “cute” is out of the question.
Further thought from today’s Washington Post: Medical supply firms are making longer hypodermic needles to enable effective injections into our increasingly fleshy rear ends, larger bp armbands to accommodate fleshier arms, really big hospital gowns and wheelchairs with seats up to 4ft. wide.
Bon (Bony?) Apetit!
The “diet” I have been on since I started buying my own food is the thrifty person diet. I go to the produce aisle first and stock up there. After bread and protein there’s not any money left for snacks. At home if there aren’t snacks there’s no snacking. I like food but I have other things I like spending money on. If I gain weight I’d rather get more excercise than restrict myself. My fiance did Atkins. He developed a strange smell and it was hard to stay on. He did lose weight fast though.
I was always amazed when Atkins came back b/c I thought it had been thoroughly debunked in the early 80s — guess not…
I was a Weight Watchers girl when I realized around the age of 21 that I was tired of being fat and wanted to do something about it. I’ve managed to keep the 70 pounds off — give or take the usual 5-7 pound swing — and even 5 years later I still get some double-takes from those who haven’t seen me in a long time. But there is not a day that goes by that I think about food, how much I should eat (or more likely, shouldn’t) and get antsy about any possible sign the weight’s going to come back. Most of the time it’s background noise but over the course of the fall I noticed it starting to get out of control.
Then I went home to visit my family, gathered up the nerve to step on a scale for the first time in months, and found I’d *lost* a few pounds since moving back to New York.
So now I’m trying to be kinder to myself. Plus not having a day job means I eat less anyway.
I eat what I want, when I want. I’m not as thin as I’d like to be, but my weight never yo yos. I stay the same sort of plump size. And I’m healthy. It works for me. I am trying to increase my activity thought because I really would like to lose some weight/inches. I think diet is a four-letter word.
By the way, when I said my New Year’s Resolution was to “Get over it,” I should have explained that “it” is defined as anything that seems to inspire useless self-loathing. Body image, reviewers who seem to have personal grudges against me, etc. So far, so good.
I like ‘Get over it’-but I’m opting for ‘Forget about it.’ Actually, to those who know me, it is clearly apparent that I have-forgotten about dieting. A pox on dieting-live and have some fun. Tomorrow might not arrive and you’ll really be pissed if you passed up that pasta ala Genovese, or that last slice of Amaretto cake. I just indulge when I remember what Jeremy Irons said about quitting smoking. He had a dream-he’d quit smoking and was hit by a bus. His thoughts, as he fell under the wheels? I could have been smoking for the past two weeks! So go ahead and have that extra bite of whatever lights you up.
Body image? I could care less anymore. But Laura? Surely you jest. You look terrific, and I can’t imagine there are ANY reviewers who have a personal grudge against you. Unless, of course, there could be one or two who might be a bit jealous of your way with words, or your great personality, or your open heart, or your legion of fans. My New Year wish to them? “*&%$$#$@ ‘em.’
Pardon my effusiveness, but you just bring it out in those who care about you.
<i>double-chocolate breading pudding</i>
I have no idea what this is, but the likelihood of my pushing the bowl away is not high.
This week, since you asked, I’m getting back to the calorie-and-exercise tracking I started before the holidays but, uh, stopped for while there. I want to enter my 40s getting smaller, not bigger.
It is a form of mental illness. A mild form, perhaps, but here’s the thing about having eating issues — you can’t go cold turkey. You can quit smoking, drinking, gambling, drugs and even sex cold turkey. Try quitting food.
The flip side is that while this so-called intuitive thinking requires a great deal of conscious thought re: food, it’s interesting to ask yourself: “What do I really want? If I truly want it, I can have it.” A cookie, a candy bar, popcorn, potato chips, nothing is off limits, as long as it’s what the body wants, not a treat that the mind is demanding because it’s anxious, bored, stressed, excited, etc.
By the way, I find that the more I focus on the preparation of food, the less nutty I am about it. I made cheese scones over the holidays — real cream! butter! — and the batch of six would have lasted me six days, easily. Alas, I live with someone else, so they lasted only three.
I could use that as a jumping-off point for a discussion of food-hoarding issues, but I’ve shared enough weirdness.
Yes, I’m a yo yo. Without fail, every ten years or so (starting at age 20) I drop lots (LOTS) of weight, keep it off for about two years and then slowly add it back on, with lots of guilt and obsessing, over the next 8 years. Last year, I did the decennial big weight drop and am just now, ahead of schedule, starting to put it back on. I get rid of all my big clothes, buy small, panic when they start to get tight because I don’t have the will or the money to buy more clothes, and then eat because I’m panicing. A lovely cycle. I’m trying the “eat sensibly and excercise more” New Year’s resolution tactic. It would be so nice to keep it off but when there are things double chocolate bread pudding in the world, what’s a girl to do! (Ditto on the chocolate addiction in an earlier post but my addiction is limited to dark chocolate; I find that I can resist milk chocolate but not the real stuff!)
1973- Scarsdale diet(?)- I think there was a lot of grapefruit and meat. Did it for a week, felt sick and stopped. The weight I had put on during 7 months of my junior year in England(fried stuff, meat pies, shandy, fresh cream cakes- and 5 meals a day- morning coffee and afternoon tea- with biscuits or other sweets- along with three large regular meals) came off when I returned to my normal eating schedule. 2003- Weightwatchers- lost the 20 pounds I had put on the year before(since otherwise my weight had been stable for many years). I have kept the weight off.
I don’t diet, but I do plan to drop some weight so I can get up and down the steps — both inside (we have three levels) and outside — easier.
People don’t believe me when I tell them that every time I go out, I have to walk uphill, but it’s true. Our walking path heads uphill to the Filbert Steps and then it’s either down the Steps to Sansome and the Embarcadero and wherever I want to go from there or up the Steps to Montgomery, then up Montgomery to Union and wherever I want to go from there.
The closest I can get to the place by car is to doublepark on Montgomery at the top of the Steps and run stuff down the steps (42!) then over, then up the front stairs (18!) Carting anything in (or out) and keeping the kitchen stocked are minor challenges.
We walk everywhere, which means I’m getting far more exercise than I used to. I’m in better shape and don’t whine when I’m going uphill anymore, but dragging around any excess weight is nuts.
My plans for the New Year are to take some sort of walkabout every day it’s not raining that ends with me walking =up= the Filbert Steps to get home until I’m in good enough shape that I don’t make detours around the other side of Telegraph Hill just to avoid trudging up the Filbert Steps.
I don’t know why but, psychologically, the trudge up those steps (223!) is harder on me than walking around the other side of Telegraph Hill and walking up Montgomery or Union or Greenwich. His nibs points out to me, in his oh-so-practical way, that if the Steps are there, coming home any other way than just straight up the Steps is a lot more work because I’m not only walking farther, I’m walking to a higher point and then walking down again.
Oh, well.
I would give nearly anything in my life — exclude a handful of people and the dog — to be able to get through the rest of it without thinking about food ever again.
No, not quite. I’ll happily plan meals and pore over recipes. I just want to never again think about food the way women think about food, the constant running tape in your head that says <i>shouldn’t have put cream cheese on that bagel now you’ll have to have a salad for lunch oops you didn’t have the salad well then it’s an extra 30 minutes at the gym for you fatso and why are you even thinking about dessert? You shouldn’t think about dessert ever because you don’t deserve dessert not for a good six months anyway and anyway did you do the extra 30 minutes? How about 20? No? What did you do?</i>
And so on.
I had an acquaintance once who actually spoke her food thoughts out loud, and being with her was maddening; she talked about food, her food anxieties, her calorie-count guesses, her bargaining with the waitresses…constantly. She was absolutely crazy as a shithouse rat on the subject of food, and then I realized all she was doing was saying it out loud, that we all think about it too much.
I think it’s a form of female mental illness. Every crazy woman I know — every single one — is crazy on the subject of food. If men are about sex, women are about food. Let this cup pass from me. (Unless it has hot chocolate in it!)
I’ve always been fortunate in having a high metabolism from childhood (I come from a long line of skinny people with big appetites) and not having much in the way of a sweet tooth or a regular crave – so if I fancy eating half a dozen vanilla dougnuts, which I do from time to time, that’ll be my doughnut lust catered for for another month. Ditto with just about everything. These days I keep half an eye on the waistline just to make sure I don’t start creeping up in weight, but that’s about it.
Since I started typing in a pub, I’ve been wondering about my sugar intake (all that Red Bull and Coke mounts up), but the place is at the top of a very long, very steep hill, and with the extra walking it doesn’t seem to have done me any harm.
Nance,
I don’t know what it means exactly but I will be(if you allow me) using your phrase “as crazy as a shithouse rat” in my future conversations. I have not heard this expression before but I really like it.
Thank you!