Intuitive Eating

The most influential class I took while at BYU was called Intuitive Eating. Although I had many interesting and informative classes, this is the class that has most influenced my life and my habits. The basic premise of intuitive eating is that you eat what you want when you want it. I've had people tell me this would never work for them because they'd eat candy bars all day. I'll be honest. For the first little while after I started intuitive eating, I ate a lot of junk. I have a particularly bad memory of going crazy with a huge bag of M&M's. But then I felt awful. That's why intuitive eating works if you really listen to how your body feels when you eat food. I started to realize that I wanted to eat healthier food because I felt better when I did. Although I still occasionally eat emotionally instead of from hunger, I do it far less frequently than before I started intuitively eating a few years ago.

Now for the reason I'm posting...I was recently at the library when I picked up a book called "Ending the Food Fight" by David Ludwig, M.D. Since I had Asher and Kaia with me, I didn't have time to read what the book was about before I took it home. I only hoped it might give me some suggestions for getting more vegetables into my kids. Once I got the book home, I didn't pick it up for a long time because I had realized it was a book written by a pediatrician who works to help overweight children and teens lose weight. That's definitely not my situation so I didn't think the book would have much value to me. Then one day, on a whim, I picked it up and started reading. I was hooked from the start. I feel this book has taken my intuitive eating to the next level. Ludwig largely advocates a low-glycemic diet because it makes a person feel full longer, so they're less inclined to overeat. As I've mentioned in a previous post, I recently started running again for the first time since my kids were born. As my metabolism picked up, so did my hunger and I was always reaching for crackers and other high glycemic foods to fill that hunger. Then I would find myself hungry again within half an hour or so. As I read this book, a light turned on. I learned that low-glycemic foods like whole wheat toast with peanut butter would leave me full longer. I have loved eating intuitively, but I think at a point I just didn't have the knowledge to do any better with my eating. Once I read this book, I wanted to eat low-glycemic foods and other healthier alternatives to some of the foods we had been eating because I really feel better when I eat them. Also, this book goes into some detail about the efforts that fast food and junk food companies go to in order to get kids and others to buy their food. Learning about these manipulative methods has further turned me off to eating junk food. This book has revolutionized the way we eat, so I wanted to share it in case it can help anyone else. Here's a picture of the book (Peter laughed at me as I arranged it to get a more attractive picture):