10 Days of Listening To Your Body

Happy  Monday, everyone! I am so excited to tell you about a book I read last week.  While my inner self is screaming and jumping up and down in excitement, I will review this book with a grain of salt.  I promise, I will not overdo it.  Here we go...

I have been eyeing this book for about 6 months, it has very high reviews, and last week I decided to bite the bullet and buy it, which is very unlike me.  It is only available in Kindle format, and since I really loathe Amazon's kindle "buying" format (which means I can't share it with you even though I supposedly "own" the book), I really dragged my heels.  I am so glad I did!

The book is called "How To Have Your Cake and Your Skinny Jeans Too"" by Josie Spinardi.  You can find it here.  This book is to be targeted to the binge-eating crowd (like 5000+ calories at one sitting), but also touts itself as a way to get out the dieting spiral that so many of us find ourselves in.  Great!

The author is a computer database architect with a background in psychology, and she refers to many completely fascinating and compelling psychology studies that support her view.  Understanding that you can find studies supporting almost any point of view, she does a great job picking studies that clearly back her up and are compelling and insightful.  I love scientific research, but if that doesn't interest you, you may feel bogged down at points.  That being said, I started reading Tuesday and I could not put it down.

What I loved most about this book is that the author's main belief is that our bodies are designed to tell us when we are hungry, what to eat, and when to stop.  This goes right along with (many of our) spiritual beliefs: that our bodies are gifts from God, created in His image, and designed to do amazing things such as grow a new person, heal wounds, fight illness, warn us of danger, and grow.

The author states that our problems with food arise when we try to use external forces to override our internal mechanism to tell our bodies when to eat, what to eat, and when they are full.  This is usually done with a "diet".  Diets teach us restriction, which triggers our brains to movie into hyper-focus mode.  You've done it before: someone tells you to not to look at something or stop thinking about something, and you really can't stop yourself from looking or thinking about it!  (There's a study for that.)  This leads to making yourself believe that you are addicted to this particular food , and that you are weak, and will never overcome this particular weakness.  Happily she reveals that you really aren't addicted (in rare cases you might be) but you are just making yourself focus and obsess because of the external restriction you've placed on a particular food.  She refers to this as "gasping for food": you believe you will never get it again so you can't stop eating it.

Whew!  That's a relief.  I have spent the last two years in "gasping for food" mode because of an extremely restrictive diet I tried for 7 weeks.

The author first helps us identify the differences between real and counterfeit hunger, as well as trigger traps that tell us to eat when we aren't actually hungry.  If we can avoid them it will lead to weight loss and greater happiness and control.

Secondly she tells us to eat whatever we want.  Yep, whatever we want.  When we are truly hungry.  This teaches us to stop "gasping" for [insert weakness food] because it will always be there, and takes away the fear of losing our favorite foods.  After a short period of time you will stop eating [insert weakness food] for every meal because you aren't craving it any more and the honeymoon is over.

Third, she exposes the "Million Dollar Thin Skill", which is how to stop eating when we are comfortably satisfied, and "Seven Habits of Highly Satisfied Eaters" which are incredibly insightful and fascinating.  Your body sends signals when its caloric requirements have been met: mainly a decrease in the taste of food.  Making you not want to keep eating.  Brilliant!

Fourth, she discusses the difference between willpower and "wantpower", and how to actually crave foods that are healthy for our bodies.  The key is to listen to the signals our bodies give us about foods we eat, such as energy levels, emotions, digestion, and physical reactions.  By listening to this information we will naturally choose the foods that benefit our bodies to the greatest degree.

Fifth is a compelling argument for stepping off the scale and using other factors to measure our weight loss success.  Scales are fickle friends, and weight fluctuates pounds in a day.  Using an item of clothing, say smaller pair of jeans (albeit not too small) or skirt provides a more realistic and accurate measure of our progress and keeps us from nosediving into pity-eating when the scale doesn't reflect the number we wanted to see.

And last is an argument to change our relationship with exercise.  Exercise as a calorie-balancer turns it into a have to, low on the motivation scale.  Recognizing exercise as a mood booster, a happy pill, energy booster, & an emotional outlet allows us to turn exercise into something we don't want to skip.  It is no longer an inefficient penance for the Almond Joy(s) we ate, but you will come to crave exercise because of the way it makes you feel.

Overall, I absolutely adored this book. It spoke to me and my particular beliefs and feelings.  Sometimes I felt like it was a little sugar-coated, her own magical story, and would like to know more about her journey, how long it took.  But I understand why she didn't focus on her own story: we are all vastly different.  Time tables make us grumpy and depressed when we don't measure up.  It did inspire me to look inward and to recognize the messages my body is sending.  I was amazed that I could actually read my body's signals!

Overall I enjoyed Josie Spinardi's writing style; it is very down-to-earth and energetic.  I found her research fascinating, her points well-founded, and her depth of study impressive.  She interviewed friends, tried things herself, and found success.  I enjoyed her observations of of naturally thin people and could verify them by applying them to people I know (think Lindsay).  

If you've stuck with this post thus far, now I'm going to get to the challenge for this 10 days.  Finally.  It will not have to do with calorie restrictions or banned foods.  It is...

10 Days of Listening to Your Body

1. Listen to when your body says you are actually hungry.  (more on this tomorrow.  I've already typed way too much today)
2. Note how you feel when you eat a) healthy food, b) sugary & fatty food, c) the food you feel is your weakness.  Write it down.
3. Identify one time during your days that you reach for food when you are not really hungry.  Try to change this habit.
4. Drink 64 oz of water - 8 cups.
5. Recognize how exercise makes you feel. Write it down.