Intuitive Eating and Disorder Analogy

I had a sessions with both C. and my dietitian (ok, new character in my alphabet soup, dietitian is "D") yesterday. These back-to-back sessions are most time efficient for me, in terms of scheduling, but it definitely gives me a shit-ton to think about all at once. Especially since both of them seem to be putting considerable effort into challenging me and shaking my brain around to dislodge ingrained ED thoughts.

It's interesting, because C. and D. are not always precisely on the same page, especially when it comes to intuitive eating. (I don't mean to say they contradict each other, but their approaches are sometimes different). C. thinks I'm definitely not ready for it right now (I tend to agree), but D. thinks it would be a good idea for me to at least give it a shot on a trial basis.

I am pretty self-conscious about the volume of food that I eat in a day. I am eating about a normal amount for someone my age/height (although not scaled up for my X hours of exercise), and it makes me physically uncomfortable to consume that much, even though my meal plan has been the same for about a year now. I know that if I were freelancing it and just eating what it took to satisfy me, my calorie intake would plummet. I told D. that much, and she came up with a good analogy, to basically point out that being free with eating doesn't entitle you to freefall.

She used the example of a sleep disorder. If I had severe insomnia or some other sleep pathology, I'd be working with a doctor and/or therapist to establish certain routines and strategies to encourage normal sleeping patterns. Sleep is not one of those things that you normally measure and track right down to the second, in the way that we often micromanage calories. But say I have a sleep disorder, it is 4 AM and I have to get up for class the next morning, but I am wide awake. Just because I'm not tired, does that mean it's ok for me to say "screw it, I'm just staying up, my body must be some miracle of nature that defies the laws of physics and physiology and runs on an indefinite sleep deficit"? No. It's my responsibility as a participant in my treatment to recognize what a healthy decision would be an implement the strategies my doctor had recommended to at least try to sleep.

So, directly translate that to ED. If it is late afternoon and I have only had X calories in a day, despite exercising, working in lab, etc, and yet I'm still not all that hungry, is it ok for me to say "well I'm not hungry, so my body doesn't need the food. Look, I'm eating intuitively!"? Nope. Just like an insomniac with a scrambled sleep cycle, my body is still learning how to sort out its signals. So intuitive eating does indeed involve listening to your body, but also staying aware of your needs and not letting them slip through the cracks while you're still regaining equilibrium.

I was glad she addressed the issue like that, because that is a trap that I can easily see myself falling into. Actually I don't have to imagine it, that's the trap I DO fall into very often when I travel (ie, the conference I went to last month). I can't weigh/measure/calculate everything that goes into my mouth when I'm on the road, but if I try to just eat what I "want" I end up in serious deficit.

I'm still not quite reading to switch into IE mode at home, but starting next week, I'm going to be making one international and two domestic trips within the space of one month. I'm really trying to get a handle on this before I hit the road and leap way out of my comfort zone. So I'm sort of going to be doing my own version of a '30 Days' episode with trying to listen to my body and not let myself slip. Part of that time will be in an equatorial environment at a semi-high altitude, both of which are huge appetite-killers for me, so I'm really going to try to keep in mind what D. said about listening to your body but not being afraid to talk back to it as well.