Valuing Leanness

I don't really have anything of value to add, but this post is so insanely helpful. Reading about your thoughts from Dec 2018 (and I mean ALL the thoughts, the questioning, etc) from where you were to where you are now is awesome. I often read about these things, but seeing it laid out in 'detail' makes such an impact. Thanks for sharing!

I'm bumping this thread because we were talking about it in Sheena's journal.

Here's a 2019 update:

I definitely believe in eating (and doing everything else) in line with your values. Personally, I don’t value leanness itself anymore. It’s a look, not a value. Ask yourself why that look feels important to you. What does leanness represent? For me, I realized that what I actually value is health, fitness, functional strength, feeling amazing, and aging gracefully, aka, being a bad ass old person. I value being free of injury, illness, and chronic pain. I value being able to physically do the things that are important to me. That does not require a particular look, weight, or body comp, though the associated behaviors do tend to make me healthy and fit. The fact that I also value freedom, fun, ease around food, and social connection keeps me from getting too nuts about it. Things like obsessing about weight, placing restrictions on my eating, and ignoring hunger and fatigue to look a certain way are actively against my values.

It’s interesting to think about for sure. Things click on a different level when you look at what’s truly important to you and what’s driving your beliefs and actions. Is it authentic? Or is it rooted in fear? My disordered behaviors were inevitably fear-based. Healthy behaviors are not. Major ah-ha.

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I think it's good to share the older posts where my thinking was a bit different, to see how it's still evolving. Maybe someone really relates to where I was before and not so much where I am now. That's ok! I find it interesting myself.

Continuing the conversation on happy intuitive leanness fitness, I wanted to add that I'm currently up about 5 pounds compared to the end of last summer. It is completely normal and predictable for me to be a bit heavier coming out of the dead of winter. The combination of bone-chilling cold, heavy clothing, and hearty comfort food mean I'm not particularly concerned about my body being extra riptshizzled. I'd rather eat my mac & cheese, thank you. I naturally get leaner in the spring and summer. I know this because it happens every year like clockwork, not because I'm doing some keto cabbage cleanse but because I'm outside more, I'm more active, there's more fresh produce, and I eat with a little more awareness when I can actually see my body versus when I'm in layers. In the winter, more bread sounds better than more definition. In the summer heat, salad is actually appealing again. This is a normal pattern, so I don't have a panic attack or launch into a special plan when I see that my weight is up. I know after a couple of months it will take care of itself. It's normal to have seasons with your eating, training, and life circumstances. If feeling good is the priority, there will be times when more food and rest feels better than any alternative. There will be other times when being more active and eating with a bit more awareness feels fantastic. Go with it. You don't have to force anything.

Skwigg, these posts are really great. Thank you...

-You mentioned pursuing vitality and ease. What does that look like for you in terms of eating/lifestyle/activity? I hardly feel vital. I am eating normal amounts and not bingeing, but I am definitely not feeling as energetic and light as I would like to. What contributes to that feeling of ease and energy, and how has that transformed for you throughout your journey. 

-You write about the line between lazy leanness/satisfaction. Can you clarify a little more about what that feels like? Do you still feel as wonderufl and energized with a little less? Is it noticible? How does it feel in your body. What are the thoughts you tell yourself in those moments when you're nearing the end of a meal? I often have a complex with food that I need to finish it, or its okay to have a little more, because if I don't I wont sleep from hunger, or I'll get other diet-related symptoms. There's this old fear of returning back to the other side that keeps me from stopping a tad bit sooner. Even though I am rarely stuffing myself anymore, there is probably room to stop short a few bites at dinner a few nights per week.

-You are really spot on about the negative self-talk for me. I actually wanted to ask how your self-talk shifted over time. Specifically, how you started thinking differently when you started to lose weight through intuitive eating. 

Vitality is having the energy to do everything I want to do in a day and to feel good while doing it. It's being able to walk 8 miles, play 6 games of fetch, do a kettlebell workout, finish the Christmas shopping, bake 4 pies, and stay up late to watch Netflix and look at the meteor shower. The way I eat doesn't keep me from anything I want to do. I'm not tired and hungry. I'm not overfed and sluggish. Dieting made all of that impossible. I was too wiped out. Overeating kills it too. I don't feel energetic and enthusiastic when I overeat. I want to go lie down. 

Ease is having the confidence to feed myself appropriately from whatever's around. I don't need special food. I don't eat according to the clock. I don't need to measure or count. I don't have to deny myself when others are eating, or eat weird things out of tupperware containers in inappropriate places. That was my life when dieting. It was constant thought, so many rules, so much to worry about. Getting my rigid diet to mesh with social occasions was a logistical nightmare. I was always turning things down or making a scene. Now, I can eat what I planned, or eat something else entirely, or not eat until later, or eat something special sooner and it's all good. That was unheard of when I was controlling my food, or when I had that on/off diet mentality. I could eat "on plan" or I could "fall off the wagon." Those were the choices. If I were to have cookies now and wait two hours for dinner, I couldn't mentally place that anywhere other than having "blown it." Now, I don't assign any meaning.

That's fascinating what you say about a line between lazy leanness and satisfaction. There is no line. They are exactly the same thing. You're maybe assuming that I eat less than I actually want in order to be lean and that there are maybe some consequences. I don't and there aren't. I'm totally satisfied with the amount I eat. Satisfaction doesn't increase with food quantity. There's a point where you keep eating and the pleasure of it actually goes down, the way you feel afterward gets worse. A slightly smaller amount of really amazing food can be even more satisfying and give you more energy for later. Maximum satisfaction doesn't always mean eating more food. Sometimes it means eating less but enjoying it more. 

You know I'm all about questioning fears and painful thoughts. If my thoughts about not wasting food, or going to bed full, or avoiding diet symptoms were keeping me stuck, I'd have to check them out. Is it true? I'd want to try some things and see for myself. What happens if I eat a few bites less? Do I feel more or less energetic? What happens if I leave some on my plate? Am I just as satisfied? How does my meal timing before bed affect my sleep? Do I need as much food as I thought in order to sleep well? Maybe. Maybe not. The thing to realize is that you can try it and nothing bad will happen. If you try something you don't like there's no reason to keep doing it, but if you try something that makes you feel amazing, it's worth investigating. 

I haven't had truly toxic self-talk in probably twenty years, so that harsh negativity is getting a little fuzzy. More recently, it was just the comparison trap, feeling like I didn't measure up to all the trainers, models, actresses, and athletes I thought I should look like. Getting off of social media was a really epic mindset shift, totally empowering. Finally, I could look at me and deal in my own life/food/habits instead of always feeling bad I wasn't like those other people, instead of trying to imitate them or impress them or fit in. 

Initially, I didn't really notice I was losing weight through intuitive eating, because that was never the point. The point was to listen to my body and feel my best. Both happened in rather dramatic fashion. If my weight had stayed the same or gone up as a result, that would have been fine because I felt so amazing and enjoyed my food so much. Intuitive eating wasn't about weight loss as much as it was about making weight a total non-issue. It was putting my energy, life, and happiness first. That did result in weight loss because I was no longer eating to control or prevent things (as dieting teaches), I was only eating because I was hungry and until I was totally satisfied. 

I want to elaborate a bit on the idea that there are no foods that help/hurt leanness. This was a really important lesson. I used to believe that if I eliminated the right foods from my diet, I could get lean. The first thing to go was fat. Years of that made me depressed and hungry, so I put some fat back but eliminated meat...for seven years. That made me pudgy and tired. So, I ate ALL THE MEAT. Protein is a magical macro according to the diet/fitness world, so I ate absurd amounts of it, not just meat but eggs, cottage cheese, and protein powder. Plus, protein bars, protein pudding, protein oatmeal, protein tortillas, and protein pancakes. It wasn't really working though, because I gained quite a bit of weight doing that. Then I realized what the problem was - grains. Obviously. I went paleo and cut out all the grains. I actually checked my blood work before and after, and nothing changed. Also, nothing about my body changed. My weight maybe went up a little, plus I started daydreaming about robbing bakeries. When I realized paleo wasn't working, I went vegan, as everyone does. I only lasted a few months with my cheeseless pizzas and fake ice cream. Again, nothing changed with my body or blood work, except now I daydreamed about chewing meat off of bones. So, you know what? It has to be the sugar. Sugar and processed convenience food are destroying civilization. I'd seen several documentaries that proved this. So, I did my best to cut them all out. That went well for about three days and then I was absolutely consumed by thoughts of Pop-Tarts, candy bars, Doritos, M&Ms, and fast food french fries. I spent the following weeks eating all of those in large quantities. Then I thought, you know what? It must be meal timing. That's it. Intermittent fasting. Let's try going 16+ hours overnight and only eating in the 8-hour "feeding window." My workouts started to suck and I became fascinated with The Food Network. I'd stare at it for hours when I wasn't allowed to eat. Then I'd eat like a starving animal when it was time to do so. No good came from this. 

The major breakthrough was to quit with all the diet culture nonsense and start paying attention to what my own body was telling me. I had to basically take lessons to open those lines of communication again. I've said before it's like learning a foreign language. I didn't know when I was hungry, not until I was completely ravenous. And I didn't recognize fullness either. Full to me was when I felt like I might vomit. THAT I recognized as full. Everything before that was a blur, probably because I was eating so quickly and mindlessly. The subtle in-between levels of hunger and fullness were a complete mystery at first. They're easily recognized now if I check in. That alone, the stupid Intuitive Eating hunger and fullness discovery scale that I raged against for years, was the biggest contributor to making weight a non-issue and giving me easy abs, no off-limits foods, no diet rules, no counting of anything, clothes that always fit, good energy, quality sleep, and stable moods. There were other things too, learning to question and turn around painful thoughts was major. It took the emotional drama surrounding food down about thirty notches. My eating became much less reactive and there was much less debate and bargaining. I'm hungry or I'm not. It doesn't matter what happened at work today or what I ate yesterday.

What I'm trying to convey is that it's the thoughts: If I eat any less I'll be miserable. I don't want to cut back but I have to. I don't like where I am but I'm stuck here. Other people can lose weight without tracking but I can't. I want my body to be different than it is. I want my body to be different but I don't want my food to be different. My eating is great, wonderful, perfect, dialed in, awesome, but I dislike the results. 

In every case it's the thoughts keeping us stuck. It's not the specifics of what we eat or how much we weigh. Arguing with what is causes the suffering, thinking things should be different. That's not to say you can't change, move forward, do things differently, be even happier, but if you're telling yourself you're not ok now, that makes it hard. You accept where you are now, embrace it, work with it, and that's how you get moving - as someone who is perfectly fine right now, someone who is learning and getting better every day, not as a poor blob who is trapped in a hopeless either/or situation. "Either I restrict and lose weight or I stay stuck and hate my body." Nice (false) reality there. How's it working for you? 

And I'm talking to myself there too, because that was my belief for so long: I can diet and fix myself or stay like this and hate myself. 

The thing is, weight loss doesn't fix that. If you leave such a painful line of thinking unquestioned, it will always be there undermining any changes you try to make. You'll always feel broken and trapped. 

I forgot to add that for most of my life I would have scoffed at what I wrote above and been one hundred percent certain it wouldn't work for me, maybe for those special other people, but I have to restrict to get results, duh. 

The part I wasn't grasping is that each little change adds up, not immediately, but over time. It's like a bunch of little snowflakes becoming an avalanche. In my example, I changed 3 things and got a quick result, but I didn't mention the 4,795 tiny things I changed before that over the last several years. Right now, maybe it feels like there's nothing left you can change, or that any change you make would be less enjoyable. Is that true? Question it and I'll bet it's not. Would you enjoy feeling a little leaner, a little more confident and comfortable in your skin today? Would you enjoy it more than the last three bites of that? The second cookie? The extra cheese? Often I would. In fact, I'd barely notice the difference in terms of fullness or food pleasure. I'm still eating that amazing pizza, still having cookies, still eating the cheese,  by stopping slightly sooner, I feel even better because I'm getting both, the total satisfaction and the lazy leanness. I don't call that "cutting back." It's just lining up my behavior and values for maximum joy. 

If changing even one thing would not bring you more joy, then it's time to look at your thoughts surrounding where you are now. Maybe you're great as you are, but your thoughts that you're not ok are what's causing the apparent suffering.