What does healthy mean to you?

When it comes to eating healthy, there are a million and three different notions of what that means. There are also countless numbers of people suffering with disordered eating who are masking their struggle under the virtuous sounding phrase, "In Good Health." Those are often the people with the most work to do to get to a healthy place around food....ironic, hu?

Don't get me wrong, health is something I'm grateful for every day of my life, and being healthy -- emotionally, spiritually, intellectually -- is something I strive for every day of my life, too. But I want to challenge you today to consider that there's only one source of information for what "healthy" is for you. And that one source is not the news media, not your next door neighbor, not your cubicle mate who counts calories. It's YOU!

As you know if you've read my book, I used to be of the mindset that high-fiber, low saturated fat and tons of fruits and vegetables were the "ticket" to health. But when I finally turned off the television and stopped reading all of the advise "out there" about what being healthy meant, an amazing thing happened. My body told me what it needed for ME to be healthy -- it needed saturated fat and animal protein, exactly the foods we're all told to eat in limited quantities.

Well, it was precisely when I began eating what my body told me it needed (cheeseburgers, tuna melts, eggs and bacon, real milk), that I began to notice a beautiful transformation of my body to an emotionally, physically, intellectually HEALTHY place. Ironic, given all the "un-healthy" foods I was eating...

In case you're struggling with trying a piece of real cheese with all that real, yummy, protein and calcium-rich fat inside of it, take a moment and read Sandy Szwarc's latest entry that just might encourage you to finally trade in that fat free, sugar free, yogurt imitation product for the good, old fashioned real, whole milk white stuff....it's called REAL YOGURT.

Read on...

http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2007/10/junkfood-science-exclusive-big-one.html

You Say You Want To Diet?

My words today just don't do justice to the message I'd like to convey, so I'm going to instead share a link to one of my favorite pieces of writing about diets, and not-diets and becoming free around food. You ask what intuitive eating, non-diet and positive body- (and self-) image look like? Read on.

My only warning is that if you're going to be offended by the F-Word (and extreme repetition of this word), this piece may not be for you. But if you can tolerate a few F-Words, please read on. This is just brilliant.

http://www.margaretcho.com/blog/fuckitdiet.htm

What If Nothing Sounds Good To Eat When I'm Hungry?

As the creator of www.eatwhenyourehungry.com I get a lot of questions from people taking the journey into a non-dieting way of life, and I recently responded to a question that I think is worth sharing. A woman wrote to me to tell me that she sometimes feels very hungry but nothing appeals to her. "What should I do?" she asked. "And has that ever happened to you?"

What an excellent question...

In a word, yes. I definitely have experienced hunger coupled with an aversion to just about every food I can think of eating.  You see, sometimes we're hungry and absolutely nothing sounds good to eat. It happens to everyone sometimes.  So what should we do? As you know if you've read my book, I never tell people what they should do because every body is different. What I can share is what I do in those situations.

When I'm hungry but no food appeals to me I usually either wait until something DOES sound good, or I wait until I'm too hungry not to eat, in which case I'll decide what to eat and see if it satisfies me.  Remember, this is a journey which means that every experience is a learning opportunity. And while the goal is to have as much satisfaction in our eating as possible, every meal isn't always going to be 100 percent satisfying, and that's OKAY.  This is all a learning process and an EXPERIENCING process. It's not about perfection, but about getting in touch with what our bodies need....and learning how to honor that.

Sound good to you? I hope this helps...

A Figure Skater Who Eats When He's Hungry

Last night I went to a fundraising dinner for a wonderful organization a friend of mine started called CoachArt (http://www.coachart.org/). Low and behold, I found myself sitting next to a professional figure skater! I wasn't planning to mention Eat When You're Hungry, as I tend to only discuss food and body image with people who bring it up themselves. Well, someone else at the table mentioned my book and this figure skater sitting beside me wanted to hear all about it. I figured that he was interested in the subject matter because eating disorders (and disordered eating) are clearly at epidemic proportions in the skating industry, right? Well....not exactly, which is where the conversation got interesting.

This young man told me that he skated in Denver for eight years, and that his peers and fellow skaters in Denver did NOT obsess about food! Sure, there were the occasional skaters who struggled with food issues, but they were the exception and not the norm. He said that it wasn't until he started skating professionally in Los Angeles that he noticed he was surrounded by people who were obsessed with counting calories, fat, carbs, you name it. This is a young man -- thank goodness -- who has just about the healthiest relationship to food that one can have. He eats what he wants, when he wants it when he's hungry. And I think he tends to stop when he's full. He doesn't monitor every morsel of food that goes into his body.

"But wait," he said. "If I'm being really honest, I guess I do watch what I eat sometimes." "Oh? What do you mean?" I said. "Well, you see, I could live off of red meat, chocolate and cheese alone. Really, I could eat any of those foods everyday all day long. I love them," he said. "But, chocolate really spikes my energy, too much cheese makes me a bit tired, and red meat sometimes doesn't sit well in my stomach, so I do sometimes make sure that I don't eat too much of any of those foods in one sitting."

This, my folks, is not only OKAY, but it is a beautiful example of being in tune with one's body. Eating what you want doesn't just mean eating what your tongue wants (though that's a big part of it). It also means eating what your energy-level wants, what your stomach will react to comfortably, and what won't cause an allergic reaction. Get it?

Anyway, this very healthy young man with not one eating-disordered thought in his mind said that it's becoming annoying to be surrounded by peers and colleagues in Los Angeles who obsess about food -- because it sometimes makes him feel like there is something wrong with him!

And we wonder how eating disorders get started.....

My First Day Blogging

Welcome to Eat When You're Hungry -- the blog! I am creating this blog for the same reason I created Eat When You're Hungry the e-book and www.eatwhenyourehungry.com -- to help as many people as I possibly can to stop dieting and start living.

In this blog I plan to address questions people ask me about the book, offer insights about my approach to food and life, and discuss anything else that comes up along the way. I will write about particularly noteworthy experiences I have with food, with body image and with all of the facets of this wonderful journey I've taken back to a healthy, comfortable relationship with food and with myself.

I have never blogged before so this is all new to me. Please feel free to email me any suggestions, comments or feedback through my website www.eatwhenyourehungry.com. This is a wonderful journey, and I'm so glad to be a part of it.

~ Maggie