I’m rejoicing that I was surrounded by my favorite savory foods and I was in control, I was relaxed, enjoying the food, the company, the experience, and I was satisfied and I was able to eat cracker biscuits, tasty high fat cheese, potato chips and cashew nuts and not binge or risk gaining weight and I did not ever taste the cabana, which I so love...because I was no longer stomach or emotionally hungry...I was not hungry, I was satisfied.LOL,  'I think she's got it'.

A few weeks ago I received a parcel with two wonderful books about intuitive eating in them and some motivational material and guides on CD, from my good friend Sharon.

Around the same time I also found out I had just a few more small health issues to work with so there was a conflict of increased nutritional guidelines that were important for me to follow for preventative health care.

So here I was, this past fortnight, with conflicting goals, once a gain. New nutritional guidelines I am developing with health care providers and this increased awareness that I am on the right track, in relaxing rules on what to eat and when and trusting myself around food, any food, with permission to eat what I choose to eat as long as I stay balanced in self nurture, listening to my emotional and physical needs and not feel I need to obsessively  deny myself nor fear the opposite will happen should I 'give in' and find myself having another mini binge on forbidden fruit or feeling  I must sample everything that's on offer lest I miss out on the best.

I have understood the written and spoken meaning of those words for years.  I say and write things like, 'It's not leaving the planet' and’ If something is good, more is not better', but it's all been a conscious effort...up until two nights ago when Reg and I were invited to an evening of savories (my favorite treat foods) and chat, with new friends.

The supper table looked lovely, all provided by friends, I brought along my nutritious raw organic, almonds to add to these refined, processed and fried, style foods I don't buy for myself, so tend to overindulge in once I have them in front of me. 

This time I was in a mind frame I accepted a couple of weeks ago that has taken some getting used to and during this time, it's been an experiment that’s seen me sample chocolate, cheese cake, a sticky bun, spread on my bread again, and it's sill been an experience tinged with a little guilt and a little inability to stop when I had had sufficient and to know when that was.  I knew I was slightly over indulging beyond my hunger, because of the enjoyment of the taste and crunch sensation in my mouth, yet not enjoying them fully, because of guilt that they were unhealthy and I would be gaining weight. 

The other evening at this little supper party I finally 'got it' and I did not even realize it until this evening when a friend, my friend Sharon, mentioned her own intuitive eating experience in her blog and 'the light came on', LOL, :-), and I realized, at last, 'I have got it'.

I didn't even notice, at the time, that I was having something of a breakthrough, I was achieving a balance, a state of sanity around food, and I did not realize what a big deal it was at the time. It all seemed so natural, so comfortable, the eating was so enjoyable and my body was so comfortable with what I ate and I was not feeling hungry or denied what I would have liked to eat. I was feeling just satisfied, contented, enjoyed all I had eaten, aware I had not sampled everything and had left heaps of lovely things on the table uneaten, and I had not needed to keep eating them because they were yummy or because they were in front of me or having to be denied the experience of eating these foods, because in my nutrition nut guard was up.

I had experienced intuitive eating, automatically, without thinking about it, not through will power or conscious self programming, but naturally, automatically 'as easily as breathing'.

It's a stunner to discover it's not about will power over food at all.

While I have read that, ' if everything is allowed, we are more able to control portions and will mostly desire what is ideal for our body,' this is the first I've experienced potato chips being something I could have just a few of.  

I have said words to triy help motivate others struggling not to overeat, saying to them, 'you are stronger than a potato chip', but in saying this, my meaning had been that they could use will power and not eat potato chips at all, which was how I usually controlled myself around such foods.  This was a different experience, I allowed those foods.  I has taken me a fortnight of not feeling I've got the balance right, probably gaining a kilo, yet knowing and having faith that this was a learning phase and I just needed to continue to stay centered, in balance, resisting the urge to panic and go back to the extreme of self denial around food again.  It has taken me two weeks of being prepared to trust myself with whatever food I fancied, to get to this state of it eating the previous, forbidden fruits, in a comfortable, in control, way.

Finally I have experienced an occasion where for the first time ever, even having had a will power dissolving glass of wine, I was surrounded by crunchy crisp, savories I loved, a table laden with all the things I usually avoid as if I did, I had previously not been able to stop eating them. Those cashew nuts, clicks cracker biscuits, tasty high fat cheese, yum, cabana, more yum, the potato chips, were all legal, allowed on this occasion, foods, and I was content in sampling, some, not all of them and I was satisfied.

I was satisfied!

Almost 63 years it has taken. You cannot call me a fast learner, but I’m a determined learner. If there is something I want to master, I’ll hang in there and study, practice and ask for constructive critique, till I get it right and even then keep fine tuning my skill, my new gift, the art of natural slimming is a gift I plan to use and hold for life. 


it's not willpower, it's permission, comfort and confidence around food, that gives me control.

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