Dianne has her own philosophy on eating and having a healthy relationship with food. She told me about two of her favorite books which have now been put on my “To Read” list. They are:
Dianne gave me a copy of the Basic Hunger/Satiety Scale.
She believes you should always be within a 3 and a 7. You should never go beyond a three because that will result in overeating and moving closer to a 9 or 10 on the satiety scale. Her point is that you need to listen to your body and to react to how you are feeling. If you are hungry, eat. If you are thirsty, drink. When you are no longer hungry or thirsty, stop and move on with the normal activities of the day. It doesn’t really matter what as long as you are making healthy choices while still allowing yourself to indulge at times. Check it out!
She also shared with me the definition Ellyn Satter has for normal eating. Ellyn Satter is a reknowed child nutritionist and is famous for her theory of the Division of Responsibility. According to Satter Normal Eating is:
Being able to choose food you like and eat it and truly get enough of it, not just stop eating because you think you should.
Being able to use some moderate constraint in your food selection to get the right food, but not being so restrictive that you miss out on pleasurable foods.
Giving yourself permission to eat sometimes because you are happy, sad or bored, or just because it feels good.
It is leaving some cookies on the plate because you know you can have some again tomorrow, or it is eating more now because they taste so wonderful when they are fresh.
It is overeating at times: feeling stuffed and uncomfortable. And undereating at times and wishing you had more.
“Normal eating is flexible. It varies in response to your emotions, your schedule, your hunger, and your proximity to food.”
What the heck! Principle
Another concept Dianne has taught me is the What the heck! Concept. As she explained
I realized I do some of the same things. “What the heck” consists of two sides a good and a bad side. Once you cross the bad side, you’ve gone too far so whatever else you do cannot make it any worse. For example, if you are trying to diet and you slip and eat a cookie, well what the heck, you’ve ate one cookie you might as well go all out so you end up eating 7. I am guilty of this and this is not healthy eating.
Normal eating is understanding that it is okay to eat sweets, but knowing that you still need 3-5 servings of fruits and vegetables. Eating is fun and should be enjoyable. We all need to develop a healthy relationship with food. This is the philosophy we all need to adopt and I think we would all benefit from it.
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