When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies by Jane R. Hirschmann
Author:Jane R. Hirschmann [Hirschmann, Jane R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-76196-5
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2010-12-21T16:00:00+00:00
THE ISSUE OF WEIGHT LOSS
People often notice that when they are able to stop eating as soon as they have had enough, they begin to lose weight. As soon as they make this connection, many people try to hasten the weight loss process by unconsciously turning their new ability to stop when they have had enough into a diet.
We all know what happens when we go on diets. As soon as “I’ve had enough and I want to stop eating” turns into “I’ve had enough and I should stop eating,” any bona fide compulsive eater will feel compelled to rebel … and eat, and eat, and eat. Even if a compulsive eater does not turn stopping when she has had enough into a diet, she will still sabotage her progress as a demand feeder if she gets too invested in weight loss.
On one level, every compulsive eater longs to be thin enough to match cultural ideals, but each time a compulsive eater binges out of a diet and gains weight, she is protesting the very same cultural standard she longs to meet. In order to lose any weight, compulsive eaters must first make peace with the possibility that they may never lose weight. They must grant themselves the acceptance that the world withholds.
Harriet, from a Philadelphia workshop, fell into the trap we have just described. “I felt like I was really sailing along with my demand feeding,” she said. “I surrounded myself with what I wanted, I ate when I was hungry, and I was really getting good at figuring out exactly how many bites of food it took to satisfy my hunger. My whole focus was on the process of demand feeding, until I suddenly realized that I was losing weight. The weight loss thrilled me. Here I was feeling great, doing something to finally end my compulsive eating, and I was losing weight, too! What could be better?
“But somehow,” Harriet continued, “very shortly after I began to think about my weight loss, my focus shifted. I began to challenge myself to eat less and less so that I would continue to get thinner. That was the beginning of the end of demand feeding for me. I began to inhale food. I’d start out feeling hungry, eat until I felt satisfied, then sail right on past my feeling of satisfaction and eat until I was absolutely stuffed.”
In order for Harriet to rediscover the feeling of fullness, she needed to develop a motivation other than weight loss. She decided to remind herself—each time she felt satisfied by a small amount of food—that what mattered most was to be true to herself as an eater. “I learned to disassociate my eating from my body size. The important thing has become what’s going on inside my body—how empty or full I feel—as opposed to what’s going on outside my body—how thin or fat I look.”
Some people who are careful to focus on their eating rather than their weight still feel uneasy when they lose weight and, once again, start eating more than they need.
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