Intuition or Indulgence?

Have you noticed that diets are about what you can't eat?  I hate to hear people say, "if it tastes good it must be bad for you."  And I feel sad when I see people who spend their entire life on a diet, in a constant battle with themselves, their desires, and their bodies.  Is that a way to live?

As we've said, Eating the Angel Way is about eating intuitively:  good food your body wants and needs.  But if you look up "intuitive eating" on the web, you'll see a lot of arguments against it.  The thought is that if we eat intuitively, we'll eat Snickers sandwiches and butter-cheese balls all day and all night.  Then we'll die.

As I see it, the problem here is semantics.  "Intuitive" does not mean "indulgent" or "urgent."  Eating intuitively doesn't mean eating whatever we feel the urge to eat.  Intuitive is eating what our bodies are really really telling us we want and need.  Intuition is a quiet internal voice. 

Indulgences or urges are most likely loud external voices.  The commercial on TV with piles and piles of pancakes covered in whipped cream and syrup in flavors like pumpkin and eggnog and extra chocolate chocolate pie.  The clock that says NOON which we know means lunch time.  The extra long barbecue buffet bar where we have to eat enough to make it worth the money.  The person who looks like our mother yelling at us, which makes us reach for the Chunky Monkey and pound bag of peanut m&ms.

And so, if I have the urge for a rooty-tooty-fresh-and-fruity pancake platter, I need to listen to my intuition.  I need to shut off the television, shut out the mother-like person yelling at me, turn away from the clock.  I need to ask, what do I really want?

Love?  A hug?  Something festive?  Something sweet?

And when I am getting hungry, I can think about what I want to eat.  I picture myself eating the pumpkin whipped cream pancake and bacon.  I think about the taste (hmmm, not what I'd hoped); I think about how I feel afterward (ooohhh... Alka Seltzer.  And Dawn to rinse the grease...).  I think, a spinach and strawberry salad with raspberry vinaigrette would be really good.  And a carrot cake cupcake with cream cheese icing.   And of course, I might think, yeah, I want the pumpkin whipped cream pancake.

I told you everything that's good isn't bad for you.