I first started experimenting with intuitive eating about five years ago. When I heard "eat when you're hungry, stop when you're full," I thought "Genius!" What could be better than finally giving myself permission to eat whatever I want?!" I also thought "How stupid do you think I am? If I could do that, I wouldn't need intuitive eating!" (Clearly, I still had some internal work to do.)
Not one to be easily dissuaded, though, I decided to give this trusting-yourself-to-eat-right thing a try. And eat I did. I just never got to the intuitive part, or the satiety part, or the listening to my body part, or the -- well, you get the point. After 65 diets and about 20 years, any kind of intuition about food just wasn't in my toolbox. That was so much the case, in fact, that I didn't even realize that I didn't get it. I just did my best and fumbled along. I considered the idea of "listening to my body" to be either a) a bunch of new-age mumbo jumbo, b) a diet in disguise, c) something completely beyond the scope of possibility for me or d) workable once I put some rules in place (aka, made it a diet).
