Eat this. Never eat that. Eat as much as you want and look better than ever. Never eat again and have the body you’ve always dreamt of. With all these mixed messages out there, feeling good about yourself at the end of the day is no easy feat. At BX, we certainly don’t know it all, so Dietribe is all about a conversation with you – what works for you? What doesn’t? What diet plan would you never do again? Each week, we’ll provide some tips, tricks and lessons learned, but your feedback is what keeps the conversation going. Got a topic or suggestion to throw into the mix?

This week, let’s try a little exercise. Don’t worry-I’m talking pen and paper exercise, not haul yourself to the gym exercise. I borrowed this one from a book called “Intuitive Eating,” an anti- dieting guide that, cliché as it sounds, changed my entire perception and relationship with food when I read it nearly a year ago. It’s written by two clinical dietitians, so you know it’s the real deal.

So here’s what you do.

Write down:

1.    What your weight was in:
a)    High school
b)   College
2.    What’s your lowest stable weight without dieting?
3.    How does your body build compare to your parents?
4.    Dieting weight:
a)    What’s the lowest weight you’ve attained?
b)    For how long?
c)    What did it take to achieve this weight? Any drastic measures?
d)    After initial weight loss, what body weight do you return to?

5.    What’s your highest weight?

Now compare these numbers. Excluding dieting and highest weights, your natural healthy weight should be somewhere in the range of the other numbers. Obviously, there may be some fluctuation from high school to college as well as other stages of your life. But overall, as the book says, if you’re eating the natural way that you were meant to (not starving yourself, but not eating ravenously at every meal either) then your goal weight should fall somewhere in this range of numbers. And if you’ve already reached that goal, more power to you!

Dieting, on the other hand, just shows “how low your body weight can go under duress, which is not realistic.” Think of what you may have had to do to reach your lowest weight and I’m sure you’ll agree that your body was, indeed, under duress (I knew someone that once tried a strictly tuna fish diet-if that’s not duress, I don’t know what is.)

I could go on and on about how great this book is and how much more in touch you’ll be with your body once you read it. But that’s for you to decide. Either way, let me know what you think once you’ve tried this exercise-whether you think it worked or it’s a complete crock. If it didn’t work for you, feel free to give us some suggestions for what did.

Now I should stop procrastinating and go get some real exercise…

The Nutritionista