Episode 113: "Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat" - with Dr. Michelle May

Babies are born with a natural, instinctive relationship with food.  They eat when they are hungry, stop when they are full and don’t think about food until they are hungry again. Food is not a focus, it is simply fuel for their bodies.

As we grow, we are inundated with tv, magazines, social media, etc., showing us the wonderful foods we could be eating and in the next moment, giving us unrealistic ideas of what we should look like and what we should or shouldn’t eat to achieve that.  We worry about what we are eating, calories, exchanges, grams or points.  We are using so much energy and time to attain an idealized version of what it means to eat healthy that we don’t have space left to enjoy life, which is the ultimate goal.

Today I interview Dr. Michelle May.  Michelle is a former family physician, recovered yo-yo dieter, and founder of the program, “Am I Hungry? Mindful Eating Programs and Training”. found at  www.AmIHungry.com. She is the author of the Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat book series that teaches mindful eating to help individuals resolve mindless and emotional eating and senseless yo-yo dieting to live the vibrant lives they crave.  You can download the first chapter at https://amihungry.com/chapter1.

 Mindful eating takes you back to the natural instinctive state you were born with, but it is not a one and done.  It is a tool to use every day.  Your understanding evolves as you use it.

-Unconsciously incompetent:  You didn’t know better

-Consciously incompetent: You knew there was a lot you didn’t know but didn’t know what to do about it.

As skills and tools are taught, you become: 

Consciously Competent: You can use the tools such as the hunger and fullness scale to help you decide whether you are hungry or not. You can then make conscious decisions according to where you fall on that scale.  If you realize that you are not actually hungry, but you want to eat anyway, it is time to figure out what you really need and what else besides eating could meet that need. 

Eventually it becomes natural and instinctive like it was when you were a baby. 

Unconsciously Competent: You don’t have to think “Am I hungry?”  You just know.  Not everybody gets there.  As you continue to practice you go back to your instinctive, natural relationship with food and only occasionally revert.  When that happens, it is a signal that something is wrong, such as you need rest or have too much stress.  You can go back to basics and take better care of yourself.

- Weight is not a behavior.  It is not subject to behavior modification.  Mindfulness is not about weight or a number on a scale. It is about awareness and purpose.  It is intention and attention.  By bringing awareness to what you really want, and the choices you are making, you can make little choices every day that bring you closer to feeling more energetic, joyful and having a more balanced, vibrant life.  If you were doing those things only to lose weight and you weren’t seeing a change on the scale you might quit.  When you stop using the scale to see how you are progressing, you can tune in to how you are feeling.   That’s what really matters.