The Women's Center encourages women to be kind to their bodies. The following ideas from Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch's book Intuitive Eating may be helpful for you or someone you know:

Reject the Diet Mentality
Toss out those diet books and magazine articles that offer you the false hope of losing weight quickly, easily, and permanently. Start to challenge the lies that have led you to feel as if you were a failure every time a new diet stops working rather than getting angry at yourself.

Challenge the Food Police
Scream a loud "NO" to thoughts in your head that declare that you're "good" for eating under 1000 calories or "bad" because you ate a piece of chocolate cake. The Food Police monitor the unreasonable rules that dieting has created. The police station is housed deep in your psyche and its loudspeaker shouts negative barbs, hopeless phrases, and guilt-provoking indictments that can harm rather than help you.

Feel Your Fullness
Listen for the body signals that tell you are no longer hungry. Observe the signs that show you're comfortably full. Pause in the middle of eating and ask yourself how the food tastes, and what your current fullness level is.

Discover the Satisfaction Factor
The Japanese have the wisdom to keep pleasure as one of their goals of healthy living. In our fury to be thin and healthy, we often overlook one of the most basic gifts of existence-the pleasure and satisfaction that can be found in the eating experience. When you eat what you really want, in an environment that is inviting, the pleasure you derive will be a powerful force in helping you feel satisfied and content. By providing this experience for yourself, you will find it takes much less food to decide you've had "enough."

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