I’ve been reading up on my new conviction that diets are the enemy. Turns out the movement, or at least one wing of it, has a name: Intuitive Eating, the idea that your best body will unfold like a flower if you simply eat when hungry and stop when full. This is also the heart and soul of Weight Watcher’s Core program - which is to say that intuitive eating has arrived in the mainstream in a major way. This book seems to be the most popular on the subject - if you’ve read it, I’d love to hear what you think in the comments section.

But really, sticking to a course of “just eat when you’re hungry” involves more than paying attention to your tummy rumbles, as the title of that book acknowledges. Here’s what dumping diets really entails:

1. Accepting our bodies as they are.
2. Getting a handle on emotional eating.

Point 2 we could talk about until we’re blue in the face. For the moment I want to home in on Point 1.

Why do we diet? Because we stare at ourselves in the mirror, squeeze, pull, suck in, tamp down, pirouette, make comparisons, and finally feel like we need to assert some control, and fast! We must wrestle this gross monstrosity into submission. Two men enter, one man leaves! We fight the battle with lettuce leaves and appetite suppressants, extraordinary amounts of exercise and maybe even weird quacky regimens. (I came home a few weeks ago and my roommate had bought a giant box of Franzia so that she could flush the fat out of her system with a glass of red wine every night. Beats Dexatrim, right?)

We hate our bodies and we want to fix them.

When we’re in that mindset, how can we hope to eat naturally? Food becomes the enemy. Pleasure and appetite become the enemy. We become the enemy. So we lose, and then we gain, alternatively wanting to self-destruct and self-reward, because somewhere deep inside, we know we’re not all bad - surely we deserve a little cake now and then, or a whole cake now and then. Or maybe two or three cakes…

Changing your relationship to food, forever, is the route to a happy body. Changing your relationship to your body is the first step.

How do I do that?

I’m not saying it’s easy. We all have our own path to forge. Nevertheless, here’s a few suggestions to get the ball rolling.

Five Ways to Love Yourself Thin

1. Decorate. Your body is beautiful right now and deserves to be treated as such. Wear clothes you love, that fit you. If you don’t have them, buy them. Do your favorite beauty routine - facial, mani/pedi, sea salt scrub. Ever noticed a surge of love while you’re brushing your cat or dog, or rearranging your boyfriend’s hair to cover his bald spot? Taking care of yourself will have the same effect.
2. Do yoga or weight training. Working your muscles and seeing and feeling them respond creates a certain awe that makes it hard not to be excited about this body you inhabit. If you’re not ready to work it in public, get DVDs or start with some daily calisthenics (pushups, situps, and other exercises that use your body weight) in front of the telly.
3. Take a hike. Enjoy the potent combo of exercise and nature’s majesty, of which you are part. We’re all stardust.
4. Focus on the positive. Make a list of things you like about your body. They can be physical attributes, or not. Maybe you have great balance, or sing like a lark. Maybe you can tie knots in cherry stems with your tongue.
5. Get naked.I already suggested this once on this blog, and I doubt it went over well. But really, sitting around for an hour or two at the computer, completely in the buff, changes how you feel. At first it’s hard. You see every lump and fold like it was something alien and icky. But after a while - and it may be a while, be ready for more than one session - you adjust and it’s just you. You may not love, but you begin to accept, and that’s a big step.