Story time! If you would prefer to skip ahead to the book review, go to The Book!
This book came to me at just the right point. A few months ago I got around to reading The Gift of Fear (yup, different book. Bear with me). The main takeaway for me was understanding that my body is super-clever and on the ball, and it will protect us. It notices details that my brain is too busy thinking cleverly stupid thoughts for, so I should trust it. My body will tell me if or when I am in danger, so I can relax and the only thing I need to do - besides take normal precautions, is to listen to it.
This started a habit where I checked in with my body to see how I am doing, and my body started telling me other things. It said it wants to move, alcohol isn't really all that interesting, and green vegetables are delicious.
In other words I connected to myself. Because I started listening to myself I didn't need to overeat to force the emotions down. I began eating healthily because I wanted to, and I arranged to meet a personal trainer to get me moving better.
I told her how I was eating and she said, "oh, intuitive eating is good..." and so I discovered that not only am I not alone in this, but two women wrote a book! Intuitive Eating.
The Book! - (though I confess, I've not finished reading it yet! I'm enjoying taking my time and absorvbing the lessons)
I bring it to your attention, beautiful ladies, because this book is about accepting who you are and listening to yourself. Your body knows what it needs and is capable of telling you, but the way many of us live suppresses that. Society tells us we ought to be thin, and having extra weight makes us lazy / immoral / unattractive / whatever, and we lose connection to ourselves. We listen to outside sources of information, eg the clock, our parents, magazines, instead of our own internal cues. We don't trust ourselves, and that is a huge problem.
It is possible to re-establish that connection, but it will take challenging a lot of preconceptions. The good news is you are a RadFem so you are perfectly capable of THAT!
So if you struggle in your relationship with food I highly recommend Intuitive Eating. Alwyas remember that you are the best judge of what is good for you. Never someone else.
Society as a whole needs a break from dieting mentality. I really support intuitive eating, it's hard for me due to my personal history but if I consider the rabbit hole in which dieting put me I'm soooo much in favour of IE!