When my daughter was a little girl, she had a very distinct way of entering into social situations. If we went to a party or to a new school or playground, she would stand very close to me, tightly hugging my leg and not letting go. At the same time, she was intently observing the other children, watching them closely as they went about their activities.

When she felt she had seen whatever she needed to see, having absorbed whatever information she needed in order to feel secure in joining in, she would let go of my leg and enter easily into socializing with the other girls and boys. There was no point in saying, “Go on, honey, play with the other children!” as soon as we arrived, because she wouldn’t. Yet there was never a need to coax her, either, because she would get there in her own time. She simply had her process. She needed to see what was going on and sort of feel her way into a situation. Then, when she was ready, she would go.

I developed a great respect for my daughter’s way of empowering herself inwardly before moving into such situations. I saw how well it worked for her. She had a child’s way of simply knowing what her needs were and honoring them naturally.

In Lesson 6 in my book A Course in Weight Loss, we are honoring your need to both develop better eating habits and move toward them naturally, gradually, and on your own terms.

Years ago, I discovered that green grapes were helpful to me in cutting down my sugar consumption. Friends told me that while grapes are a natural substance, they still contain sugar. There’s no comparison, however, between the poison that is refined sugar and the natural sugar in ripe green grapes.

At that time I began a love affair with grapes, which continues to this day. But I didn’t one day say to myself, “That’s it! No more refined sugar!” Rather, there was a gradual and natural process. I would eat green grapes along with whatever refined sugar I was eating. If I was eating a piece of cake, I’d put some green grapes on my plate as well. I don’t know why I did this. Like my daughter, I simply had a natural knowing of how best to transition myself from one state to another.

And so do you.

In time, my body began to get its sweet kick from green grapes, maybe not as kicky as from cake, but kicky enough. And after even more time, my body began to register not only the kick of cake when I ate it, but also the fog it brought to my mind, the manic state it would produce within me that was then followed by physical sluggishness. My body had an innate knowing of what it really wanted, and when I gave it the chance to regulate itself, then its natural intelligence kicked in.

I wasn’t taking some authoritarian attitude toward my body: “Do this! Don’t do that!” Rather, I worked with my body, making it an ally and not an enemy in my healing. I honored my emotional need to withdraw only gradually from my dysfunctional way of eating too much refined sugar, recognizing that my attachment to it had not formed in a day and would need some time to wind down. And I gave myself the gift of introducing into my system more healthy food choices, like I was showing up for a new relationship. Which I was!

A doctor once said to me, “Your body doesn’t want to be sick.” And your body doesn’t want to be fat. Just as your heart knows how to beat and your lungs know how to breathe, your body knows how to calibrate its weight to that which serves the maximal functioning of your body as a whole. Essentially, artificial substances have created within you artificial appetites. When natural substances are reintroduced to your body, then your natural appetites will come again to the fore. But as with anything, you must give them a chance.