Honor Your Hunger, Fool.

Since last week I wrote about "rejecting the diet mentality," I thought it fitting to keep going along with the 10 Principles of Intuitive Eating which you can read a summary of here. 

This is some food that I ate one time when I was hungry. 

This is a big step for chronic dieters, myself included, but it's one of the most liberating experiences of adjusting to a more intuitive eating style. I'll never forget starting yet another diet in college and literally googling, "how to not eat when you're hungry." I'll never forget those words that seemed to bound off the page at me. "When you're dieting, you're going to be hungry. You just have to learn how to live with that feeling if you want to lose weight."

YIKES!!! I could go off on a tangent about thinspiration and ALL the problems that we as women, men, and transgender individuals develop out of hearing a biological and urgent need from the body and resisting it. We don't really do that with breathing or with peeing so I don't know why we insist on it when it comes to food.  However, beyond the problematic social and political implications, honoring your hunger is good for you. 

Here's my evidence: 

1. Your body is smart. Listen to it. 

I'm stealing these lines from my Whole Foods Market Wellness Club days but the human body is literally engaging in thousands of chemical reactions simultaneously. Even though medicine and biological science have come extremely far, we understand as much about how the human body works as an average person knows about rocket science. Prescription drugs often isolate 1-2 chemical reactions to treat a given symptom. I like to use the story of Viagra as an example for this because it was originally being tested as a drug to lower blood pressure.  But then of course you know the rest of that story.... 

So, when it comes to eating, your body knows better than the latest fad diet. Because it's smarter than even some of the best and most well-paid scientists out there. And YOUR body will give you unique clues on how to feed YOUR body. 

2. Restricting Food can actually lead to a binge. 

This is something we often discussed at the eating disorder treatment center where I used to work. Ancel Keys study is most famous for proving that restriction can actually physiologically lead to a binge. You can read a quick excerpt about that here. 

You can't trick the body into eating less food. The human body wants to achieve homeostasis. When you restrict calories all day long as many do while on a diet, when you get home, you want to eat everything that isn't nailed down in your house. This goes the same for all you lunch skippers out there. I know your TPS report is important, but if you skip lunch, that makes you a lot more likely to end up eating a burger for dinner even though you planned to eat salmon and quinoa salad. Your body will be begging you to make up for the caloric deficit. By eating before we are ravenously hungry, we actually set ourselves up to eat better food. 

I'm definitely guilty of this here. When I used to have a more rigorous day job, I would often eat a light lunch that I had diligently packed the night before. I would most likely end up working late and ordering seamless on my way home because I was STARVING which usually meant the only thing that would satisfy was fried chicken and french fries. 

3. When you restrict food, you can slow down your metabolism more. 

Ancel Keys also proved this is his starvation experiment that our basal metabolic rate slows down during prolonged periods of starvation.

As many of the chronic dieters of the world know, even when you're perfect with your diet and you willpower your way through, eventually you plateau because your body figured it out and is working tirelessly to keep you alive. I've been through this myself.  An RD put me on a 1200 calorie diet that helped me lose 4 pounds but after about 3 months, I was stuck. Eventually I gave up and sprang back up to what I affectionately call my "happy weight." 

While I often tell my clients to avoid paying attention to the scale, listening to my body, eating when I'm hungry and stopping when I'm full (that's a whole other blog post), has helped me lose weight. More importantly than that, I don't have to spend so much time researching my meals and my diet and my weight is pretty stable without me even having to think about it. 

For real, eating should be like breathing. Just do it when you body says so. 

Please don't resolve to start another diet

Happy New Year's Eve!

If you're anything like me, you're waking up from the past few days feeling a little groggy, a little bloated, and with a little anxiety about the holidays being over. Maybe you're feeling a little guilty for eating too much, drinking too much, or spending too much. If not, you're prepared to have your last hurrah tonight. ; )

The way many of us rationalize our way out of the holiday guilt is anticipating the penance of January 1. This means that everybody and their brother will likely resolve to lose 30 pounds, stop eating wheat, or hit the gym hard 6 days a week.

This year I am calling for an end to this paradigm. 

Why? 

1. Diets don't work.

Studies have shown that 95% diets don't work. That means even if you lose 25 pounds, you're likely to gain more back. In fact, weight gain is "significantly related" to dieting. This means independent of genetics, dieting has been shown to actually CAUSE weight gain. Here's a great video with lots more juicy info on this topic. 

2. We have more important things to do! 

Like watch this video!

This AWESOME video from Melissa A. Fabello, writer for Everyday Feminism, is one of my inspirations for this particular call to action.

In this video, Fabello notes that women spend 21 minutes a day body shaming and thinking about dieting. That's two hours a week! 

I encourage you to invest your time and money this year in causes and goals that really matter, like existentially matter. 

3. Participating in the diet industrial complex solidifies structural inequality. 

Fabello talks about this in her video, too. Obsessing about food and spending money on our bodies is one way in which females experience inequality. Make-up is expensive and so are diet pills. Women spend a lot of time and money on their "body projects" as Fabello calls them. That's time and money that could be spent closing the pay gap. 

Also, what lies behind our desire to be thinner? Who are the beautiful people? Many times beautiful people are white and upper middle class. In learning to love all bodies, we can learn to love a more pluralistic society. 

So, unless you'd like to gain weight,waste your time, and contribute to the patriarchy, please don't resolve to lose weight.      

 

Can you blame your parents for your cravings?

 The short answer to this question is YES. 

But.... sometimes it's a good thing. 

One thing I discuss a lot with my clients is cravings. I don’t think cravings are necessarily bad. It’s one way that our body communicates to us, since it doesn't really speak English (or Spanish for that matter).

My nutrition school calls one cause of cravings, "the inside coming out." In other words, our past and our memories can call us to eat certain foods. 

Here's an example from a Disney classic, Ratatouille.

*Spoiler Alert. I'm talking about the end of the movie*

One of my favorite scenes in Ratatouille is when the little mouse triumphs . The food critic gives a positive review because the mouse's traditional peasant dish reminds him of his boyhood. 

(If you want to get really nerdy, this is actually a concept we learn from Marcel Proust known as involuntary memory.)

Food can taste better because it came from home. Or maybe it was forbidden when you were growing up and so it becomes all the more alluring. 

The  holiday season is certainly a time when we call to memory our past and our rituals that we have had in previous years. It's a time of year where we eat certain foods because of the day.

So as you festivate through the Christmahanakwanzika season, pay attention to which foods call your name. Why do you want them? I know I suddenly start hankering for copious amounts of sugar cookies because of happy memories of fun-shaped cookies and frosting. 

There's a  subtle shift to make when we notice these cravings happening. Realize WHY you're craving sweet things. It could be something simple like because you're blood sugar is low but it could also be that you're missing home or someone or a memory.

 Do your best to attend to the REAL motivation behind your craving. If you're looking for love, get a hug from a friend or a kiss from your partner. If you're missing home, call home.

But sometimes, it can work as well to bake those cookies yourself and relive that experience.  

Just remember you don't have to eat all the cookies to experience that memory. 

*** For more information about cravings or if you need help with your holiday cravings, I'm currently taking clients now and throughout the holiday****

Is there such a thing as being too perfect?

I think it's finally time that I came to grips with who I am and reveal it to the world: I am a perfectionist. 

I credit this recent discovery to this awesome book that I've been reading, "Daring Greatly" by Brene Brown. Here is a link here: 

Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

In it, Brown discusses perfectionism as a "vulnerability armory." In other words, by being perfect we avoid pain, shame and blame. She identifies a "shame resilience" technique that many other recovering perfectionists use.  That technique is called, "Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good."

In this post-resolution February, as we all start to find less time to stick to our resolutions, I find that this is a "perfect" time to discuss this topic. Whatever it is you resolved  to do, you likely haven't done it perfectly. And I say this with the utmost love because if you were perfect, you wouldn't be human. 

If you're looking to make some healthy changes to your lifestyle, here are some good ways to shift your thinking: 

1. Some vegetables are better than zero. 

You might think to yourself, "Caesar salad is fatty so I'm not going to order it." If instead, you just get cheese pizza, you're being ridiculous. I know, I know: technically, the government views pizza as a vegetable and you might be getting one serving of fruit in that slice of cheese you just got, but your colon will thank you a lot more for the caesar salad. And if you're anything like me...

2. Some exercise is better than none. 

I've gone through some intense exercise phases. When I was a swimmer, not going to swim practice was, according to my militant swim coaches, basically like a runner staying in bed all day. But, if a healthy lifestyle is your goal, getting outside and going for a walk is better than promising yourself all day that you'll go to Crossfit to burn 1000 calories and never going. 

3. One mistake doesn't make you a failure. Even Peyton Manning can make a mistake on the field. (TOPICAL!) 

Maybe you promised yourself that you'd give up sugar finally this year and you recently ate a cookie (or 2 or 10 or 100). One mistake does not make or break you. Health is on a continuum. It's not black or white. If you're making healthy decisions 99% of the time, the 1% of the time that you're not making the best decision doesn't undo the 99% of the time that you've done well. So just enjoy the cookie. 

So there you have it.  Don't let perfection drive your lifestyle and don't let it stop you from ordering a salad with your burger, talking a walk instead of watching TV, or quitting healthy habits just because you ate a cookie that you weren't planning on eating.

3 Reasons You can Chill the F out about Thanksgiving

I'm pretty sure that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year. It kicks off a good month of relaxation, cookies are plentiful. When I lived in Colorado, it meant the ski season was really getting started.

These days, the public has developed quite the adversary out of this beloved day. Gyms and diet books warn of the dreaded holiday weight gain as if this single month could be the whole reason 2/3 of America is overweight.

It's not. Here's why:

1. Mindful Eating:
For one single day, people take the day off of work to slow down, give thanks, and eat. *Spoiler Alert* Mindful eating is my number one weight management tip. When you pay attention to your hunger,  your fullness, and the taste of the food, you're more likely to feel satisfied. 

2. Home Cooking

Most Americans can't find the time to eat a home cooked meal. The fact is that restaurants and pre-prepared meals contain most of the fat, sugar, and salt associated with the growing rates of heart disease and diabetes. So even if your green bean casserole is loaded with cheese, chances are it's still better for you than whatever it is you shove down your throat during your lack of a lunch break.

3. A reconnection with food
As a self-proclaimed Michael Pollan enthusiast, one of my favorite things about Thanksgiving in the Northeast is that it's made from seasonal and local food. It's all about the harvest. According to what I learned at IIN about macrobiotic theory, eating locally and seasonally also helps to ground you and feel more connected to your environment.

So there you have it. Slow down, cook, and eat that pumpkin pie.  

If you feel guilty afterwards, schedule a consultation with me. It's a Black Friday special. ;)