A weekly blog about how to quit dieting for good using an intuitive eating and health at every size approach.
This week, I've got no new stories to share on the blog.
Part of taking care of yourself sometimes is doing nothing.
And, you know what, that's okay.
If you're bored, check out my elaborate series of posts about intuitive eating here.
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Have an awesome weekend!
The 10th and final principle of the 10 Principles of Intuitive Eating is, "Honor Your Health---with Gentle Nutrition."
Notice that this is not the first principle. It's the last. When you've completed all 9 of the other principles, that's when you're ready to start paying attention to nutrition.
Most people get it backwards. We focus first on what we think we should be eating or not be eating and we start down the rabbit hole. We eat our "healthy snack" at a designated snack time when we're not hungry. We wait until our designated "lunch" time to eat an totally unfulfilling vinegar salad that's burning our lips and leaving us starving. Then, we go to the bathroom to berate ourselves for getting something "calorie dense" in our salads. And suddenly, you hate the pants you bought two days ago because you look fat or something and you need to wash your hair again tonight, probably because of that "calorie dense" item in your vinegar salad. And, then maybe, you go home from work, skip your workout and eat ice cream all night, vowing to start the Paleo diet and attend two crossfit classes next week.
But... if you've been reading this blog you know that you never have to diet again. You can eat when you're hungry, not eat when you're full. You're cool with getting "calorie dense" options in your salad and even, dare I say, creamy dressing. You've made peace with food and you don't care what the food police have to say. You stopped wearing those pants that are too small for you because you respect your body the way it is now. You had a lovely walk this morning after your chocolate croissant because it helps you manage your stress at your job which is the real reason you ate ice cream and didn't like your hair in the afternoon. You have also invested in a hair cut you like instead of crossfit classes because you realized you hated going to that anyway.
But.. maybe this is just my story... err.. I mean my "friend's" story?
The critical switch between chronically dieting and intuitive eating is SELF LOVE.
When you stop tuning out of your body like its the Taylor Swift song you've been listening on repeat for too long, you can start to actually take care of yourself. And that's the coaching process for Phenomenal Jane. I'll take you on the journey from vinegar salads to the life you love.
Because it's not about hating how you look or berating yourself for decisions you've made around food.
It's about, well, shaking it off.
Exercise. Well, that's a loaded word.
The 9th Principle of Intuitive Eating is "Exercise--Feel the Difference."
At the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, we were instructed to try "movement" instead when talking to clients because people have a lot of thoughts and feelings about exercise. Many people are perfectionists about it.
Before I changed my relationship with exercise, here's something I might've said:
"Well, I was supposed to get up at 5 am starting on Monday but then I didn't. Now, to make up for it, I have to run at least 40 minutes on Friday and then next week do Jillian Michaels 2x/wk and my diet really needs to be on point. Oh and also, I should probably swim after running because I'm planning on eating pasta for dinner on Thursday."
I used to see intense exercise as a prerequisite for adequacy in my own life. I needed to exercise exorbitantly to feel good about myself. When I couldn't meet this unrealistic requirement, I use to amp up the quantity of exercise as a penance for my "bad behavior" around food and exercise. Eventually I worked myself up into such a tizzy, that exercise started to feel like a term paper that I procrastinated all semester on.
Changing your relationship with food means also changing your relationship to exercise.
When shows like NBC's Biggest Loser exist, many Americans tend to believe that exercise is synonymous with weight loss. This idea is a whole other blog post. Exercise does not equal weight loss.
The simple way to explain this whole idea is through my own story about exercise. I've been through enough ups and downs with exercise that I know this:
When you hate your body, it's hard to exercise. When you're exercising to take care of yourself, exercise feels easy.
Exercise is GOOD for you and it can be an enormous part of your self-care routine. Exercise can also HURT you. It can mess up your hormones, joints, tendons, and muscles if you overdo it.
Exercise has felt very difficult for me when I'm motivated from a place of self-destruction. If I'm exercising because I'm trying to achieve some ideal weight or I'm working out for a "bikini body," it just doesn't happen. Sometimes, even unrelated to body image, I would feel like I "should" work out because I ate too much or I needed to achieve some kind of external validation. This immediately took all the joy out of it for me.
Exercise needs to be a joyful and immediately gratifying experience in order for you to want to do it. That's just science or human nature or whatever.
When I've been in "good shape" or exercising regularly, here are some reasons why:
I'm sure you savvy individuals reading this blog post know that exercise is good for you.
So, here's the action item for this week:
In the comments on this blog post, tell me: What motivates you to get "moving?" When you've been consistently active, what do you notice about yourself?
I'll say it. Whoever is running the Weight Watchers ad campaign right now is hitting the nail on the head of our insecurities around food. At the end of 2014, Weight Watchers came out with this commercial.
(Surely, there are problems with the portrayal of people in this commercial but I'll let you read this article by binge eating disorder specialist, Jennie Kramer, for that).
In the commercial, to the tune of If You're Happy and You Know it, they sing if you're sad, bored, lonely, or stressed, you might turn to food for comfort. Not only did this resonate with me because I teach kids and babies but also because it's something that comes up often in my one-on-one client sessions. In fact, it's even come up in my blog posts before.
The 7th principle of Intuitive eating is, "honor your feelings without using food." When you start to eat when you're hungry and stop when you're full, you might start to notice the times you would eat despite not being hungry.
WHY????!!!!
Before you start beating yourself up over it, I want you to recognize:
There is NOTHING wrong with you.
In fact, there might be something deeply right. We eat to celebrate, to distract, to numb, and to comfort. (We eat for pleasure too).
For anybody who regularly craves sweets, sugar, or carbohydrates, there's actually a SCIENTIFIC reason for that. Check out this quote from a scientific study:
"Serotonin-releasing brain neurons are unique in that the amount of neurotransmitter they release is normally controlled by food intake: Carbohydrate consumption--acting via insulin secretion and the "plasma tryptophan ratio"--increases serotonin release....[The] tendency to use certain foods as though they were drugs is a frequent cause of weight gain, and can also be seen in patients who become fat when exposed to stress, or in women with premenstrual syndrome, or in patients with "winter depression," or in people who are attempting to give up smoking. (Nicotine, like dietary carbohydrates, increases brain serotonin secretion" (Wurtman & Wurtman, 1995).
In laymen's terms, carbohydrates make it easier to create serotonin in your brain. Serotonin makes you feel good. SSRI inhibitors, or drugs that people often take for depression, help prevent serotonin re-uptake so you have more of it. People who are experiencing stress, seasonal affective disorder, or even PMS, are likely to reach for food that helps to manage the low "feel-good" neurotransmitters in our brains.
Turns out this is also true when it comes to dopamine levels and protein. A craving for a burger might signal an overworked nervous system or that your desk job is too damn boring.
So, maybe if you're sad, you're using those cookies to self-medicate.
Good for you. You're taking care of yourself. But, they may not work as well as pharmaceutical drugs and they certainly don't last as long. Worse than that, you're treating a symptom of the problem, not the cause.
I like to tell my own story about this for my clients:
I used to have this job that was pretty physically demanding but not very intellectually demanding. Most importantly, it felt like a dead end. I was going nowhere. I was depressed but I didn't have the insight at the time to recognize all those feelings.
After my late night shifts, I would come home and eat A LOT of cereal.
Like, bowl after bowl of cereal until I was physically uncomfortable from my fullness. I also used to feel really guilty about every bowl and I think I got a little high from "being bad."Once I quit that job and moved on to more exciting things, a funny thing happened: I stopped eating cereal. I stopped craving cereal. I don't even like it. I almost never eat it now.
So, here's the solution:
We need to identify the root cause of why we're eating emotionally.
What are our emotions????
Lonely? Bored? Try hanging out with your friends or doing something exciting like skiing or snowboarding. Or ski or snowboard with your friends.
In fact, I really love this article from the Huffington Post. It has a super easy way to identify the neurotransmitter you're missing when you're feeling a certain feeling. I highly recommend going there to see what alternate activity you could engage in to re-balance your brain. The bottom line: dopamine=bored, serotonin=sad, oxytocin=lonely, and endorphins=anxious. You get dopamine from accomplishing goals, serotonin from feeling significant, oxytocin from cuddling, and endorphins from exercise and laughing.
I spoke to fellow health coach Kylie Reiffert, MS in nutrition and Nutrition Therapy Provider, to help me untangle some of the scientific nuances of this phenomenon with food. While she recommends some healthy protein and fat along with magnesium supplements to help curb cravings for carbs, she notes that when we take different actions, like those listed above, to manage those chemical imbalances, "the concentrations are different because it's hard to measure the serum level increases, but [it works] nonetheless."
So there you have it. You need a hug, not a Hershey's Kiss. Still, don't blame yourself for buying the chocolate.
Happy Valentine's Day!
**If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health issues, please seek the advice of a professional. You don't have to do this by yourself.**
I know what you're thinking right now.
What fullness? I don't ever feel full. If you've been on diets for a long time, I believe you.
You've programmed yourself to "feel satisfied" when you've eaten 300 calories or a banana and 1 tbsp of peanut butter. Cantaloupe? Yes I can.... feel full on it (that link is for any Brooklyn 99 fans).
But, when it's time to cheat, you are straight up plowing past "full" all way to stuffed like a Thanksgiving turkey.
I could get all Rousseau on you about this but, effectively, modern society encourages us to stray from our natural inclinations. Living in NYC, I know this all too well. We are a city that never sleeps even though, biologically, we need to sleep to survive.
Add in "Clean Plate" moralism, a compulsive need to finish everything on your plate, and you've got the reason why we never feel full. Here's the most important component of intuitive eating:
LISTEN TO YOUR BODY!
The 10 principles of intuitive eating are written in a specific order for a reason. You have to follow everything up to this point to be able to honor your fullness.
You have to give yourself "unconditional permission to eat." You have to be done with dieting. You have to eat when you're hungry. You have to legalize all foods and challenge any rules, guilt or shame you have around food.
Here's the action item this week:
Become conscious again.
Pay attention to your body and cravings. Do a yoga class or meditation. Do something that helps you bring awareness back to your body.
Take a break from your TPS reports, email, Facebook or Netflix binge and sit your ass down at your table and eat.
Give yourself permission to just feel whatever you're going to feel when you're full. Maybe you will keep eating and get REALLY full.
Whatever you do is fine. Remember this is not a "hunger and fullness diet."
Just listen to your body. See if you can hear your body say, "Hey dude. I'm full."
Then maybe, just maybe, the dude abides.
