The Intuitive Eating Roller Coaster

Originally posted December 28, 2011

It was back in August of 2010 that I was first introduced to Intuitive Eating. I borrowed the book Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch from a friend. My friend had changed her life using intuitive eating. She had given up on dieting. She had changed her attitude toward her body. She no longer saw her body as an enemy. She was content, happy, and beautiful. I wanted to be just like her.

When I go back and read the post I wrote about that time I realize now how little I understood intuitive eating. I had it in my mind that it was really simple. All you had to do was listen to your body. Eat when you were hungry. Stop when you were full. Only eat things that made your body feel amazing. Simple.

Except that I've been trying to do it for the past 17 months and am still not really there. I know that if I eat anything white and refined I will get a headache and feel terrible. I know this. I know that my body doesn't like it. And yet there are days where I look at those foods and say to myself, "Yes, it will make me feel sick. Oh well."

I have more of an understanding now though. You see, intuitive eating isn't easy when you've lived a life of denying yourself foods. It isn't easy when you've used food to cover up anything and everything you were feeling emotionally. It isn't easy when you've used food for comfort or rewards. For most of us, we have abused food. Learning to let go of that isn't easy.

It takes time to learn to trust yourself and your body again. I think this was a key understanding that I was missing. I thought that since I had made the decision to never diet again I would be off and running, but it hasn't been that simple. First I have had to really truly convince myself that there are no off limit foods. That process has been interesting. It sometimes takes a very scary turn when I start using it as an excuse to binge. It takes time to learn that balance and to learn trust.

But lately what I am discovering is much more profound. I didn't realize how much food was intwined with every aspect of my life. I have used food to mask emotion, cure boredom, and to bond with friends. I have used food for nearly everything except to nourish my body. I had assumed that when I started listening to my body I would automatically just use food for it's proper use. But it isn't that simple.

You may have noticed my lack of blogging lately. I've been taking the time to sort through things. I've been sorting through the clutter in my home. My poor basement and office were in desperate need of attention. I've taken time to process being a mother of two. That change will be here in just two short months. I've taken the time to enjoy being in the moment now. I've been trying to enjoy every moment of having an only child. I never would have thought the clutter in my home could effect my eating, but it certainly has.

Learning to eat intuitively is a wonderful goal, but what I now understand is that it comes hand in hand with learning to live intuitively. It is difficult to honor our body and mind in one area (like eating) when we are out of order in another area (like in our finances).

Looking back on what I thought about intuitive eating when I first learned the concept I'm glad I thought it would be easy, or I maybe wouldn't have tried it out. But 17 months into this journey I'm glad it hasn't been too easy. I've learned more about myself then I ever would have had it been the "magic bullet" I had imagined.

So if you've thought about trying intuitive eating, or if you are trying it and find yourself on a roller coaster know that this is normal. It's okay. It's all part of the journey. Even though it can be difficult I believe it is worth it. I haven't been this content in my own skin since I was a very young child. And though I think I have a long way to go it's nice to feel liberated.

The Only Skill You Need: Forgiveness

Originally posted October 28, 2011

Are you one of those people who reads a blog about eating healthy and think, "That's easy for you, but for me in my real life that's just not practical?" Because I am. And I write a blog about better health. I hope that doesn't make me lose credibility in your eyes, but the truth is, this doesn't come naturally. I'm not someone who has always hated desserts anyway and wanted to be health (like my sister). No, I love me a big old chocolate bar. Every day if I could. Every meal if I could for that matter. French fries and other deep fried goodness? Why yes, please pass it my way. I love the taste of these foods. I also love eating out. It's so easy. I don't enjoy cooking all that much most of the time. I do enjoy baking desserts and then consuming them. I hate cleaning up after kitchen adventures. I admit to being an emotional eater. I eat when I'm bored too. No, eating a whole foods diet that is mainly homemade was never something I saw myself doing.

Sometimes when I read blogs with people and families who have given up processed food I'm a little down on myself. Why can't I be better?  The truth is I love the way I feel when I'm eating well all the time. I hate the way I feel when I eat processed food. Which is motivating, but then there are days like every day since I got pregnant. Days where you say I-just-need-to-eat-and-it-needs-to-be-fast-and-tasty-freezer-section-here-I-come. Days where you simply don't care. Days where you don't have time to care. Then I read those blogs and I think well all you perfect people leave me alone. Normal people are like me, not you.

But here is what I've learned: Forgiveness is key. Now I've written about this before, but the longer I strive to be healthy, live well, and eat good things the more I believe that the only skill we really need to master in order to move forward is the skill of forgiveness. As usual, let's paint a picture:

So you've decided you want to eat better. You're giving up processed foods. You feel a big difference and you love it. But then you have a bad day and decide that what you need is a day of eating junk. And you go for it. There are a few different things that could happen at this point:

1. You feel horrible that night and beat yourself up about it.
2. You feel fine, but the guilt of eating junk all day is killing you. How could you be so stupid and weak?
3. You feel fine and decide that eating healthy is over rated. Maybe you keep eating horrible for a few weeks and then it catches up with you, but the guilt is too strong. If you couldn't do it right the first time what makes you think you could ever eat a healthy diet?

There are maybe other consequences, but let's just go with this for now, you get the idea right? What I am submitting to you is that all of these things are a recipe for failure. Instead in any of these situations what we need to learn to do is observe how we feel. Realize that we aren't happy when we eat poorly, overeat, or otherwise derail out health. Then we forgive ourselves and move on. Forgive and start fresh. If you can't forgive you can't move on and the truth is, you will never be able to live a healthier lifestyle.

Everyone makes mistakes. I know I do. Dwelling on them or feeling like we can't move on because we've screwed up our "perfect" record is not healthy. It does nothing for us. In fact, perhaps it is time to change the thinking all together. You didn't screw up because you weren't healthy today, no, there are no screw ups. Rather, tomorrow you aren't going to eat junk because you like it better. Beating ourselves up does nothing but hold us back.

So to all those of you who, like me, may never have a perfectly "healthy" diet please know that's okay. What we do most of the time is so much more important than the occasional McDonald's hamburger. Let go of the idea that you've been "bad," and learn to move on to a new day.

When Family Just Doesn't Understand

Originally posted June 27, 2011

Today we are privileged to hear from the talented and wonderful Dr. Ashley Solomon. She is the mastermind behind Nourishing the Soul. I have really enjoyed reading her thoughts and my association with her since starting this blog. Dr. Solomon is a therapist who specializes in treating eating disorders, body image, trauma, and serious mental disorder. And without further ado here are her thoughts for us today. Enjoy!

The daughter lifts her gaze and with eyes swollen from tears looks at her mother, having just revealed her year-long struggle with her eating disorder. The mother, rocked inside, but in a controlled and loving way, wraps her arms around the one who will always be her little girl. She murmurs gently that she will help in any way she can.

Music rises and lights fade. Made-for-television special goes to commercial.

As most of who live in a world outside of one constructed in Hollywood know, sharing our deepest secrets and enlisting the support of others doesn’t always come quite so easy. And when we’re talking about parents… well, things can be downright painful.

It’s often said that first step in recovery is admitting you have a problem. Well, the second step is seeking support outside of yourself. Whether we’re struggling with depression, stress, addiction, a trauma, or eating issues, we need the support of others to help facilitate our journey to a more healthy life. The fact is, not only do we not need to go it alone, but we shouldn’t.

The importance of social support in recovery is well-established both by research and anecdotally. Various studies show that being bolstered through the tough times can speed up recovery from a host of illnesses. In fact, researchers in one study found that patients who had experienced a heart attack who received high levels of support from family and friends had less chest pain, a better quality of life, better mental and physical functioning, and fewer symptoms of depression compared with those who received little support.

When it comes to mental and emotional difficulties, however, garnering support can at times be difficult. Unfortunately, while our culture is moving slowly to a more comprehensive understanding of mental illness, stigma remains (despite the fact that over 44 million people experience a mental disorder each year in the U.S.).

When parents learn that their child – even their adult child – has a problem, they can sometimes react with hostility and defensiveness rather than the compassion that we would hope to see from them. While this can be incredibly painful to experience first-hand, it can sometimes be helpful to put these reactions in context.

For centuries, parents, and especially mothers, have been put at the center of the ring of blame for their child’s maladies. Despite a wealth of evidence indicating that mothers do not cause eating disorders, for example, stereotypes hold fast that leave many mothers feeling that their child’s life-threatening condition was caused by their short-comings. Because this is too difficult – unbearable even – to believe, some parents react with defensiveness and anger. It’s a way of protecting themselves from the enormity of the pain.

Regardless of the reasons, however, it can be devastating to not have one’s family on board when one is ready to tackle the issues and make major life changes. It can be extraordinarily helpful to participate in family therapy with an experienced clinician who, from his or her safe and objective seat, can help creatively bring a family to a shared understanding.

Unfortunately, some families will simply never be able to to be there in the way that we might hope. In those cases, it’s vital that we recruit additional support, while also grieving the fact that we may not have the families we’ve always wanted.

Finding support may mean taking an uncomfortable step and making ourselves vulnerable to allowing others in. It may also mean being open to support from unexpected places, such as coworkers, members of your spiritual community, neighbors, and even online. It may involve finding a mentor. It’s important to remember that just because we may not be blessed with families who understand us doesn’t mean that we are left to be misunderstood.

The ins and outs

Originally posted June 23, 2011

Did you know that before I was about 13 I had never heard of the "internet." And I wasn't an anomaly, you see, there was no internet. I have had this great tool only a little over half my life. There was a time when I even hand-wrote papers for school. Granted I was in elementary so how hard could the papers be, but friends, I didn't learn to type until I hit the 7th grade. I had no need for it before that.

In the last week my internet has been out twice for nearly a day each time. The first time I was ready to throw my computer out the window I was so frustrated. I can't get on the internet? How is this possible? What am I going to do? Okay, maybe not throw out the computer, but I was frustrated.

Last night and this morning it was out again. What's a gal to do when she happens to have insomnia one night? No internet. I suppose I could have worked on my brochures for the yoga business, but it was 3 in the morning. I was more in the mood for writing a blog post or aimlessly wandering around looking for blogs I could get into. Ya know?

Ah how quickly we become dependent on things that we used to do just fine without. Blows my mind a little. It's kind of like how we start to use food or other such things as coping mechanisms. Which is something we never needed to do when we were young. Or maybe how we suddenly feel we must have make-up on in order to be seen by anyone. There was a time in each of our lives when we could function without those crutches. I think we often forget that we were born with all the tools we need to succeed and live a happy, healthy life.

Food for thought. Now I think I'll go get out the kiddie pool. It's way too hot to be in my house right now. And it's certainly too hot to be outside dry. Time to wet us all down. Do you remember when we were complaining about how cool it was? Yeah, well, it got hot. Whew.

LITM's Evolution

Originally posted June 10, 2011

My long time readers already know this story pretty well. But I thought it might be fun to have it all down in one concise place. Plus there are a lot of new readers that may be interested to know how it all began.

 As a young girl I struggled with low self-esteem. As a teenager my obsession with perfection and my low self-esteem manifested itself as an unhealthy relationship with food. All of this was done behind the backs of people I cared about. I didn't want my parents and friends to realize just how much I was skipping meals. When I went away to college I became obsessed with losing weight. I would go for long stretches of time with only a bowl of cereal. I was so proud of what I saw as an ability to never eat. When I would eat with friends or roommates I would overeat to discomfort and then make myself to penance on the treadmill and go extra long before my next meal. (Read the whole story.)

I was always very concerned that I was too big. I felt like my slim figure was simply not slim enough. On the day of my wedding I was so upset that I wasn't smaller. In my mind my dress was two sizes too big for a new bride. So, shortly after my wedding I started experimenting with diet pills, laxatives, and purging (again). When my husband asked about my loss in appetite I confessed and vowed to work on it. Up until this point I hadn't really thought that I had a problem. In my mind everyone hated their bodies. I was just being proactive about changing it.

When I look back I realize how skewed my thinking was. Even when I had lost a lot of weight and was at my smallest I despised my body. I refused to get help. I told my husband we could do it together. The real truth was that I felt like I was too big to go get help (I was at a very healthy weight). I thought no one would take me seriously.

 Fast forward a few years. During those few years I went on every fad diet I could. I developed chronic pain and fatigue. My binge eating and overeating started to become a problem. And I was always unhappy with my appearance.

Then one day this glorious thing happened. I found out I was pregnant. Which was a miracle (and a story unto itself). And that's when I decided things needed to change. It is common knowledge that children watch their parents and learn by example. Not in all areas. There is certainly a large amount of individuality among children. But parents do influence their children. Before I even met my son I knew he was wonderful and beautiful just as he was. I knew that he didn't need to change the precious body he'd be given. And I knew I could tell him, and my other children down the road, he didn't need to change. But I also knew that if I was obsessing about my own body my children would pick up on that much quicker than on the lip service.

Cormac was born and I quickly learned I was way in over my head. He was a very demanding baby. Which under ideal circumstances would have been fine. But you see, we moved when Cormac was only one week old. We moved into a fixer upper. Well, let's be honest, the place was awful. No one had lived in it for a while and the ones who had lived in it before were struggling to take care of it. It was scary.

Every surface needed scrubbed (4 boxes of S.O.S. pads just on the kitchen floor). All the walls needed patched, textured, and painted. The bathroom had to be ripped out all the way to the floor boards and started over. The kitchen was foul. We had to re-finish the cabinets in order to get rid of the grease. And of course we were trying to unpack as well. All with a baby who just wanted to be held every second of the day. There were times I'd strap him to my body and start painting just to get it done.

I was so overwhelmed by the demands on my time. I was so sleep deprived getting up every 2 hours to feed Cormac for the first few months. I was so stressed. And so I turned to food. Sugar, pasta, simple carbs, anything that was a quick pick-me-up and I ate too much of all of it. The weight I'd started to lose after Cormac was here started to come back on with a vengeance.

It was about this time that I started Looking in the Mirror. I wanted to chronicle my efforts to lose weight and figure out the root of my pain and fatigue; as well as a way to better cope or even eliminate those factors. But I also wanted to talk about learning to accept your body no matter the size. Positive change does not happen as a result of negative thinking. And I have changed. Over the span of just this last year I have dramtically changed my opinion on dieting, giving it up altogether. I finally realized (sometime at the end of last year although it took me until the beginning of this year to act on it), that my disordered eating had never gone away and I needed help. I have been learning to be at peace with food, my body, and my situation even when it isn't perfect.

 And through it all I've written post after post. What started as my very personal journey has evolved into an effort to share this hope with others out there. I'm still on my journey. It's still personal, but it has grown into a group movement. And for that I'm eternally grateful to all of you.

P.S. Don't forget to enter the giveaway.

Stop overeating and reconnect to your body

Image Source

One of my major downfalls in the past has been overeating. It was not uncommon for me to be so uncomfortable that I would want to just curl up. Miserable.

Learning to stop overeating has been hard for me, to be perfectly honest. But it has been very worth it. I'm not perfect yet (this weekend out at my in-laws can attest to that fact), but on the whole I've been better.

So I have put together 10 tips that have helped me. I generally shy away from making lists of behaviors because everyone is individual and needs to find what works best for them. However, in order to find out what works well you need to know what to try. Most of these are not new or ground breaking, but they are working for me and maybe they can help you too.

So without further ado, here are Melanee's 10 insights into stopping the overeating (in no particular order):

1. Eat often. I used to skip breakfast. By early afternoon I was so hungry I couldn't stand it. So I started eating breakfast, but then I'd skip lunch and be ravenous by dinner. Having a little one helps. I try to have a snack any time he does. You don't have to eat a lot, but just keeping yourself from getting too empty makes a big difference.

2. Have a stash. When Cormac was about 4 months old we went to visit Ammon's sister's family. I was nursing at the time. I knew his sister, but not well. During mealtimes I would catch myself eating insane amounts of food because I was worried I would get hungry before the next meal and not produce enough for my baby. I wasn't totally comfortable asking for snacks (I'm shy like that), so I overate. Since then I've had a rule to have a stash when I go places so I don't feel like a crazed animal. I don't want to eat like that, it's rude and unhealthy. I find having a granola bar or a stash of nuts in my purse during any given day is a good practice. Just plan ahead.

3. Eat mindfully. It was a rare thing when I would eat without distractions. Often I was reading or watching something while I ate. I still like to do this, but I'm learning to stop in order to listen to my body. If I'm distracted with something else I don't know when to stop eating.

4. Slow down. Growing up it was always the family joke (more of a reality) that my mom would spend all day slaving over the most amazing Thanksgiving dinner and we would be done eating in 15 minutes flat. By the time my brain figured out what was happening it was too late. I was over full.

5. Small portions. I think this one complements number 4 nicely. When I fill my plate with just a small amount of everything I am able to enjoy what I like and then pick seconds of that thing. While picking seconds I have time to assess just how hungry I still am. This has also helped me to learn about how much food I truly need. It obviously varies from day to day, but having a rough idea is nice.

6. Save it for later/prioritize. I read recently that those of us who feel like we have to finish our plates or else it is going to go to waste need to realize that it is going to waste either way. If we are full our body has what it needs. Any extra is waste. Leftovers are magical. I used to despise them, now I purposely cook to have them. Also, when I sit down to a meal I look to see what will save well and what won't. I eat the item that won't be great leftover first then fill in the gaps with the other foods until I'm full. The next day I have a wonderful meal waiting for me.

7. Observe. You need to take time to observe how you feel during your eating. No judgements here. If you mess up and overeat one day forgive yourself and move on. It's no big deal. Just keep paying attention and practicing and you'll get it down.

8. Stop emotional eating. This one is very tricky for me. When I find myself mindlessly wandering to the kitchen I have been learning to stop to see what it is I really need/want. If I find myself just eating something. . . anything, I know that there is something else a foot. Time to take a step back and address those other things, even when it's hard.

9. Savor. Take time to taste your food. Rejoice in the various flavors and textures. Eat the rainbow. Involve all of your senses. It makes meal time much more rewarding and satisfying.

10. Eat what you want. You are much more likely to stop after you've had enough if you've eaten exactly what you want. If you eat something else you won't be satisfied and you'll keep grazing the kitchen searching for that satisfied feeling. Rather than do that, throw out your rules and eat exactly what you want and what makes you feel good. Practice being an intuitive eater.

Pick and choose which of these appeals to you. Everyone is different. Everyone is unique. And everyone has a special combination that works just right for them. Take the time to find yours. Your body is worth it.