Tag Archive for: intuitive eating

3 Strategies to Help You Nourish Your Body (While Eating Intuitively)

Are you finding it challenging to nourish yourself well these days? The pandemic is certainly bringing up food challenges for people and the result is a lack of structured meals and haphazard eating.

Now that you are home all the time, you might be waking up later, or earlier, finding yourself skipping meals, or have a decreased appetite. Now more than ever, it’s important to nourish your body and protect your immune system with nourishing foods.

3 Strategies to Help You Nourish Your Body During the Pandemic

  1. Plan ahead and Shop Wisely

With social distancing as the new normal, we know it’s best to stay home and go outside as little as possible. So figure out in advance what meals you would like to cook for the week ahead. Look up new recipes online or flip through your favorite cookbooks- like mine😊, Enjoying Food Peace: Recipes and Intuitive Eating Wisdom to Nourish Your Body and Mind, available on Amazon.

Once you have your menu, create a shopping list of all the ingredients you will need so you can get everything you need during one trip. And, don’t forget to take advantage of online grocery shopping!

  1. Prep your meals in advance

If you are working from home, it involves a lot of time and dedication, which makes cooking and eating balanced meals a challenge. Make one day, such as Saturday or Sunday, the day you cook all your meals for the week so you can ensure you will be nourishing your body consistently. Package the meals up in small sectioned containers, label them and freeze!

  1. Create a flexible eating schedule

Being stuck at home all day may feel like there is a lack of structure to your day. Each day seems to blend into the next and your appetite might be fluctuating. Consider setting up an eating schedule that is flexible, so you can make sure your body is getting the nutrition it needs while honoring your inner hunger and satiety signals. Yes, you can still eat intuitively when you have structure in place. The key is to make it flexible, and not rigid (which is what dieting is!)

Please know that it’s totally understandable if you are struggling with food and your eating right now. I hope these strategies can help you.

If there is anything you’d like to share with me, or if I can support you in any way, just click HERE to contact me!

Keep Your Eye Out For…

A brand-new training to help you end emotional eating.

I recently sent out a survey about your biggest food and eating challenges. If you haven’t yet completed the survey, you can do so here for one more day, until April 30, 2020! I’ll be sharing the results of a survey along with info on a new free training, so check back here in a few days so you don’t miss it!

How I’m Dealing with COVID-19 (and Strategies for You)

I pride myself on being open and transparent with my clients and online community. That’s why I’ve decided to share in this week’s blog how I’ve personally been dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s been tough! The first 5 weeks of the “stay at home” order was really hard for me. But I’m happy to share that I’m feeling much better this week and back to myself.

My 3 biggest stressors were as follows:

1. Worry about the health and safety of my parents: My parents are in Florida and were not able to come home to New York at the beginning of April as was planned. As you can imagine, I didn’t want them to leave their apartment. “Stay put” I told them more than once. They probably got sick of hearing it. But how were they going to get food and groceries was a thought that kept swirling around in my mind. How can I keep them safe and well from so far away?

2. Worry about my husband and kids: At first, my husband still went into the city to go to work. He would travel the Long Island Rail Road every day to and from work. While he said the trains were getting emptier and emptier, it didn’t make me feel any less worried that maybe he’d be exposed to the virus. Thankfully, his firm eventually moved to working virtually, but until they did, I was a bundle of nerves.

My two daughters live at home so I was relieved when their schools decided to go virtual! But my two sons and grandchildren live in New Jersey. I haven’t seen them now in a while and I worry about their health and safety. We do Zoom every now and then and that’s lovely. But it’s not the same as an in-person hug.

3. Worry about my business: I have both an online and offline business and private practice. My online business hasn’t changed much as my clients are used to seeing me virtually. But what about all the clients and patients that would walk through the door of my office here in Long Island. Many of them were comfortable moving to virtual sessions, so no problem there. But there were several patients who either don’t have a computer, weren’t comfortable with the tech or who were just not in the right head space to figure it out.

I know I am not alone in feeling the stress and worry about the health of my family and the future of my business. There are many businesses that unfortunately will not recover. My heart goes out to them, but I believe people are resilient and we will all figure it out!

The Impact of the Stress on My Body and Mind

All this worry impacted me in many ways:

Poor Sleep: I started not sleeping well. It would take a while until I fell asleep, then if I woke up in the night to use the restroom (which I did!), I could not fall back to sleep. My brain was very busy worrying and trying to figure out how to keep my parents and my family safe and healthy.

Less Energy: I found myself dragging and very lethargic. A large part was due to not getting enough sleep. And when I did sleep, it was not a good quality sleep. And, feelings of worry can physically drain the body, and I felt it on many levels.

More Emotional: I cried almost daily. Most of the time, it was when I was alone and not busy which gave me time to think (which wasn’t always so good). And sometimes it was when I was trying to fall asleep and my mind went to my parents and I started praying for them. By the way, it’s okay to cry. I suggest it to my clients all the time. Once you have a good cry, you’ll feel better (I know I do!)

What About Food?

I’ve been making a concerted effort during this time to continue to eat and nourish (and hydrate) my body throughout the day. I have been using the strategies that I teach my clients, so I don’t end up in the peanut butter jar. I’m not “perfect”, and that’s okay because there is no perfection when it comes to food and eating (that’s dieting – a topic for another time).

For many people who have struggled with their relationship with food, this pandemic is not helping. I have been hearing this from clients and others who’ve reached out to me for help. They find themselves eating to soothe the worry, having no structure to meals now that they are home and not working (or not working a full schedule), and late-night snacking is becoming a problem again.

What About You?

I wonder if you’re experiencing the same. Please take a moment and complete this 2-question survey. I am working on creating a free workshop for you so I can offer you more support during this difficult time.

Strategies in Managing the Stress (that I used and that will help you too)

1. Stop watching the news. At the beginning, you couldn’t peel me away from the T.V. But then I realized that watching the death toll climb was causing me more stress and I decided to cut back on the news watching. It helped a great deal!

2. Have a flexible but structured meal schedule. It’s so important to be sure you are eating and not skipping meals. When you are stressed, your hunger signals are blunted and it’s harder to rely on them. Now that my husband is home, we eat all three meals together. It started out feeling weird, after all, I thought that only happens in retirement (and we are far from that!). But it’s actually nice taking time in the morning, mid-day and then after our workday to sit together and chat.

If you live alone, that’s okay. You are your best company. Put on some soft music, set the table with a nice placemat and dishes, and enjoy your meals!

3. Take time to mediate and breath: I have found deep breathing to be one of the best strategies to calm me down. Whenever I feel myself getting worked up, I take a moment and breathe. Within minutes, I am feeling better. There are many meditation apps that you can download to your phone that are also very helpful. The two that I use are Calm and Headspace. Check them out.

4. Seek support and community: There’s no shame in asking for help as you navigate this unprecedented time! Whether it be a confidant, a therapist, your partner or an online support group, it’s important to speak about your feelings. I’m grateful for my husband, good friends and my colleagues who support me while I support them at the same time.  

Reach Out

Please know that I am here for you if you want to talk. I am offering virtual mini weekly sessions and a space for you to vent, work through a challenge and navigate the changes in your relationship with food that have surfaced during the pandemic.

Just email me at Bonnie@DietFreeRadiantMe.com to learn more.

Reminder: Please Take the Survey

Click here to answer 2 questions about your Food Challenges During COVID-19.

Thank you!

Enjoying Passover and Easter as an Intuitive Eater

This blog is sponsored by my book: Passover the Healthy Way: Light, Tasty and Easy Recipes Your Whole Family Will Enjoy, available on Amazon.

With Passover starting this evening and Easter arriving on Sunday, you might be wondering how you can continue your intuitive eating practice during the holidays (especially if you are new to this). I know it can be overwhelming. There’s eight days of Passover meals, a hearty Easter dinner and lots of sweets around the house.

A good place to start is to remember that you were born an intuitive eater. While it may have been buried under years of dieting, the work you’ve done thus far has brought that ability closer to the surface.

Below is a review of the Intuitive Eating principles and some tips to enjoy the holidays as an intuitive eater.

Principle #1: Reject the Diet Mentality

The first step to enjoying Passover or Easter as an intuitive eater is reject the diet mentality!

What is the “diet mentality”?

It’s when you have a list of food rules to guide your eating; you label foods as “good” and “bad, “legal” and “illegal”, “can have” and “can’t have”. It’s when you elevate certain foods above the others, and then when you “fall off track”, promise yourself to start again tomorrow.

As you are preparing for the holiday this year, let’s work on throwing away all of the food rules around the holiday foods because you don’t need them. The only things you need are your body, heart, and the food in front of you.

With practice you will begin to see food as food, rather than with the labels “good” or “bad”

Passover and Easter are enjoyable times of celebration and being with family, not a time of restriction. It’s about enjoying yummy foods and recipes handed down from generation to generation.

Listen to what your body is telling you and go from there.

What ONE step will you take to reject the diet mentality during Passover and Easter? Comment below!

Principle #2: Honor Your Hunger

When you sit down to eat during Passover and Easter, breathe for a moment to take stock.

Are you feeling hungry? How hungry are you? What does your body need? How will you nourish yourself?

These are some of many questions you can ask yourself to learn about your body and what foods will make you feel like your brightest self.

This is where you can really begin your journey to restore trust in the relationship between your body and food and begin to reacquaint yourself with the various signals of hunger.

Remember to not let yourself get too hungry! When primal hunger hits, it’s difficult to stop eating from a place of comfortable fullness (more on fullness later in this blog).

In what ways can you “honor your hunger” this Passover or Easter?

Principle #3: Make Peace with Food

Give yourself the unconditional permission to eat the food you love. When you restrict food, it leads to deprivation which leads to overeating and feelings of guilt when you indulge against your “food rules.”

When all food on the table is “emotionally equal”, you’ll be able to eat what you want to satisfy your hunger and to stop when you’re comfortably full. When you elevate certain foods, they are highly charged, and you battle with it.

So this Passover or Easter, call a truce in the war on food and enjoy!

What food(s) do you feel you need to make peace with? Comment below.

Principle #4: Challenge the Food Police

Don’t let diet culture control tell you how to eat this Passover and Easter…or ever for that matter!

Food isn’t “good” or “bad.” Food is food!

The purpose of eating is to nourish your body and enjoy the experience.

I recognize that the food police rules are screaming in your head “don’t eat this, don’t eat that”, “you can only have one of those” etc.

You can be louder than the food police. Challenge those voices that play in your head and bring up your ally voices, those kind, nurturing voice that sounds like your grandma, “it’s going to be okay, you’ve got this”.

Reach out to me if you need help challenging the food police as we head into the holiday!

Principle #5: Respect Your Fullness

Your body was created with built-in signals that work to tell you when you are hungry and when you are satisfied enough to stop eating. Whether you realize it or not, you were born an intuitive eater!

However, when you’ve been dieting for a while, you stop listening to those signals and they no longer guide you to begin eating or to stop eating. Most likely you finish eating when the plate is empty (“clean the plate club” anyone). Learning to arrive at the table in a gentle hungry state will enable to you stay tuned in to know when you’re comfortably full.

There are a lot of meals over the 8 days of Passover. Let’s try to pause mid-meal and pay attention to whether you are getting satiated. This is not a commitment to no longer eating the meal, it’s just a check in point to stay in conscious eating mode, versus autopilot mode.

Let me know how this works out for you! Comment below!

Principle #6: Discover the Satisfaction Factor

Do you enjoy your meals? Do you even know what foods you really like and want to eat? I’ve heard from many clients who’ve been dieting for years (and even decades) that they just don’t know what they like anymore.

Well, it’s time to discover your true food preferences. What tastes do you like? Textures? Temperature of food?

Explore these qualities of food over the next few weeks so you can reacquaint yourself with what gives you the most pleasure.

During Passover and Easter this year, really be with your food. Take a moment before the meal to breathe, put your phone away, and focus on the food in front of you. Try to eat slowly, putting your fork down in between bites so you can truly savor what is in your mouth. It will make the eating experience truly satisfying.

What’s your favorite Passover or Easter food? Comment below!

Principle #7: Cope with Your Emotions without Food

The holidays can stir up a lot of different emotions. From happiness to sadness, from excitement to anxiety; it can be a confusing time.

You may feel pressured to turn to food to deal with the stress of hosting or attending Passover Seder or Easter dinner with certain family members.

One of the intuitive eating principles is to cope with emotions without turning to food…rather use kindness! This means experiencing what you are feeling and accepting those feelings without judgement.

And, doing things for yourself in that moment that serves you best!

What ways can you be kind to yourself during moments of difficult emotions? Comment below!

Principle #8: Respect Your Body

It can be hard to love your body in today’s world. Everywhere you look you see images of skinny women and buff men.

It’s important to keep in mind that what you see on social media is usually not real – these are photoshopped images. People come in all different shapes and sizes; all of them are beautiful.

You may struggle with loving your body, I get it! Instead, work to reach a place where you can respect your body and accept yourself with neutrality and kindness.

I’m currently working with women in my The Body Image Healing Program™. If you’re interested in getting support on your body image healing journey, fill out this interest form, and I’ll be in touch.

Principle #9: Exercise – Feel the Difference

Our bodies were made to move!

Movement is important for a happy and healthy body that’s strong.

You don’t need to hit the gym 5 times a week or exercise until it hurts. Instead, consider what feels gentle to your body and what brings you joy!

That could be taking a walk around the block or doing some yoga moves in your living room.

Feel the difference when you’re moving. How does it impact your stress levels, your sleeping patterns, and your overall feeling of empowerment? Comment below!

Principle #10: Honor Your Health with Gentle Nutrition

Now that we’ve discussed the other nine principles of intuitive eating, it’s time to address the tenth: Honor Your Health with Gentle Nutrition

Eating well is not about perfection! “In matters of taste, consider nutrition, and in matters of nutrition, consider taste”.

That pretty much sums it up. Choose foods that you enjoy and taste great, and that also make you feel good. And be flexible! Your body has all the wisdom, now it’s time to trust it!

Best wishes for a happy and healthy Passover and Easter.

Is Weight a Symbol of Something Deeper?

Isabel walked into my office having made the decision to make changes in her eating behaviors. She recently went to the doctor for her annual exam and her doctor put the scare of life into her. Her diabetes was “out of control”, her blood pressure was elevated, and she was just diagnosed with gastroparesis (delayed gastric emptying, a complication of uncontrolled diabetes). She was distraught but committed. The doctor sent Isabel on her way with a prescription to lose weight.

This isn’t unusual. Most doctors will prescribe weight loss to lower blood glucose, cholesterol levels and blood pressure. And while you may see a reduction in these values if you lose weight, the problem is that weight loss is not a behavior you can just tell someone to do. If you’ve been a dieter, you know what I mean.

Is Weight Loss Through Dieting Sustainable?

Anyone can lose weight when they “follow” a diet. But the question is – can you sustain that way of eating for a lifetime?

Research shows us the answer is NO. About 95-98% of people who lose weight on a diet regain that weight and up to two-thirds gain back even more.

You may be thinking “Bonnie, I know someone who lost weight and kept it off”. I bet you do. But the 3-5% that do keep it off most often do so with disordered eating behaviors such as tracking their foods, counting points, eliminating certain foods, not allowing themselves full pleasure in eating what they want and spending a LOT of time in the gym (to name a few). Most people really cannot live a “normal” life of “normal” eating and “normal exercising” if they are trying to maintain a weight loss achieved through dieting.

When I explained to Isabel that we will not be focusing on weight loss but instead, we will focus on habits and behaviors that will enable her body to better use the insulin she is producing and ultimately help her improve her health (which SHE really wanted to do), including learning how to minimize the symptoms of gastroparesis, she was relieved. And then, she started to cry!

Using Weight as a Cover Up

All is not always how it looks. Many times, when working with a client on improving their relationship with food, it becomes apparent that there’s a reason why they’ve struggled so long. With the realization that the odds are low that they can lose weight and keep it off, they self-sabotage their own efforts in order to keep the weight on.

Why you might ask?

Having “failed” so many times, they are embarrassed to continue to yo-yo diet. So, they cover up the shame and embarrassment by making jokes about themselves and allow others to joke about them too.

This is what happened to Isabel. She was known in her group of friends as the “fat funny one” and she took on this persona, making jokes at her own expense, when deep down she was hurting terribly.

Isabel never told anyone this, until she broke down and cried in the safe space of my office.

Weight-Neutral Nutrition Therapy: A Focus on Behaviors, Not Weight

A weight-neutral approach to nutrition therapy, including diabetes, blood pressure, and cholesterol management focuses on the habits and behaviors you can change which ultimately lead to improved health, regardless of body weight. These behaviors include balanced eating, joyful movement, stress management, improving sleep, taking medications as prescribed and engaging in mindful eating behaviors.

This approach takes the emphasis off weight and brings a sense of relief to those who’ve tried to diet to lose weight as the treatment prescribed for health. It promotes positive behavioral change without the shame and guilt often felt and it empowers them to continue along the path of healthy living.

Is Losing Weight “Bad”?

Let me assure you that I am not against weight loss. I want to make this perfectly clear. What I am against is intentionally pursuing weight loss in an effort to shrink your body to meet the warped societal standards of the “thin ideal”, and as the treatment of medical conditions.

If in the process of learning about your disease state and making sustainable habit and behavior changes (including managing your stress better and having better sleep), you lose weight, then that means it’s what your body needed to do to return to it’s natural healthy weight. And in this case, I DO believe that this will be sustainable.

Remember, weight loss is not a behavior. It is an outcome of habit and behavior change.

Take Action

If you are ready to improve your health without a focus on weight loss, reach out to me here!

 

 

 

 

Intuitive Eating and National Nutrition Month Collide

It’s interesting when people hear that I’m a registered dietitian nutritionist, yet I don’t promote diets. This is something many people don’t understand since most people are influenced by society’s message that to “manage” their weight, they have to diet and “control” their food intake.

No, it’s not about control, it’s about “taking charge”. By saying NO to diets, you are saying YES to putting yourself back in the driver’s seat and making your own food choices. Because you know what? You know how to do that. I realize that maybe you think you don’t, since you’ve been dieting for so long. But given the chance, you will step up to the plate.

I’ve said it may times – intuitive eating is not “see it, want it, eat it”. With intuitive eating, we pause to determine if we are hungry or not, to think about how eating that food made you feel last time you ate it (sluggish, tired, energized, blood sugar spike/crash etc) and then use that information to make an informed food and eating decision.

Is nutrition important? Yes, of course it is. But choosing foods that are nutrient-rich or nutrient-poor does not make you a better or worse person.

There is a way to balance both, and to have full satisfaction when doing so.

National Nutrition Month – Eat Right, Bite by Bite

This year’s theme has the following message: “Good nutrition doesn’t have to be restrictive or overwhelming. Small goals and changes can have a cumulative healthful effect, and every little bit (or bite!) of nutrition is a step in the right direction.”

When working with clients, I stress one small change at a time.

Here’s a road map to guide you this National Nutrition Month:

Week One: Just focus on eating a variety of foods every day. Now that you’re not dieting any longer, there’s no more eliminating major food groups or particular foods. Consider what you’d like to eat from each food group as you build a satisfying meal. Then, sit and savor every bite.

Week Two: Plan meals ahead if you are a busy person (like me!) and you want to be sure you have food in the house to prepare meals for the week. Meal planning is not dieting as long as you keep it flexible. I like to say that “planning is smart living”. Without planning ahead what I will make for dinner, my family likely wouldn’t sit down to a balanced meal each evening.

Week Three: Experiment with new tastes, textures and flavors of foods. Look for new recipes and get the family involved. Plan to enjoy a few family meals together each week. It doesn’t have to be dinner if schedules don’t match. Think out of the box and enjoy breakfast together. For lots of delicious recipes and Intuitive Eating Wisdom, check out my new book – Enjoying Food Peace: Recipes and Intuitive Eating Wisdom to Nourish Your Body and Mind. Enjoying Food Peace Book

Week Four: Need more support? Have specific medical nutrition needs such as diabetes, prediabetes, high cholesterol and GI issues? Contact me to learn how we can intertwine intuitive eating with nutrition therapy in a weight-neutral way.

Happy National Nutrition Month to you!!

What Do You Do When You’re Just Not Hungry?

Interesting question, isn’t it? I teach intuitive eating to women and men who are tired of dieting. And their initial understanding of intuitive eating is to “eat when hungry and stop when full”. But the question I hear all the time is “so if I’m not hungry, I shouldn’t eat?”

The answer is yes, and no. Allow me to explain.

To Eat or Not to Eat

When you are coming off dieting, it’s very possible that your hunger signals are silenced. That means they are there, but you don’t hear them. You probably only hear them when you are realllly hungry and your brain is screaming at you “feed me, feed me, I’m starving.” But when the first signals of hunger begin, you probably don’t hear them.

This means you need time to attune to them, to recognize them and to answer them. So, if several hours have passed since you’ve eaten and you don’t necessarily hear those gentle signs of hunger, then yes, it is important for you to eat anyway as part of your self-care plan of nourishing yourself throughout the day.

On the other hand, if you have become familiar with those gentle signs of hunger and “lunch time” comes around and you don’t feel hunger, then it’s totally cool to wait until you feel and hear the hunger.

Remember, “lunch time” as dictated by a clock is still dieting.

Silenced Hunger Signals

There are several reasons why your hunger signals may have silenced. Here’s the top 3:

  1. Dieting: You’ve been dieting for a while and you begin your meals based on when the diet tells you to eat. Even if you’re not hungry, you stop and eat to “stay on plan”.

 

  1. Numbing: You decide to drink a non or low caloric beverage such as coffee, tea, diet soda or water INSTEAD of eating because even though you are hungry, you’re not “supposed” to eat now so you’ll drink instead. The fluid then numbs your signals and tries to fool your body into thinking you ate. But there’s no fooling your brilliant body.

 

  1. Chaos: You don’t make the time to hear your hunger signals because you are so busy running around working, chauffeuring the kids to their extra curricular activities, shopping etc… So you push off eating and before you know it, you don’t hear those signals anymore.

 

Can Hunger Signals Return?

Yes, absolutely yes! You need to practice listening for them and they will return. It’s important to be patient with yourself as you learn to reacquaint yourself with your body.

First Step?

Pop your name and email into the boxes below and start to break the spell that diets have over you. Then, you’ll have the space to work on reigniting your hunger signals.

 

3 Big Reasons to Take Down Diet Culture

How many times have you seen, heard, or gotten into a heated discussion on the topic of the latest diet trends or weight loss tricks?  It’s everywhere these days, on TV, social media, books, and people claiming they have the hot new approach to help you shed weight fast!

Being a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist, I am constantly asked what I think about the latest diet trend that has been pushed on us.  I have spent the last many years of my career helping clients break the spell of diets and dismantle Diet Culture beliefs.  And, when I’m asked those questions about recommending a new diet, it reminds me that there is so much more work to do to help people learn to trust in themselves again.

A major reason that I am so passionate about helping people break free from diets is because of the harm that Diet Culture causes.

Diet Culture is a system of beliefs that focuses on and values weight, shape and size over health, and it equates thinness with higher status and worthiness.

I see the damages of Diet Culture starting younger and younger. Little girls just 9 and 10 years old asking their moms for a diet. These little girls covering themselves up with sweaters and baggie clothes because they are ashamed of their bodies.

This makes me sad. But it also makes me angry at Diet Culture and lights the fire under me to continue to push back against Diet Culture and help women, and these young girls, love themselves for the beautiful person that they are  and respect their bodies for the amazing things it does every day to keep them alive.

3 Reasons to Take Down Diet Culture

#1: Diet Culture is Dishonest

“Stay away from carbs, they make you fat”.

“The reason you aren’t losing weight is because of all the dairy you consume”.

“Cut out gluten from your diet, it’s really bad for you”.

Diet Culture has spent a lot of time and money trying to convince you that there are certain foods out there that are “good” or “bad’ for you. The food they characterize as “good” will help you lose weight, while the “bad” foods will make you gain weight.

Food fads are encouraged by Diet Culture with the support of the food industry. When scientific research is published, Diet Culture cherry-picks the information that best supports their agenda and launches campaigns to herd consumers to jump on their bandwagon, spending money on their products, lining their pockets.

Listen, there is a difference between implementing nutrition guidelines for your health, and demonizing foods because of the belief that it’ll make you gain weight (or prevent you from losing weight). Now, you might say “no, I’m avoiding this food because it’s not good for my health”. If in fact, this belief is not tied in any way to your thoughts about your weight, then yes, perhaps not eating that food might be in your best interest. But if that belief is tied in any way into your body size, then it is being co-opted by Diet Culture.

If you need further clarity on this, just hit reply!

#2: Diet Culture Disregards Your Best Interest

Any eating pattern that emphasizes how you look over your mental and physical well-being is detrimental. Diet Culture thrives on black-and-white thinking. Eat foods on the “good” list and you’ll lose weight (“good”); eat foods on the “bad” list and you’ll get fat (“bad”). Thin = win in Diet Culture’s mind.

Here’s the thing – people are literally dying to be thin and Diet Culture completely disregards this. Maybe you have suffered with an eating disorder or know someone that is. It destroys your life. Every waking moment is spent worrying about what you’re eating, wearing, how you look, how other people are looking at you etc. It is all consuming. Yet Diet Culture continues to push and push and push.

Your body does so many amazing things for you every day. Just imagine if you didn’t have the use of your hands, legs, or eyes. Would how small your body is be important then?

There is peace in accepting your body as it is in this very moment. This doesn’t mean that you’re “giving up”. This just means that you refuse to let Diet Culture push you any longer. And, instead, you will focus on giving your loving body the respect it deserves, while feeding it well and moving in a way that feels good.

#3: Diet Culture Destroys Your Self-Worth

One of the biggest reasons to shut down Diet Culture is because it’s constantly giving you the message that you’re not good enough. It makes you question your self-worth, often calling attention to things you never considered flaws before.

“Got a muffin top? Never eat these 5 foods again to get rid of it!”

“Do your thighs touch? Do this cleanse to fix that problem!”

Messages like these are toxic to women of all ages. It’s teaching them from a young age that they are nothing more than a sum of their parts and if those parts don’t add up to an unrealistic ideal, they need to do whatever it takes to get there. This has the potential to lead them into a dangerous relationship with food and exercise, twisting their self-perception. Diet Culture destroys your self-esteem and ultimately your self-worth. You come to believe that you are not worthy of love, not worthy of that job you are going for, not worthy of friendship, kindness etc. Diet culture steals your happiness and breaks you down.

It’s Time to Take DOWN Diet Culture

The truth is that body size doesn’t always equate with health. There are plenty of people who are in smaller bodies who have a plethora of health issues. On the flip side, there are people in larger bodies that have no medical issues at all. Diet Culture wants you to be at war with your body because that’s how companies who support it make their billions of dollars every year.  Don’t fall for these tricks, it’s time to break free of Diet Culture and get off the hamster wheel of dieting, for good!

Do you want to join me in taking down Diet Culture? Let me know in the comments below!

3 Behavior Changes to Improve Your Health (Without Dieting)

Steve walked into my office and said, “I’m ready”. When I asked him “ready for what?”, he answered “I’m ready to take care of myself and make some changes in how I eat”. This was a relief to his wife who accompanied him to the visit. For years she’s been trying to encourage him to be more mindful of his food choices, exercise a little and care more about his health. But her requests weren’t heard.

Today, things were different. Steve wasn’t feeling well, his blood pressure was high, and he got scared with the lightheadedness he often felt these days. As we began talking, Steve shared that he didn’t want to feel restricted in his eating. This was a major reason why he wasn’t interested in “dieting” in the past. He was quite happy when I told him he doesn’t have to go on a diet. In fact, when I told him that I don’t believe in dieting, his eyes opened wide and he wanted to learn more. How can he possibly lower his blood pressure and improve his health if he didn’t diet?

Ahh, that’s the question of all time isn’t it. Most doctors will send you on your way with a script for “weight loss”. The problem is weight loss is not a skill you can learn or a behavior you can adopt. Rather, weight loss is an outcome of habit and behavior changes. If you are holding onto weight that is above what is natural for you based on your genetic blueprint, then it is likely that when you make some changes in your habits and food choices that you might release weight. The key word here is might.

I always tell my clients that I don’t know what your body will do when you make changes, and neither do you. Only your body knows, and your job is to trust it.

The Scale Ruins It All

Imagine this scenario. You determine that you are “sodium sensitive”, meaning that when you eat foods high in sodium it causes your blood pressure to rise too high. So, you start choosing lower sodium food choices, use less salt in cooking and have been experimenting with herbs and spices to flavor your foods. You’ve started taking a short walk after dinner and you are feeling pretty darn proud of yourself (and feeling physically good too!). You are toying with the decision to get on the bathroom scale…”I just want to see if I lost weight” you think to yourself.

Does it really matter though? You’ve been making changes; your blood pressure went down and you are feeling good.

You can’t resist. You get on. You stare at the number, get off the scale, get back on and do this another 3 times. Can it be? You only lost 3 pounds? “Man, this isn’t worth it, forget about this”, you think. You then head to the kitchen and open the package of Oreos and fall into a numb state as you eat cookie after cookie.

The Scale Does Not Determine Your Health

Every day I debunk the idea that your body weight equates with your health. And to be healthy, you need to lose weight.

Truth: you can be in a larger body and be healthy.

Truth: higher weights are associated with certain medical conditions, but this does not mean it is causative! Remember, correlation does not equal causation!

The bigger issue is this – there is no known way to lose weight and keep it off. The data is strong in showing that 95-98% of people who lose weight on a diet will regain that weight within 1-5 years. And the small 3-5% that might keep the weight off often do so with disordered eating behaviors such as counting points, tracking calories, exercising off what they ate, omitting major food groups etc. And by the way, when the majority of dieters gain the weight back, one third to two thirds do so with some interest…they gain even more than they lost.

Weight cycling, gaining and losing weight over and over, has been shown to be more detrimental to your health than staying at a stable weight, even if that weight is on the higher end.

Focusing on Habits and Behaviors

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to lose weight, after all we live in a society that sends a loud message that to be worthy, one needs to be skinny. But…

Putting weight loss on the back burner without actively working on it will most likely be what improves your health.

3 habits and behaviors you can start to focus on right now (that has nothing to do with dieting and food restriction but will bring you better health):

  1. Engage in Mindful Eating: instead of rushing through your meal, allocate enough time in your day to sit down and mindfully eat. Mindful eating doesn’t focus on the what of eating, it focuses on the how of eating. Slowing down, putting your fork down between bites and focusing on the taste, texture, aroma and other qualities of the food will bring you great pleasure and satisfaction. It will also help you stay tuned in to your satiety signals as your guide to when you will end your meal (versus a diet where you will finish the plate regardless if you are full or not because that’s the amount of food you are “allowed”).

 

  1. Choose Foods from a Gentle Nutrition Lens: consider the nutrient density of your foods while also considering the taste. Choose what you enjoy eating while paying attention to how you feel after you eat. Does your blood sugar crash? Do you experience reflux? Are you feeling more energetic? Does your blood pressure respond well to this food choice? By doing this, you are the one in charge what you eat, and that’s the way it ought to be!

 

  1. Participate in Joyful Movement: think about what type of activities or movement is gentle on your body and joyful to do. You may want to consider what you liked to do as a kid. Maybe swimming, bike riding, playing tennis, or dancing. Adding some exercise into your life doesn’t have to be torture and should never be something you don’t enjoy doing. Think FUN! If it’s fun, you’ll want to keep doing it.

Remember Steve? He started practicing mindful eating, is choosing foods that he likes but that also won’t raise his blood pressure and he starting walking more instead of using the car. He doesn’t feel restricted and he just got a great health report from the doctor.

If you want to work on improving your health but don’t want to have to diet, send me an email or call me at 516-486-4569.

I look forward to speaking soon!

The 3 Biggest Mistakes that Keep You Yo-Yo Dieting

It’s really tough to stop dieting when you’ve been dieting for so long. Even if you intellectually know that the diets have never “worked” long term for you, you are still afraid to stop.

 

This isn’t your fault. The diet industry has you believing that you have failed the diets, yet it is the other way around. The diets have failed you.

 

The data is strong. Ninety-five to 98% of dieters regain the weight they lost within 1-5 years and 1/3-2/3’s regain even more. Are you included in this statistic?

 

Weight cycling (losing and gaining, losing and gaining) is more detrimental to your health than staying at a stable weight even if that weight is “higher” than what society deems “acceptable”.

 

Yet, you continue to diet.

 

There are 3 big mistakes that keep you yo-yo dieting.

 

Here they are:

 

Mistake #1: You are Stuck in Diet Mentality

Diets can be very tempting as they promise to help you see results quickly or with a magical ingredient that helps you lose weight without even trying. Even if you think you’ve given up dieting, keep in mind that the diet mentality is very sneaky and can show up in ways you wouldn’t have thought.

For example, if you skip carbs at dinner because you ate them for breakfast and lunch, you are still dieting. If you eat a smaller lunch because you ate a larger breakfast, you are still dieting. If you skip the cocktail hour at the wedding for fear you will overeat, you are still dieting. The list goes on and on.

See if you can identify the ways the diet mentality is sneaking up on you.

 

Mistake #2: You Put Your Self-Care on the Back Burner

In the hustle and bustle of day-to-day responsibilities, do you often forget to take the time to care for yourself? Do you feel guilty if you do take care of your own needs?

I get it. You have people that rely on you. But the problem is that when you tend to others needs and ignore your own, you are serving from an empty vessel. Instead, if you fill up your own cup first, you are serving others from a place of abundance.

It’s not being selfish to take care of yourself. Does it take practice? Yes, for some people more than others. But that’s okay. You have to start somewhere.

What is one act of self-care that you will start doing for yourself?

 

Mistake #3: You Don’t Trust Your Inner Wisdom

You were born knowing exactly how to eat. We all were. But over the years, you’ve moved away from listening to that inner wisdom and instead, allowed diets and gurus to tell you what, when and how much to eat. This caused you to lose trust in yourself.

But you know what? You can learn to trust again. It takes practice, support and accountability. And it takes someone who cares about you to guide the way.

 

Let’s stop making these mistakes. Start by popping your name and email in the boxes below to Break the Spell of Diets in 3 Days.

 

Let me know if you have any questions along the way.

 

 

4 Tips to Increase Food Appreciation

We live in a society that is go-go-go. We might be doing one thing, but we are probably thinking about the next thing we have to do. Which makes me wonder how many people actually pay full attention to their food when they are eating.

 

In speaking with a lot of people over the years, I find that most people do not take the time to eat slowly and instead, rush through their meals.  They eat breakfast in the car on the way to work, work through lunch and eat at their desk, or grab a quick bite from the drive thru for dinner on the way home.

 

An important practice when working on your relationship with food is to learn to appreciate the food you are eating. Consider where the food came from, how it got into your kitchen and onto your plate, and who was involved in making that possible (farmers, factory line workers, mom). This also means appreciating what food does for your body: fuels you, give you energy, and supplies you with vital nutrients.

 

Here are 4 tips to increase your food appreciation:

 

  1. Eat Breakfast at Home: When you’re running late in the morning, the first thing that goes out the window is breakfast. You tell yourself that you’ll eat when you get to work. And you may do just that. But chances are you’re eating while you’re checking the morning emails, returning messages and writing your to-do list for the day. This means you are paying minimal to no attention to what you are eating.

 

Try waking up a half hour earlier each morning so you have planned time to prepare and eat breakfast. Even better, do some meal prep ahead of time, such as set the table with a bowl, spoon and cereal choice, or prepare overnight oats that are ready in the morning.

 

  1. Sit Down at the Table to Eat: It’s so tempting to eat while you’re meal prepping or to open the fridge and grab a snack. Remind yourself that eating happens when your butt is in a chair and you can fully be present with the food. This means even if you are alone. I know how difficult this may be, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll really enjoy this time.

 

  1. Take a Lunch Break: Years ago, I didn’t schedule a lunch break in my day. I wanted to be available to my clients which meant that inevitably, I didn’t get to eat lunch. Or if I did, it was a quick grab and run, or eating in front of the computer, and it felt as if I never even ate.

 

I realized how that practice was not in my best interest and I started blocking out lunch time in my schedule. Not only did I feel better, but my clients benefited as well as I had more energy and was more productive.

 

So go ahead and schedule that lunch break for yourself. Consider it an act of self-care.

  1. Avoid Distractions at Dinner: I get it, habits are hard to break. But watching Jeopardy while you eat dinner (or sports or whatever show you like) takes away from mindfully eating your meal. Instead, engage in conversation with your partner or kids, and savor the flavor, texture and aroma of the food. When doing this, you are also better able to attune to your fullness signals and will stop eating when you are comfortably full. Go ahead and DVR Jeopardy and have a date night watching with your partner after dinner.

 

Implement these suggestions at your own pace and over time you will see how it’s impacted your appreciation for the food you are eating. Let me know how it goes in the comments below.