Do something (or today, it's don't do) something Friday

Today is International No Diet Day!! 

International No Diet Day Goals

• To celebrate natural body diversity
• To promote positive body image and self-esteem in people of all shapes and sizes
• To advocate for non-restrictive, healthy eating patterns and non-punitive physical activities for everyBODY
• To challenge cultural attitudes and values that contribute to body hatred, weight preoccupation, and eating disorders
• To encourage positive, body-diverse images throughout the media
• To increase awareness of the dangers of weight-loss dieting and the social, emotional and physical consequences of food-, size-, and weight-obsessions
• To educate the public about the dangers of weight-loss surgery, diet drugs, and size-biased medical treatment
• To work for an end to weight discrimination, size abuse and fatphobia

For more on INDD, click here!

 

Food for thought....

Many times over the last couples years, as I have been speaking to audiences, I have used the example of losing weight on the Twinkie Diet -- if only a person was cutting down on the total amount of calories they were eating.  Well...here's the story of a university professor who did just that!  This prof lost 27 pounds in two months by eating mostly snack foods.

Please know I am not adovocating this particular diet.  My goal is to get you thinking about the relative importance of "healthy" eating versus our tendency to EAT TOO MUCH OF EVERYTHING!!  Science is coming out daily to support the idea that we are eating too many calories...period!  And if we focus on reducing our portions, we won't need to concentrate on "healthy" eating quite as much.  THAT might be something that keeps us healthier in the long run!

Click here for the story!

Are you a Recreational Dieter?

Is dieting such a part of your life that you assume you will have to be "on a diet" or "off a diet" for the rest of your life?  Can you envision a diet-free existence?

It strikes me sometimes that people don't want to lose weight as much as they want to talk about how hard they are trying to lose weight.  Or how little they eat.  Or how they know exactly how to "do" the program they are "doing". 

People like to be right.  Or, more importantly, they hate to be wrong about themselves.

I HATE to be wrong about myself  -- and it doesn't even have to be about something earth shattering.  It took me, literally, 3 years...36 months...to come to grips with the fact that I wanted to get rid of my beloved, fabulous, absolutely perfect, cute-girl-truck and buy an SUV.  Not because anyone was making me but because my tastes had changed and I was ready to have a more functional (read boring) vehicle.  3 years of grappling with an image of myself as a truck-driving-girl --- seem silly???

People identify with being on a diet.  Hearing people talk about dieting is sometimes like hearing people talk about their Harley Davidson -- it's a club.  People connect around diets.  If you've had the experience of losing a great deal of weight and people ask you about your experience, do you get that same feeling of acceptance and connection from that conversation?

Sometimes, I think we are afraid to let go of the idea that you don't need to diet because you might lose that feeling of dieting (notice I didn't say weight loss) support that striking up a "dieting conversation" brings.

So the question becomes -- are you willing to reevaluate whether dieting has become part of your self-concept?  Is it something you do so you fit in to your world?  and most importantly -- are you willing to change?  You've got time to answer the questions -- no rush -- 36 months is a long time :)

For those of you still clinging to the hope that a diet will save you...

Please do me a favor and pick up a copy of the book In Defense of Food. I will confess that I am only 50 pages into the book, however, I have learned a ton about the U.S. culture of being concerned with nutrients and health, as opposed to taste, dining, the experience of food.

The author makes the distinction between real food and imitation food (margarine, Cheez Wiz, low-fat snack cakes that actually have a shelf-life longer than the warranty on my car. How certain macronutrients have been vilifies (protein by Dr. Kellogg of corn flake fame, fat as the scapegoat for heart disease and cancer even though there was good science to prove other wise).

The author puts forth the position -- Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

What if you adopted this as your guiding principle? You wouldn't have to worry about what you were eating because there isn't a magic formula. You don't need to try to get the balance right because balance is inherently right. These are common sense thoughts -- not too much food -- make sure it is really food (at least most of the time). Eat a lot of plants.

If this was your criteria for eating, how would it change how you shopped at the grocery store? You would spend more time in the produce aisle. You might spend more time preparing your foods at home -- but honestly, it might be more energy preparing dinner but I bet it wouldn't be more time that it takes to run through the drive thru to pick up dinner and bring it home.

The author's principles would change how you looked at a menu at a restaurant. Gone would be the thought that this has too much fat and you just shouldn't have that. If you are eating 600 calories of something -- it is 600 calories and it doesn't matter where the calories come from.

I believe that your acheiving a healthy weight comes down to learning to enjoy your food more and eat less of it. No magic bean. No magic fat burning food combinations. As a nation, we eat too much. We don't eat what would really make our hearts sing, is fabulous. Go for fabulous, my friends. Open the menu and experience the pleasure of looking it over to see what looks the most delicious. Having high fat food won't kill you (otherwise there would be no one left in France) -- you just need to enjoy it more and eat less of it.

We have tried to eat less in the past -- maybe you should consider trying the "Eat only what is Fabulous" diet. If it doesn't look/taste/smell fabulous, don't eat it -- save those calories for something that is fabulous. Eat and enjoy.

Again with the Magic Beans

Mindful Eating:
1. Deliberately paying attention, without judgment, to ones own experiences.
2. Cultivating openness to, and an acceptance of all experiences.
3. Mindfulness happens in the present moment.

I spoke to a group at the Crossroads Village Apartments yesterday. Great group of people. They seemed interested in the thinking behind mindful eating and had lots of questions about how it really helps you lose weight. One thing I always get, though, is the person who wants to know what foods they can eat mindfully to help them lose weight.

We have been ingrained with the belief in Magic Beans -- that all illusive food or combination of foods that will give us perfect health and a thin body to go along with it. Well....guess what?? There are no Magic Beans. Food is food -- neither inherently good (just because lima beans are a healthy vegetable doesn't mean they taste good to me!) or inherently bad (alfredo made with whipping cream and real Parmesan is definitely not "low cal" but boy is it delicious!!).

Deliberately paying attention and not pigeon holing (judging) foods is one of the cornerstones of mindful eating. Believe me -- I would lose weight if I was on a diet of lima beans (mostly because I think they are so gross I wouldn't eat them -- or perhaps I would gain weight on a diet of lima beans because I would have to cover the taste of them with so much butter or cheese that I would take in lots of extra calories) But one thing I know for sure -- my life wouldn't be more enjoyable because of the lima beans.

There are some people out there that just don't get this concept. EAT WHAT TASTES GREAT -- JUST EAT LESS OF IT.

The reason a person gains weight is just that they are eating too many calories for their activity level. Cut down the calories to the level you expend and your weight will be stable. Eat fewer calories than you expend and you will lose weight. No games, no gimmicks, no tricks -- but no Magic Beans.

The question, for me, always comes back to:

Would you rather eat foods you enjoy but eat smaller amounts?

Or do you want to slug it out on the "Diet Du Jour", eating foods that, at best are only okay and at worst taste like the cardboard box your last pair of sneakers came in?

For me: Life's too short -- I want the food that makes my heart sing! And I will be happy to eat less now so I can have some more in the future.

Which is worse...

Telling yourself "Not right now." or feeling pressured (by yourself or someone else)to tell yourself "No!" ??

"Not right now." means just because you are next to your favorite frozen custard stand -- you don't necessarily need to stop today because you aren't REALLY hungry for custard right now. You are not closing the door on custard for ever -- just this time.

"No!" feels like the door slamming on something that brings you joy. If I tell someone "No!" they are going to think and think about the forbidden something until they drive themselves crazy, breakdown, and eat a bunch of it (and then feel guilty). This is not the weight loss mentality I am after.

There are times when you can tell yourself "Not right now." and it is no big deal. You don't feel deprived and you are not going to obsess about what you didn't have.

Especially, when you are trying to fill an emotional hungry with physical food -- a few minutes of "Not right now." allows you to get distracted by something other than food and potential satisfy the emotional hunger with an emotional (vs. physical) fuel (think connecting with a friend if you feel disconnected, cleaning up the kitchen if the mess is driving you crazy, taking 3 slow breathes in a row if you are stressed) instead of masking the emotional hunger with food.

The important thing here is to remember mindful eating is not a bunch of rules -- that would be diet. Mindful eating is about making a decision for this moment based on this moment's current conditions.

Do something Friday

A client recently asked me about food choices. She and I have worked together on and off for a couple years. Her afternoon snack is a staple behavior because by late afternoon she is physically hungry. By eating the snack, it allows her to be at a reasonable hunger level (level 3) by dinner and not closer to a 1.5 where she would be unable to be in charge of her eating speed.

For a number of reasons, she has "fallen off" the mindful eating wagon and is starting to get herself back on. However, when she fell off the wagon, she reverted back to the "diet" mentality of assessing a food's "goodness" or "badness" as a means of deciding what to eat instead of figuring out what really sounds wonderful to eat. Consequently, her afternoon snacks are not as satisfying to her as they used to be.

This lack of satisfaction seems reasonable to me. One size does not fit all. My favorite satisfying snack will not necessarily be satisfying to you. The snack that fits perfectly for the summer (think fresh strawberries) will not necessarily be the perfect snack in the winter (when a nice hot Chai latte would be so much more satisfying).

When we don't reach a certain satisfaction level with our food choices, we keep searching (and eating) until we get there. In the end, we eat more calories by trying to "be good" than if we had just had what we really wanted in the first place.

So the question becomes: What are you eating because you "should" and what are you denying yourself that would really satisfy you?

Think of it this way:

500 calories of salad vs. 500 calories of steak and baked potato with sour cream and butter.

If you are working on the diet mentality, you will choose the 500 calories of salad because that is what you "should" do -- and we have all been trained steak and baked potato (with or without the butter and sour cream) are not foods you eat to lose weight. But...500 calories is still 500 calories -- it doesn't matter where they come from.

But...you say...500 calories of salad is a larger volume of food than 500 calories of steak and baked potato. True. But...what is it you really want?

If a greater sensation of physical fullness is important then you would probably want to chose the salad.

If you really want the warmth and satisfaction of steak and baked potato -- and you are willing to be satisfied but not have as great a degree of physical stretching of your stomach -- then it makes sense to eat the steak. You will walk away from the table in the same spot as it relates to weight loss (having consumed the same number of calories you would have with the salad) but you will have a greater degree of satisfaction with the meal and be less likely to seek out something else to make you feel satisfied because you already are.

This weekend -- be aware of why you are making the choices you are making. Are you basing everything on the "diet" mentality and seeking out more opportunities to eat as a way to increase your satisfaction with food? If there were no "diet rules", what would you chose to eat? And are you willing to eat less of those things if you get to lose weight while being able to eat them?