Intuitive eating | Imamother

amother

Sun, Dec 21 2014, 10:02 pm

Another great article:

Burning through the calories: where the carbs fit for weight management
Are you hyper focusing on the nutrients that are 'safe' to eat?
Processed foods are bad, toxic even. Breads, even so-called wheat breads, must be avoided. Other starches aren’t great for you either—but those whole grains seem a little better. And forget sugar, because you know all the horror stories about what sugar does. Best to avoid it all; it’s much safer that way.

That’s what Dave thinks, and he’s not alone. He's an underweight young man, unhealthily thin. Yes, most sources of carbs are a problem for him. In fact, most fats are also a problem for him. He selects only foods he perceives as super-foods—super healthy choices chock full of nutrients; he’s not contaminating his body with any of that other junk. He reads a lot, but never the full research paper, because, I mean, who does? Anyway, if it’s in print, then it must be true, right?

Start to look at the big picture.
No, not correct. Even all the hype about sugar and its negative impact on health pulls from studies showing high intakes—25% of total calories, to be specific. That’s a lot of sugar. And that’s quite different than including a couple of mint Milanos or Lindt chocolates for instance, in the midst of a healthy, balanced diet. But why all the fuss, you ask? Who needs processed carbs anyway?

An RDA for chocolates?

It’s like this. There’s no daily requirement for processed foods—that’s for certain. But creating long lists of foods to avoid creates another set of health issues, both mental and physical. Deprivation, for one, creates rebound overeating, so setting rigid rules about all the foods you can’t eat becomes an issue. Further, avoiding large categories of foods as Dave does leaves fewer fuel sources and nutrients to meet your needs. A diet of vegetables and lean protein and a bit of fruit will likely leave you low energy—carbohydrate stores are our go-to for fuel; yes there’s a reason why Marathoners have a pasta dinner before their event. Food rules are challenging to adhere to and lead to increased preoccupation with food and eating.

It’s worse if your needs are high, like if you are in the process of restoring weight from a low place. Truly, metabolic rate dramatically increases to well above what others of the same height (but who weren’t restricting and now re-feeding) experience. So the feeling of fatigue may result, and if you’re wondering why your strength is lost, this could be why. Or if you are a growing teen, restricting what you can eat may add to your problems—it’s challenging to meet your needs to restore normal growth when there’s lots you choose not to eat.

Take a step back and try to look at your
assumptions a bit differently.
It's hard to negotiate with irrational thoughts. And the media's messages villainizing most anything that tastes good hardly help. So I’ll turn to my fireplace analogy to help him (and you) see carbs as just another fuel.

Let's say you have a fireplace. You could burn logs of pine or oak or maple. Burning each log type generates heat, turns to ashes in the end, regardless of which you started with.

Should it matter to you which type of log or fuel you use? Well you might have a preference for the scent of pine or maple, let's say. But from a fuel standpoint, it doesn't much matter. That is, as long as the total amount of wood is equivalent. It's just like food and its building blocks. You could burn carbs or protein or fats that you eat and yield energy—our heat equivalent here. And as long as the total amount of fuel or calories is the same, your body hardly cares where the fuel source came from—from a weight standpoint. You may have a preference for the taste of chicken or of nuts, and some foods may be more satiating (think whole grains or balanced meals including protein); and a varied diet will help meet your nutrient needs over time. But if the calories are the same, they will generate about the same amount of energy.

But substitute some twigs and the fire dies down fast. Rice cakes, for instance, just won't sustain the energy. You could swap newspaper for the logs. But you'd need a ton of it to heat your house in winter. Yes, just like if you chose only light products or large volume but low calorie dense foods like broths or salads with little substance to them.

So what can I do now?
Stoke your fire with items that are pleasant. I love the scent of burning pine, personally, and I enjoy a good piece of pastry when I need the fuel. There are times those whole grains are just what I'm yearning, and they'll likely take a bit more time to process, and thus burn, than just white rice. But brown sushi just doesn't seem right. And favoring protein and eating lots of it simply because you heard it’s good for you is no advantage for long-term weight management.

A healthy body requires getting enough. Not just total calories, but satisfaction, from a wide range of foods and nutrients. Isn’t it time you free yourself from the unnecessary food rules?

from here:
http://dropitandeat.blogspot.c.....ht%29

amother

Thu, Feb 05 2015, 1:45 pm

Don’t turn intuitive eating into another diet.

If you have ever had issues with obsessive eating you may already have experienced this…but it is very easy to turn the noble “intuitive eating” method into another miserable diet.

I was an extremely obsessive dieter for 10 years. Well, you could have called me an obsessive dieter and “health enthusiast,” or looking back now, you could call it an eating disorder. They all applied.

There were times when I knew there had to be a better way to eat. I knew deep down that the answer probably lay in just letting go. But I didn’t know where to begin. How do you let go when all you know are food and diet facts and believe that you are broken and that weight is obsessed with you, and also that none of your dreams will come true if you can’t become skinny? If that sentence sounded run-on and manic, it is because it is. And that is exactly how food/body/perfectionism feels.

Cue “intuitive eating.” In between extreme diet spells, I would swing back to intuitive eating. Which really meant a manic: “I am going to listen to my body and eat exactly what I want, but I am going to eat so slowly that hopefully I don’t eat much at all and I become really skinny and happy and healthy and still get to eat what I want, but hopefully not too much. And if I crave something bad I’ll eat it, praying that if I allow myself to eat it, I won’t actually want it. Oh ****, I want it. **** I am starving. I can’t eat this whole thing, but I did. And I ate fast. I fail!”

If you can tell…that wasn’t actual intuitive eating. It was a miserable, frightened, please-let-me-not-be-really-hungry carnival of half eaten brownies. And it was a diet. Because there was still shame attached to eating. There was still shame attached to weight. And I still was afraid of food and of myself.

Fast forward, I am now totally recovered. And it wasn’t through that eat-slowly and stop-exactly-when-you-are-full “guidelines” BS that I detailed above. It was through eating: amply and fully for the purpose of nourishing, and even {gasp} gaining ******* weight. Which I was so tired of running away from. It took me realizing that my fear of weight was a fear of life and humanity and failure, and all the beautiful messiness that real life brings. I was putting off everything, waiting until I was acceptable and thin in order to dare (which, in that mind-frame never happens, so you never dare).

If you are a serial dieter, and have tried but failed at intuitive eating, it is not because you are broken or a voracious food monster. It is because whatever version of intuitive eating you are trying is still food fear-mongering. And you deserve to be nourished amply by food and not be afraid of what your weight “means about you” (it means nothing about you, by the way). And until that truly happens, and until you are fed and loved by yourself unconditionally, food and weight will always seem incredibly powerful and important.

I like to call how I eat now, “The Spiritual Anti-Diet.” So many people who are obsessed with diets have the same experience with “intuitive eating.” They make it into another diet, another obsession, another thing to try and get perfect (and you just can’t). That isn’t how life works. That isn’t how food, craving or nourishment works. And that isn’t how happiness works either.

http://www.elephantjournal.com.....take/

amother

Mon, Feb 09 2015, 4:30 pm

I follow this youtube channel bec I related to her eating issues in many ways. She'd tried and failed IE many times - this last time she's finally succeeded.
You could watch the last 3 videos (about 15 min) it discusses what she does differently this time and read her blog.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVCdPmigt3A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyXz103baM8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpTtvYhIpwg

Here's a sample of her blog

Realization: my body is actually a genius! All these years I had almost no awareness that my physical body had any intelligence when it came to food and eating…in spite of the thousands of things it did every second to support its life. I ask myself now: “How did I not see this?” I hadn’t used my hunger powers for good, like…ever, it seemed. Yes, I knew to eat when I was hungry, BUT the only way I wouldn’t eat if I had the desire (except when restricting) was if I was already stuffed to the gills. So yeah, I would listen to my body, but only if it was telling me it couldn’t handle any more!

Years of dieting taught my body how to handle hunger without feeding it also. So much so that I could feel the panic rising in my body almost before I felt the hunger because odds were…it wasn’t getting any food. Heck my mind became a demented evil dictator over my body…no wonder it revolted any time there was the tiniest crack in my brain’s resolve.

Last week I faced a possibility of failing my attempt at Intuitive Eating for a third time in 2 years. It seemed I just couldn’t eat whatever I wanted and not gain weight. I‘ve absorbed so much information on this process and heard so many stories of complete freedom from food and diet obsession. What was I getting wrong? I turned over the principals in my mind and lighted on the only thing I hadn’t truly tried in my attempts….letting hunger be my guide. I realized that I had pushed the theoretical boundaries of that zone between hunger and fullness. I played it safe. I figured if I never got overfull, I never had to stop eating. I realized I had a hard time delineating between meals because I preferred a steady stream of small amounts of food to actual full, nourishing meals.

I hated the thought of giving up some of the snacking habits I had developed over the years to give me comfort or to make my diets more liveable. Still, this was my last option. It was start listening for my body’s hunger cues, be incredibly perceptive and receptive to it, or go back to the diet nightmare.

I started that day. I waited until I knew I was hungry and was surprised to find that my urge to eat came several times before my body actually announced it was hungry. Interesting. I had to sit through those compulsive signals…told myself that the food would taste much better and my body could handle it much more efficiently if I waited for true hunger. The real challenge came after dinner when I would usually slowly graze on candy while I was relaxing for the night. I knew I was feeding my body highly hormonal stimulating foods on an already satisfied stomach and as much as that behavior was freedom to me, it was not the best thing for my body. I let my body take over for once. I ate dinner…not too much, just barely satisfied and then I had a small dessert. I wasn’t about to give up dessert. I listened harder and heard that I had enough…in spite of my mind wanting to continue to graze.

Sitting the next few hours, feeling that urge to continue eating that was clearly not my body saying I was hungry, was one of the most enlightening times of my life. How simple. My hunger is satisfied…I stop eating until I feel hunger again. Who knew!

I got up the next morning feeling lighter and more energetic. I listened to my body urging me to continue to listen. Since I have, I feel better and better every day, and I’ve even been shrinking. I’m still eating all of the same foods, just consuming them when my body is best prepared to use them for all it’s many, many functions. I now know what they mean by listening to your hunger and RESPECTING your fullness. We all know what a hunger signal is. For me it was that fullness factor, the feeling of having enough physically, that allowed me to realize that I have enough emotionally also. Sitting through that compulsive urge to keep eating was, in fact, something I had to MAKE myself do. So I also realized that Intuitive eating is not always about “going with the flow” and “eating whatever you want”. It simply isn’t appropriate to do that if your body isn’t communicating that it actually needs the food.

Sure we all over-eat or snack once in awhile, and it’s important to stop the guilt for doing that and realize it was something your mind needed at the moment. So be kind to your mind AND your body. If you are trying your best at IE but gaining weight and perpetuating the guilt cycle that just propels you into more compulsive eating, stop and really listen to your body. It’s pretty smart. Let it lead the way.

https://thedietrebellion.wordp.....here/

imasinger

Thu, May 14 2015, 2:00 pm

Really interesting article:

http://www.refinery29.com/jord.....rexia

Quote:

My Life With Orthorexia

Refinery29
May 14, 2015

By Jordan Younger

Going vegan seemed like the answer to all my problems.

I adopted the diet in my last semester of college, hoping to remedy the lifelong indigestion issues I’d dealt with. Incredibly, it seemed to work. Eating only plant-based foods eased the extreme bloating and discomfort I was used to, and suddenly I felt lightness in my stomach. It was amazing. Veganism gave me a feeling of physical wellness and complete control. But, it had triggered an even deeper issue — one I didn’t even know existed.

By the time I graduated, my dedication to the plant-based diet had evolved into obsession. I had started an Instagram account, @theblondevegan, chronicling my vegan adventures, and posted photos of bright, colorful salads and mason jars filled to the brim with blended, green concoctions. I was proud to share my lifestyle, and found there was a huge hunger for knowledge about vegan food in the online community.

Next came the blog, where I shared recipes and chatted with my growing audience. I couldn’t believe that people were so interested in learning about my lifestyle, and my own passion was so great that I was happy to sit in front of the computer all day answering emails and guiding people toward a plant-based life.

Then, I moved to New York to pursue an M.F.A. in creative writing. But, once I arrived, there was only one thing on my mind: veganism. Suddenly, juice bars were offering me cleanses in exchange for reviews on my website, and after six months of paying a pretty penny for cleanse programs, there was no way I was turning them down. I started cleansing for three days a week nearly every week, and sometimes more.

But, something had changed: Every time I reintroduced solid food after cleansing, my old stomach problems returned — even though I kept the food strictly plant-based. Though it terrified me, I wasn’t willing to admit that veganism might not be the cure-all I’d imagined. Instead, I started avoiding solid food more and more, until I had so much eating anxiety that I was an absolute wreck to be around.

I tried to hide my food fears when I was with other people — and veganism was the perfect cover. Rather than admit my food phobia, I could just claim it was too hard to eat out as a vegan. Meanwhile, the cycle continued: I cleansed, got too hungry, broke down and ate solid food, felt terribly guilty, and rededicated myself to another cleanse — usually a longer one. With my family across the country and my growing The Blonde Vegan brand, I was able to keep my charade up for much longer than I should have.

But, come spring of 2014, there was no hiding it. I was not the picture of health I claimed to be. I couldn’t sleep because I was so full of anxiety about what I was going to eat the next day and what foods I had to avoid. My hair was thinning, my skin was a mess (and orange from too much beta-carotene), and my face was gaunter than gaunt. I looked and felt like a shadow of my former self.

The real kicker came when I stopped menstruating. At first I told myself it had nothing to do with the way that I ate, but as the months wore on and nothing came, I started to worry. I had gotten into the vegan lifestyle so I could be the healthiest version of myself, but now I was wreaking havoc on my body, and I knew it. After a major conversation with one of my close friends about her eating disorder, I finally realized that was what I was dealing with, too.

I knew I had a problem, but I didn’t have a name for it. My issue didn’t fall into the traditional categories of anorexia, bulimia, or binge eating. Mine was an obsession with healthy, pure, clean foods from the earth, and a fear of anything that might potentially cause my body harm.

Related: What Working In Retail Means To The Japanese Career Girl

As it turned out, there was a name for it: orthorexia.

Orthorexia is a little-known condition. It’s not currently recognized by the DSM-5 as a clinical diagnosis, but many suffer the symptoms: a fixation on purity, and a fear of foods that might derail that “perfection.” Those of us who have a tendency toward extremes in other areas are more susceptible to developing it — especially once we start cutting out entire food groups.

I knew I needed professional help, and I started working with both a nutritionist and a therapist to deal with the physical and emotional aspects of orthorexia. During my recovery process, I learned that the “superhuman willpower” I’d exercised for so long is a typical eating-disorder warning sign. I was trying to control my life through food, and I believed I was worthy and powerful because I treated my body like a temple (which, to me, meant eating nothing but plants). Once I started to let go of that addiction to emptiness and purity, I started to live again. Slowly but surely, I made strides to get my life back.

I dropped the vegan label shortly after I came to terms with my eating disorder, and that was one of the best things I could have done for myself. Now, I live a label-free life, and I find more power in that than I ever found in my plant-based fanaticism. Instead of food, I wake up thinking about life. I fill my time with great people and personal passions — like my blog, which is now all about balance. Sure, I have scary days around food. A lot of them. But, I am learning, and I am proud of that. I try to listen to my body, be kind to myself, and forgive. I eat when I’m hungry, and I don’t eat when I’m not. If I feel like veggies, I have them. If I feel like driving 10 miles for the best cupcake in town, then you bet I’m going to do that. I’ve found so much freedom in doing this whole balance thing.

And hey, for the first time in three years, I have stable blood sugar, and I’m not afraid to eat a piece of cake (full of white flour!) on my friends’ birthdays. Heck, on my own birthday. I’ve come a long way, and that’s a victory in itself.

amother

Goldenrod

Thu, May 14 2015, 8:37 pm

Thanks Imasinger, I loved the article.

https://gokaleo.com/2015/05/04.....22259

Here's an interesting one:
Guest post by my coaching partner, Sean Flanagan

Something I hear people say from time-to-time in defense of extreme 30-day-type diets is that they help you create healthy habits.

This is perhaps the most ***-backwards things I’ve ever heard.

Creating new and sustainable healthy habits is about incrementally adding positive changes on top of what you already do.

On the other hand, trying to create “new healthy habits” by removing a large selection of food choices would be like quitting your job so that you’ll be able to create the habit of going to the gym.

Well yeah… if you don’t have much else to do, then sure it’ll be relatively easy to start working out.

But you wouldn’t have really created a lasting habit for exercise. You didn’t find a way to make it work with your life. You created a temporary artificial context that made it happen by default.

Similarly… well OF COURSE you’ll eat more fruits, vegetables, and lean protein if you avoid beans, dairy, grains, sugar, and perhaps other foods. You have to eat SOMETHING, right?

But this isn’t the same as creating new habits for eating more fruits, more veggies, or more protein – it’s another temporary artificial context that makes these things happen nearly by default.

When the time comes sooner or later for you to return to a less restrictive diet, you will likely find you have not truly developed the habits of integrating these foods into your diet. You didn’t practice getting more veggies in in combination with your favorite and regular recipes – you practiced how to get more veggies when doing a super-restrictive diet. Not the same thing.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you personally have the potential to make the habit changes stick. So let’s look at what is at risk other than a month wasted and healthy habits not formed.

For starters, cultivating the habit of being fearful of totally safe foods after 30 days of people telling you how “toxic” they are. So I guess maybe there is a habit-change component to these diets… but it’s not a good one. It’s often reported that these types of dietary challenges acted as a catalyst to a full blown eating disorder.

Similarly, this period of internalizing this narrative of “these foods hurt a lot of people” or “these foods cause inflammation” and you make yourself more prone to suffering negative consequences due to the nocebo effect.

The nocebo effect is similar to the placebo effect in that one’s beliefs impact the reaction experienced. Whereas the placebo effect causes positive outcomes (“I took this pill and my knee is all better! What do you mean it was just sugar? Impossible!”), the nocebo effect causes negative outcomes (“Ever since I learned how inflammatory grains are, my stomach is hurting a lot more!”).

It doesn’t necessarily stop at the nocebo effect though. If on a diet that eliminates dairy for an extended period of time, our bodies start to down-regulate production of the enzyme needed for digestion, which can then lead to discomfort upon reintroducing dairy products.

In other words, these diets that are allegedly about helping you “uncover” sensitivities can actually CREATE sensitivities.

Side note: if you believe an elimination diet could be beneficial for you to uncover a dietary trigger for a condition you have, ask your doctor for a referral to see a Registered Dietitian. Elimination diets require the clinical expertise of a Registered Dietitian – not fad diet gurus.

One last negative consequence to consider, though I’m sure there are dozens more, is what type of attitudes do you think you’ll develop about the “approved” foods? If every time you want ice cream you’re force feeding yourself a sweet potato, how positively are you going to view that sweet potato? I’m gonna guess on day 31 you’re never going to want to see a sweet potato again.

So far we’ve talked about why viewing a restrictive diet as a way to create new healthy habits is misguided and also the very serious risks long term of these types of diets. So what do we do to create positive changes?

Simply focusing on ADDING the new behaviors – not randomly abstaining from other habits in hopes that good ones will fall in place. Let’s literally just focus on adding in the good ones! The most direct way to eat more vegetables: focus on eating more vegetables.
Build those behaviors on top of things you already do – for nutrition changes, this is relatively straightforward. Examples: a salad every day with lunch, pairing your favorite pasta dish with two different types of vegetables, adding a banana to your toast and peanut butter. This stuff isn’t fancy – it just works. You don’t need a list of 20 foods to avoid, you just need to add something you want to do on top of something you already do.
Focus on ONE change at a time – the fewer changes you focus on at any given time, the greater your chance for success. Zero would be a crappy number to focus on, so by default that gives us one as a pretty darn good choice.
Surround yourself with like-minded people who are focused on creating healthy habit changes without succumbing to restrictive fad diets. Amber and I created this community online with the Habit Project, where people work on becoming strong, confident, and healthy working on one habit at a time. In real life, you can focus on making sure to spend more time with people focused on adding positive behaviors rather than creating restrictive behaviors.
I hope this article helped to outline why short term diets are not only a poor approach towards creating positive changes but also have a high potential of being counter-productive. Likewise, I hope you’re now clearer on what to do instead.

amother

Goldenrod

Thu, May 14 2015, 9:51 pm

http://isabelfoxenduke.com/whe.....king/

When “eating what you want” isn’t working…As many of you already know, ending the diet-binge cycle generally starts with not dieting, or what I call allowance around food.

Just the simple act of allowing yourself to eat chocolate cake after years of trying to control yourself around it, may have massively positive consequences on your relationship with food — and most certainly prevents classic binge-eating. After all, you can’t fall off a wagon, if you’re not on one to begin with.

That being said, many women end up continuing to think like dieters, even when trying to legalize specific foods or behaviors, which kinda negates the whole “allowance” thing, and leaves them feeling crazy around food, and probably binge-eating.

I call it emotional deprivation—

…when you physically put previously restricted food into your mouth,
but inside, you’re thinking: “this is wrong! What if I get/stay fat?! I can’t live like this!”

when you “eat what you want”
but feel underlying pangs of guilt, shame or self-judgement,
obsessively worry about weight gain,
or generally feel like you’re doing something wrong with food,
allowance, as a concept, clearly isn’t happening
…regardless of how many double-stuff Oreos you may or may not be putting in your mouth.

You may be eating the food, but that doesn’t mean you’re allowing the food — because you’re not emotionally at peace with your decision.

In other words, there’s a difference between:

Physical allowance (I.e. the physical act of eating Oreos)

and

Emotional allowance (I.e. the belief that eating Oreos is fundamentally okay, whether I choose to eat them or not).

Physical allowance does little to nothing. Emotional allowance does EVERYTHING.

On the flip side, I know women who physically restrict certain foods, for health reasons, or because those foods don’t feel good in their bodies, and they don’t fall into any “diet-brain” traps because they’re emotionally allowing the food. If you’re curious, what I mean by this check out this post about Intuitive Eating with Medical Restrictions — yet another example of why emotional allowance is really the name of the game in making peace with food.

Lastly, I want to bring up one other tricky pitfall I’ve noticed a few of my clients falling prey to on the topic of allowance…

I occasionally see women physically allowing certain foods (I.e. eating certain foods) in the hopes that they will not want to eat those foods in the future. For example, when women misguidedly attempt intuitive eating for weight loss, they often go through a phase where they eat a ton of previously restricted foods, in the hopes that they’ll one day get sick of that food or won’t want it later on down the line.

I call this “eating to not eat later” — and guess what? It doesn’t usually work.

While it is common to lose interest in foods we once obsessed over when we truly allow ourselves to eat them, we’re probably not emotionally allowing those foods if we’re secretly trying to control some future outcome or hoping to “not want” that food in the future.

In other words, if you’re trying to control or force your behaviors to be different than they are through some manipulation of “allowance”…you’ve missed the point…and joke’s on you.

amother

Goldenrod

Fri, May 15 2015, 5:05 pm

http://www.refinery29.com/diet.....:W3k5
The Real Reason You Don't Need A Diet
Since quitting dieting about a year and a half ago, my life has changed in wonderful ways. I escaped the yo-yo cycle, began to heal my relationship with food, and gained a kind of confidence I thought only skinny people were allowed to have.

But, just because it's not a diet doesn't mean it isn't hard. Some days, I really miss that quick-fix feeling I got from starting a new plan. I know that this process is a long, up-and-down journey, and I'm okay with that (finally). But, on the tough days, it's nice to have a reminder of why I quit dieting in the first place. That's when I remember this:

1. Diets don't work. Period.
It's not exactly breaking news that almost everyone who goes on a diet will regain the weight. But, research has always affirmed what lifelong dieters already know: The pounds may drop temporarily, but then they come back, often with with five to 10 friends. UCLA professor Traci Mann led a recent meta study of 31 long-term studies on dieters, concluding that while most were able to lose up to 10% of their body weight, within four or five years "the majority of people regained all the weight, plus more." So, either the hundreds of millions of people who diet are lazy, unmotivated idiots, or something is wrong with this system.

2. Dieting is bad for your mental and physical health.
Weight fluctuation brings a host of related side effects that can harm your physical health. Not surprisingly, it has been linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes, and high blood pressure. The psychological impact is equally alarming. Research indicates dieters are prone to elevated cortisol (the stress hormone), and another study found that increased stress during dieting triggered binge eating. One particularly disheartening study followed young dieting women over the course of a decade and found that the younger they started, the more prone they were as adults to self-harming behaviors like alcohol abuse and self-induced vomiting.

3. Your body tells you what it needs. Diets teach you not to listen.
Eating is not a learned skill; it's an instinct. You weren't born with a calorie calculator, but with a natural sense of when you were hungry and when you'd had enough. As a child, you discovered which foods you liked, which you hated, and how much you could eat before you got a stomach ache. Food was just food. You didn't know if an apple was good, bad, or an extra-special treat until someone told you it was.

Eventually, we all hear those messages, because we live in the world, not some food-neutral Utopia. But, living in the diet cycle is like joining a charismatic cult. The leader promises salvation, so you do whatever that person says ("Thou shalt eat only raw until 4 p.m.!"). You surrender your own instincts to follow the leader's, and soon enough, you're officially brainwashed.

4. Dieting makes food the center of your life.
When you're on a diet, you're constantly thinking about food: What should you bring to work for lunch? How will you handle dinner with friends? Can you get through your sister's wedding without going over your carb limit? Food shouldn't be the subject of those sentences. Your work, your friends, your sister's wedding — those are the things that matter.

With all that needless focus, it's no wonder that food becomes so much harder to handle. But, what and how we eat should simply be the fuel that feeds our lives. Food shouldn't be the best thing or the worst thing and certainly not the most important thing. Your sister's wedding is not about the cake.

5. Diets measure your life, worth, and health in weight.
You know the drill: A good day is one when you stuck to the plan, when you didn't cheat, or when the number on the scale inched down a bit. Back when I was stuck in the cycle, I wouldn't even go on a date unless I'd been "good" for a few weeks. How much did I miss out on because I felt so unworthy? I will always regret the years I spent not trying new things or meeting new people because I wasn't ready — I wasn't thin. For the same reason, I regret not going to the doctor when I should have because I was scared they'd tell me to lose weight. But, mostly, I am so grateful to have finally stopped letting the scale dictate my social life, my career ambitions, and my personal health. When I let go of all that, it let go of me. Turns out, I was good enough all along.

amother

Goldenrod

Thu, Aug 06 2015, 11:50 pm

Self-compassion: the Science of Self-Care
Posted on June 3, 2014 by Go Kaleo

A theme I run up against frequently is the idea that people who don’t conform to societal weight expectations either don’t love themselves or SHOULDN’T love themselves. Because self acceptance translates to complacency in some people’s minds, and therefore they claim that ‘self love is an excuse to be fat and lazy’. People who weigh more than is socially acceptable are told every day, both directly and indirectly through advertising, that they don’t deserve to feel good about themselves, that the only way to become more socially acceptable is through self-punishment and self-hate. This couldn’t be further from the truth, and in fact there is scientific evidence that people who are kind and gentle with themselves (termed ‘self-compassion’ in the study I’m going to discuss) are actually MORE successful in changing their behavior, and therefore are much more likely to be successful in long-term maintenance of a healthy weight and other health promoting behaviors.

I have direct personal experience here. I spent decades hating myself, hating my body, trying to punish my body into being smaller than it was. The result was always frustration, binging and increasing weight over time. And then one day I decided to stop hating myself and instead treat myself with kindness and patience. And that fundamental change in mindset put the behavior changes into effect that resulted in lasting and sustainable weight loss and health improvement.

Self-Compassion

Have you ever wondered why some people seem to fare better emotionally and mentally than others do, in the quest for fitness, health improvement or weight loss? They seem to have patience with themselves, with the process, and with the steps needed for permanent results. They’re kinder to and more satisfied with themselves, more understanding of the troubles of others, and have a realistic outlook. Typically, they achieve healthier and more lasting physical results.

On the other hand, there are people who beat themselves up constantly, who are impatient with themselves, get frustrated and freak out when the process doesn’t comply with their wishes quickly enough, who try to skip necessary steps. They seem unkind to and unsatisfied with themselves, and are frequently scornful or resentful of others. They are often the people who jump from one fad diet or punishing exercise regimen to another, seeking immediate, extreme results.

We hear a lot about self-esteem, see it promoted as a determining factor in people’s levels of happiness, satisfaction and success in life, but there’s much less awareness of the concept of self-compassion. At first glance, self-esteem and self-compassion may appear to be the same. However, there’s a subtle but important difference.

What is self-compassion? I’m going to use a few quotes from http://www.self-compassion.org/, a site run by Dr. Kristin Neff, a pioneering researcher into the concept of self-compassion, to help elucidate the concept before I get into the science of self-compassion:

“Instead of mercilessly judging and criticizing yourself for various inadequacies or shortcomings, self-compassion means you are kind and understanding when confronted with personal failings – after all, who ever said you were supposed to be perfect? You may try to change in ways that allow you to be more healthy and happy, but this is done because you care about yourself, not because you are worthless or unacceptable as you are.”

It’s an unfortunate fact that the concept embodied by the term “self-compassion” is often viewed as weakness in our society. Being compassionate towards others is seen as virtuous. But to extend that same compassion to oneself is generally seen as either self-absorbed or undisciplined. We are expected to “be hard on ourselves”, to be self-punishing and ashamed about shortcomings or failure to live up to standards (regardless of whether those standards are reasonable or humane).

How does self-compassion differ from self-esteem? Again, from Dr. Neff’s site:

“Self-esteem refers to our sense of self-worth, perceived value, or how much we like ourselves…The need for high self-esteem may encourage us to ignore, distort or hide personal shortcomings so that we can’t see ourselves clearly and accurately…our self-esteem is often contingent on our latest success or failure, meaning that our self-esteem fluctuates depending on ever-changing circumstances.

In contrast to self-esteem, self-compassion is not based on self-evaluations…This means that with self-compassion, you don’t have to feel better than others to feel good about yourself. Self-compassion also allows for greater self-clarity, because personal failings can be acknowledged with kindness and do not need to be hidden. Moreover, self-compassion isn’t dependent on external circumstances, it’s always available – especially when you fall flat on your face!”

So…what’s the evidence?

There’s a fascinating report on a series of five studies that examined the behavior of people with higher levels of self-compassion, as compared with people with lower self-compassion and/or lower or higher levels of self-esteem, Self-Compassion and Reactions to Unpleasant Self-Relevant Events: The Implications of Treating Oneself Kindly. The full report can be found at here.

The researchers gathered reports from participants on negative events in their lives, presented hypothetical scenarios, recorded reactions to interpersonal feedback, showed participants recorded performances by others in awkward situations and observed their reactions, and asked them to reflect on negative personal experiences.

Some findings from this report include:

“…self-compassion was positively associated with mastery orientation (being motivated by curiosity and the desire to develop one’s skills) but negatively associated with performance orientation (the motivation to defend or enhance one’s self-worth).”

(Layman’s terms: People who were more self-compassionate were more likely to be motivated by how a behavior made them feel, and less likely to be motivated by how it made them look.)

“self-compassion was consistently associated with having fewer negative, pessimistic, and self-critical thoughts…self-compassion was inversely related to believing that one has bigger problems in life than most other people, wondering why “these things always happen to me,” thinking that one’s life is more “screwed up” than other people’s, and having the thought “I’m a loser.””

(Layman’s terms: People who were more self-compassionate tended not to believe that their problems were worse than everyone else’s (what I see as victim-mentality), and tended to be more optimistic.)

“…self-compassion was negatively related to negative feelings, specifically, anxiety, sadness, and self-conscious emotions.”

(Layman’s terms: Self-compassionate people had fewer negative feelings and showed less anxiety and self-consciousness.)

“…self-compassionate people react with greater equanimity to difficult situations than people who are lower in self-compassion…self-compassionate people are assumed to be able to maintain emotional equanimity while seeing themselves accurately (without either self-enhancing or self-deprecating) because they compassionately recognize their own imperfect humanity.”

(Layman’s terms: Self-compassionate people tended to react to difficult situations in a more balanced and stable way, and to have a more realistic perception of their own strengths and weaknesses.)

How does this apply to fitness, health and weight loss? It’s common to hear people ridicule or devalue themselves for being unable to stick with healthy behaviors. Most of us have probably heard people say something like, “I was so bad today! I ate too much and didn’t exercise, I’m such a pig!” Even people who don’t express those types of thoughts out loud commonly think those things about themselves. Our culture endorses self-punishment for “cheating” on diets, eating “too much” or “junk food”, not exercising enough, and not conforming to the very narrow range of socially ‘acceptable’ standards of attractiveness.

Eating a balanced, sensible diet and engaging in regular physical activity are essential to achieving and maintaining fitness and a healthy weight. However, shaming and vilifying ourselves for perceived failures isn’t a sustainable way of motivating ourselves to establish these healthy habits. If we believe we aren’t worthy of compassion when we don’t meet certain standards, we are unlikely to have positive motivation to develop and maintain lifelong habits that support health. It’s like the difference between punishing misbehavior or positively reinforcing good behavior. The former isn’t as effective as the latter; the latter is more likely to inform and shape positive behavior for life.

When we care about ourselves; when we truly believe we are worthy of understanding and compassion from ourselves as well as from others; when we believe that we deserve good health and deserve to feel attractive as we are; when we take responsibility for our own behaviors without harshly judging them; when we view ourselves honestly…we are much more likely to maintain a lifestyle that promotes those healthy behaviors.

If we DON’T see ourselves as worthy of any of those things; if we vilify ourselves for our behaviors; if we deflect responsibility for our own behaviors by trying to justify them or blame them on others; when we have a distorted view of ourselves…we are less likely to follow through with healthy habit changes and more likely to continue self-sabotaging behaviors that are harmful to our well being.

When it comes to exercise, self-compassion may give us more incentive to find and continue activities that develop a higher level of fitness without the damaging effects of certain extreme exercises. The finding that “…self-compassion was positively associated with mastery orientation (being motivated by curiosity and the desire to develop one’s skills) but negatively associated with performance orientation (the motivation to defend or enhance one’s self-worth)” may indicate that those with higher self-compassion are more likely to stick with an activity because of the intrinsic motivation of satisfaction with acquiring and mastering skills. We continue engaging in an activity because we enjoy it! And because it makes us feel good! On the other hand, “performance orientation” would be extrinsic motivation, a focus on external factors such as a prize, recognition or praise, or a certain aesthetic goal in order to more closely adhere to social standards of attractiveness. An example of extrinsic motivation is engaging in an activity because a partner wants you to, or because you believe it will produce a certain aesthetic. Intrinsic motivation (doing something out of a sense of personal enrichment, or because of the way it makes you feel) has been shown to be more sustainable than extrinsic motivation (doing something in order to receive praise or approval from others or project a certain image).

People with more self-compassion may be more likely to recognize that extreme and punishing diet regimens are counter-productive. Dietary ‘purity’ is a rigid concept that rarely allows for pleasure or social bonding with food. Self-compassion allows for the knowledge that it’s okay to enjoy food, to not feel deprived, to eat in a way that serves one’s nutritional needs and health goals but allows for pure enjoyment as well. The binge/restrict cycle that is so common today is associated with a self-hostile mindset, and with a pattern of alternating self-loathing and repentance. A higher level of self-compassion could illuminate that unhealthy cycle and help people break free of it. Many people try to break the binge-restrict cycle at the binge, which usually doesn’t work. A person with a higher level of self-compassion is more likely to recognize that they can break the pattern at the restriction point, rather than the binge. Self-compassion recognizes that the restriction is a form of self-punishment, and that the binge is the natural response to such punishment. Stop the self-punishment, and the binge response will begin to fade.

The finding that “…self-compassionate people react with greater equanimity to difficult situations…” could give a clue to another key feature of people with more consistent satisfaction and results. Equanimity is a state of psychological stability and composure. With equanimity comes a resistance to extreme reactions. It allows for a less catastrophic mindset, but also less irrational, unsupported optimism, allowing more accurate assessment of situations and greater ability to make rational decisions about future actions. Self-compassion allows for a reasoned, balanced response to difficult situations and setbacks, rather than the cycle of bouncing between two extremes that so many people are trapped in.

How do you determine if you have self-compassion? Dr. Neff has a quiz on her site that can help you guage your own level of self-compassion. This is also a subject that you should be able to discuss with a therapist. If you have a high level of self-critical thoughts, I highly recommend working with a therapist to learn tools to reach a more balanced self-image. Also, keep in mind that many of the benefits attributed to high self-esteem may, in fact, be a result of high self-compassion instead, so focusing on self-esteem to the exclusion of self-compassion may not be beneficial. The studies cited above found many indications of this, and recommended further study of this distinction.

The report on the five studies concludes, “In general, these studies suggest that self-compassion attenuates people’s reactions to negative events in ways that are distinct from and, in some cases, more beneficial than self-esteem.” This means that those with higher levels of self-compassion may be better equipped to deal with life’s challenges, and have advantages over those with high self-esteem but not high self-compassion.

How do you develop and maintain self-compassion? Again, working with a qualified therapist may be of great value. Dr. Neff also has free exercises available on her site meant to develop self-compassion. In essence, these types of exercises promote being mindful of your own level of self-compassion and learning how to treat yourself the way you would treat a close friend, the way you would want a close friend to treat you. This may feel uncomfortable to many people at first, because so much about our society conditions us to suppress any innate self-compassion we may have, tells us that self-compassion is weakness and undesirable. Most of us experience constant exposure to advertising and social messages that tell us we aren’t good enough as we are. We’re bombarded with unreasonable beauty standards, a greater level of social praise and acceptance for certain categories of professions or socio-economic status, and pressure to compare ourselves to others in order to gauge our own worth. Those things actively discourage self-compassion, and some people are more susceptible to those pressures than others.

I think we can all learn to break away from those patterns, to develop and practice the skills and mindset that promote the ability to stick with the consistent, healthy habits that give us the power to transform ourselves. Once those habits, mental tools and attitudes are developed, maintaining them is relatively easy (much like a muscle!). Along with them comes a greater clarity about the destructive effects of extremes, and a comfort and surety about the value of continuing to practice self-compassion and the behaviors it supports.
https://gokaleo.com/2014/06/03.....sion/