A Weight Lifted

Binge Eating & the College Woman

All binge eaters struggle with their weight, right? Wrong.

Studies show many binge eating college students appear to be at a healthy weight. So how do we know if we – or our college age daughters (and sons) – struggle with binge eating? And why do we care if it doesn’t make us fat? Our FitBriefing this month “Binge Eating & the College Woman” answers that question and more.

A brief excerpt:

Very different from the occasional overeating episode, which is part of normal eating, binge eating has psychological consequences also. People with binge eating disorder may also become depressed; research shows they report more problems with stress, trouble sleeping and more suicidal thoughts than people without eating disorders. Binge eaters often feel badly about themselves and isolate themselves to binge eat, missing work, school and social activities.

If you suspect you are a binge eater, or your daughter (or son) is one, seek help. It's not always about weight loss and it's not a problem to be ignored.

Diets Don't Work!

We've been saying it for over 36 years. Finally, the whole world is getting hip to this message (but not quite there yet). To show solidarity, join us in celebrating International No Diet Day today!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: THE ASDAH CELEBRATES INTERNATIONAL NO DIET DAY

"Are you putting your life on hold until you lose weight? On May 6, 2008, join the Association for Size Diversity and Health in celebration of International No Diet Day, a one-day moratorium on weight-loss dieting sponsored by an international coalition of health professionals, activists and community groups.

Now celebrated worldwide,  International No Diet Day originated in 1992 by Mary Evans Young, the director of a British activist group called Diet breakers.   INDD was established to challenge the cultural attitudes and values that contribute to chronic dieting, weight preoccupation, eating disorders, and size discrimination.

ASDAH is an international professional organization composed of individual and organizational members who are committed to the principles of Health At Every Size (HAES).   In line with INDD goals, the mission of the Association for Size Diversity and Health (ASDAH) is to promote education, research, and the provision of services which enhance health and well-being, and which are free from weight-based assumptions and weight discrimination."

“It is important to recognize that health and well-being are multi-dimensional and that they include physical, social, spiritual, occupational, emotional, and intellectual aspects,”  says ASDAH Board President Dana Schuster, “And perhaps most important, we need to recognize that people of all shapes and sizes deserve basic human rights, including the right to not be discriminated against.”

Join ASDAH for International Diet Day on May 6 and eat well, play well and give yourself a break from self-recrimination because of some arbitrary definition of perfection and beauty."

For more information visit the official INDD web site: http://www.largesse.net/INDD/

For more information on ASDAH, visit:  www.sizediversityandhealth.org

ASDAH’s Annual international conference is coming up in July 2008 and will be held at the LAX Marriott.  For more information visit www.sizediversityandhealth.org.

Tags: healthy eating , diets don't work , healthy lifestyles , ASADH .

Disordered Eating: The "New" Epidemic

Several years ago I was on a media tour in New York, visiting various women's magazine editors in an attempt to get them to think about publishing different kinds of stories on eating and weight loss and weight loss programs. My focus: That women (and increasingly men) were suffering from disordered eating -- too much focus on calories, fat grams, weight loss, even 'healthy' choices. The response I remember from one prominent magazine in particular was that the term 'disordered eating' was too 'scary,' that it was even too sensational for magazines (imagine that!).

So imagine my relief that they have finally jumped on board (although I do admit a bit of exasperation that they didn't even talk to me in putting together their story on the issue!). Self magazine recently published the results of survey that showed '65 percent of American women are disordered eaters." MSNBC published this story on the survey:

The disorder next door: Alarming eating habits

SELF poll reveals 65 percent of American women are disordered eaters

By Tula Karras, SELF

SELF's groundbreaking survey reveals that more than six in 10 women are disordered eaters. Another one in 10 has an eating disorder. Find out if you're at risk and how to get healthier, starting today:

Michelle Marsh, 32, of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, seems like the perfect dieter. If you ran into the 5-foot-1-inch, 103-pound marketing specialist checking food labels for calories in the supermarket or powering through one of her seven weekly workouts, you'd envy her ability to control her intake and burn off any excess, too. But Marsh, who had her first baby nine months ago and is now below her prepregnancy weight ("I'm the tiniest I've ever been!" she says), could be the poster girl for an unrecognized epidemic among women: disordered eating.

No, she doesn't starve herself to an unnatural weight (like anorexics) or throw up daily (like some bulimics), but she doesn't seem to have a healthy relationship with food or her body, either. "I spend about half my time thinking about food and meal planning," she says, although her meals don't require much planning — she usually restricts herself to the same foods every day (oatmeal, brown rice and two small corn tortillas with chicken and a sweet potato). "I weigh myself every morning, and if the scale goes up a pound, I exercise more. If I gained 5 pounds, I'd be very upset."

To read the rest of the story, go to http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24295957/. They even have tips at the end of the story for moving away from disordered eating and achieving healthy weight loss, if it's in your cards. The tips echo what we've been saying at Green Mountain at Fox Run for years. It's nice to know they've gone mainstream.

Overcome Self-Doubt to Build Self Esteem

My daughter first looked at me strangely when I mentioned to her that her "I feel fat" thoughts really weren't about her body. I explained that fat is not a feeling; instead, when we think we feel fat, we're usually distracting ourselves from something else that's bothering us. For many of us, negative body image often has to do with feelings of insecurity -- we're worrying about how we're falling short in some area.

To the rescue: Tips from one of my favorite e-letters -- that from Annette Colby. She recommends we try the following tips when fears and self-doubt threaten to overwhelm us.

1. Awareness Recognize the fear and doubt within you. The first step to overcoming doubt is to be willing to face the situation. By being honest and admitting that you have doubts can you seek alternatives.

2. Acceptance
Understand that it is all right to have doubt. What matters most is that you love yourself enough to overcome your doubt by taking calculated risks.

3. Explore Your Fears
Take out a piece of paper and write down a list of your fears. Explore your doubt, examine your fear, and look at the areas in your life where they get the upper hand.

4. Examine Your Excuses
Write down your reasons for not pursuing a personal challenge or moving forward on something important to you

5. Say Good Bye
Write a goodbye letter to your doubt, then bury it, burn it, or release it in some other creative way.

6. Mirror Mirror On the Wall
When your doubt pops up, go to the mirror and talk to yourself. Positive talk isn’t the entire answer, but without we haven’t got a chance of success. People are more successful when they talk to themselves in a reassuring, compassionate, and loving way.

7. Build Self-Esteem
Keep reminding yourself that you are valuable, that you have worth, and that your life matters.

8. Take Positive Action
Take positive action in the direction of your dreams. You can put doubt in it’s place when you take action on the activities and goals that are most important to you.

9. What's the Best that Could Happen
Imagine the best possible outcome. Practice allowing yourself to envision yourself being the person you want to be.

10. Take Care of Yourself
Take some action every day that allows you to feel better about yourself.

No matter what self-doubt is blocking our way to -- whether it be successful weight loss or going after our dream job -- these tips can help us move forward. The bottom line is believing in ourselves because our minds are the most powerful tool we have to help us achieve our dreams.

Meditation for Healthy Living & Healthy Eating

I recently began meditating as a way to help myself move forward in life, to find what I want to do with the rest of my life and get out of the rut that I felt myself in. So on the vacation that I just returned from, it was good that my two girlfriends were as interested in meditation as I was. We took time each morning we were in Sicily to spend time focused inward. I do believe it made our time there more fun, as I certainly felt calmer and more able to deal with the anxiety of navigating a country in which I do not speak the language -- and not many of the folks there speak English that well.

We've talked about the value of meditation before on this blog and covered it in length in an article on mindfulness in meditation Here's how we describe the value of meditation:

The practice of meditation is about relaxing in order to focus: a daily session in which we intentionally focus our minds on something, such as our breath or a word. When the mind inevitably strays to a thought or emotion, we bring our attention back to the chosen focus. By letting thoughts and feelings pass without judging them, most regular meditators describe feeling more relaxed, less anxious and therefore less disturbed by negative thoughts, feelings, and perceptions.

Meditation can also help us with eating struggles, such as binge eating, eating to manage type 2 diabetes, or just plain eating well. To wit:

Meditation can be very useful for people who struggle with eating. The relaxed, upright posture produces a calmer, more balanced emotional state. Watching the mind, being aware of thoughts, feelings and sensations, and bringing the mind back to a focus gradually trains us to be a “witness” rather than “victim” of our own states. Every time we bring the mind back to the focus, it is like exercising a muscle in the gym—the ability to let go of disturbances and focus the mind grows stronger. Gradually, we recognize that thoughts and feelings are temporary experiences, arising and falling away like waves in the ocean.

I try to spend about 20 minutes a day meditating, but shorter or longer periods are useful, too. That's just the amount of time that seems to work for me. And now -- excuse me -- I need to go meditate. I've got a lot of catching up to do after being gone for two weeks, and meditation will help me approach what seems like an overwhelming amount to do in a more relaxed fashion.

Ciao for now!

Celebrating Mom

Good grief, it's April! Before you know it, it will be Mother's Day. At my house, mother's day is celebrated by allowing mom to relax and refrain from her motherly duties for a day, accompanied by breakfast in bed and a fresh flower or two lovingly placed on a tray. Aww...

But what about the rest of the year? Why not spread the love all month long?

Green Mountain at Fox Run invites you to join them for their 5th annual Mother/Daughter/Sister Program beginning May 1st. Think about celebrating your mom, your daughter or sister by celebrating your journey to good health.

• Discover familial, historical and cultural influences that affect how we as women feel about our bodies and, therefore, how we take care of them. The mother-daughter relationship is the earliest and most significant influence.

• Explore more deeply the complex ways in which food and body shape/size impact women of all ages today.

• If you're the mother of a college-age daughter who struggles with eating and eating disorders, you can learn how to be supportive, to make a big difference for your daughter who is under much more pressure to ‘be thin' for today's standards of beauty.

• Enjoy adventures together – just like you used to. Hike forested New England trails, or try Pilates or yoga for the very first time.

• Learn new ways to take care of yourself and each other. At the end of the day, pamper yourself with any assortment of spa treatments.

Enrollment is limited. For more information, call (800) 448-8106 or (802) - M-F, 9am-5pm EST. Or register online to reserve your spot now. Make sure to mention Mother-Daughter Month in the ‘Special Comments’ section.

Tags: Mother's Day , healthy eating , healthy lifestyles , body image .

Triggers for Emotional Eating

Emotional eating is something we all engage in from time to time. For example, it's normal to celebrate with food, and sometimes nothing is more comforting than food. Still, it can get the best of us if we turn to food too often.

Annette Colby, PhD, nutritionist, therapist and author of several helpful books that look at issues such as emotional eating, lists the top 10 emotions we turn to food to help us with:

1. Feeling disempowered to change your life
2. Feeling overwhelmed or trapped and not knowing how to move forward
3. Unresolved stress and anxiety
4. Perfectionist attitudes or fear of making mistakes or failing
5. Loneliness or Boredom
6. Having a sense of insecurity
7. Feeling undeserving of the abundance and pleasure life has to offer
8. Low self-esteem or poor self-image
9. Eating to hide an emptiness inside
10. A sense of feeling deprived caused by dieting or "being good" with food

Lists like these are useful because it can be hard to figure out what's driving emotional eating sometimes. But that's the first step in overcoming emotional eating -- becoming aware of why we're doing it. Only then can we come up with strategies that will truly help us.

Check out Annette's site and her books for more useful information on emotional eating and other issues that get in the way of our being the best we can be. Check out our Green Mountain site, too, for articles we've written on emotional eating that offer specific strategies for a myriad of reasons we emotionally eat.

Healthy Eating - Ten Best Tips For Managing Food Cravings

Most women who participate in the healthy weight management program at Green Mountain at Fox Run, confess they struggle with managing food cravings. When you're in the midst of a food craving cycle, the idea of creating a healthy eating plan seems more like someone taking away your emotional blankie than a good idea. "What about my ice cream, potato chips, pasta, chocolate...(fill in the blank)..?"

To help you adopt a healthy eating plan that includes the foods you crave, try these 10 Green Mountain Tips:

1. Think "management" instead of "control." "Control" implies an adversarial relationship with food; it's gnerally a constant struggle to maintain control. "Management" is much easier. When we manage something, we work with it to achieve our desired results.

2. Eat at least three well-balanced meals a day. Don't skip meals! You'll only be hungrier for the next one. It's a normal physiological reaction to crave food if you're hungry.

3. Give up guilt. One brownie never made anyone fat, but your attitude about eating brownies or any foods you consider forbidden can make you fat. Believing you have 'cheated' on your diet, and therefore having ruined your chances of success, will produce feelings of failure and guilt. Allow yourself your favorite foods in moderation, without guilt.

4. Accept food cravings as a normal part of living in a food-oriented society.  Everyone experiences food cravings, regardless of whether they struggle with their weight. The more you understand cravings, the more manageable they become. Food cravings can be caused by physical cues and emotional cues. Although you cannot necessarily emliminate all cravings, you can manage your reation.

5. Look at cravings as suggestions to eat, not commands to onverindulge. Overeating does not have to be an automatic response to craving. Take charge. When a craving begins, determine how you want to deal with it.

6. Believe that cravings will pass. Researchers have found that people believe a craving will continue to intensifiy until they give into it. In truth, a craving is similar to a wave in the ocean. It grows in intensity, peaks and then subsides if you don't give into it. The more you practice riding the wave, the easier it will become.

7. Disarm your cravings with the 5 D's.

Delay - at least 10-15 mintues before you eat.

Distract - yourself by engaging in an activity that requires concentration and is not compatible with eating.

Distance - yourself from food - leave the room, ask the waiter to remove your plate, take steps (literally) to get yourself in a non-food environment

Determine - how important it is to eat the craved food and how much you really want it.

Decide - what amount is reasonable and appropriate to start with. Eat it mindfully and enjoy!

8. Stop labeling foods as 'bad', 'illegal' or 'forbidden. It's not the food. It's the manner i which you may consume it and how often you consume it. You can eat some of anything you want - even if it is high in fat, calories, sugar or salt - but if you want to reach your healthy fitness goals, you may not be able to eat all of what you think you want

9. Aim for moderation instead of abstinence.  Avoiding things you fear only reinforce your fear. If you think you can never eat certain foods again, you may feel driven to eat as much as you can whenever you can. Explore what you really want. Is it really food? Or do you want well-being too.

10. Exercise regularly. Exercise is the key to managing food cravings. Rather than burn calories, one of the most important contributions of regular exercis is a relief from tension and stress. It is also a very healthy way to delay, distract and distance yourself from food.

Tags: managing food cravings , mindful eating , healthy lifestyles , riding the wave .

Emotional Eating: Flowers brighten mood

'Blah' days can make you feel lethargic and disinclined to get out and be active. When it's cold, overcast and dark, it's also easier to feel a little down, which is one of my triggers for emotional eating. 

To perk myself up, I've found that it helps to buy a fresh bouquet of flowers for the table (even though I know the cat will eventually get to it)!  Flowers have always been a pick-me-up, but little did I know that there's a scientific basis for it.

A Universal 'Pick-Me-Up'

According to a study of behavioral and emotional responses to receiving flowers, participants expressed "true" or "excited" smiles upon receiving flowers, demonstrating extraordinary delight and gratitude. The reaction was universal, occurring in all age groups. In addition, participants reported feeling less depressed, anxious and agitated after receiving flowers and a higher sense of enjoyment and life satisfaction.

Seniors performed higher on everyday memory tasks and experienced enriched personal memories in the presence of flowers, according to study leader Jeannette Haviland-Jones, a professor of psychology at Rutgers University.

Flower Power in Stopping Emotional Eating

I've worked hard to not use food as a mood regulator, and it's good to know that flowers can help beat a case of the 'blahs.' But emotional eating issues are complex and individual, so understanding the reasons why I turned to food in times of boredom and stress, and how that impacted my self-esteem, was vitally important to learn how to change my behavior. For more insight, read Stopping Emotional Eating, Coping with People at Home or Stopping Emotional Eating:Getting the Support We Need.

Spring Flowers: A Natural Mood-Enhancer for a Healthy Lifestyle

If you want to make flowers a part of your healthy lifestyle, here's a few tips to keep them lasting longer:

• Tulips are thirsty flowers and apt to toss back a glass of cool fresh water each day, but the little cut-flower food packets are not necessary.
• Keep spring flowers away from sources of heat, including direct sunlight, radiators, lamps and television sets.
• Tulips and daffodils get along in the garden, but not in the same vase.

Treat yourself to a bouquet today, or give one to a friend or loved one. It'll do wonders to brighten your - or their -day!

A Time of Change

Spring is a glorious time of year, especially here in the Northeast where we've been buried under snow for months (or if it's been a snowless winter, the brown landscape gets pretty dreary). Spring represents change at its best -- a time of growth, a time of awakening, a time to celebrate.

Many of us don't look at change that way in our personal lives, however. We may actively resist it, instead of seeking out the positive aspects of change. My favorite self-help website, Daily OM, describes the benefits of change this way:

It is only through change that we are able to grow. Transformation takes you out of your comfort zone so you can evolve. A change will always bring new experiences and add different elements to your life. In the midst of change, we learn how to handle a fresh set of variables. As we adapt, we assimilate this change into our beings; we have already grown when we become more than we were just a moment before. When you allow change to happen naturally today, any plans you make will be able to evolve organically so that you can realize your dreams.

Women who come to Green Mountain are seeking change -- change in how they eat to adopt healthy eating, how they move their bodies to start to enjoy exercise, how they think about themselves to improve body image and how they view the world around them. They may not realize the seek change in all these areas, but all these areas generally get touched upon in the journey to taking better care of ourselves.

Change is not always a smooth course to the finish. Witness snowstorms in April -- we've even seen snow in June in these parts! But one thing is true about Spring -- it's persistent. It's there regardless of the form it takes, and it leads the way to sunnier times.

Of course, lifestyle change is the same. It can get pretty bumpy. But staying positive, and keeping our eye on the goal can keep us going. Try this affirmation: I embrace the change that is inevitable in my life, to find the positive and continue to grow into the person I want to be.

Sleeping Well, Eating Well, Living Well

It's National Sleep Awareness Week! I know -- pretty exciting stuff. Sarcasm aside, getting enough sleep is basic to good health and healthy weights. It's estimated that one-third of people in the US suffer from chronic sleep loss. With so many of us also struggling with healthy weight loss, it makes sense to pay attention to this problem.

The link between adequate sleep and healthy weights has to do with hormones. According to the National Sleep Foundation, if we don't get enough sleep, it may affect our levels of the hormone leptin, which regulates carbohydrate metabolism. Low levels of leptin can cause carbohydrate cravings, "...regardless of the amount of calories consumed."

The Sleep Foundation also points out that adequate sleep may also be part of a type 2 diabetes program. It cites a small study on 11 healthy young adults that showed after several nights of only four hours a night of sleep, "their ability to process blood glucose had declined, in some cases to a pre-diabetic state, prompting their bodies to produce more insulin."

And that's the tip of the iceberg when it comes to negative effects of not enough sleep. Here are a few tips from the National Sleep Foundation to help you get your zzzzz's.

At night:

Establish a regular bedtime routine and a regular sleep-wake schedule. That means getting up at the same time every day of the week, no matter how much you've slept the night before, and going to bed at about the same time.
Don't spend too much time in bed. Your time in bed should be about the same as the amount of time you can actually sleep during the night. You can't force yourself to sleep by spending more time in bed.
Do not eat or drink too much before bedtime.
Create a sleep-promoting environment that is quiet, dark, cool and comfortable.

During the day:

Consume less or no caffeine, particularly late in the day.
Avoid alcohol and nicotine, especially close to bedtime.
Exercise, but not within three hours before bedtime.
Avoid naps, particularly in the late afternoon or evening.
Establish a regular bedtime and get up at the same time every day. Do not stay in bed to make- up for lost sleep or beyond your regular rise time.
Keep a sleep diary to identify your sleep habits and patterns that you can share with your doctor.

Loving Our Bodies for Healthy Weight Loss Success

In this week after Valentine's Day, the topic of loving our bodies seems appropriate. Our last FitBriefing, Loving Our Bodies for Healthy Weight Loss Success, presents a good review of just how important this attitude is, even though it's very difficult for many of us to embrace.

The bottom line is that our attitudes/thoughts dictate our behaviors. To quote the FitBriefing:

"...how we think about ourselves and our body image has a decisive impact on our behaviors. For example,

When we’re negative about ourselves, we’re less likely to feed ourselves well.
We rarely have the motivation or energy to get off the couch (or out of bed) and move to make our bodies feel better.
If we’re emotional eaters, negative thinking about ourselves can be a trigger to eat when we’re not hungry, or even binge.
Bingeing and isolating ourselves can represent forms of self-punishment that make us feel even more discouraged and depressed."

Mimi and Teri, our behaviorists at Green Mountain, recently attended a conference at which much of the discussion centered around the significant effect our thinking has on who we become. Neural pathways get established with repeated thoughts, and those repeated thoughts become habits that dictate our behaviors.

The first step in changing thoughts and behaviors is to become aware of them. Because our habit of disliking our bodies can be so established, we don't even notice when we disparage ourselves. The attitudes of mindfulness go a long way towards helping us become aware.

If you're caught up in not liking your body, read the complete FitBriefing "Loving our Bodies." It has some useful techniques for starting to change these thoughts and, ultimately, even move towards a healthier place that may find us actually liking our bodies. Positive thoughts can work just like negative ones, by taking us to the places we're thinking about!

It's That Chocolate Time of Year Again

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day, and in honor of it, I'm not going to talk about the nutritional value of chocolate. Yes, there does appear to be some real health benefits associated with eating small amounts of dark chocolate, but I think that's really not what we eat chocolate for. Instead, when we focus on the good nutrition found in chocolate, it's often an attempt to assuage guilty feelings that I encourage you not to have in the first place!

If we enjoy it, eating chocolate is part of intuitive healthy eating. We eat it because it tastes good, and eating too much of it doesn't taste good. Mindful eaters know that nothing tastes good in excess. And if we don't eat chocolate in excess, whatever things that are in it that may not be good for our health in excess aren't relevant.

I argue that, if we like it, eating chocolate is good for our health regardless whether it contains anything that scientists have found has disease-fighting benefits or not. That's because happiness is a big part of being healthy. If we walk around feeling down because we're deprived, or guilty, or joyless because we don't let ourselves take part in life's pleasures that are food, it's hard to feel happy.

So when your sweetie, or friend, or mom, or whoever, hands you a box of chocolates tomorrow, go ahead and enjoy! Banish those thoughts of calories, fat, weight, health. Just savor each piece you decide to eat, and trust your body to tell you when enough is enough. Then enjoy the rest of your day knowing you've treated your body well...and your psyche to boot!

Staying on Track with Healthy Eating

Our FitBriefing alert for the month of January alluded to lagging New Year's resolutions. It's pretty predictable. We start out strong the first of the year with our get healthy and lose weight resolutions, but as the month goes on, well, life does get in the way.

One thing that goes first for many food and weight strugglers are healthy eating resolutions. And many of us agree that diets often seem easier to follow than eating mindfully, because all the decisions are taken away. Diets tell us what to eat -- and what not to eat -- so we don't have to spend a lot of time thinking about it.

We can marry the eating structure of diets with the concept of mindful eating. It's all in how we think about it. In truth, eating structure goes a long way towards helping us stay on track with healthy eating and start to feel well and lose weight if we need to. Read our FitBriefing "Healthy Eating for Healthy Weight Loss: It May Look Like a Diet but It's How You Think About It" to understand this idea more, and start to put it in place in your life. This concept can make the difference between staying with our New Year's resolutions to eat well and reverting to old eating habits that don't get us where we want to go.

Btw, if you want notice each time we post a new FitBriefing, sign up here (if you don't want our brochure, just say so in the box for comments).

Food Cravings for Calories, Not Carbs

It wasn't a surprise to read a press release on a recent study conducted at Tufts University on food cravings. Researcher Susan Roberts said, ""The findings [of this study] suggest that cravings are for calories, not carbohydrate, as is widely assumed." Although foods craved do contain carbohydrate, they often contain fat and protein, too.

The study then went on to say that food cravings are normal (91 percent of people report having them), but it appears that dieting increases the frequency. Which makes sense, of course -- when we're hungry, we crave food! No rocket science there.

In this month dubbed National Diet Month, it's useful info to keep in mind as many of us seek healthy weight loss. When we start craving food, it's a good sign that we need it. It's not a sign that we're weak willed.

If you're having trouble managing food cravings, think first whether you really need to eat. Then, if you're not hungry, but still craving, could deprivation be at work? When we cut out foods in the belief that they 'make us fat' or somehow interfere with weight loss, we might set ourselves up for wanting them even more. Think moderation, not elimination if this is the case for you.

Tags:
healthy eating ,
food cravings ,
healthy weight loss ,
diet

Weighing In for Healthy Weight Loss?

According to an article in last Sunday’s Parade magazine, the first step in losing weight is to buy a scale. The article cites a Brown University study that showed daily weigh-ins are key to weight loss. I looked up the study and see that it really says daily weigh-ins helped their study participants keep lost weight off. Either way, though, I beg to disagree with the advice.

One of my colleagues said it best when she noted that daily weighing is essentially a way to trigger obsessive thinking about weight. And that it’s a surefire way to give yourself the eating disorder experience. People with eating disorders generally maintain weight loss pretty easily. The discussion then went to the fact that people don’t really understand that disordered eating is more than starving or throwing up. It encompasses a whole realm of chaotic behaviors around food and body that do not support well-being, indeed detract mightily from it.

Another colleague suggested that if you’re thinking about weighing, whether it be daily, weekly, monthly or whenever, ask yourself how it affects you. Does it change your mood? Does it consistently make you feel positive? For most of us, likely not.

I compare weighing to the store window that we walk by, and when we’re not feeling good about our bodies, see our reflection and fall into despair. I’d wager that many of us feel that way when we get on the scale. The last thing that we feel like doing when we don’t like the number on the scale is to feed ourselves well or go have some fun physical activity. Instead, it often triggers a downward spiral of emotional eating that ends with depression.

We don’t really need a number to tell us whether we’re at a healthy weight that feels right for us. Instead of weighing, why not keep track of our healthy behaviors such as healthy eating and physical activity, and if we need to, even keep a journal that tracks our eating and physical activity so we can objectively see how well we are doing (important point: this isn’t in order to judge ourselves if we don’t eat well or be active one day; it’s just to see our overall patterns better). When we establish healthy behaviors that become our pattern over time, our weight will reach a happy, healthy place for each of us. And it will feel great getting there.

Tags: healthy eating , weight loss , weighing in , weight loss scale

Avoiding Health Mistakes in the New Year

The Washington Post had an article on this subject this week that I found interesting. The snippets are from readers, and reminds me of important advice we've long given at Green Mountain. For the full effect, take a gander at the article itself. I list below the healthy weight loss tips that stood out for me, with a few comments of my own following the tip. If you're a regular reader of our blog, you won't necessarily find these insights revealing, but they do bear reminding.

"Don't go on a diet." So what do we do when we feel like we've overdone things and need to find a healthier weight? Eat sensibly -- three meals a day and snacks if we need them. Healthy eating includes plenty of lean protein, vegetables and fruit and reasonable amounts of healthy starch foods like whole grains (wheat, rice, oatmeal), legumes (beans and peas), winter squashes, etc. This type of eating keeps us satisfied. If we also feel like eating a piece of chocolate or other treat, we can be satisfied with a small amount because we're not hungry.

"Don't give up! On exercise, that is." But don't do it for weight loss; do it to feel well. And regular, reasonable exercise does just that -- it helps us feel great! And that helps us keep doing the other things that are important for healthy weights -- like eating sensibly. It creates its own feedback loop. If you need to conquer your fears about exercise, read our FitBriefing "Overcoming Exercise Fears."

"Don't think you can do it alone." Support is one of the key predictors of success. You can find support from friends and/or family, or you can find it online via blogs like this or other venues. Just get it. It helps you stay the course when things get tough...and they will get tough at times as we our busy lives and self-doubts get in the way of living healthfully.

Hope your 2008 has started off strong. We'll do our best to help keep you going with our posts each week!

Tags: healthy eating , healthy weight loss , healthy weight , diet

Holiday Treats Are Meant To Eat - Mindfully!

We’re officially in the middle of December and that means houses and office buildings across our land are filling up with yummy holiday treats. Fudge, frosted cookies, peanut brittle, baklava, brownies and candy canes, just to name a few. You name it, it’s out there.

If you’re at all like me, you're bound to be experiencing a little stress around holiday eating. Having all those tempting treats right under your nose can put even the strongest resolve to the test. Here are a few things you may want to think about: (note to self!)

• Traditional holiday goodies are a good thing! They’re part of what makes the season special, don't be afraid to indulge.
• Eat treats when you really want them. Not just because they're there.
• Give yourself permission. No sneaking!
• Sit down. Be mindful. Savor the experience.
• Taste what you’re eating. If you’re not crazy about fruitcake, leave it be, eat something that really rocks your boat.
• Put closure on your eating. Treats are just that - a treat – not a substitute for lunch!
• Make it count. Indulge in special holiday treats only in conjunction with a healthy diet. Don't skip or skimp on meals because you had a piece of fudge!
• Rejoice in the season.

Happy Holidays!

Tags: mindfulness , mindful eating , healthy eating , healthy treats .

Try a Little Self Confidence for Happy Holidays

Many of us who struggle with negative body image dread the days that are upon us. All the holiday gatherings mean finding clothes to wear, seeing people (relatives!) whom we haven't seen for a while perhaps, facing down tables laden with food we often feel a bit fearful of. But it doesn't have to be this way. If we begin the season thinking about ourselves differently, it can make a world of difference in how we enjoy them.

An e-letter arrived this week from one of my favorite sites, Daily OM, that talked about self confidence and how we compare ourselves to others. And, of course, that's what goes on when, while we're feeling bad about ourselves, we walk into a room full of people whom we think are thinner, more successful, happier, etc., than we are. The bottom line according to the article: What we think we see in others is usually what they want us to see. If we looked more closely, we'd see they have imperfections, too. They're human. The article calls the imperfections "glorious" and say they make us who we are. It also encourages us to appreciate our imperfections as our uniqueness, and notes that if we're too busy comparing ourselves to others, we really can't see what makes us unique.

Read the article yourself to get the full force of what they are saying. They do a much better job than what I did above. Then go out there and have a wonderful, happy and healthy holiday season!

Tags: healthy holiday , self confidence , body image , positive thinking

Healthy Weight Loss: When Non-Dieting Doesn’t Seem to Work

With the holidays looming, lots of folks are thinking about losing a few pounds. After all, there's lots of holiday food on the horizon. If you're thinking similarly, think again. Quick weight loss just doesn't work. Oh, yes, we generally see a few pounds peel off quickly, but unfortunately, they come back once we start eating again (and that's the only way quick weight loss occurs -- we basically have to quit eating). Green Mountain's pioneering non-diet approach is based on the fact that we need to eat adequately, both for health and for healthy weights.

Still, we do hear comments (complaints?) from folks from time to time that they just can't seem to lose weight when they're following a non-diet healthy weight loss program. Here's a typical scenario:

"When I first stopped dieting and started to follow my internal cues for eating, I felt a lot better, and a big bonus was that I lost a fair amount of weight. I wasn’t at my natural weight because of all the dieting I had done as well as my generally unhealthy lifestyle. But now, even though I’m eating mindfully and staying active, my weight loss has stalled. I think I should be at a lower weight. What am I doing wrong?"

Read our latest FitBriefing about non-dieting as a healthy weight loss program for our thoughts on this. But briefly, we first recommend you be sure that you need to lose weight for health. As we've said repeatedly on this blog, not all of us are meant to be thin, and we can spend our lives strugglng in vain to reach a number on a scale that's just not meant for us. Do we want to waste our energy, our lives this way? I know it's hard to not look like the societal ideal, but we don't have a choice sometimes (compare it to aging -- and plastic surgery isn't a choice because it doesn't really work either).

Our second thought is that if you really are above your healthy weight, consider these three questions:

1) Do you really eat only when you are hungry most of the time?
2) Are you eating well-balanced meals and snacks?
3) Are you active?

These three questions get at the heart of a healthy lifestyle that leads to healthy weights. Again, read more about them in our FitBriefing discussing healthy weight loss.

Oh, and the cartoon pictured above? That's the best thing to do with the scale....if we're paying close attention to the numbers on the scale, we can be distracted from how we truly feel. Ultimately, it's our behaviors that make the difference in whether we feel great or whether we feel like we're not taking care of ourselves. Those behaviors are what make the difference, not what the scale says.

Tags: healthy weight loss program , holiday eating , non-diet , losing weight

Healthy Eating - If You Can't Pronounce It, Should You Eat It?

I was on a long flight the other day, flying coast to coast. I was remembering when being served semi-warm over-cooked rubberized airline food was an afront to our tastebuds. Boy, who figured we’d ever consider those the good old days? Now we get pretty much nuttin’!

These days I’m usually good about packing myself a healthy lunch or snack before I fly, but this trip I just didn’t make the time. Consequently, when treats from the ‘munch basket’ were offered by the flight attendant, without much hesitation, I said ‘yes, please’, as hunger had taken over. There was no other choice, much less a good one. Other than the size of my snack (a pittance), the real insult came when out of boredom I looked to see what was listed under 'ingredients'.

Now, I'm not a label fanatic, nor do I feel that an occasional snack in a pack is a bad thing, but what I read just reminded me that I am wholly responsible for what I eat, how I eat, and when I eat. Innocent enough looking was “Kings Delicious Savory Snack Mix’, but how all these ingredients get crammed into a little less than a palm full of kibble boggled my mind. So, just for fun…

INGREDIENTS: Mimi Pretzel Twists (enriched flour [Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Monoitrate, Riboflavin and Folic Acid), Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Salt Corn Syrup, Yeast, and Baking Soda), Honey Roasted Sesame Sticks (Unbleached Wheat Flour [Contains malted Barley Flour as a Natural Enzyme Additive], Soybean Oil, Sesame Seeds, Honey Coating [Sucrose, Wheat Starch, Honey], Bulgur Wheat, Tack Blend [Maltodextrin, Xanthan gum], Salt, Beet Powder, Turmeric), Cheddar Corn Sticks (Corn Masa, Soybean Oil, Seasoning [Dehydrated Cheese flavor (Cheddar Cheese [Pasteurized Milk, Cheese Cultures, Salt, enzymes], Whey, Salt, Disodium Phosphated, Yellow 5, Yellow ), Dried Whey, Salt, Buttermilk Powered, Dextrose Monohydrate, Natural (ha!) and Artificial Flavoring (Containing Maltodextrin, Food Starch Modified,(Enriched Wheat Flour [Wheat Flour, Niacin, reduced Iron, Thiamine Nomonitrate, Riboflavin, and Folic Acid] partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Salt, Whey, Nonfat Milk, Corn syrup, Yeast, Citric Acid, Sour Cream [Cream, Cultures, nonfat Milk] Dextrose, Onion, Torula Yeast, Tomato, Garlic, enzyme-Modified Cheddar Cheese [Milk, Cheese Cultures, Salt, Enzymes, Calcium Chloride], Natural Flavor Malic Acid, Extractives of Turmeric Disodium Phosphate and Sodium Diaxide).

The whole point of this little parable is to point out how taking just three little minutes to pack up some nuts, a piece of string cheese and an apple, would have resulted in a much healthier, delicious and most importantly satisfying meal replacement. Besides, I can pronouce apples, nuts and cheese!

Tags: healthy snacks , intuitive eating , healthy lifestyles , whole foods .

Tricks and Treats – Happy All Hallows Eve!

I was walking down the grocery store aisle yesterday checking out all the Halloween costumes and couldn’t believe it’s almost November. How can that be?! Then it dawned on me that this is the time of year that holiday treats are marketed to us within an inch of our lives. It starts with Halloween, and before you know it out come the New Years resolutions. Whoosh! Just like that.

It begins with the jumbo bags of bite-sized Milky Way bars and boxes of candy coated apples everywhere when summer has barely bid adieu. On any given day, I wouldn’t think about a caramel coated red delicious apple sprinkled with walnuts, but today…mmm, sounds kind of good!

So when does it make sense to indulge in a treat or two because we really want it? How can we distinguish a visual temptation and a real internal cue that says, ‘I would really enjoy something sweet?’ Sometimes it’s bloody hard to tell. It’s a trick and treaty kinda time.

At this time of year it’s important that we make a real attempt to tune into hunger and listen for those internal cues and make wise choices whenever possible. Doesn’t mean a candied apple isn’t in your future, it just means that if your New Year’s resolutions usual includes laying off sugar, or eating less and exercising more, you may want to think now about putting some healthy lifestyle strategies in place. Try to keep yourself at the top of your priority list (yes, even at the holidays!), lest you find yourself in a puddle at the end of the day with a bag of half eaten candy corn.

Great recipe for caramel covered apples here.

Tags: hunger management , snacking , intuitive eating , healthy eating

Written by Cindy

It Takes A Village

No matter what your politics, it is hard to see Hilary Clinton on our TV screens almost every night these past few months and not be reminded of her book, It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us, in which she writes about her vision for the children of America. She focuses on the impact friends, neighbors and groups outside the family have, for better or worse, on a child's well-being.

For a plethora of personal reasons, I've been reminded again how important it is to find a team of people who can support you when you’re looking to make important changes in your life. Whether it’s financial, professional or personal help (thanks Alan), or something as organic as getting healthier (thanks Vanessa), or just feeling better (thanks Jim), creating or reaching out to your own 'village' is a Godsend when trying to make your way through challenging times.

I recognize 'feeling better' is a relative term and has different meaning for each of us. It could mean making that long over due trip to your doctor to get a check up, or looking for a personal trainer who can help you work through your personal fitness issues.  It could mean employing a registered dietician or nutritionist to support your efforts to eat healthfully, or maybe its time to consider a terrific therapist who you can spill your guts to. 

It may take a couple tries to find people you like.  Keep trying because when you do find them they can be like gold. Your state should provide listings to women’s organizations, which focus on women’s health, nutrition, fitness and emotional issues.  They can guide you to professionals in a wide variety of disciplines. Reaching out to friends or family to let them know you need their support can also be very important.

I don’t know why I’ve always been bad about asking people for help, but I suspect I’m not alone. Doing everything ourselves, never letting on that we have weaknesses or need help can be an unproductive part of our human nature, so we often suffer in silence.

Creating your own ‘village’ is important in my view, b/c our needs may be better met when we bring together the expertise of folks who offer us different perspectives.  A woman’s total health is a complex issue. And each woman is unique.  Surrounding yourself with people who want to help you, gives you the feeling that you’re not alone, people care and most importantly, you can succeed at getting where you want to go.

You may be surprised to find very good programs through your local community center, religious organizations or the YWCA.  Look for professionals who will work with you and your special needs and always seek referrals.

RESOURCES:

Information on women's health
Lists for therapists my U.S. city

Tags: our bodies ourselves , women's organizations , healthy lifestyles , YWCA .

Healthy Weight Loss: Asking for Help

A commenter on one of my recent posts on relapse prevention talked about the need to reach out for more support than she currently has. She’s right to reach out. Support is one of the top predictors of success in achieving change. Many of us don’t have enough of it. We feel like we are going it alone in trying to achieve our healthy weight loss goals. And we often are. One of the big reasons is that many people in our society still don’t understand that diets don’t work, and that healthy bodies come in all sizes.

The commenter said that reading this blog was one way she was getting support. But what about getting support from those around us? On her excellent website Nourishing Connections, Green Mountain consultant Karin Kratina, PhD, talks about how “it is human nature to need company, connection, empathy, understanding and support. She says if these needs aren’t met for a period of time, we develop coping mechanisms, one of which is emotional eating. If we want to let go of emotional eating, the first step is compassionate self care to meet those needs. Often, this means asking for help.”

She then goes on to discuss how asking for help isn’t the easiest thing to do. But the potential rewards are great. “As our needs are tended to, our need for emotional eating decreases. As we ask for help and risk developing nourishing connections with others, we transform not only our relationship with ourselves and others, but with food as well. And these long-term benefits are well worth the risk.”

We hope this blog provides valuable support, but also encourage you to acknowledge your needs and ask those around you to help you meet them, if necessary. That may mean education – teaching others that what you need isn’t another diet but the freedom to make your own choices.

Tags: healthy weight loss , emotional eating , predictors of success , Karin Kratina

Healthy Eating - When Cake Is Your Best Choice

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time at all, you've heard us talk a lot about normal eating, appropriate portion sizes (the plate model) and making healthy choices. But, if you've really been listening, you know we don't believe there's any such thing as a perfect eater. In fact, the more relaxed you are about making choices and opting to take into consideration your wants and needs around food and eating, the more effective you'll be managing your weight.

We all know life is about choices, but that doesn't mean we always have to be right or perfect. In this context, chosing well means eating food for many reasons. Like, because we're hungry, or we need more from a particular food group, because we like the way something tastes, or we simply desire an emotional payoff. Yes, 'normal eating' is sometimes about emotional eating. Human beings eat for emotional reasons every day, and a great percentage of them are not over-fat.

Normal eating involves acceptance, eating for pleasure, and trusting yourself. Most often it isn't the food that is at issue, it's our reaction around what we choose to eat. If you possess a dieter's mentality you probably frown upon the odd piece of cake. Unfortunately, depriving yourself that pleasure can often lead to eating insane amounts of cake  - out of shame, guilt and an all or nothing approach to what you perceive as a forbidden food. Remember, one piece of cake never made anyone fat. It's what you do after you eat that one peice of cake that matters.

Translation? Choosing a piece of cake, and eating it mindfully with your full permission, can actually be a very healthy choice in the scheme of things. No kidding! Only we can know what is appropriate and normal for each of us. And how great would it be to feel normal again?!

Tags: portion control , mindful eating , healthy weight loss , plate model .

Healthy Weight Loss: Managing Food Cravings

When we think we're dealing with carbohydrate cravings, a new study published in the International Journal of Obesity suggests we're really just craving calories. But not just any source of calories...something that has a lot of them. We're hungry, and we want something to satisfy. As we all know, that's usually not a carrot stick.

The study was part of a larger one that looked at various effects of energy restriction. It found that while 91% of people report food cravings normally, the figure rose to 94% when dieting. I'm surprised. I would have thought it might be closer to 100% when dieting.

Another finding: People who gave in to their cravings less frequently lost more weight. Duh.

And another: In the release, one of the researchers says "What is commonly called carbohydrate addiction should probably be relabeled as calorie addiction." Addiction? I'd say everyone is addicted to calories, whether we label them as a craving or not! We can't live without them.

On first reading this release, I didn't know whether to celebrate or laugh. It's great to see evidence supporting what we've long observed at Green Mountain at Fox Run. When participants report food cravings, we encourage them to examine their cravings, and determine whether they are the result of hunger rather than some undeniable urge to eat a specific food. We've found that when we eat regularly and don't get too hungry (part of mindful eating), and let ourselves eat foods we like, even high-calorie ones in moderation, food cravings aren't really such a problem.

But the way the other findings are reported is discouraging. Rather than questioning whether dieting is an appropriate undertaking, the researchers just say that we need to 'give in' less frequently to the cravings (or actually, they're talking about giving in less frequently to the hunger) to get where we want to go with the diets. So we're back to the old willpower bit.

And to call hunger a calorie addiction! Do I need to say more?

To make matters even worse, this work was paid for by our taxes.

Tags: healthy weight loss , mindful eating , carbohydrate cravings , food cravings

Relapse Prevention for Healthy Weights

"A lapse does not a relapse make."

I remember these wise words from Linda Crawford, Green Mountain’s first ever ‘behavioral therapist.’ She wasn’t a trained therapist, and she didn’t claim to be one. But she did lead classes looking at emotional eating issues, and was very good at it. She did her homework, read all the research, and presented some very useful information to the many women who came to Green Mountain during her watch.

Linda moved on a while ago – she’s now in Florida, playing tennis and enjoying her retirement (we hear from her from time to time). But her wisdom has stayed with many of us, staff and participants alike.

I heard her words in my head this morning as I was getting dressed for my yoga class. I’m coming off (I hope) a few days of emotional eating. Not totally clear about the issues that spurred the emotions, but I was definitely aware that I was eating emotionally. Rather than succumb to this unhelpful behavior, however, I’ve been trying the various strategies we present for consideration at Green Mountain.

They include awareness, exposure, resistance and response strategies. Here’s one that really spoke to me:

Pay attention when you are eating. Make eating a conscious act so you know when and what you’re eating and can enjoy the experience.

That may sound obvious, but when I’m in the middle of emotional eating, I’m certainly not eating consciously. When I do, it makes a world of difference.

Here’s another one:

Sit down in an appropriate place with minimal distractions when you eat. Enjoy conversation and background music, but avoid reading, watching TV, doing paperwork, driving while you eat. If you do eat in distracting circumstances, control the portion size and focus on the food as much as possible. When a