"Normal" Eating by Karen R. Koenig

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Normal Eating talks and media events

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Why Can't Our Bodies Be Okay?

2012-02-10T05:05:22-08:00

Before you start to read my blog, let me tell you some exciting news. Today's blog is part of a host of blogs on beauty which can be found at Beauty BlogFest. Read my blog, then read them all. Visit the BlogFest on Friday, February 10th to read many more inspiring takes on beauty--and bodies--as well as giving yourself a chance to win awesome prizes, including a Kindle Touch or $99 Amazon gift card, a body image coaching session (from yours truly), BOAW mugs and more. By the way, look for my new, free, private eating app on Facebook, APPetite, coming out this month!

Often times I run into women—in my practice, in my life—who have everything going for them. They seem fit, look great, are brimming with vim and vigor, yet are stuck on losing weight (they insist) in order to be happy. Maybe it’s three pounds or 15 or 100 they’d like to shed. Sometimes it’s enough that people would notice and sometimes no one ever would. Believe me, I recognize that it’s no fun being fat in this society, but it’s also no fun feeling badly about your body.

The point is that I wonder what would happen if women let their weight loss dreams go. The “excess” weight doesn’t necessarily inhibit their being attractive, happy, healthy, or successful, so what’s really going on? Several things. First is that we have few if any role models of women feeling okay about their bodies. When was the last time you heard someone, a female someone, say she liked her body just as it is? I don’t honestly recall ever hearing that comment. Even if a woman feels comfortable at her weight, she complains about her thinning hair or the bags under her eyes or the fact that her fingernails keep splitting. Or she’s too short-waisted or her feet are too large. We are simply not used to saying OUR BODIES ARE OKAY AS IS. I know: I am woman too!

There's a second reason that we don’t hear women saying they are content with their appearance. How might the rest of us react? Let’s say we’re feeling simply awful about our small breasts or big pores and some woman who also has small breasts and big pores—or some equally perceived egregious body defect—says she has no problem with how she looks. I’m not sure our first reaction would be, Gee, that’s swell, I’d like to think the way she does. Hopefully we might, but I suspect there’s an equal possibility that we’d view her as unrealistic or willfully blind to her defects. We might wonder where she gets off ignoring or accepting an imperfection that brings us to our knees. We might see her as arrogant or ignorant—doesn’t she know she’s supposed to agonize about small breasts and big pores? Hasn’t someone told her we’re not meant to feel our bodies are okey-dokey as they are?

Rather than waiting to find that woman out there who feels fine about her body so you can become like her, why not become her? When someone says something nice about your body, how about simply saying thank you and leaving it at that. Moreover, how about silencing your inner critic that can’t wait to crank out those body grievances: Yeah, thanks, but you haven’t seen my jiggly thighs or my bony shoulders or the rough patches on my heels. Please, enough is enough. This is an instance when there are not a lot of role models out there to show us the way. Instead, we have to light the path ourselves, so, go on, get up, get out there, and grab yourself a candle.

Best,

Karen

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Normal Eating talks and media events

PLEASE NOTE: Please post your comments and suggestions for future blogs at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/foodandfeelings.

Hormones as Diet Wreckers

2012-02-06T06:19:30-08:00

You know how it is after you’ve been dieting and even have lost some weight. You’re feeling so good about yourself—til you’re feeling bad because you’re back into abusing food. It’s time to stop blaming yourself and to recognize that biology may be at work stoking your hunger. That’s why eating disorder experts keep insisting that diets don’t work long-term. So, if you must assign blame, try your hormones.

“Blame hormones for wrecked diets?,” an article by Malcolm Ritter (Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 10/27/11) explains what’s going on. It says that the findings of a recent study “suggest that dieters who have regained weight are not just slipping back into old habits, but are struggling against a persistent biological urge.” Joseph Prioietto of the University of Melbourne in Australia, one author in this New England Journal of Medicine study, offers some excellent advice: “People who regain weight should not be harsh on themselves, as eating is our most basic instinct.” Now where have you heard this stellar wisdom before? The weight-regain culprit: six particular hormones remained “out of whack in a direction that would boost hunger” after study participants lost weight and received weight-loss counseling. “The dieters also rated themselves as feeling hungrier after meals at the one-year mark, compared to what they reported before the diet program began.” By the way, I was surprised to learn that that the lingering hormone levels did not seem to relate to the speed of weight loss, that is, returning hunger was not the result of rapid pound shedding but of substantial, slow weight loss as well.

What does this mean for you? First off, it means that unless you’re careful in following the rules of “normal” eating after weight loss, it’s likely that you’ll regain weight. When you’re hungry, you’ll do best eating small amounts of food frequently. Along with monitoring hunger, you’ll want to make sure you’re eating foods that sustain you all day long. When your body says it needs fuel, that means making choices that will refuel you well, not simply grabbing whatever food is around or thinking you can make do grazing on sweets and treats.

Give some serious respect to hunger and its biology: hunger is what has kept us going generation after generation. Stop hating, avoiding, or being ashamed of this natural biological urge. It’s time—actually, way past time—to stop blaming lack of will power or self-discipline if you’ve put back pounds you’ve lost. Instead, recognize that biology plays a part in weight regain and stick as closely as you can to the rules of “normal” eating. We can’t change our biology, but we can certainly make the best of it.

Best,

Karen

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nice-Girls-Finish-Fat/114097795301428

Normal Eating talks and media events

PLEASE NOTE: Please post your comments and suggestions for future blogs at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/foodandfeelings or http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nicegirlsfinishfat.

The Importance of Chewing

2012-02-03T05:49:57-08:00

One of the simplest steps you can take to eat more mindfully is to chew your food more thoroughly. I'm not talking radical behavioral change or doing a 180 in your thinking. Just doing more of what you’re already doing—chomp, chomp, chomp.

An article on this subject, “Slow Food” (Nutrition Action Healthletter, 10/11, originally published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition), concludes that if you’re looking to consume less food, the way to do it is to rev up mastication. Remember, chewing breaks down food to release flavor and chemicals which tell the brain how much you’re enjoying what you’re eating and when you’re satiated. It has a biological purpose that is essential to the functioning of appetite. The article notes the chewing differences in lean and obese people in a research sampling, noting: “…that the lean men took fewer bites than the obese men…the lean men chewed more per bite.”

When the subjects were divided into two groups, instructed to chew each bite of food either 15 or 40 times, and directed to eat as much as they wanted, guess what happened. Big surprise, the higher frequency chompers consumed fewer calories than the lower frequency chompers. “What’s more,” says the article, “roughly an hour after finishing a 670-calorie meal, blood levels of ghrelin (a hormone that stimulates appetite) were lower after 40 chews per bite than after 15 chews.”

Consider the pace at which you generally eat. Do you barely chew, swallow large chunks of food whole, feel anxious for your next bite? Or do you chew a lot, leisurely grinding your food into tiny pieces? Moreover, do you think about the process of chewing so that you eat mindfully?

Some suggestions. The next time you eat, use a clock or timer to calculate how many chews you perform in one minute. Do this with a variety of foods. Watch slow eaters and count their chews, then match your chewing to theirs. At first, you’ll likely feel as if you’re eating in slow motion. You’re not: you’re eating mindfully at a much better pace for digestion. You feel as if you’re in slo-mo because you’ve been eating too fast for too long. Check in with yourself frequently while eating and assess how much chewing you’re doing. Focus exclusively on chewing for a one week, every time you eat. At the end of the week, time yourself again with the same foods you used in the initial calculation and see if you’ve upped the number of chews. If not, go for a second week and reassess. Make it a point to chew more and you’ll eat less and enjoy food more.

Best,

Karen

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nice-Girls-Finish-Fat/114097795301428

Normal Eating talks and media events

PLEASE NOTE: Please post your comments and suggestions for future blogs at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/foodandfeelings or http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nicegirlsfinishfat.

The Obesity Gene

2012-01-30T05:30:00-08:00

I wonder how many of you read the title of this blog and immediately groaned, “That’s probably me, alright.” Although it’s true that many overeaters carry a gene that makes them more inclined to obesity, your bummed-out response may not be as warranted as you think. Remember that weight is a bio-psycho-social issue.

According to Beating the Obesity Gene (PARADE, 10/12/08), it’s true that genes can predispose you to overweight. The obesity gene, called FTO, “is found in more than half of some populations. And those with two copies of the gene are 70% more likely to be obese than noncarriers.” If your parents and grandparents are/were overweight, you’re a product of genes that have been passed down through generations. Remember, however, that a mere few hundred years ago you would have been happy about this inheritance because, during much of history, carrying extra pounds was a distinct health and longevity benefit.

So let’s say you’re someone who possesses the FTO gene. Does that mean you automatically get to say, “Well, gee, I guess I can’t do anything about my health and should give up.” Au contraire. Research shows that exercise can promote fitness and good health, and even help you avoid weight gain to begin with. Here’s proof: in a study of “a group of more than 700 Amish people…among the most physically active, the gene had virtually no effect on weight. Those who had the gene but maintained high levels of activity weighed about the same as those who didn’t have it.”

I’ve seen this conclusion played out. One friend comes from a family with many obese members. A fat child and adolescent, she only started to exercise in her 30s. Now, in her 60s, she’s healthy and fit and eats relatively normally, playing tennis three times a week, going to the gym regularly, and biking whenever she can. Another example is a brother and sister I know from a family of overweight people. He gave up on his health early on, while she began an exercise routine in her mid-20s—these days she kayaks and runs to stay fit—because she saw the handwriting on the wall.

Exercise is an absolute priority to these women. Sure, they have to exercise somewhat more than the average person to stay fit, but so what? Life is never an even playing field, and many of us may have to do extra to compensate for perceived flaws in our genetic make-up. So rather than lament the genetic hand you’ve been dealt, empower yourself to do whatever exercise is necessary to ensure that you live a healthy life.

Best,

Karen

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Normal Eating talks and media events

PLEASE NOTE: Please post your comments and suggestions for future blogs at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/foodandfeelings or http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nicegirlsfinishfat.

Your Brain and Gratification

2012-01-27T05:33:00-08:00

Over the years I’ve blogged on frustration tolerance and delaying gratification from the behavioral perspective. Now science tells us that specific parts of the brain influence our ability to defer pleasure (or not). In particular, research conclusions on spending versus saving tell us a lot about our eating patterns and their bio-psycho-social origins.

Science tells us that there are measurable differences in the brain between folks who save or spend (NEWSWEEK, November 7/14, 2011), “…particularly in the areas of the brain that predict consequences, process the sense of reward, spur motivation, and control memory.” So maybe the fact that you struggle with delaying gratification and have difficulty saying no to food while others don’t is as biological as it is learned behavior. The prefrontal cortex of the brain, it seems, calms down messages that we receive from our midbrain which scream, “I want it and I want it now!” But “…the number and strength of connections to the midbrain’s circuits…” can vary between savers and spenders. Scientists are now working on ways to increase these connections to enhance the midbrain’s calming abilities.

How well short-term memory works also impacts spending versus saving in that you have to be able to keep a goal in mind in order to reach it, what you might call sustaining motivation. Many disregulated eaters seem able to keep in mind their fitness and health goals only for several weeks or months (or, sadly, days). The more they can stay focused not on pleasure now, but on pleasure in the long-term, the more they’re retraining their brains to make the future more important than the present, that is, to think about consequence rather than immediate gratification.

Scientists are encouraging about upping the ability to delay gratification and tolerate frustration, what they call extending your short-time horizon to a long-time horizon. The way that happens is that you must teach your brain to respond differently. How does this occur? Through practice, of course. Each time you allow yourself to say yes to pleasure in the moment that will not bring you happiness in the future, you are maintaining the status quo in your brain. Each time you stop and think about what unwanted eating means to your future and don’t eat in spite of how good something tastes, you are pro-actively changing the circuitry of your brain. You are not powerless over your eating (or spending) even if you have biological tendencies toward reacting impulsively. Anyone or any group which tells you that you have no power is doing you a disservice. So, since you have the power, why not use it for your own long-term benefit?

Best,

Karen

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nice-Girls-Finish-Fat/114097795301428

Normal Eating talks and media events

PLEASE NOTE: Please post your comments and suggestions for future blogs at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/foodandfeelings or http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nicegirlsfinishfat.

Truth Versus Our Stories

2012-01-23T05:31:00-08:00

One major hurdle for disregulated eaters who’ve struggled with food for a long time is believing in recovery. Perhaps you believe there’s a truth that says you won’t or can’t have a positive relationship with food and eat “normally.” What you don’t realize is that this so-called truth is only a story that you tell yourself over and over.

Not a week goes by in which a client or message board member (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/foodandfeelings) doesn’t say something like, “I’m impulsive,” “I just can’t do this,” “It’s too hard,” or “I’ll never be a “normal” eater.” When I question how they know this with such certainty, they point to previous behavior. Then I point out that what’s going on is circular reasoning: perhaps they’ve had problems with food because they keep telling themselves they do. They then generally argue that their point of view is right or “the truth.” I come back just as adamantly that their alleged “truth” is merely one story among many.

Why are you so attached to your version of your life, or more specifically to your story around food? I confess, it’s frustrating to know that perfectly bright, competent people are constantly serving up the same misconceptions to themselves, then living them out in an endless negative loop. We love our truth because it makes us feel comfortable and safe. Keeping options open—that you can develop a rational relationship with food—can be scary because it involves giving up false beliefs. Not to be confusing, but here’s how I see things: We want to change our story, but we can’t do it until we change our story. Or, more accurately, until we realize that there is no truth about ourselves except that we can change our stories! If you are desperate for a truth to hang on to, how ‘bout that one—that we are not one way or another because we have been one way or another, but because we keep mistaking our past for our future.

Our stories started in childhood when we were told things and treated a certain way and our child mind made up a story to go along with circumstance. But stories change; we create our stories as we go along. One of my stories was, I’m not a writer. Well, now my story is that I am. Where is the truth—in the first or second story? Trick question because there is no truth. Or I was a compulsive eater and now I’m a pretty “normal” eater. Where is the truth there? If you’re smart, you’ll recognize that self-perception changes with circumstance. The fact is, we are one way until we become another. We are unskilled before we become skilled, ignorant before we become knowledgeable, disregulated eaters before we become “normal” eaters. And that’s the whole story.

Best,

Karen

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Normal Eating talks and media events

PLEASE NOTE: Please post your comments and suggestions for future blogs at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/foodandfeelings or http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nicegirlsfinishfat.

Book Review: THE COMPASS OF PLEASURE

2012-01-20T05:36:00-08:00

For those of you who aren’t satisfied with simply working on changing your eating habits, but also want to understand the biology behind some of them, I recommend David J. Linden’s THE COMPASS OF PLEASURE—HOW OUR BRAINS MAKE FATTY FOODS, ORGASM, EXERCISE, MARIJUANA, GENEROSITY, VODKA, LEARNING, AND GAMBLING FEEL SO GOOD. It deals with some difficult concepts, but I found it enlightening and relatively readable if I was willing to read slowly and sometimes go through a passage more than once.

Linden explains why on a cellular level we become addicted to pleasure. Never mind family and cultural influences, insists this professor of neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and editor in chief of The Journal of Neurophysiology, he gets down to the nitty gritty of why and how our brains react to pleasure. The importance of his book lies in telling us that we’re not bad or undisciplined for overeating, that our problems are not all about coming from a dysfunctional family or even living in the most fat phobic, thin-obsessed culture in the history of time.

The fact is, our brains are programmed to seek and enjoy pleasure. That is why most folks who rigidly deny themselves a good time eventually break down and have one. There is something in our biology that drives us to pursue peak activities, even to our detriment. The book explains how leptin, a satiation hormone produced by fat cells, affects weight gain and the difference between being leptin-deficient and –resistant. Most obese people are the latter rather than the former. The point here is that high weights in many people are not a failure of will power but are due to biology. I know this may not make you feel great if you’ve heavy, but it’s vital that you don’t buy into society’s view of overweight people as lazy and uncaring about themselves. For those of you stress eaters out there, the chapter on food has an excellent description of what happens to us in when we’re overtaxed that makes us want to eat. Again, you’re not simply imagining that your craving for carbs goes through the roof when life becomes hectic. Rather, as Linden explains, a predictable physiological reaction is occurring.

Some folks get bummed out reading books like this, while others feel better knowing it’s not their fault that they have difficulty managing food urges. I might add that anyone who has or has had any addictions will find this book a fascinating read. It may not help you change behvior, but it will explain behavior that to you might seem totally irrational and incomprehensible. Often it’s a relief just knowing that you’re doing the best you can.

Best,

Karen

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nice-Girls-Finish-Fat/114097795301428

Normal Eating talks and media events

PLEASE NOTE: Please post your comments and suggestions for future blogs at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/foodandfeelings or http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nicegirlsfinishfat.

Thanks From Your Wild Child

2012-01-16T06:28:34-08:00

I’ve blogged often about the wild child in you that’s been getting its way around food—the part that’s entitled, defiant, demanding, uncaring about consequence, and who lives only in the moment. But there’s another part of the wild child that knows she’s out of her league around food and desperately, more than anything in the world, wants the loving, nurturing, compassionate, caring part of you to reign her in and be in charge.

Young children have no idea what’s good for them. They act impulsively and lack the life experience and awareness to look beyond now to consequence in what adults call the future. They barely have a past, never mind figuring out what lies ahead. Although they don’t know exactly what they don’t know, they yearn for safety from adults who seem to have wisdom. In short, they sense that you might know what’s best for them no matter how they cry, kick, pout, scream, and stamp their little feet.

Like young children, the wild child in you is motivated by wanting, say, the rest of the chocolate chip cookies in the tub because they taste so good. The adult you knows how rotten you’re going to feel emotionally and physically if you eat them all. The wild child may not want to stop eating, but isn’t going to be happy with the adult you when you develop a stomach ache or your clothes feel tight. The wild child becomes frightened when you regularly give it its way. Although it may act as if it wants to be in charge, underneath it’s terrified because it senses that it can’t take care of itself. More terrifying is knowing that the adult you is nowhere to be found and no one is in charge.

It’s sad when you don’t take control and talk down the wild child and show compassion for its desires without giving in. It wants you to be loving and nurturing even though it acts as if that’s the last thing on earth it wishes for. For those of you who had parents who let things run amuck and acted without thinking, remember how scared you were because no one was in control. The same thing happens to the wild child who has no way of telling you that this is so. Rather, the adult you must intuit it.

Toward that end, write a letter to the adult you from the wild child who’s been driving your irrational eating. Get to know her fears and you’ll understand how much she desperately wants you to intervene and take care of her. If you were to lovingly be firm with and look out for her, she would write reams about her gratitude and how safe she feels with you. Let the wild child share her yearning for your beneficent authority, and learn to take care of her with a compassionate but firm hand.

Best,

Karen

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nice-Girls-Finish-Fat/114097795301428

Normal Eating talks and media events

PLEASE NOTE: Please post your comments and suggestions for future blogs at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/foodandfeelings or http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nicegirlsfinishfat.

What's Normal

2012-01-13T06:17:00-08:00

Many disregulated eaters grow up in dysfunctional families and, therefore, lack understanding of what constitutes normal behavior and feelings—you may do whatever your parents did or exactly the opposite and be confused about what is mentally healthy or unhealthy. This uncertainty limits your life skill effectiveness and makes it harder to improve your relationship with food. So, here are some guidelines for emotional health.

There are people in the world who will love, value, and take care of you age appropriately. They’ll listen intently to what you have to say, take you seriously, believe you, compassionately challenge you when you do things not in your long-term best interest, validate and support your feelings, and enjoy being close to you. It’s natural to want to confide, share, and express feelings and expect a friend/lover to do the same. This creates mutual trust, understanding and closeness.

There are people who will tolerate you having opinions and thoughts of your own even if they disagree with you. Emotionally healthy folks don’t mind differences. They value an honest exchange of ideas. They won’t shame or make you wrong for how you think or act even when they don’t see things your way. They recognize that they’re okay even if people don’t think or do as they do. They value you for your individuality.

There are people who will acknowledge when you are right and they are wrong and who have flexible thinking, that is, they can change their minds when the evidence points them in a different direction. They can take in new information—no matter what the source—and use their critical thinking skills to assess and integrate it into their own belief system. They examine life by using higher order thinking and rationality, not through an emotional, reactive lens. They are interested in learning about you and life.

There are people who will be truthful, honest, loyal and have integrity. They won’t put you down to feel better about themselves. They will hold onto their individuality and value being part of a team or group. They won’t lie to protect themselves or you. Their behavior will align with their values and intent. They won’t hypocritically practice one thing and tell you to do another. They will strive to be ethical and moral. They won’t expect you, them, or the world to be perfect or in their control.

Of course, this is the bare minimum of what’s healthy. Add to this list with your own ideas, then make it your business to use it as a guideline for future relationships.

Best,

Karen

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Normal Eating talks and media events