"Normal" Eating

Gratification versus Achieving Authentic Happiness

2009-11-09T06:26:27-08:00

Do you know what constitutes authentic happiness? After all, we receive a barrage of confusing messages on the subject throughout our lives. One of the loudest is that gratifying our needs will make us happy—eat this food, buy that car, take a special vacation, learn this, purchase that. Much of what passes for happiness these days is what’s called short-term gratification and has little nutritive value emotionally. In order to achieve true happiness, it pays to understand how it differs from gratifying needs.

When we seek gratification, we are looking to please ourselves in the moment. In psychology, the word is most often used to describe the needs of infants and children who, naturally in these stages of development, know no better than to demand that their emotional and physical needs be met instantly (if not sooner!). They lack the ability to consider whether meeting their needs (for a bottle or a toy or a cookie) is good for them or not. All they know is that they want what they want and they want it now. When their need is met, they feel satisfied and filled with pleasure—in a word, gratified.

Through the teachings of and interactions with our parents and the rest of the world, we come to learn over time that we cannot get all of our physical or emotional needs gratified instantly. Sometimes folks are busy and we have to wait. Sometimes they tell us that what we want isn’t good for us. When we’re children, it’s the job of adults to help us tolerate not receiving immediate gratification so that we don’t suffer excessive distress and disappointment. It’s also their job to teach us that not seeking instant gratification and not getting it may afford us the chance to achieve greater happiness.

Of course, there are parents who haven’t a clue that there’s a difference between gratification and happiness and who are unable to give us correct insights into the two. If you grew up with parents who gave in to your every whim, rigidly denied you appropriate gratification, or randomly ping-ponged between the two responses, you may naturally have difficulty in this arena. Gratifying yourself with pleasure every once in a while is natural and normal. Basing a life on immediate gratification not only indicates a lack of emotional maturity, but prevents you from attaining true and lasting happiness.

When you’re faced with eating decisions, are you more interested in gratifying yourself in the moment or creating a relationship with food that will bring you future health and happiness? If you’re used to instant pleasure, it’s time to realize that every time you give in to it, you are forgoing authentic happiness. Is that what you really want?

Best,

Karen

http://www.eatingnormal.com/

http://www.nicegirlsfinishfat.com/

Normal Eating talks and media events

PLEASE NOTE: I encourage you to comment on my blogs and will do my best to address topics/questions you raise in future blogs. I cannot provide individual responses, but encourage you to post your questions and comments at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/foodandfeelings or http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nicegirlsfinishfat.

Beliefs about Success

2009-11-06T05:45:52-08:00

Nothing thwarts recovery from food problems more than not believing that it’s okay to succeed—not only that success is acceptable, but that it’s a good thing. It’s shocking how many disregulated eaters grow up with the belief that it’s wrong to succeed, and this belief then becomes a major obstacle to feeling positive about achievement. Whether we’re talking overcoming eating problems or triumphing in other areas of life, what you believe about success is an essential prerequisite to making it happen.

Many disregulated eaters have mixed feelings about success because you were raised to think that a trail of accomplishments will lead you to becoming arrogant, boastful, self-righteous, snooty, and unpopular. Nothing could be farther from the truth. We’re talking apples and oranges here. These traits are not a consequence of success, but are characteristics of people independent of achievement or a lack thereof.

Let’s take a look at specific unhealthy, irrational beliefs (IR) you might have about success and how to reframe them to make them healthy and rational (R).

IR: If I succeed, I will think I’m better than everyone else; R: I don’t think I’m better than anyone else whether I succeed or not.

IR: Success leads to arrogance, boasting, and having a swelled head; R: I can succeed and still be modest about my achievements

IR: Pride cometh before the fall; R: Pride is a healthy, natural feeling stemming from achievement.

IR: If I succeed, people won’t like me; R: If I succeed, people will still like me.

There are variations about success being a negative that might be unique to you and what you learned in childhood. The point is that SUCCESS IS A POSITIVE GOAL. If you’re struggling to recover from eating problems and don’t believe that, well, you’re working against yourself. Remember that beliefs are the foundations for your feelings and behaviors and that intentions must align with behavior. If your unconscious goal is to fail because you’re too uncomfortable with success to tolerate it, then you will continue to shoot yourself in the foot and will never reach your eating or weight goals!

Consider what your family believed and modeled about success and what you learned about it from them. If you believe anything short of success being awesome, then it’s back to the drawing board for you and your beliefs. Change them now, succeed later.

Best,

Karen

http://www.eatingnormal.com/

http://www.nicegirlsfinishfat.com/

Normal Eating talks and media events

Book Review: You Are Not Alone

2009-11-02T06:10:22-08:00

As an author, I’m sometimes asked to write blurbs or reviews of books on eating, which is a wonderful way for me to keep abreast of what’s out there. For example, YOU ARE NOT ALONE (Vol. 2): THE BOOK OF COMPANIONSHIP FOR WOMEN WITH EATING DISORDERS (with a great music CD) by Andrea Roe. Although the book says it’s for women, it’s really for men, too, so don’t be fooled by the title!

The book’s premise is that recovery is possible and its theme is hope. Anita Johnson (author of EATING IN THE LIGHT OF THE MOON) writes in her introduction how hope is the inspiration for recovery. I would add that hope is not a constant thing, but waxes and wanes. One day we make wise, satisfying, nourishing choices around food and feel optimistic and even mildly confident that we are changing, then the next day, we make poor choices and disregard appetite cues and are thrown back to square one and despair. It’s at times like this that YOU ARE NOT ALONE comes in handy. You can’t read its stories, anecdotes and poems and view the accompanying illustrations without your spirits lifting.

One reason for my message boards (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/foodandfeelings and http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nicegirlsfinishfat) is to help people with disregulated eating feel less alone and provide a forum for giving support. The problem with message boards, however, is that you don’t always have access to log on. But what you can hold in your hands any hour of any day is a book. Too many people with eating disorders struggle alone—they’re ashamed, they feel too vulnerable to open up about their problems, they fear humiliation or invalidation. For them, even a message board can be too scary. But a book speaking to your heart does wonders.

YOU ARE NOT ALONE is for anyone with an eating problem—anorexia, bulimia, overeating, binge-eating, or chronic dieting. It’s for those of you who are unhappy with your bodies and want to improve your relationship with the image you see in the mirror or the number on the scale. It will inspire you whether you’re contemplating changing your eating, are in the throes of struggle, have lost hope, or simply enjoy learning about how other people cope and vanquish eating problems. Although I’m a cognitive-behavioral therapist at heart, I want to stress that changing your thinking about food is not the only way to recover. You also have to make connections to other people and let them help you—in person or through the pages of a book. YOU ARE NOT ALONE sends a powerful message about support, hope, and the possibility of recovery.

Best,

Karen

http://www.eatingnormal.com/

http://www.nicegirlsfinishfat.com/

Normal Eating talks and media events

Disappointment

2009-10-30T05:57:40-07:00

Let me get this straight. Many of you are afraid to try something because you might be disappointed, right? But so many disregulated eaters are already hugely disappointed in themselves, in their behavior, in failing to achieve their goals. So are you saying you’ll be more disappointed if you try something and fail than if you don’t try at all? Aren’t you disappointed now for not persisting until you succeed? Even if you only achieve half (or a third or an eighth) of what you want, won’t you be proud of yourself for trying? Maybe the problem is thinking not incrementally, but in all-or-nothing terms.

Yup, pretzel logic about disappointment is alive and well and living in the hearts and minds of disregulated eaters. I hear it all the time: I’m afraid to try because if I fail I’ll be disappointed. First of all, who says you have to be disappointed if you try and fail? Instead, why not think, “Good for me, at least I tried. I’m brave and courageous and maybe next time I’ll succeed.” Disappointment is not a necessary result of failure. You choose it as one response among many others. And even if you’re a bit disappointed, so what? It will pass, especially if you make it your business to let it go.

Folks who fear disappointment generally had too much of it as children or were shielded from experiencing it by well-intentioned parents. The job of parents is to model handling disappointment well, to not regularly disappoint their offspring, and to help children manage the inevitable downers of childhood. Maybe you never learned to handle disappointment effectively because your parents couldn’t soothe you or because they couldn’t bear to see you feeling badly and tried to make everything go right for you. Maybe you grew up constantly disappointed by folks around you and pretty much decided it’s not worth getting your hopes up because no good will come of it. Perhaps you’ve already suffered so much disappointment that you think you can’t bear any more. Or you may be so down on yourself that you can’t even imagine succeeding.

What do you tell yourself about trying and being disappointed? Is it rational and healthy or do you talk yourself out of making an effort in fear of failing and feeling disappointed? How will you ever get anywhere if you don’t try? How will you ever learn to bear disappointment well if you don’t experience it? You can learn to handle disappointment by changing your beliefs about it and surrounding yourself with a people who won’t regularly disappoint you but who will help you through hard times. Now you can bear feelings you couldn’t bear as a child because you’re wiser and smarter. Learn more about disappointment in my FOOD AND FEELINGS WORKBOOK.

Best,

Karen

http://www.eatingnormal.com/

http://www.nicegirlsfinishfat.com/

Normal Eating talks and media events

Dieting versus Healthy Eating

2009-10-26T05:57:55-07:00

My message board members (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/foodandfeelings) have once again raised an interesting issue, and I thank them for keeping my head well stocked with bloggable subjects. The topic this time is the difference between dieting and healthy or nutritious eating. How can you distinguish them? How can you make healthy food choices most of the time and not feel as if you’re on a restrictive diet?

As one member points out, we’re all on some sort of diet. The problem is that diet has two meanings: the way we eat and a way to eat to lose weight. Stop and think about that. When you use the word, which definition do you mean? Can’t you follow a way of eating without being on a diet? I believe you can. It’s all in your perspective. You can follow formal or informal food guidelines—eat whole grains, fruits, and vegetables, eat small meals often throughout the day, stop eating when full or satisfied, enjoy occasional treats—without being on any kind of diet.

The problem is that if you don’t have clarity on the issue, when you eat more healthily, you may feel as if you’re on a diet and can’t eat “unhealthy” foods. Be careful not to fall into the all-or-nothing trap, ie, healthy means eating only nutritious foods. No, no, no! Better to think that because you eat mainly nutritious foods, you can enjoy some that aren’t and still remain healthy! That’s the “normal” eating mindset to aim for.

If you begin to make more nutritious food choices (especially if you used to eat a good deal of unhealthy food), people may remark that you’re dieting. If your head is on straight, you won’t get hooked into or triggered by their comments because you’ll know that you are most certainly not dieting. How other people view your eating style or choices is totally irrelevant. All that matters is how you view your eating. If you buy into the idea that eating nutritiously means you’re dieting, you’ll most likely want to rebel and you know where that will lead you. However, if you consider that you eat for health and pleasure—without counting calories, carbs or fat grams or focusing on weight loss—then you’re creating your own food agenda, which is what “normal” eaters do.

This is a tricky issue for those of you who’ve spent a lifetime dieting or rejecting diets. You will have to come to terms with healthier eating as not dieting before you can be comfortable with it. That means developing your own definition and description of how to eat. Take a minute right now and write down a description. Remind yourself that you’re not dieting even when it feels that way. Create your own path and follow it.

Best,

Karen

http://www.eatingnormal.com/

http://www.nicegirlsfinishfat.com/

Normal Eating talks and media events

Humiliation or Anger?

2009-10-23T05:58:23-07:00

I was reading a novel in which one of the characters (a female psychiatrist) wonders if she should be humiliated or angry about her husband taking up with another woman, and started thinking about these alternative reactions. Her confusion reminded me of the uncertainty some overweight clients feel when people comment on their size. In that split second after a remark, it may be hard not to feel overwhelmed with shame, but I’m here to tell you that you can choose a far more effective response.

Just think about the difference between the two states of shame/humiliation and anger. With shame and humiliation, you turn your disgust/upset/rage inward and with anger, you turn it outward. When someone makes an unkind comment about your weight or eating, you may feel upset with yourself for your eating and believe that what you’re doing or how you look is bad or wrong. In all likelihood, you are already angry at yourself for alleged defects—you eat too much, you eat the wrong foods, you don’t look right, you’re too fat or flabby, etc. This is precisely why remarks can be so hurtful—you already believe them and feel as if someone is rubbing salt into your wounds.

On the other hand, if you don’t believe you have a specific defect—junk food eating or being plus-size—your natural reaction to a remark about either might generate anger at the commenter because you think they’re wrong, not right. For example, if you’ve really given yourself total permission and are fine with having a few bites of a cookie and someone chides you for eating a high-calorie treat, you likely won’t view your behavior as shameful and won’t be humiliated. Instead, you might feel annoyed at the person for butting into your business and being critical of you.

How you take in a comment about yourself is, in large part, based on how you feel about yourself and the situation, and your reaction will develop from it. If you’re unaccepting of self, you’ll feel ashamed. If you’re accepting of self, you might feel angry at someone. What you do with anger towards others is up to you. You might choose to say nothing, challenge the comment, or refuse to personalize what’s been said and get bent out of shape. You even might consider that the person commenting means well. Depending upon the relationship and circumstance, different responses are appropriate.

My point is that you don’t have to be humiliated when someone speaks poorly about you. In many cases, anger is more appropriate than shame. It may not feel natural at first and it certainly may not feel comfortable, but it’s often the healthier reaction.

Best,

Karen

http://www.eatingnormal.com/

http://www.nicegirlsfinishfat.com/

Normal Eating talks and media events

What You Can't Bear

2009-10-19T05:38:16-07:00

I hear clients say, “I can’t bear to think about it” or “I couldn’t bear to do that,” but I don’t always know what the word means. Will they fall down dead, emulsify on the spot, go catatonic? When you think or say those words to yourself, what exactly is it that you fear will happen? The fact is, telling yourself that you can’t bear something makes it more than likely that you won’t be able to. Conversely, reminding yourself that you’re capable of bearing anything that comes your way ensures that you’ll be able to ride it through.

When we say we can’t bear something, we seem to believe two things—that something will make us exceedingly uncomfortable and that this feeling of discomfort will cause us to become dysfunctional in part or whole. Sometimes we think we’ll become so anxious that we’ll need sedation or so depressed that we won’t leave our beds. Or that we’ll fly off the handle and no one will love us any more. We make a cause-and-effect connection between feeling overwhelmed and negative consequence. Indeed, in the past, we even may experienced this consequence—severe depression, hospitalization for mental health issues, or relapse with drugs or alcohol—and dread a reoccurrence.

Although it’s true that there are stresses that can trigger depression or anxiety and lead to hospitalization or relapse, ordinarily most of us don’t fall prey to them. The truth is that when we say that we can’t or fear that we can’t bear something, many of us don’t have a specific event in mind we believe will befall us. We tell ourselves that a thought, emotion or action is unbearable because we don’t like how we feel having it. We hurt, it confuses or overwhelms us, it generates fear or other emotional distress. It’s the bearing we wish to avoid, the state of experiencing extreme or excessive internal upheaval, not necessarily what it might trigger.

What do you suppose is the antidote to this problem? It’s obvious: bearing emotional pain leads to learning that you can bear it. The more you avoid it, the more you mistakenly assume that you can’t tolerate it. Very few people actually succumb to dysfunction when bearing emotional distress. Actually, most often the opposite reaction occurs: they grow from experiencing something difficult and become less fearful. By tolerating thinking or acting differently, we build emotional muscle and the experience transforms us. No magic here, just gently pushing ourselves to expand our tolerance for discomfort bit by bit. Eventually, when you allow yourself to bear whatever comes your way, you arrive at a new conclusion: I can bear any emotion and, no matter what happens to me, I’ll be fine. And that kind of self-knowledge makes life a lot easier.

Best,

Karen

http://www.eatingnormal.com/

http://www.nicegirlsfinishfat.com/

Normal Eating talks and media events

Notice to Readers

2009-10-09T06:12:27-07:00

I will be on vacation from 10/12-17 and my blogs will resume the week of 10/19. Do be sure to read my blog posted today, 10/9, "Something Useful to Rebel Against."

Something Useful to Rebel Against

2009-10-09T06:09:59-07:00

For those of you whose eating problems stem largely from having an unbridled rebellious attitude toward anyone telling you what you should or shouldn’t eat, I have an excellent target for your outrage. Instead of directing your ire at dieticians, nutritionists, medical personnel, health experts, and family members for advising you which foods are good for you and which aren’t, put the food industry in your sights and fire away.

According to David A. Kessler, MD (former commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration, pediatrician, and professor of Pediatrics and Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California/San Francisco) in his new book, THE END OF OVEREATING—TAKING CONTROL OF THE INSATIABLE AMERICAN APPETITE, the food industry is growing rich by making you fat. They know that just the right combo of sugar, fat, and salt creates food too tempting for many folks to refuse, that selling you on the idea that more is better gets you to clean your plates and increases their profits, and that marketing eating as entertainment, fun, excitement, and a feel-good thing to do is going to make the reward center in your brain explode with dopamine and spur you on to consume more of their products.

In interview after interview with food industry executives and scientists, Kessler receives a similar message: Sure we know that sugar/fat/salt in large quantities are so alluring that most people can’t say no to this winning combo, but, hey, we’re in the sales game, so what do you expect. Well, maybe they don’t say it in so many words, but that’s the gist of their thinking. I don’t know about you, but talk like that makes my blood boil which brings me back to the point that while many of you get bent out of shape being told what you should or shouldn’t eat (although advice-givers are only trying to do right by you), you don’t seem to feel a sense of rage about how you’re duped into eating large quantities of junk based on the false premise that doing so will make you happier and give you a better life. Hello—the food industry doesn’t care about making you happy; they care a lot, however, about making their executives and stockholders happy.

The fact is, you’ve been had by the food industry and they are the ones you should be furious with. Rather than eat junk created explicitly to cause a chemical reaction in your body so strong that you can’t say no to it, why not get angry about being manipulated. Get mad at the food industry for their greed and for messing with your brain, your wallet, your body—and your life. Put your rebelliousness to good use and take sweet revenge by not eating the food industry’s garbage.

Best,

Karen

http://www.eatingnormal.com/

http://www.nicegirlsfinishfat.com/

Normal Eating talks and media events

A Guide to "Normal" Eating

2009-10-05T05:52:45-07:00

Starting out on the path to “normal” eating, you may be uncertain about what the journey entails. You expect you’ll be changing attitudes about and behavior around food, and may think that’s all you’ll be doing. The truth is that going from disregulated to regulated eating is a long, complex, process that requires a shift in numerous aspects of your life, and no one achieves complete recovery without undergoing an enormous, positive transformation. Conversely, without such an overhaul, you will never reach your eating goals. Here are some changes which lie ahead.

You will have to acknowledge that moving from chronic dieting and/or overeating to “normal” eating is a lengthy process. It will not happen overnight. Plan on many months to a few years. It will not be an easy process. For many, it will be the hardest thing you ever do in your life. Changes are not only behavioral, but demand that you modify your beliefs about food/body/weight/eating and about many other facets of life. This reformulation is not optional—no brain change, no behavioral change. In terms of alterations in non-eating/weight aspects of your life, you’ll need to re-examine your intimate relationships which will lead you to getting closer with some folks and distancing yourself from others (including family members, friends, romantic partners).

You’ll need a new set of life skills, many or most of which you lack: self-compassion and self-curiosity (rather than self-judgment), the ability to say both “yes” and “no” to yourself comfortably and easily, the capacity to see life in gray not merely black and white, an attitude of self-forgiveness and eschewing perfection, a balance of being dependent and independent when appropriate, a new concept of what being strong means (not toughing it out, but having sufficient inner resources and a willingness to turn to people for support), an ability to rebound and grow from mistakes and failure, assertiveness and the will and words to stand up for yourself, the capacity to care for yourself as much as you care for others. Those are some, but not all of the life skills you’ll need.

Moreover, you’ll have to learn how to comfort yourself without food or obsessing about weight, which means developing self-soothing techniques and being okay with seeking solace from people not food. Again, not optional work. The bulk of the job ahead is identifying and managing emotions better which involves exploring your past and tolerating painful feelings and dealing with them appropriately. If you don’t know how, you will have to learn. There is no short cut for you or for anyone. But, if you have faith in the process and take it slowly, you will get there and be very glad you did.

Best,

Karen

http://www.eatingnormal.com/

http://www.nicegirlsfinishfat.com/

Normal Eating talks and media events