So often when people come to work with me, I ask this question and they say that they want to lose weight. We see and hear the message that thin is better everywhere. That losing weight will solve all your problems. We've all seen those before and after pictures on social media. The people are always sad and bigger on the left, and thinner and happier on the right. But it is only a temporary fix.
The research shows that diets don't work, diets fail at any significant weight loss over any longer period 85% to 95% of the time. Research also shows that over time, you are more likely to gain weight if you're a dieter. It also increases the likelihood of weight cycling, bingeing, and shame around food in your body. But if diets don’t work then what really does work? What is success? First off, we have to disconnect the idea of weight loss from success. When I go deeper and ask individuals what they really want in their RELATIONSHIP with food and their bodies, it turns out that there's actually a bunch of things that they're wanting. They think that weight loss will bring them all the things (even if dieting did lead to weight loss, weight loss will not give you all the things you really want, or even most of the things). Typically, they're most wanting to feel good about themselves. To feel good enough. When it comes to appearance there is a need to disconnect the idea that our value and our worth is tied to our size or appearance. Even if you get to that magical number, you still may not look the way that you want to look, and you still may not feel like you're good enough. This is because you're always chasing this kind of arbitrary external ideal and appearance. This will not lead to true self acceptance or feeling enough. Some other things that people are really looking for are energy and vitality. Maybe they're concerned about a health issue like diabetes, high blood pressure or high cholesterol. What they're really wanting is to feel well, to feel vital, know that they're taking care of their health and addressing any issues. Unfortunately, our healthcare system has equated thinness with being healthy. My opinion? That's just false; that is diet culture, anti-fat bias, and weight stigma showing up at the doctors office. If you want true success, what we really need to do is focus on helping you heal your relationship with food and your body. We do that by looking at what kind of attachment relationship you have with food and your body. Are you more anxious and preoccupied? Are you more fearful and avoidant of food? Are you more dismissive and avoidant of food? Knowing your food attachment is the first step toward a secure attachment with food and your body. So, what does that look like? It means building a strong relationship with food and your body. It is building that body attunement so that you can really nurture your body in the way that it needs. Building that body attunement so that you can really get connected with your body. What signs and signals is your body giving you? From there you can use that information to make choices and use discernment in your relationship with food. This helps with making choices about what, how, when and why you are eating. Even if there was a “perfect” food plan, life happens and it wouldn’t be perfect for what your body needs everyday. For example, if you get a cold, or get pregnant, these things contribute to what our body really wants or needs in those specific moments. Different things are going on in terms of our metabolic processes, and we're going to need different things on different days, it's just how it is. Resonant eating is important to keep in mind when looking for that success. Resonant eating is eating in a way that really resonates with your body, mind, spirit, and soul. It means you are in tune with what makes you feel well and how to achieve that vitality and energy you want. But it also includes eating things simply because you want and enjoy it. Food is meant to be something that we're in a relationship with, that we're able to take in, and that we gleam satisfaction and joy from. It's meant to be a cultural tradition; a social connection with other people, but for each person it is going to be a little different. When you come to a secure attachment relationship with food you're able to have that autonomy to eat what you want and eat in a way that resonates with you. Another common concern is emotional eating, soothing using food or what is often called binge episodes. For that, success would look like peace, ease, and freedom from those cycles. The answer to that isn’t restriction or weight loss…it’s addressing the things that cause you to binge. So what is success? That's really up to you, your desires, what would feel good to you. I want you to imagine an ideal relationship with food. Most of us have that one friend who just eats what they want and food isn't really that big of a deal to them. We feel some slight envy of that friend, right? But why? They have a secure attachment with food and their body. They are eating to nurture their body and not to punish it. A client recently said to me that she wanted to be friends with her body and friends with food. We started focusing on just that. She started asking herself questions like “was I a friend to my body today?”, “Is this nurturing to me?” Sometimes the most nurturing thing is sitting on the couch with Netflix and ice cream, and that is okay! That is knowing what your body wants. That is getting more attuned with your body at a deeper level. So going back to this idea of, what is success? It comes from knowing what you really want and addressing that underlying need to desire. We have to start by dismantling diet culture BS ideas- recognizing that appearance isn’t the end all be all. Weight loss isn’t a silver bullet for being ‘cured’. I want to leave you with a few questions: What do you really want for yourself in your relationship with food and your relationship with your body? What are your priorities and how can you reframe the idea of success to really match what you actually want for yourself?
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I think of Intuitive Eating like driving a car. If you had never been in a car or been taught anything about what a car does or how it works, driving one would be VERY difficult if not impossible. If you grew up on a farm and were taught how to drive tractors at a young age, you would probably pick up driving a car with ease. For most of us, learning to drive is a learning curve. You have to be taught and then practice it for months and months before you are given a license. Then, it still takes a while to become fully comfortable and capable. It can take years to become a really good driver. But after gaining experience and muscle memory, you can pretty much drive on auto pilot, unless you are driving in difficult circumstances and then you need to pay more attention.
To take the analogy further, there may be other reasons you struggle to learn to drive based on your abilities, your environment, or the things people have told you about driving. If you experienced someone constantly telling you how dangerous driving is, you might get such bad anxiety while driving you couldn’t focus. If your nervous system is very dysregulated, driving would be more difficult. If you had difficulties with sensory motor processing, you might need to develop additional skills to be able to drive safely. If you were told you aren’t any good at driving, you can’t trust yourself on the road, or there is something wrong with you, developing the confidence to drive would be hard. Similarly, learning the basic skills of body attunement, being able to feel into your body and respond to its signals, is foundational for Intuitive Eating. But if you’ve never developed the habit to feel when you are full because you were taught to eat until your plate is empty, if you were actively taught to disregard your body signals, or that those signals are bad, how can you expect that you will just know how? You can’t. And that’s the problem. Like driving, the barriers need to be addressed; you have to learn how. It takes time, support, and perseverance. If you experience these challenges around body attunement the simplified Intuitive Eating messaging out there could contribute to you feeling like there is something wrong with you that you can’t just “tune in” to your body and live happily ever after. Your physiology (how your body works), the support you have, and life experiences (like how you were cared for and your environment) play a huge role in your relationship with food and body. This is why considering your attachment style with food is critical and allows you to take all of these pieces into account. Learning your Food Attachment Style™ will help bridge the gap. It will help you understand why you have struggled and what to do about your unique challenges so you can finally have the relationship with food and your body that you want. You can have peace, satisfaction, and ease. You can be friends with your body. Take the Food Attachment Style™ Quiz here. I am at a place in my life where I choose not to weigh myself. I’ve thrown out my scale. I also refuse, politely (unless I have to be more assertive), to be weighed when I go to the doctor. Fortunately, living in Portland, Oregon, and having the privilege of having choice in my healthcare, I often have the ability to visit providers that don't give me any trouble about that....for the most part. However, recently, I had been referred to see a Gastrointestinal (GI) doctor via telehealth. I was checked in by the medical assistant and they had forms for me to fill out. We all know what's on those forms, specifically our weight and height. I just left the weight blank and when the medical assistant asked again I told them that I didn't want to share my weight. I got some pushback. This looked like the assistant saying, "well, it's really important that we get that information, especially for anything related to your GI." I disagree with that! Especially for the reasons I was seeing a doctor for. I don't believe my problem was influenced by weight. Even if it was, I'm not willing to pursue weight loss, because it's harmful. My response to them was that I don't feel that it's pertinent to my health care. I disagree with the messaging that it is actually more important to get weight for GI than it is any other time. After a bit more push back, I told them to write on the form "the patient refuses." There is a myth out there that your insurance won't pay for your visit if you refuse to share your weight or be weighed. In reality they need only two vital signs; typically they like it to include weight but it is not mandatory. In fact, for some doctors, they don't require ANY vital signs. I went to the dermatologist and they never asked me to be weighed at all and didn’t take my vital signs. They even asked if I wanted to wear a gown or if I wanted to keep my clothes on. It was the best experience ever. It was a very patient centric experience. It was really lovely not being asked to get on a scale or be measured, instead they simply addressed my concerns. Sometimes it's the culture in the office, sometimes it's that particular person being uneducated or unable to see their own Anti-Fat Bias. No matter the reasons, we all deserve the freedom to refuse to be weighed and not be judged for it. A big piece of the problem with this weighing culture is the BMI. So many people believe the fallacy that BMI is a good measure of whether a person is "healthy" or not. There is a New York Times Article that talks about how the BMI is bogus and I think it's totally worth checking out. One of the problems with being weighed is that it can activate your shame wiring causing undue stress. For some, that can activate the desire to restrict food or increase preoccupation about food and your body. Some people suggest turning around so you don't see it when you are on the scale. That's an option but even if you tell them you don't what to know how much you weigh, they will put it on the form and you'll probably end up seeing the number. They may even just make a small comment, like "Oh, you weigh less than the last visit." Whether you weigh more or less it can trigger shame and preoccupation and nobody needs that. If you've lost weight, positive affirmation and focus on your weight is still harmful. You'll oftentimes become more preoccupied in figuring out what you were doing to lose weight and how to keep doing so. Not only can it ruin your day, it can send you down a weird spiral. The other problem with weighing culture is that often the provider focuses on the weight rather than focusing on your actual health concern. Something like this changes the focus of the entire visit. Your health concern might be dismissed or you might not get the full treatment you deserve because the provider is blaming it on your size. It can be really freeing to disconnect your healthcare experience from weight. Here are some things you can say to the person requesting the weight: "No, thank you." “I don’t want to be weighed today.” “Being weighed negatively impacts my mental health.” “Please write that the patient refuses.” or “I have a right to refuse.” Questions you can ask your doctor if they push for a weight: "What's this going to change about my treatment plan?" "How does not having my weight impact my treatment plan?" "What treatment would you give to someone in a normal BMI category? I'd like that treatment." If you need to be weighed you can ask them not to comment on your weight or ask them not to mention the number to you. You can also mention to the doctor's assistant and the doctor that you don't want to be counselled about your weight or on dietary changes. The practice of refusing to be weighed is to make space for the visit to be focused on the issue at hand. After visiting a doctor you shouldn't feel shame, you deserve to feel like you've taken one step closer towards wellness. There are a few caveats to refusing to be weighed. If your doctor (not just the assistant) is saying they really need your weight, ask why. There are a few times it impacts your treatment. For example, If your medication is dose dependent, if you are having surgery and need anesthesia, or if you have a condition like congestive heart failure or kidney disease where they need to be measuring water weight, then it is important for the doctor to know your weight. An alternative to refusing is to get to a place of a much more secure attachment with yourself in your body. Coming to a place of complete neutrality over that number; where that number doesn't impact you whether it's gotten higher or lower or stays the same, it's just a number. Your value and worth is in no way changed by your weight. Knowing that on a deep level is part of secure attachment and freedom. For me personally, I refuse to be weighed as a way to actively reject the idea of weight as being an important measure in your health. I also believe it helps educate when I do refuse to be weighed. I'm so thrilled that I have been able to heal my relationship with food and my body, but it wasn't an easy road. I love helping others in their journey. I am in obese category on the BMI scale and have experienced doctors diminishing my concerns and telling me to just lose weight. Still, I am in a more culturally accepted sized body so I know I experience much less weight stigma and bias than those in a larger body and/or people who are marginalized in additional ways. With all of my privilege and my desire to change Diet Culture and Anti-Fat Bias, I feel like I have a responsibility to speak up wherever I can including at the doctors office. And I do enjoy being a bit rebellious ;) I get asked about sugar addiction all the time….!!
The reality is that the jury is out about whether sugar addiction is even real and right now it's looking like not so much. Diet culture tells us that if we binge or crave sugar we are addicted and we should “cut sugar out”. Unfortunately, bingeing and craving sugar is often the RESULT of restricting sugar - so those messages make it worse. Research shows that when we restrict, we then have an increased desire for sugar. You want what you can't have. I personally thought I had a sugar addiction and couldn't be trusted with chocolate, ice cream, cake, etc. Then I found Intuitive Eating and healed my relationship with food. Now, I always have multiple pints of ice cream, chocolate, and whatever else I want in my house. I rarely even think about it, unless the mood strikes. I typically want it a few times a week, and when I want it, I eat it! I enjoy it so much more now that it doesn't come with a side of shame. Gone are the days of eating so much of it that I feel sick. Think you have a sugar addiction? There are so many reasons you might feel addicted to sugar. Know that it's common to feel that way but the answer is NOT restriction - it's building connection and trust with yourself. Harmful diet culture messages could be the culprit. One common message I hear is that the response to sugar is a dopamine response like cocaine. Sugar is not like cocaine. Food for thought on this… 1. Cocaine hijacks your neurobiology and sugar does not. 2. You build physiological dependence and tolerance to cocaine and other drugs, but not to sugar. 3. People lose jobs, go to jail and die from substance use disorder. Have you ever known someone who lost a job or went to jail over sugar? 4. If people were addicted to sugar, wouldn’t they want to eat straight sugar? Most people do not eat it out of the bag. We crave the way foods make us feel- taste, smell, texture, etc. 5. Lots of things light up pleasure and reward centers of our brains- babies, laughter, hugs, games like candy crush, etc. 6. In the mice studies - sugar had been restricted. Diets actually cause an increased desire for sugar. Here are some other really valid reasons you might feel like you are addicted to sugar: -You’ve been restricting sugar or telling yourself you “shouldn’t” have it – so your inner rebel comes out. -You are hungry. If you aren’t getting enough to eat, you will crave food in a way that feels out of control - called primal hunger. You might be bingeing all night to make up for it. (many people think they are eating “too much” but not really eating enough during the day- leading to this pattern) -Eating patterns can be habit forming (habits are not addictions). You are simply used to eating a pint of ice cream every night so it feels hard to make a different choice. -You are preoccupied with food and binge often (again diet culture and food restriction often contribute wildly to this). -You think you have an addiction to sugar because it feels like you can't stop (cravings do not mean you have an addiction and there are many reasons for cravings). -You have been told that there is something wrong with liking sweets (they are yummy- food is meant to be enjoyed). -You eat sweets to soothe and think that means it's bad (soothing doesnt mean its an addiction). However, here's the thing...most of these are A) completely normal AND B) created or made worse by dieting/restricting and diet culture messages. The real issue is a lack of being attuned with your body AND using self judgement/beating yourself up instead of using curiosity and discernment. Diet culture tells us to judge ourselves and restrict when you struggle with sugar, but again, this only makes things worse. With Intuitive Eating the solution is to get curious about what is really going on for you. Curiosity helps with body attunement and makes changing patterns easier. Some questions to ask yourself if you are struggling with sugar… - When do I usually crave sugar? - Am I overly hungry before I start eating? - Am I eating enough throughout the day? (if not, it could be primal hunger) - Was my day stressful? (you may need to start focusing on regulating your nervous system) - What was it about the sweet that I really wanted or enjoyed? - How did I feel when I was eating it? - How do I feel after? (ask this without judgement) - Am I getting enough sleep? - Is there a health issue that needs to be addressed? (such as chronic pain) - Did anything change when I started craving sugar more? (such as a diet, stopping drinking, going back to school, etc) - Are there emotions I am avoiding feeling? - Do I need to set a boundary or address a life circumstance that is making me unhappy? It is so important that we ask these questions WITHOUT judgement- judgements are just narratives, they don’t help us change, and they block body attunement. Another key is not to try to control or manage the behavior of eating sugar, but instead address the underlying issue. For example, if you are not getting enough quality sleep, focus on sleep. If that is leading to sugar cravings, when you start getting enough sleep, the sugar cravings will naturally diminish. Unfortunately, much of the research that supports the idea of sugar addiction, is completely biased. It doesn't control for restriction. It is often based on people who are self reporting as well- so it is not objective. So before you go on that rabbit hole of beating yourself up because you read an article about sugar addiction, ask yourself the questions. Take some time, be honest, listen to your body. Again, the answer is building connection and trust with yourself. |
Download your free hunger scale now!The first step to healing your relationship with food is reconnecting with the signals your body gives you. One of the ways to do that is by checking in with your hunger before you eat. Here's my spin on the traditional hunger scale..
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