Is this The Bad Place?

Do you watch The Good Place TV show?

If not, part of the basic premise is that there are multiple heavens (The Good Place) and multiple hells (The Bad Place), each kind of like it's own world, and each with an architect tasked with dreaming up ways of pleasuring or torturing its residents. It's a comedy. It's really entertaining.

I recently kicked off a new Intuitive Eating Mentorship Circle and as everyone introduced themselves I was reminded of how much trauma results from living in a world saturated by diet culture. Much of the work I do with people is helping them shift the anger they have been directing at their body or eating habits towards the real culprit: diet culture. I believe properly directed rage is essential for moving towards body acceptance and sovereignty.

Using the framework from The Good Place show I pointed out that if I were an architect of a bad place and I wanted to torture people I would replicate many parts of the world we live in. I then invited them to join in on designing a hellscape based on their reality. Here's what we collectively came up with:

• Inundate people with unrealistic, manipulated images of often starved bodies and tell them if they just try hard enough they too can achieve this ideal

• Normalize self-imposed food restriction and compulsive exercise

• Shame normal eating

• Make people mistrust their body and it's hunger cues

• Design airplane seats and seatbelts to comfortably accommodate a very small percentage of the population.

• Only offer clothing in brick and mortar stores in sizes that fit a small percentage of the population

• Take an entire food group and tell people to avoid it. Then, once people are on board, switch it up and make a different macronutrient the hero/villain.

• Tell women that after carrying and birthing a child they should return to their pre-pregnancy body, ideally, in a matter of weeks.

• The Kardashians

It was actually fun to popcorn ideas and realize that we're not crazy. It's not us. It's not our bodies. It's diet culture. Diet culture is hell. (as is/related: capitalistic white heteronormative patriarchy)

Yes, it is depressing that our world is a hellscape in many ways, but it's also liberating. Kind of like being on to someone trying to pull the wool over your eyes. If it's just some torturous for-profit scheme to get us to think there is something wrong with our body...or carbs...or emotional eating then maybe we can opt-out more often. Maybe we can de-normalize, disrupt, and divest from this farce.

Stay

The following piece was written on November 7th, 2016 after the results of the U.S. presidential election were announced. The words remain relevant today.

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Every cell of my body is screaming “leave!” this morning. There is no where I want to be less than here.

But I stay.

When I heard the news I ran to the toilet to throw up. I sat on the floor of the bathroom rocking back and forth, trembling, breath shallow, wanting so intensely to leave this moment, this world.

But I stay.

My mind grips and grasps for me to run away to the future. To the what ifs. To the terror. To the tracing of all the steps in history that lead me and us to this moment. To the search for blame. To the desperation for salvation. My mind implores and beckons me to leave.

But I stay.

As a woman, my body has rarely felt like home. For too long I didn’t live here. Here was not a place to trust. Here was not a place that I thought I could handle with my eyes open. But I found my way back and I stay.

Today the invitation I have for you may not be easy: stay.

Stay in your body. Stay with the tremors and the shaking. Stay with the pit in your stomach. Stay even as you notice yourself bobbing in and out. These feelings. This trauma. This fear and anger and sadness and confusion and despair cannot kill us. In fact staying is our salvation.

Stay in your body. Just sidle up next to whatever sensation is coursing through your flesh. Feel the pain. Notice the quality of your breath. Are you hungry? Cold? Perhaps the best way to describe here is ‘numb’?

That’s all welcome. Stay.

The body knows and it has evolved over millennia to process trauma like many of us are experiencing. These processes require little effort on our part other than loving presence…other than staying with kindness.

Stay.

In staying we can receive our bodies wise requests. Is it aching for companionship? Asking for quiet? Nudging us to put away the screens or put on a sweater? Now is the time to heed our body’s requests. Now is the time to stay.

There may not yet be answers to the questions in our mind but we can answer the requests of the body.

There will be a time in the near future that we act boldly, consistently, together and with steadfast determination but right now the impact has just happened, the car has just rolled, the fire just ravaged through, leaving our skin raw and our being bewildered. So right now our best action is to simply stay.

Stay and tend. Stay and feel. Stay and listen.

Here is my call: let our response to this moment be deeper embodiment.

Why embodiment? What can embodiment do in the face such real-life practical threats? Embodied people are resourced. Embodied people are awake. Embodied people are rooted.

If there were ever a time for people to be resourced, awake, and rooted this is it.

Let our commitment be to stay and to feel and then to act on behalf of those whose bodies are most threatened. And it’s all a threat to bodies isn’t it?

Marriage equality and LGBTQ rights? Human bodies.

Racial justice? Bodies.

Reproductive rights? Bodies.

War? ISIS? Bodies.

Affordable and accessible healthcare? Bodies.

Responsible gun control? Bodies.

Immigration? Bodies.

The disembodied cannot support and protect the physically vulnerable nearly as effectively as an army of the deeply embodied.

Don’t move to Canada. Don’t disappear. Don’t check out. Don’t give up. Don’t turn to your escape of choice. Stay. Just here. Just now. In this hurting, reeling body.

All you need to is stay and when you leave, come back as soon as you are aware. Stay.

When all you want to do is leave. When hopelessness nips at your toes. When you don’t know where to go or what to think or how to proceed. Just stay here in your powerful, vulnerable, sacred flesh.

The way forward will be found here and together, in our bodies, we will rise.

An Accomplished Body

A colleague of mine, Charlie Shipley creates The No-Diet Not The No-Diet Notebook where he shares the simplest hand drawn words in support of living a diet-free, body-loving life. They're pure, bite-sized brilliance. I shared this entry with one of my Feast cohorts.

A student replied, “I think having a fit body is an accomplishment. What am I getting wrong here?”

Her question coincided with the kickoff of the Olympics and the world’s celebration of super-human feats.

But is a fit body an accomplishment?

Let’s take a deeper look.

The first thing we need to do is separate out a fit body as defined by abilities (endurance, flexibility, strength, balance, etc.) and a fit body as defined by appearance standards. The latter, a fit-appearing body, is not an accomplishment at all. There is nothing superior about a body that conforms to society's narrow and incorrect standard of what a fit body looks like.

Athletes of the highest caliber come in all forms. It's a myth that you have to have a flat stomach or thighs that don't touch or low body fat percentage in order to compete in sports. At the height of my anorexia, strangers would openly comment on my body making it clear that they equated my thinness with health and fitness. “You must work out.” they’d say when my reality was days spent in bed too weak to move from severe starvation.

My partner has a sturdy build, broad shoulders, and strong arms. He doesn’t lift weights ever. He’s of Polish descent and this is simply the body shape his genetics produce. Nevertheless, people make assumptions about him based on his appearance all the time.

Fit people come in all shapes and sizes.

They have round bellies and thighs that touch. Strong people can come in bodies that look weak. Likewise, unfit people come in bodies that appear fit.

Bottom line: we simply cannot know from looking at someone if they are healthy or not and as such, appearing in a fit body is not an accomplishment.

Now if we're talking about a fit body in terms of performance, it all depends on one's personal values. It depends on personal values because physical fitness is not objectively (or universally) an accomplishment. It depends on what is important is to you and what your motivation is.

Personally, it’s not important to me that I can swim fast or lift large amounts of weight. It is important to me that I feel good in my body, am able to enjoy and live my life (go hiking, swim in the ocean, carry my groceries up stairs, etc). These are my values. Michael Phelps, Misty Copeland, and possibly the student who asked the question, have different values when it comes to fitness. That’s okay. It’s personal. If I don't value these things I'm not less accomplished. I am likely accomplished in different ways.

Remember: all bodies are good bodies. ALL BODIES ARE GOOD BODIES.

We rank bodies for sport in our culture, but we don’t need to and doing so is violent. It’s okay to opt out of the body comparison game, as it's a game that ultimately hurts us all.

It’s also important to explore our motivations for pursuing fitness. As I told my student: WHAT we’re doing doesn’t matter so much as WHY we’re doing it. Whether leaving food on our plate or asking for a second helping, running a 5K, or napping on the couch--why are we doing it?

Are we doing it because it feels good to us and brings us joy? Are we doing it because we feel like we're not enough? Are we acting out of fear? Are we doing what we want or what we think you should do? I strive to act from a “wholesome" why. To move in response to self-awareness, embodiment, kindness, self-compassion, sustainability, a personal desire to feel alive, connected, and of service. We could be the fittest person in the world, but if we got there because being fit is a way to compensate for feeling like we’re not enough or to be accepted, loved, or approved of--I question the blanket awarding of the label “accomplished”.

We also need to be careful when using a word like "accomplished" as there is an implication that one who is not accomplished is lacking, failing, and unfinished or incomplete. We want our language to make room for celebrating individual success while not shaming those who define success differently.

A final note: there are real life circumstances that can impede traditional fitness pursuits or results. They include but are not limited to poverty, mental illness, physical illness, physical disability, and serving as a caretaker. Having the time and resources to devote to fitness is often a luxury and privilege. So is a fit body an accomplishment?

No, unless it's important to you, available to you, and supportive of you. And even then, you very well might not look like the picture of fitness and that's just fine.

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RELATED RESOURCES

"There’s No Morality in Exercise: I’m a Fat Person and Made a Successful Fitness App" 

Ragen Chastain of Dances with Fat (In particular this post and this post)

"Dear Virgie: 'Why Does Exercising Feel So Complicated?'" 

"How To Exercise Out Of Self-Love — Not Due To Fat-Shaming"

Buy One, Get One Free

This week I had yet another client tell me that a certain diet (rhymes with Hate Talkers) is the only one that has "worked" for her. My client is telling me that this diet has "worked" but she is seeking my help with overconsumption and general dis-ease around food — two almost certain outcomes of said diet. Never mind the yo-yoing of her weight that she dislikes.

I want to make something very explicit: food restriction (by any name, real or perceived) almost always leads to overconsumption (by any name, real or perceived). Buy one, get one free—like it or not.

Let's take a minute and better define restriction and overconsumption:

RESTRICTION

Generally, in this context, restriction refers to reducing or eliminating food items or food groups from one's diet. This can look as benign as "I'm trying to eat less sugar" all the way up through traditional diets and on to full blown orthorexia and anorexia. The appeal of restriction is how it makes us feel—at first. We feel in control, powerful, safe, virtuous, and even high. However because our brain interprets restriction (including often just the thought of restriction) as "famine is imminent" even the strongest will is often over run in pursuit of being fed. This is just our built in survival instinct. Has this ever happened to you: You think "Today I shouldn't/won't eat X" and before you know it just the thought has sent you into eating twice as much of that food? This is why whether restriction is real or perceived it's equally potent.

OVERCONSUMPTION

We have a stereotype in our head of binge eating: on the floor in front of the refrigerator surrounded by empty packages of food, spoon deep in a carton of ice cream. Yet overconsumption most often appears in subtler ways that have more to do with what's going on in our minds than what is going in our mouth.

When I was anorexic I had an allotted amount of crackers I would eat each day. If I went over that number, I felt like I had binged, even if I was still calorically deficient. I used to say to my therapist that a binge for me was less about the food and more about the fact that while eating I was consumed by thoughts of the next thing I would eat. Again, I might still have been in a normal or deficient caloric range, but the experience in my mind had the fingerprint of overconsumption.

You probably know what overconsumption feels like to you and while it's personal and often private the impact is fairly universal. So what is the mental experience of overconsumption?

At first, coming from restriction-ville, it's release, calm, and a sense of safety as the brain registers that food is here and abundant. Typically this is followed by feeling out of control, ashamed, guilty, and "bad".

Can you relate? Without seeing the cause and effect of this cycle most people hop right back on the restriction bandwagon. I implore you:

• Do not blame yourself for feeling out of control around food when you've been sold a cycle that all but guaranteed exhaustive circular trips from restriction to overconsumption and back again.

• Do not hop back on the restriction band wagon when you are or have been overconsuming. To so do would certainly cause you to repeat the same patterns over again. Diets by design (as a result of how they interact with the human psyche) include a trip through the land of over eating.

• Do not think that you can buy one (restriction/dieting) without getting the other for free (overconsumption).

• Do not suggest to anyone, ever, that a diet is the answer to their struggles.

I'm posting this image again so it's crystal clear just how one feeds into the other:

GETTING OFF THE NOT-SO-MERRY GO ROUND

If you're tired of going round and round...

If you're tired of feeling like it's your fault when a diet doesn't "work"...

If you're tired of how short lived the "perks" of dieting are...

Take the off ramp: intuitive eating.

It's the only thing I know of that puts an end to the insanity and the off ramp exists at any point, no need to wait for another cycle. Intuitive eating works with the human brain such that you never feel like famine is coming or that you, your body, or food can't be trusted. Intuitive eating is sustainable and doesn't require that you sign back up with a company selling you a guaranteed to fail product. To start, read the book. If you need help bringing intuitive eating to life, as most of us do, work with a coach, counselor, intuitive eating-focused nutritionist, or take a course. May we all find our way to freedom. May we all find our way back to our body.

How You Know You're Done Dieting

You see now that a diet by any other name is still a diet.

Whether it’s the traditional Weight-Watchers or Jenny Craig or the nouveau Paleo or Whole30 you know that if it asks you to follow rules, if it tells you that your body’s cravings can’t be trusted, if it makes someone else the expert, if it demonizes certain foods or entire macronutrients that it’s a diet. Plus you’re not going to be fooled by misappropriated buzzwords and phrases like “wellness” and “body love” and “make peace with food.” A spade is a spade and you know it.

You see that yo-yoing in weight is not and has not been a fault of yours but an inherent side-effect of dieting.

When a human being is threatened with starvation over and over again as they are when dieting the body acts in the interest of self-preservation and decreases metabolism. This is the brilliance of our bodies, they want us to live. This the problem with restriction. This is the "planned obsolescence" or built in expiration date of diets. It's diets that don't work but people blame themselves for not sticking to it. They blame themselves for not having the willpower, for eating sugar or bread, when all all along it was the diet itself that was set up to cause weight-gain. You see this now. You're not playing a rigged game anymore.

You see now that you’d rather be happy than weigh any specific amount.

Most often when we’re chasing weight-loss we’re really chasing what we think weight loss will give us: happiness, love, desirability, etc. Most often when we’re restricting our food we’re chasing order in our life, a sense of control, or a decrease in our anxiety. But now, you realize that people have all the things we’re promised weight-loss will give us without the pursuit of a different body. Now you realize you can have those things too. Now you know that diets aren’t the most effective anxiety management approach. Now you just want to be free and happy.

You’re not holding out hope anymore for a miracle, quick-fix, lose-weight pill, plan, or program.

You’ve tried enough to know that the next diet will not have different results from the last one, or the last ten. You also know that the path from chronic dieter to normal eater won’t happen overnight or in six weeks. That speedy pace is only ever sold by industries that care more about profits that results or your well being. You now know that being the tortoise is a better bet than being the hare. Slow and steady wins the race.

You see now that weighing less, if it means you have to starve and torture yourself, isn’t worth it.

Priorities change. As we live, we learn. It can take a while but eventually, if we’re lucky, where we find meaning and fulfillment becomes clear and it turns out that’s it’s never found in how we look or what we weigh or how "perfect" of an eater we are. Meaning is found in relationships, in creative expression, in service, in play, in nature, in enjoying our bodies, and in loving one another. It’s not found in a pants size. The cost is just too high for you to continue to inflict harm on yourself in the name of calories or points or carbs or pounds or inches. 

You have just enough faith that you can relearn how to be a “normal” eater even if that scares you.

You may not know how. You might crave support. But you have faith, however faint, that you can be free. Others that you respect and trust have gone before you. Somewhere inside is a voice whispering "We're done. So done. Never again. So what's next?"

Letting Go of What "They" Think

In the early months of anorexia the praise I received about my appearance and weight loss served as fuel for a dangerous fire.

“You look great!”
“What are you doing? You look awesome.”
“I wish I had your willpower.”
“Wow, you have a great body.”

Friends, strangers, and even my parents, in the early days, doled out praise for what appeared to be a newly discovered commitment to health and the smaller pants I could fit into. Approval was like a drug. It felt good, really good, when it started and it served as a motivation later on. When I didn’t want to go to the gym or I wanted to eat something beyond my ultra restricted diet all I did was think about what people would say if I gained weight and that was enough to keep me in line. In a lot of ways I was addicted to praise. The high I got from others celebrating my physical form (and how it conformed) was palpable. The panic I felt when (I projected that) others judged my body negatively was crushing. My colleague Tara Mohr is brilliant when it comes to the topic of unhooking from praise and criticism. Tara says that being hooked takes different forms, including:

1. Dependence on, or addiction to praise – causing us to do only those things that are likely to get us gold stars and others’ approval

2. Avoidance of praise – not wanting to stand out from the crowd – even for positive reasons, which causes us to self-sabotage, to not do our best work

3. Fear of criticism – which causes us to not innovate, share controversial ideas, pursue interests where we’ll be fumbling beginners or fail along the way, or do anything that makes us visible enough to be criticized!

She makes the astute suggestion to “always look at feedback as giving you information about the person or people giving the feedback, rather than information about yourself." Tara's writings explores this topic mostly in the context of our careers and I want to take it further and apply it to praise and criticism of our bodies and food choices.

And unhooking in this realm is not an easy thing to do because we all want to belong. We all want approval. When we are praised it feels great. When we are judged or rejected it can feel devastating. And yet, living at the mercy of the approval of others, striving to conform in our appearance or diets to what others or “society” deems good is the definition of disempowerment.

Being able to live our lives and make basic choices like what to eat, when to eat, and how much to eat without factoring in what other people will think is essential if we are to feel free and unmasked. It’s essential if we are to stay connected to the immense wisdom of our bodies.

Feeding ourselves is one of the most basic acts of autonomy. No one else should have a say in what we put into our bodies and yet for too many women, with each bite, comes a cacophony of judgemental voices—some real, some projected. This happens when we get dressed too. Our minds run off with thoughts of "Does this make me look fat?" "Does this show my belly/thighs/arms/butt, etc?" "Will so and so think I’ve gained weight?" "Will they think I’ve given up?"

Too often we sit on the side lines, skip the party, or spend more than we can afford on clothing just to mitigate the judgement we fear others will have of how we look. But, as Tara so eloquently explains

“the goal...is not to become impervious to praise and criticism. That would be impossible. It would also be inhuman, and would force us to deny an important part of ourselves….The part of us that wants others to receive us with appreciation, with enthusiasm – the part that wants to be loved by those around us? I think that’s a very tender, real, part of us, a part to honor too. The point is not to become disconnected from feedback, to have such a thick skin that we can’t feel it or hear it, but rather, to become “unhooked” by it, to not be run by it. The point is to be run by our own wisdom...The goal is to not have others’ ideas about us distract us, silence us, or take us on an emotional roller coaster.”

I agree. In the end it comes down to what we each, as individuals, decide is important in a meaningful life. Unhooking from praise and criticism when it comes to our bodies and our food choices is a life long practice. Each of us has an ego that is ready and willing to lure us back to that to the roller coaster. Getting hooked isn't a failure.

So what does it look like when we’re unhooked from body praise and criticism? It looks like this:

• Eating what we want, not more or less based on what other people are eating or who we are eating with, or what social function we have coming up on our calendar.

• Allowing photos of us to be taken and seen, knowing that a single moment captured in 2-D doesn’t define us or tell our whole story.

• Not hiding in the ways we dress or hiding what we are choosing to eat.

• Letting someone else’s comments about our appearance be about them.

• Dressing and adorning ourselves for ourselves, with pride, and the body we have today.

• Observing the hurt or fear that comes from criticism and looking inward to where we may be holding self-judgement. After all, it’s much harder to be hurt by criticism we don’t agree with.

• Doing our best to practice non-judgement when it comes to other people’s eating and appearance.

• Sometimes consciously giving up the SHORT-TERM high we know we'd get if we went on a crash diet. We unhook when we choose long-term, internally-based sustainable happiness instead of short-term, external hits of power. This happens in small moments.

• When necessary, reminding other people that our body, appearance, and food choices are entirely our own domain—no outside contributions needed or welcome.

Unhooking is a practice, but remember, what I think of you, or she thinks of you, or he thinks of you, or your inner critic thinks of you doesn't much matter. You are in charge. Your body is yours. Your reasons behind your food choices are personal and multifaceted and no one's business.

Go to the party. Take the photograph. Put on whatever size clothing fits your body today and feels comfortable. Eat what you want, in public, in front of people who are still entranced by diet culture. Have no shame for struggling, getting hooked, bumbling toward finding your way, or being a human who feels deeply—this stuff isn't easy. Ultimately though, when you can, remember that what other people think about your body and food choices only has as much power as you give it.

A Day in the Life of Six Intuitive Eaters

Her: “I have a question.”
Me: “Go for it.”
Her: “What’s a typical day like for an intuitive eater?”
Me: “Hah! As if there is a typical day…"
Her: “I ask because we’re told all the time what a typical day looks like for a dieter. Every women’s magazine tells us what this it-girl is eating, or what that celebrity nutritionist recommends. We never hear or see what a normal eater eats.”

This is an exchange I once had with one of my Feast students.

And she’s right.

How often do we hear that Jane Doe movie star has protein and steam vegetables for dinner or that her personal trainer has her start her day with an egg white omelet? Craving something sweet? She’s allowed one half cup of strawberries. You get the idea. And this is presented as normal!

This is not normal. This is extreme restriction.

Here’s the rub though in answering my student's question: the point of intuitive eating is that it’s flexible, changing, adaptable, and entirely personal. As such, there really is no typical day for me or for others who practice this approach to eating.And yet I wanted to give her an answer so I reached out to a handful of my attuned eater friends and thought I’d share with you how six women might eat on any given day. When I made my request to these contributors I kept it loose and didn't edit their responses so you’ll see a range of formats. Some tracked what they ate over one or two days. Some jotted down their approach to their daily eating habits. I think the mix is perfect and goes to underscore the diversity in eating for those who eschew rules, programs, and diets.

Rachel Cole (Me!), Writer, Teacher, and Life Coach

I typically start my day with either hot cereal (oatmeal, cream of wheat, etc.) with a pat of butter, whole milk, honey or maple syrup, and whatever nuts and fruit I have on hand. I like to feel really satiated as I start my day. If it’s not hot cereal I’ll have leftovers. I love cold spaghetti and other savory foods in the morning. A typical lunch for me might be one or two tamales and some sort of veggies on the side (leftover sautéed greens, cut up bell pepper, etc.). I’ll usually have a piece of fruit here too. Snacks, which I might or might not have before/after lunch might be buttered toast, an apple and peanut butter, a piece of cold pizza, gummy bears, etc. Just depends on what I have and what I’m craving. We cook at home many nights and we might have asian rice bowls (brown rice, omelet, tofu, kim chee, asian roasted vegetables, etc.) or skirt steak with chimichurri sauce and good bread. We have dessert most nights, but not all. We tend to keep cookie dough in the freezer (before having a kid it was homemade, now it’s store bought) and then bake off a few when we have a hankering for something sweet. Most often I'll have mine with a glass of whole milk. This is all what’s most typical but I also go through phases where I’m eating mostly take out and not getting as many vegetables as makes my body happy. It all just depends on what I’m in the mood for, if I’ve been to the grocery store or had time (or the desire) to cook, and what’s in season.

Melissa Toler, Writer, Speaker, and Certified Wellness Coach

• I woke up at 7:15 and breakfast around 8:30, which was homemade turkey sausage, black eyed peas, and sautéed kale (I don't eat eggs so this is my version of a warm, filling, tasty breakfast). I also have a big cup of French press coffee w/sugar with it. Sometimes, I'll have a banana afterwards (what I like to call my breakfast dessert), but I ran out that day.

• I went to the gym at 11:30, then had a protein shake with spinach blended in after my workout

• For lunch I had chicken thighs, green beans, and roasted sweet potatoes

• I went to Starbucks to do some work and had a bag of jalapeño corn chips (which were yummy, to my surprise)

• After working at Starbucks, I came home around 8:30PM and had ground beef, green beans, and rice.

• I went to bed around 11:30

Caroline Dooner, Author of The Fuck it Diet

I'm pretty bad at grocery shopping. I live in a city and go to the deli every day to get kombucha and avocados and Lärabars and ice cream and oranges. These days, I wake up, and I either remember to make myself sourdough toast with butter and/or a banana, or I don't, and I go to the cafe up the street to get a cappuccino - or two- and write for a few hours. By a certain point it's lunch and I realize I should have eaten the toast, because now I'm just running on caffeine and milk. I go home and make whatever lunch is lying around. Leftovers. Pasta. Ground beef. Or avocado toast. Those are the usuals. And sometimes it's cheese and crackers.

I forget about food a lot these days, because I know I'll eat it when I want it and need it, but I do also get hungry often, because I'm alive, and it's almost like an, "OH, how have you not learned by now that I need to eat lots of food?" (This is starkly different from my life before when all I thought about was food and what I was going to eat.) So, for snacks I normally eat more cheese and crackers, or Lärabars, and kombucha. Or more lunch. Or if I'm out, I just get whatever I want. I can't even think of what that is because it's always something different. I went through a long phase where I only wanted brownies. Now I kind of want anything but brownies.

I'm away from my apartment a lot at night, so I eat out. Something different every time. There was a long while when I nearly had a chipotle burrito bowl every day. Barbacoa, White rice, black beans, sour cream, lettuce, salsas. That's still my go-to at Chipotle. Right now I'm in a phase where I order beef tacos from the restaurant down the street a few times a week. The delivery guy knows me now. It's very embarrassing because I bet he thinks I am a taco-eating-hermit. But my biggest guilt about taco delivery is that I am ruining the planet. Plastic.

I went through a phase where I would have chocolate chocolate chip ice cream every night. Now I'm in a phase where I eat oranges and peanut butter chocolate chip Lärabars before bed... sometimes two. Often two. Let's be honest, every day I go to the deli to get my kombucha and I buy two Lärabars, and I almost always eat them both that night. If I forget to eat them, I'm normally still hungry at bedtime, so I eat them in bed while looking at Instagram on my phone.Then I remember I need to change my sheets and vacuum the floor. But I don't do it, basically, ever. That's my "routine", but I often break up my routine and am eating god only knows what, and thank god because I probably need more varied nutrients than my routine offers me.

Anna Guest-Jelley, Founder of Curvy Yoga

Over the years of my intuitive eating journey, I've now built my day around small rituals of food choice -- they offer me a little structure so I'm not reinventing the wheel every moment but also enough freedom to adapt to my changing wants and needs throughout my day and week. At the beginning of the week, I make a grocery list and plan my meals. I enjoy doing this because I get to think about what I want to eat, what meals would be good on nights I'm busier and what sounds good that time of year (hello, all the fruit in the summer!). I make sure to have enough food on hand for changing my mind, though, and have a few quick go-tos that I always enjoy no matter what so that if I look at that night's dinner and decide I'm not into it, I can have something else.

My go-tos are generally comprised of ingredients that don't go bad quickly so that I don't have to get new ones every week and so I don't have to get into a trap of thinking I have to eat something just so it won't go bad. I can't emphasize enough how key having choice is for me: If I have to eat something I don't want, my inner narrative gets very negative very quickly. In my dieting days, I never ate what I wanted or would feel good for my body, so when I do that now, even if not related to a diet at all, all my old tapes and food "shoulds" and "shouldn'ts" get triggered, which quickly sends me into a downward spiral. So having at least one other choice for any given snack or meal is the name of the game for me.

In the morning, I'm generally pretty ready to eat within half an hour of getting out of bed. Again, I have several breakfast options always available -- oatmeal, cereal, smoothie and toast (depending on the time of year, that will be toast with butter, peanut butter or avocado). Because these are all made of ingredients I can keep on hand for a while, it's not a problem or more expensive. I eventually eat all of it, but I'm not obligated to just eat one the whole week if I'm not digging that.

As the day progresses, I tend to start getting hungry around 10am. Honestly, I very often ignore that and keep working. When I plan ahead well, though, I bring a snack with me upstairs to my office because I'm more likely to eat it that way than if I have to go downstairs because my mind too often tells me I should just keep working and break for lunch early instead. This is something I'm continuing to work on because I feel better when I have the earlier snack, but it often means I just eat lunch around 11am instead. For lunch I usually go by the plan for the day, but I still have some alternates for when I need them.

One thing I know about myself is that I get hangry around 5pm if I haven't had an afternoon snack, and because I wait to have dinner until my husband gets home because I enjoy sharing a meal with him, I have to have an afternoon snack. That, as opposed to the morning snack, is easier for me because I also know I may get a headache if I don't have that afternoon snack. When and what I eat is totally dependent on the day and what I've done. Some days I go for a swim after lunch, and on those days I almost always want a snack when I get home and then sometimes something else later in the afternoon, too. Other days, I may have something in the middle of the afternoon. As you've probably guessed, I'm all about variety here, so I have several snack options around: dark chocolate, beef jerky, yogurt, chips, almonds or pecans, leftovers from lunch, Lärabar, etc. Some days I have one of those, other days more than one.In the evening, yep -- I generally go by the plan. But sometimes I don't feel like having that, or I got busy and didn't have time to make something so I text my husband to bring home take-out, or I just feel like going out or there's enough leftovers for a third serving but I can't handle it (I'm generally not interested in having something more than twice, so if there's more, I leave those for my husband to bring for lunch).

I never put so many meals on the week's grocery list that I can't just carry the ingredients forward and they'll still be fresh enough to be able to use and not throw out early the next week, so it works for me to do this. At night, I go by what I feel. If I've given myself what I wanted and needed at dinner, I rarely feel the desire to eat again before bed. But sometimes I might have had a very active day, eaten dinner earlier than usual, be going to bed later than usual, or who knows what -- sometimes I'm just hungry. If I am, I make sure to eat something before bed because waking up ravenous does not start me off on a good note for the next day.Really, each day is different, but when I have options on hand, it's so much easier for me to stay with intuitive eating because I can roll with the day as it is and not how I thought it should be five days ago.

Tracy Brown, Nutrition Therapist and Somatic Attuned Eating Coach

I certainly don't have typical days. The only things that are similar are the weekdays bc when I get my kid to and from school, so the meal times are mostly consistent. And I, 95% of the time have some kind of dessert each day. Easy going weekend day:

8am) banana and large muffin with almond butter; decaf coffee with cream and sugar

11am) grilled chicken, strawberries, lentil chips and some fancy cheese you can grill on a grill

3pm ) half a large piece of cake at a birthday party; mostly ate the frosting bc cake part was dry, would have liked to finish but didn't want to be full but not satisfied

530p) pasta with marinara and meatballs, broccoli and cauliflower with olive oil

9:15) strawberry coconut milk ice cream; not hungry per se but wanted a little something and it hit the spot

There are days with more or less fruit or veg or dairy; more fats, etc. The point is that after years of attuned eating the feedback my body consistently gives is that I feel more focused with better energy when I have protein for breakfast, though many days I don't have a preference for it. In those cases like this day, I added a little almond butter because I do like it and it doesn't feel forced or a should. Just a honoring of how I want to feel.

Dana Sturtevant, MS, RD, and Co-Founder of Be Nourished

While there is some consistency and predictability in my eating, the main question I ask myself is “What sounds good?” I have 3-4 rotating breakfasts that I make, depending on what I want and the time I have available. The entries below are for non-work days when I’m often running errands, and eat snacks between breakfast and dinner. Work day lunches are often leftovers (or a Whole Bowl around the corner!). New Seasons grocery store is also right by my office, so I might hop in there for something from the deli. I estimated the times I ate and included them here. Noticing how long the foods at each eating episode last—sometimes called the “meal mix”—can be helpful when planning what to eat. If I’m training all morning, my breakfast is going to be hearty—almost always an egg dish and something with it—beans, bagel, potatoes, fruit. If I’m in the office, I have more breakfast options (yogurt, granola and fruit, toasted waffles with nut butters, smoothies) because I can snack between meetings and clients. In summary, my eating varies in response to where I am, what I’m doing, the food choices I make, and the time I have available.

Saturday

9 a.m Steel cut oats with toasted coconut, pumpkin seeds, almond milk and brown sugar, and green tea

Noon Part of a caramel walnut roll from the farmer’s market

2 p.m. Part of a toasted bagel with cream cheese, salmon lox. A few pickled green beans on the side. Sparkling water

5:30 p.m Happy Hour at a Mexican Restaurant. Nachos with black beans, cheese, guacamole, and sour cream. Small green salad with apples, walnuts, and pepitas, Margaritas

Sunday

9:30 a.m. Part of a caramel walnut roll from the farmer’s market. Eggs scrambled in butter. Green tea

1 p.m. Toaster waffle (frozen) with almond butter. Iced herbal tea

3:30 p.m. Crackers with gouda. Part of an apple. Sparkling water

5 p.m. A few bites of black rice while cooking

7 p.m. Pasta with nettle-walnut pesto, broccoli and tomatoes. Chicken apple sausage. Wine

8 p.m. Chocolate

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It's safe to say that today, months after these lists were shared with me, these women are likely eating something completely different. That's real life. The point is that this is what intuitive eating looks like for a group of privileged women who let their bodies lead (most of the time), don't fret or stress about what they will eat or have eaten, integrate lifestyle, life phase, pleasure, socializing, and gentle nutrition in ways that ultimately feel easy to them.

It's not a science. There is no prescription. Perfection is no where to be found. There's just real life, good food and the choice to trust ourself and our body.

Participation Optional

Even though we in the developed world are relatively free, we’re still socialized to go along with the crowd. Today’s reminder is that participation is optional. Today I invite you to opt out when you don’t want to do something.

Opt out of being weighed at the doctor’s office. Did you know it’s optional? You can simply say “I pass” and if they pressure you, and you don’t feel you have a choice, you can step on the scale backwards and say “I don’t want to know the number, it’s not useful to me.”

Opt out of allowing your child to have their BMI measured at school. Seriously. Let’s stop this early weight stigmatization and use of this most meaningless measurement.

Opt of out the pervasive “I’m so bad, I ate a piece of bread” conversations. If the people around you are gib gabbing about their latest diet, weight loss success or failure you can: change the topic, explain that you don’t partake in ‘diet culture’, or even say “You know how some people don’t talk about religion or politics because it causes conflict, well, I don’t talk dieting.” And leave it at that. You do not have to participate in or respond to every conversation you’re invited to.

Opt out of "Operation Get Bikini Body Ready". You already have a bikini body, whether you want to wear one or not. This summer is not something to dread. The beach is not something to starve or slave for. Opt out.

Opt out of the hysteria over eating clean and of the diet fad (aka “lifestyle change”) of the moment. Just because “all the cool kinds are doing it” doesn’t mean it’s good for you (or them) and you have every right to opt out without any guilt.

Opt out of any yoga or exercise class that doesn’t feel welcoming to you and your body. As a wise friend of mine once said about bad yoga classes: “Treat them like a bad movie and walk out.”

On that note, opt out of the "free" body fat scan that comes with your new gym membership. When it comes to movement, you and your body deserve to feel welcomed, accepted, and met. Anything less is a great opportunity to opt out.

Opt out of seeing any medical practitioner who brings weight stigma into their practice. Increasingly you have choice and more and more there are medical professionals who understand the harm of weight-stigma and scientific validity of the Health at Every Size paradigm. Don’t like your doctor? Afraid to go see them because of the weight shaming comments they've made? Opt out.

Opt out of television shows (I’m looking at you Biggest Loser), magazines (I’m looking at you Shape Magazine), and other media that leave you feeling less than. Turn them off, unsubscribe, and go enjoy entertainment that respect you and everyone.

Bottom line: you are free. You can say “No” and “No Thank You” and “No Fucking Way.”

Even if you feel like the odd one out, no one ever regrets doing what feels right and true to them.

Participation is truly optional.

Perfection Coins

I spent several years unraveling my motherhood knot—the jumble of questions, fears, desires, and beliefs I had about having a child. As you can imagine (or perhaps relate) this tangle had many layers but one in particular, while perhaps obvious, surprised me. Perfectionism. Or, as I’ve come to think of it: Perfection Coins.

Perfection Coins are what we amass the more in control and ‘perfect’ our life is. If our life somehow reflects a greater percentage of our personal preferences, with minimal compromise or vulnerability we are very rich in Perfection Coins. When we want something that requires risk, or change, or giving up control we have to trade in our Perfection Coins.

And why would anyone trade them in?

Because the payoff is often living a life in greater alignment with yourself, deeper intimacy with other people, more meaning, and more happiness. When we become a mother we have to trade in a lot of our Perfection Coins. For some women the cost is too high. For some women, the giving up of control, of order, of predictability is not worth it. And yet most mothers would tell you that what they trade in Perfection Coins (sleep, a clean house, clothes without stains, etc.) is paid back ten times over in love, connection, and intangible magic. And as I began to think about this in the context of motherhood it struck me that the same is true about the choice I made to give up my eating disorder and become a body-respecting intuitive eater. I traded in compliments from strangers who idealized by anorexic body, an ego high from eating ‘clean’, and so much more.

Tons of Perfection Coins given away and in return I’ve received freedom, sanity, well being, joy, ease and pleasure.

Had I known ahead of time things would work out, I wouldn’t have hesitated. But we can’t know. When we make the trade it’s done on faith. It’s always a bet taken because something else becomes more valuable than Perfection Coins. With each run of Feast my students arrive at this crossroads too. Which would they rather have: Thighs that don’t touch or sanity around food? The (false) sense of order delivered by a diet or feeling good in their own skin? The approval of judgemental family members or freedom to take up space? Being numb to life’s pain (but also numb to joy) or feeling joy, and all the other emotions too?

We can’t have both.

We can’t hold life white-knuckled, gripping to the safety of what we know and also receive the good stuff.

There are simply times when we have to make a choice, or rather, we get to make a choice. Times when we choose to stay in or leave the relationship. Times when we choose to quit or take the job. Times when we choose to tell the truth or bite our tongue.

Increasingly I choose to trade in my Perfection Coins for the messy, unknown, not-in-my-control, but deeply connected, vibrant life that calls to me. And truthfully, at the end of life I imagine that Perfection Coins aren’t worth very much.

Dieting is a Violent Act

I believe dieting is a violent act.

I don’t feel neutral, or calm, or indifferent about dieting. I feel quite clearly that dieting is a violent act that (predominantly) women are encouraged to perform against themselves.

I find diets to be physically violent, often leading to exhaustive cycles of weight loss and gain and sometimes insufficient calories (i.e. energy) and nutrition.

I find diets to be psychologically violent, often leading to mental obsession, increased stressed, shame, disempowerment, disembodiment, and a general sense of failure when the diet inevitably results not in weight loss, but weight gain.

I find diets spiritually violent, often severing the most sacred of ties between ourselves and the wisdom of our body. I can think of few things as holy as the act of feeding ourselves and this is exactly where diets wreak their havoc.

I have come to believe this about diets after my own stint on Weight Watchers (which fueled the start of my anorexia) at age 20 and a range of other diets in the years to follow. I have come to believe this about diets after a decade of thoroughly researching and formally studying the science and ineffectiveness of diets. Most of all though I have come to believe this after spending years on the frontline of healing women who arrive at my doorstep deeply wounded from years, often decades, spent dieting.

Dieting isn’t all that different than other forms of temporary soothing. Like eating, drinking, or shopping in order to numb out, for the person doing it, at first, it feels relaxing. It’s a bandaid solution that almost always leaves us feeling worse off.

Violence means destruction and that is what I know diets do. They destroy our natural ease with food. They destroy, albeit temporarily, our ability to listen to and honor our unique physical cues about what to eat, when to eat, and how much to eat. They destroy our sense that we are capable of feeding ourselves without external controls.

The majority of people in the western world, including most of our medical establishment, believe that diets are an obvious and even healthy response to overconsumption of food and possessing a body size above what is deemed acceptable.

It’s just not true though. In fact it’s bullshit. Diets don’t improve our health and they don’t result in weight loss (never mind that there is nothing inherently unhealthy or wrong with weighing more or having a larger body).

It’s understandable that a person would go on a diet, given the amount of money spent each year across various industries to sell us on the idea that we can’t be trusted around food and that we aren’t desirable unless we’re thinner. I understand this. I bought into it too long ago. Yet given what I know, I believe firmly that diets are a violent act.

A word, or two, on the experience of holding a radical point of view: it’s scary.

For women, historically, our very survival has depended on being likable. To feel disliked, judged, and rejected, to women…to me…can induce panic. It is for this reason many women default to silence when their voice, however necessary, might run against the status quo.

So I share this most radical of beliefs knowing that you might not only disagree, but that you might criticize, unfollow, and reject me as a valued voice in your life. I know that my beliefs about dieting are radical. I also know that a lot of normal ideas were at one time radical. I also know that it’s the truthful but less popular ideas that need champions.

As long as it takes I will tell my story, stand for the truth, and call for peace — the peace that diets rob us of. I’m happy to put in the time, however long, until we see a cultural sea change happen.

If you share my view on dieting but feel alone this is me reaching my hand out to join yours. We may be a minority but from what I can tell that is quickly changing and a new paradigm is emerging.

That said while there is a growing awakening happening, there remains a lot of work to do. Case in point: Oprah Winfrey and her investment in WW International (formerly Weight Watchers)

*deep sigh*

Have you heard the term “The Oprah Effect”?

This phrase was coined to describe the success that resulted for a person, product (especially books), or business from a single appearance on her television show. And even without her television show, it’s a common belief that Oprah remains the single most powerful woman in the world. And her success is deserving. Oprah, without question, has improved the lives of millions of people.

As a woman, a fellow human, I have a tremendous amount of compassion for her long struggle with food and body loathing. But as a public figure, I believe her endorsement of Weight Watchers, while being a prudent business move (netting her tens of millions on paper), is unethical. Simply put she has invested in and endorsed a product proven to fail in the long run.

If Oprah had come out endorsing the Volkswagon cars with faulty emissions readers we’d be up in arms. We’d be cross-eyed and confused.

“Why would anyone endorse a product that doesn’t deliver on its promises?!” we’d say.

“Why would anyone support a company that lies to it’s consumers?!” we’d exclaim.

When I learned that Oprah was coming out with a rousing endorsement of Weight Watchers I felt outraged, but more than that I felt and still feel utterly heartbroken by the incredible missed opportunity that Oprah represents. I’m pained by the incredible number of people who will, I believe, thanks to Oprah, feel a green light to diet.

If you feel drawn to dieting because you feel out of control with food and unhappy with your body please know there is another way. A more effective way. It’s entirely possible to make peace with food and your flesh without the “help” of rigid rules.

Dieting might be the only way you’ve ever known to relate to food and your body, but it’s a violent way and peace is available, this much I know.

Defining What Works

Client: Well [insert diet du jour] is what’s worked for me in the past.

Me: Define ‘worked’?

Client: I was able to keep the weight off longer than any other diet.

Me: And how long was that?

Client: About a year.

Me: And that’s what it means to ‘work’?

If you bought a car and it only drove for a year, would you consider that a good purchase? What if there was a wrinkle cream that made you look ten years younger, but all your wrinkles came back after a year, plus lots more. Did that cream work? Would you recommend it to a friend?

Let’s get real about how we define working.

If it’s giving you a metaphorical fish each night for a while then abandoning you to starvation it doesn’t work. If it gives you the physical changes you want but they are short lived and cost you mental well-being it doesn’t work. If it seems to work in the short term (and a year is short term, unless you plan to have a very short life), but is designed, in it’s DNA, to malfunction then it doesn’t work. What works is what is sustainable and supportive.

What works is what allows you to be you.

What works is what supports yourwhole well-being— mind, body, and spirit. Please don’t fool yourself into thinking this diet or that diet or the next diet or the diet of the moment or that ‘way of eating’ that’s popular right now and ‘has lots of community support’ is going to work.

Diets can’t work long term because you are not a robot.

You are a living, breathing, feeling, sensitive, and food-requiring human. Diets can’t work because they trigger very primal physical warning reactions that starvation is imminent. They deliver this warning to every system of your body and well, that sense of impending threat doesn’t make a body or heart or spirit happy. The good news is that diets are totally optional. You don’t have to go on one and you don’t have to go on another one ever again. You get to, instead, choose what works. Works as in the dictionary definition of functioning effectively.

What’s that?

That’s taking all the baby steps it takes back to a trusting relationship with your body. That’s treating yourself like you’re on the same team, not at war within. That’s choosing happiness over thinness. That’s reclaiming pleasure as your birthright and an essential part of being well. That’s getting clear about what you’re trying to feed when you eat when you’re not hungry. That’s learning to sooth and experience your anxieties in a different way than numbing through restriction or consumption. There is a way that works. I’m not saying that it’s not totally terrifying to give up the pseudo-comfort and false promises of the next diet. It is. It is scary as all get out. But I choose what’s scary and what truly works over what’s safe and fails every time (despite promising “this one’s different!”).

Here are a few actions that I know to “work”:

1. Practice self-compassion with the same dedication that you brought to dieting.

2. Work with an intuitive eating dietician and/or counselor to help shake off all those crazy food rules.

3. Explore what it might mean to see yourself, in this body, with love.

4. Take up a movement practice that’s rooted in joy instead of obligation, suffering, or fear.

5. Read Intuitive Eating

6. Buy clothing that feels good to wear in the body you inhabit today.

7. Set the intention to talk to yourself as you would a your daughter or good friend.

8. Unfollow on social media anyone or organization that promotes dieting, the ‘thin-ideal’, or just makes you feel crappy.

9. Try to spend at least as much time having fun as you spend thinking about food and your body.

Sola Dosis Facit Venenum

I love television.

That might be a bit taboo to say, but it’s true. I get an enormous amount of pleasure from watching my favorite shows.

And there is nothing wrong with loving television. It gives me a tremendous amount of joy, laughter, and relaxation. Put simply, it feeds me. Most of the time. I can also use TV as a tool for avoiding life when checking in, not out, is would serve me most. A while back I noticed my viewing habits detracting more than helping and no surprise my first thought was “I’m going to just give up TV. Go cold turkey. Block Netflix from my computer. Commit to reading a book a week....” Yes, my initial response was to go on a diet. But the problem for me in this case wasn’t television, but the amount and the way I was using television.

Sola dosis facit venenum.

This translates to: The dose makes the poison.

I learned of this principle in graduate school. We were taught that everything in the world is medicine and everything is poison, depending on the dose. This idea is a pretty radical in a world that loves to categorize most things into ‘good’ and ‘bad’.

Organic local apples = pure goodness.
Wonder Bread = bad, devoid of any value.

But it’s not that simple. It never is. You can eat enough apples to make you sick. You can enjoy a sandwich on Wonder Bread without any negative consequence. And this rule, "The dose makes the poison", extends beyond food to include everything we take in: relationships and people, music, television, movies, alone and social time, time in the sun, and so forth. With everything there is a tipping point where it goes from serving us to taking away from us. Herein lies the delicate balance of self-care. It’s easy to make blanket statements like “Get rest” or “Move your body” but at what point is sleep or physical activity no longer of service?

We can’t say, can we?
Or rather, we can’t say for anyone but ourselves in a given moment.

There are no rules here. There are no formulas. And what works for us at one point can change in a moment. We might have spent months exhaustively working on a fulfilling project and then run out of steam. So we turn to a period of restoration, but without mindfulness the even rest can turn excessive when it’s not longer what we need or what serves us. Oh how we love an all or nothing scenario though. Our black and white oriented brains get a hit of calm when we (attempt to) draw a hard line in the sand. This is the rush that comes with the start of a diet or a rigid commitment to be in bed by 10 pm, every single night. We love the boundary—until we don’t.

We spring back from the hard line, rebel against the confines of our tightrope-of-a-plan in part because the things that we think are poison, are also medicine when served up in a different dose.

A warm, carb-filled meal after a long day. An extra two hours of sleep. A marathon of our favorite television show when shutting the world out is sometimes, even often, just what’s called for. Nothing's all bad, or all good, as much as our reductionistic minds would like to make them out to be. There is a time and place for just about every thing. So what are we to do when the very same thing can turn from serving us to detracting from us in a day?

We forget perfection and stop chasing purity. Outside of a newborn baby, purity and perfection don’t exist. When we try too hard to eat perfect, look perfect, and be perfect we end up cutting ourselves off from life and from things that, in certain doses, are really do serve us.

We pay attention. Diets, even those that restrict television and not food, allow us to be on a sort of autopilot. When we’re on one we don’t have to think or feel, we just have to follow the rules. But, to live our lives free and well we have to pay attention and make choices.

We find the kind choice. If nothing is all good or all bad, we have to inquire moment-by-moment what the kind choice is. Sometimes not doing the thing is kind. Sometimes doing the thing is kind. By following kindness we find our way in a world where nothing is just black and white.

Lastly, we double check our knee-jerk reactions. Notice what you label as good or bad without question. What gets a knee-jerk green light from you? What gets a red light?

Sola dosis facit venenum.

Vanity's Other Name

A while back I went to meet my husband Justin for lunch at his office.

This particular day we met up during the peak of the lunchtime rush. After unsuccessfully scanning the cafeteria for an empty table Justin spotted a co-worker with two empty seats at his table. “Can we join you?” Justin said.

“Sure” the coworker replied moving two bowls of food out of the way. “It’s my dinner” he said referring to the two bowls, each topped with another bowl that served as a lid, “I have to eat before 6 pm.”

We nodded, not really listening, attempting a lunch date for two at this table for four.

I was able to get a few bites in before I noticed this co-worker take out a digital scale (You know, the kind a baker might use to measure flour). He then placed both of his dinner bowls on the scale, one at a time, and jotted down their weight in a small, spiral bound notebook.

We’ve got a dieter in our midst, I thought to myself.

I truly didn’t want to engage. I just wanted a nice lunch date with my guy. But, the co-worker asked me what I do (“I’m a life coach”) and then who I work with (“People, around hunger”) and we were off to the races before I knew it.

After hearing that I work in the realm of hungers he says “Sometimes I can’t sleep because I’m so hungry.”

“Yeah” I nod knowingly, having experienced the same thing when starved myself “the body prioritizes getting enough to eat over getting sleep.”

“My body just really likes to be *** pounds so I really have to starve myself to get it lower.”

“Why? Why do all this? What’s this about?” Justin inquires.

“Vanity” he chirps matter-of-factly back with a nervous smile.

No.  Nope, I think to myself, this isn’t a result of vanity.

This is a result of anxiety.

This is a result of not feeling like you’re enough, just as you are.

This is a result of a fractured relationship with your body.

Vanity is an easy scapegoat. Kind of like when we stay in bed all day and call ourselves “lazy” when what’s really going on is something much wiser, deeper, and nuanced.

Vanity is a scapegoat and I’d argue that it’s never once caused someone to go on a diet or fall prey to an eating disorder (a line this particular co-worker was teetering).

We use these behaviors to soothe our worrisome minds and to falsely bring us closer to feeling as though we are enough.

As lunch was winding down he said “I think I have that leptin disorder—the one where your brain doesn’t signal when you’re full. That's why I have to limit my intake.”

Not able to help myself I replied: “Well, it sounds like you have a history of overriding your body’s cues and keeping your weight below what your body prefers...”

“No, this diet is recent. Before this I was just paleo.” he innocently replies.

I sigh and think to myself, “What do you think eating paleo is if not a diet?”, but not wanting to engage any more I just said “Well, sounds like what you’re doing is working for you and you should probably get tested for that leptin thing” and we went on our way.

I’m sharing this story because I want to challenge you to think about how you might be mislabeling your behavior. Do you think of yourself as irresponsible with money? Materialistic or vain? What about lazy or undisciplined? Selfish? Wasteful?

Instead of so quickly dismissing your actions with these labels and instead of looking upon yourself with judgement, inquire about what’s really happening.

If you think you’re dieting because your vain, could it be that you’re anxious and dieting (or losing weight or being a certain size) is soothing? Could it be that you’re living in a world gone mad, one that tells you there is no fate worse than being fat, and you don't yet know how to be at home in your skin?

If you think that you’re careless with money, could it be that you’re afraid that you won’t have (or be) enough, and shopping (temporarily) alleviates that feeling of scarcity? or that you haven’t discovered a more soulful way of relating to your finances?

If you view yourself as lazy, could it be that you’re simply tired? or disconnected from your spark? or expecting yourself to be super-human?

Bottomline: In my experience, what we call vanity, is almost always just anxiety and the hunger to feel enough. We’re too quick to slap a one-word judgement on ourselves. In reality our behavior, when met with compassion, is rich with information about what we’re truly hungry for.

A World Gone Mad

Last week was National Eating Disorder Awareness Week. My colleague Carmen Cool posted this update to facebook:

“Someone asked me yesterday what the one thing was that helped me in recovering from an eating disorder. I’d love to say it was something like love, kindness, or self-compassion. It wasn’t. It was outrage.”

My response: “Amen.”

I could so relate.

Back in 2002 when I was walking my own path of recovery I was enraged. All the hatred I had previously turned inward had found it's rightful target and it wasn't my thighs. I was furious with my college for not doing more to prevent and treat eating disorders. I was furious with irresponsible and shallow media outlets for continuing to celebrate thinness. I was furious at the dieting industry for getting away with what I honestly consider crimes against humanity. I was angry and I was going to do something about it. I spent my first year out of college working tirelessly on prevention and outreach efforts. I moved across the country to get my master’s degree knowing my life would be dedicated to righting these wrongs.

Today though, I find it hard to maintain that same fire I had all those years ago. It’s more a steady burn with occasional pyrotechnic explosions.

While I wish it wasn’t true, when injustices and ignorance are in the air we breathe it can be hard to avoid apathy sometimes.

In this moment as I write this I don’t feel apathetic. I feel like I’m living in a world gone mad.

While driving around town last week I listened to a radio interview with a non-verbal autistic woman named Sue Rubin. Sue was able to participate in the interview by typing her responses which her aide read aloud. When I tuned in the interviewer was explaining that some people believe we should not seek a cure for autism and instead embrace autistic people’s differences. Sue responded that people who feel that way tend to be verbal because if they were ‘trapped’ in their bodies, unable to speak, they would want a cure.

Then to close the interview this question was asked: “If there was a pill you could take tomorrow to get rid of your autism would you take it?”

Sue responded with “I would probably take a pill for weightloss first, but to answer your question yes.”

WHAT THE F*CK!

First of all, Sue is not fat, for what it's worth. Second, she is unable to speak and the first pill she’d want is for weightloss?!

I’m sorry but when being fat is considered so awful people would rather die years sooner or be completely blind than be considered obese something is very very wrong.

Last night I was watching an episode of (the admittedly mediocre) show The Blacklist in which a female character notices her male colleague is self-conscious about losing his hair. This is the their exchange:

Her: Guys don’t get it. Most women don’t care if you go bald. You’re sexy no matter what.

Him: I’m not going bald, I just have a high hairline.

Her: Just don’t get fat.

I do the New York Times Crossword puzzle. A recent clue was “A question best answered with ‘no’” the answer: “Do I look fat?”

When I say ignorance is in the air we breathe I mean it. This type of comment, one that perpetuates the myth that being fat means that you’re unattractive or undesirable, is so commonplace that most people hardly notice it. But I notice it. I see it. And it’s not okay.

Last year I learned of a study from a Princeton psychologist that revealed how poverty effects cognitive ability. The basic findings of the study are that poor people's brains are bogged down by thoughts of scarcity and attempts to find a way to provide for basic needs that they perform more poorly than wealthy people on intelligence tests. The researcher said, "In many instances, it's not that the poor aren't as smart or capable of planning compared as richer people, rather, being poor takes up more mental capacity."

Similarly so many of my clients have given up such enormous portions of their mental real estate to thoughts and behaviors rooted in fat phobia and shame that their capacities to simply live, think, engage, and serve are noticeably truncated.

I think this is one of the biggest misperceptions about commonplace fat shaming and fat humor: that it’s harmless.

It’s not harmless.

Every time we participate, actively or passively, in discrimination and prejudice of any kind we perpetuate the problem.

To be clear: it’s okay to be fat.

Fat people are just like smaller bodied people in every way. Some are lazy, some are not. Some are healthy, some are not. Some are more classically beautiful, some are beautiful in a different way. Some are kind, some are not. Body size does not determine a person’s worth or well being. Some of us are poodles, some of us are mastiffs:

Unfortunately in our society body size can and often does determine how you’ll be treated, perceived, and which opportunities will be available to you.

I may not be on fire or angry everyday, but today I am.

We're living in a world gone mad.

How to Make Peace with Food

Somewhere between a recipe, a step-by-step plan, and a map here are 10 ingredients I believe add up to making peace with food:

Learn to manage anxiety and feel feelings

I believe that most chaotic, restrictive, or overconsumptive eating is driven by anxiety. Manage the anxiety and you’re a giant step closer to finding ease at the table. Whether through pharmaceuticals, meditation, or therapy, anxiety management is key in walking this path.

Stop blaming yourself and embrace your humanness

As a human being you are wired to respond to threats of famine (real or perceived) with a compulsion to overeat. You can’t override your wiring. Diets are inherently designed to set you to feel a threat of famine and thus set up to fail. You do not need more willpower. You need to ditch a system that is structured to cause you suffering and will always fail to deliver on it’s promises in the long run. Not your fault. Never has been. Never will be.

Learn the science of Health at Every Size

We take for granted the notion that fat people are inherently unhealthy because of their size. This belief is so common it’s not questioned—even though science does not back it up. Once we bust through this myth we take away an important part of the ammunition for restrictive eating.

Find a body role-model

Just because mainstream media presents a homogenous, mythic ideal of the human body that does not mean we can’t expand our own view. The real world is full humans in every shape and size. It is not, nor has it ever been, true that you have to look a certain way to be these things. Look beyond the magazines and find people who can serve as role models (or proof) of what is possible. Start a Pinterest board. Make your Instagram feed affirming. Embrace that beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder. Celebrate what makes you unique.

Commit to giving up dieting

To make peace with food you must first commit fiercely to giving up dieting. Peace with food isn’t something we find when part of us is still plotting and pining for a new eating plan or program. We can’t truly trust what our body is telling us when we’re also trying to count points or avoid carbs. Say goodbye to this toxic relationship that never treated you with respect or kindness.

Trade the scale for body-trust

Stop weighing yourself. Dump the scale in the trash, literally. Peace with food depends on letting your body determine the best weight range based on your new, peaceful behaviors with food. When “control weight” isn’t on your to-do list anymore, peace with food is exponentially easier to find.

Play the long-game

Peace with food isn’t something you find overnight or even in a year. It’s a slow-process of reconditioning. If you’ve been indoctrinated from birth with the hungry woman paradigm and dieted for decades, you can’t expect to find peace instantly. But play the long-game compassionate and you’ll get there.

Treat it like learning a new language or instrument: practice

Finding peace with food is anything by a linear path. You will practice, play a wrong note, practice more, fall down, practice more, get better at it, practice more, get lost less frequently, practice more, and so on. This is about hitting the reset button over and over and over again, without judgement, as you imperfectly find your way.

Understand what it means to be a ‘normal’ eater and pursue that

While dieting or bingeing are typical or average eating behaviors in today's world, they aren't normal. Normal eating, as well defined by Dr. Ellyn Satter is: "

Normal eating is going to the table hungry and eating until you are satisfied. It is being able to choose food you like and eat it and truly get enough of it -not just stop eating because you think you should. Normal eating is being able to give some thought to your food selection so you get nutritious food, but not being so wary and restrictive that you miss out on enjoyable food. Normal eating is giving yourself permission to eat sometimes because you are happy, sad or bored, or just because it feels good. Normal eating is mostly three meals a day, or four or five, or it can be choosing to munch along the way. It is leaving some cookies on the plate because you know you can have some again tomorrow, or it is eating more now because they taste so wonderful. Normal eating is overeating at times, feeling stuffed and uncomfortable. And it can be undereating at times and wishing you had more. Normal eating is trusting your body to make up for your mistakes in eating. Normal eating takes up some of your time and attention, but keeps its place as only one important area of your life. In short, normal eating is flexible. It varies in response to your hunger, your schedule, your proximity to food and your feelings.

Find a mentor and community to join you in the trenches

When the dominant paradigm is one of disorder and/or many of your friends are still pursuing diets and weight-loss it’s essential that you have a support system. Integrating an entirely new way of relating to food, your body and self is no small order and a mentor can be a priceless anchor. Whether a coach or therapist find someone who knows the lay of the land and can provide you with essential tools and encouragement.

The Illusion of the Bottomless Pit

"I am never full."

"The pain will never stop."

"There isn’t ever enough love."

"I will never not want to eat the entire grocery store."

---

Many of us walk around with the sensation of deep emptiness.

With that sensation often comes a fierce belief that there will never be enough.

Be it food or love—too often we walk the earth feeling as though we are a bottomless pit.

One strategy we use is to try to fill it. With entire bags of chips. With another pair of shoes. With 5 o’clock bottles of wine.

On the flip side, we might attempt to cover the bottomless pit with the story that we have minimal needs. This where we tell ourselves we’re fine to subsist on crumbs—literal or metaphoric. We keep it together. We don’t need a partner, or attention, or carbs, we’re fine—or so we tell ourselves.

The sad part is the bottomless pit is an illusion. One that has us running in all directions for temporary salves that aren’t sustainable and never leave us feeling very satisfied.

Imagine this:

Your local child protective services agency has shown up at your doorstep with two foster children you are charged with taking care of for a year. They tell you that the children came from a home where there was barely anything to eat.

Over the first few days you notice that one of the children eats until they are sick. They eat quickly and with an anxiety that clearly belays their fear of there not being having enough.

The other child eats very little. Nibbling on this or that but not taking enough sustenance or enjoying the delicious food you have offered. This child is attempting to exert some control where they can. When they wasn’t enough in the past, they told themselves that they didn’t need it as a way to feel a level of control where none was.

And all of this makes sense.

Neither of them can be sure that there will be enough. They can’t yet trust that there will be more food anytime they want, and that they don’t have to eat until they're sick or continue to deny themselves nourishment.

What you find over the weeks to come though, as they learn that there is enough food and they can have as much as they want, when they want, in any quantity they want, is that they normalize. They are each able to eat with enjoyment, relaxation, and able to stop when they are physically sated.

Our lives are the home where there will always be enough food.

The question is whether we are willing to heal the trauma of our deprivation by ceasing to deny ourselves. It is we who too often deny ourselves the love we long for. It is we who too often deny ourselves the food or pleasure we hunger for.

The result is that we feel like a bottomless pit.

And all along we had our hand on our own spigot able to turn it on and let it flow.

The trick is to turn the spigot on and don’t turn it off until we’ve had enough. We can only find the point of ‘enough’ after a period of reconditioning ourselves to know that there will always be more.

We must let it flow long enough to teach the part of us that is traumatized from deprivation that there will always be enough. What we find when we do this is that that part of us relaxes.

What we find is that the bottomless pit, the one that never existed in the first place, disappears.

A Time for Everything

“Poison and medicine are often the same thing, given in different proportions”

Alice Sebold

One of the most common traits (and pitfalls) I see is dichotomous thinking – or seeing everything as either black or white.

There is a frenzy to our lives. A striving, masculine energy to achieve, improve, and purify.

Many of the women I work with come to me when they can no longer bare the tightrope walk their life has become. Slaving in pursuit of being ‘good’, being ‘liked’, and being ‘beautiful’.

But life isn’t a tightrope walk, unless we make it that.

Nothing is good or bad, unless we name it that.

Green vegetables and white sugar are not opposites, nor are they enemies.

Everything is everything, depending on the circumstances. Depending on where we are standing and what is needed now.

I’m calling out for less purity and more messy holding of both. Less pigeon holing. Less throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

This requires paying attention.

When we think in binaries, we get to sleepwalk through life. We decide ahead of time which category something fits into and we live accordingly. No need to reevaluate, it’s all already been decided.

Doritos? Toxic.

Meditation? Pure.

Real Housewives of Anywhere? Pathetic waste of time.

Homemade food? What good parents serve.

And on and on.

If we could use our Martha Stewart label makers on life, I’m sure we would.

But life isn’t black or white. It’s every shade of gray, and pink, and green, and yellow that can be found. And those colors change moment by moment.

This requires we pay attention. This requires we get comfortable with an unlabeled life.

There is a time for everything,

and a season for every activity under the heavens:

a time to be born and a time to die,

a time to plant and a time to uproot,

a time to kill and a time to heal,

a time to tear down and a time to build,

a time to weep and a time to laugh,

a time to mourn and a time to dance,

a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,

a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

a time to search and a time to give up,

a time to keep and a time to throw away,

a time to tear and a time to mend,

a time to be silent and a time to speak,

a time to love and a time to hate,

a time for war and a time for peace.

:: Ecclesiastes

and I’ll add…

There is a time for Facebook and a time for being miles away from a screen.

There is a time for zafu cushions and a time to find stillness in the least likely place.

No one thing is arbitrarily better than another.

If you want to know if something is medicine or poison you must listen.

Your heart will tell you. Is it soft?

Your lungs will tell you. Are they tight?

Your flesh will tell you. Is it supple?

If you listen.

Sensations of ease, joy, enoughness, and vitality are signs of a medicine.

Sensations of deadness, contraction, and insecurity are signs of poison.

Right now — not yesterday or last year — what’s your medicine?

Sacred Ground

"...and your very flesh shall be a great poem..."

— Walt Whitman

Growing up just outside Washington, DC resulted in my childhood having it’s fair share of visits to historical sites, such as Civil War battlefields, like Gettysburg.

If you’ve ever been to a memorial site, especially one where great loss actually took place, you know that you can feel it. What you’re standing on at these places is sacred ground and each has a powerful energetic fingerprint. Perhaps you’ve felt it while visiting the 9/11 Memorial in New York City, Auschwitz in Poland, or The Killing Fields Museum in Cambodia.

Sadly the world is full of sites where atrocities have left an imprint, physical or energetic.

In my early twenties as I was emerging victorious from my own battle with anorexia the only way I could relate to my body was as this sacred ground. While not visible to the eye, my body felt like modern day Gettysburg battlefield.

This flesh—my flesh—was where a war had been fought and won.

And what this meant to me was that anything less than sacred awe was not good enough.

In the years since then I have encountered in my life and in the lives of those I work with serious trauma. Childhood abuse. Sexual assault. Mental illness. Loss of parents and children. Battles with cancer. Amputation.

And it doesn’t take catastrophic incidents like these to leave trauma. Life is traumatic.

Life is traumatic and our bodies bare the brunt of it. They are our sensory input tool and they are where we experience (or repress) emotion. Our bodies are the tools or fight or flight...or freeze. Our bodies are the recipient of heinous cultural norms. Our bodies, depending on where we live in the world, aren’t even always considered our own.

Life is also miraculous. The ways in which our body heals, allows for connection, creates new life, and enables our lives is marvelous.

All this is to say: feel the sacred ground you are living in.

Feel that you are sacred in every cell of your body.

Stand in awe of not just what has happened on your ‘land’ but on what you have survived and created.

Stand tall.

Consider reverence as a new template for how you inhabit this flesh of yours.

Like Whitman says, your "flesh shall be a great poem".

A Sweet Middle Path

Sugar, specifically white refined sugar, has gotten a bad rap.

While I typically abide by a “to each their own” approach to food, it seems that this era is abundant in celebrities and influencers ‘coming out’ with their sugar-free lifestyle.

To many this seems logical and saintly. To me this is yet another extreme shift of the dietary pendulum that leaves people swinging between restriction and over consumption, more obsessed with food and less at ease in life

Out of a desire to offer a different perspective and perhaps provide a middle path, I bring you my thoughts on sugar. This post isn’t for the nutrition police who have, for the time being, made up their mind. This is for those of you lost in the middle of a world that plies you with sugary sodas and tells you it’s poison at the same time.

Here are six thoughtful ‘spoonfuls’:

1. A sweet role model on the sweet middle path...

Henry Ware. “Hal” to most. Grandpa, or more often Bapa, to me.

At 91, my grandfather lived alone, remained active, and, for his age, was very healthy. He also ate dessert nearly everyday of his life. He lived to be 96. [Cue needle scratch]

When I hear of people saying sugar is poison I reminisce about the lemon meringue pie I used to bake with my grandmother. It was so delicious.

2. When there is nothing to rebel against…

In my experience, when I have something to rebel against, I rebel. When I have nothing to rebel against, I’m free and traveling an easeful middle path. A no-sugar rule would, and has, in my more restrictive days, made me straight-up bonkers. Being a freedom-junkie is what has kept me from being a sugar-junkie.

3. Play food has a place…

Here’s an excerpt from a favorite book of mine, Intuitive Eating:

“Sometimes you have a desire for food that has no nutritionally redemptive powers. We call this food play food. We prefer this term to one of the most commonly used terms to describe what’s considered unhealthy foods–junk food. The term junk food implies that there is no intrinsic value in this food–in fact, that it probably should be thrown in the garbage can. But we feel that this thinking is unwarranted. There are times when a piece of red velvet cake or a stick of licorice is just the food that will satisfy your taste buds. And eating these types of foods doesn’t mean you are an unhealthy eater.”

I have often found important, health-promoting, value in foods with little nutritional value.

4. The secret ingredient...

Food is way more than just a sum of it’s macro and micronutrients. Michael Pollan calls this misconception nutritionism. The truth is that there are intangibles in food that we can’t quantify. For example, why does, for some of us, our mother’s version of a dish taste so much better than our own? The answer is something we can’t see under a microscope or write into a recipe. Food, if we pay attention, has (or doesn’t have) soul to it. A factor often ignored when we eliminate whole categories of food.

5. Pleasure as a food group…

Speaking of intangibles in food. I’ve found that just like I can eat a diet deficient in fat or Vitamin C, I can be deficient in pleasure. I’ve learned to treat pleasure like a food group with a hearty dose of daily servings. This is how I feel most well-fed and this sometimes includes sugar.

6. We’re all moderators…

Some people argue that people can be divided into moderators and abstainers - people who have just a little of something and people who can’t. I balk at this argument.

In my experience, and the science supports this, an inability to “have just a little” of something is a result of the pendulum swing that occurs for everyone where there is some sort of psychological belief that the item is scarce (“Remember, you only get to eat this when you’re on vacation”) or shouldn’t be eaten (“Good thing no one is here to see you stuffing your face with this naughty food”). When we truly feel free to eat whatever we want, whenever we want, in any quantity we want we naturally find that we don’t overdo much. In my experience, overdoing is a result of compensation for some form of restriction. Moderation is the result of being free and deeply trusting oneself.

7. Information overload...

Lest you think I’m clueless about nutrition and sugar's effect on our bodies, rest assured that I know my omega-3’s from my omega-6s. At the height of my own eating disorder I was a walking nutritional encyclopedia. I also spent three years spent earning my master’s degree in holistic health education where I studied everything from the USDA guidelines to Ayurvedic eating approaches; raw food to the Weston A. Price approach; Chinese medicine to eco-political food systems.

In the end, I believe we suffer from a dangerous mix of information overload, food paranoia, and body disconnection.

Bottomline: I don’t want to live a life without sugar. I’m all for taking into account what my body and our planet need in order to be healthy, but I’m not willing to sacrifice my mental health for it. I also think the answer is always somewhere in shades of gray, not in the black and white approach of forgoing sugar all together. Turns out I don’t have to. Thank goodness. So this is the path I have chosen: turn down the noise, ignore fads of the moment, aim for a middle path (all things in moderation, including moderation), restrict nothing, listen to my body, pay attention to the seasons and where my food comes from, and deeply enjoy sweet foods whenever I want them.

In Praise of Awkward Toddlers

As a child, if I couldn’t be assured that I’d do something right the first time, I didn’t even want to try at all. The result of this fearful stance was that I didn’t learn to swim (until I nearly drowned and my parents insisted) or to ride a bike (I’m still working on this).

What I’m talking about is the resistance we feel to being less-than-masterful at anything. We loathe performing awkwardly, even though this is a precursor to doing anything more gracefully.

Embracing our inner awkward toddler crucial if we’re to find our way to being well-fed. Like toddlers learning to walk, this is the two-step we must do: Toddle forward. Trip. Stand up. Toddle some more. Go splat on the floor. Get up. Toddle again.

Towards the end of 2013 I looked around my life and saw that everything was fine.

Fine.

Fine is good.

Fine is important if we’re to function in the world.

But fine is not enough.

Feeling fine isn’t the same as feeling alive or particularly satiated. Fine is just fine.

What I know: the only way through to what’s really good in life is to embrace being awkward for at least a time.

In the spirit of embracing more of this energy in my life I started attending Laurie Wagner’s brilliant Wild Writing classes again where we were instructed to write poorly, pen to paper, and then share it aloud with the group.

It’s awkward training at it’s best.

What you and I have in common is a hunger to feel alive. To feel more than fine. This I know.

As a little girl, my fear of being criticized trumped my hunger to feel alive, to have fun, to ride a bike, or to swim in the lake.

As a grown women, though, I’ve learned that external sources of criticism don’t matter much and that I can soften around my own.

As a grown women, I’ve learned that being awkward is just one exhilarating step toward being well-fed.