Writings

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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."

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.

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.

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

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.

Imagine there’s a knock at your door right now.

You go and answer it.

It’s your mother.

How do you react? Not how should you react, but how would you really react?

Now imagine that happening all over except instead of your mother it’s your ex-lover.

How do you react? Feel it. What is your knee-jerk reaction?

Fact: my coaching clients send the nicest cards.

Fact: this card moved me to tears.

Have you heard of The Five Love Languages?

I’m guessing yes given the best-seller status of the book, but if not, here’s the rundown.

“What if what I’m hungry for isn’t possible?”

This is a question I get asked not infrequently.

In fact, in a recent survey, over 50% of my followers reported having this question.

To start, let me say that it is possible. It truly is.

If that's all you needed to hear, off you go. If you want a few more thoughts, read on.

I want to show you something. There’s this amazing transformation I’ve been witness to. I wish I could show it to you. What I want to capture is what happens to a woman’s face, body, and whole being when I ask her to identify a meaningful and resonate term of endearment for herself.

As part of some retreats that I’ve lead, after delving into our inner critic, I have each woman identify and share a name for herself that elicits love, safety, and adoration.

You are not needy. You are starving.

A while back I was working with a client and we began to talk about the prospect of her finding a post-divorce relationship.

She shared her fear that she’d be too needy.

I’ve heard this before. Many times.

And I say: NO. You are not needy, you’re starving.

Social media abounds with images of softly lit, sunrise horizons with the words "Life begins at the end of your comfort zone" emblazoned across the sky. Or perhaps it's a mountain peak behind text that says "A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for."

I believe life begins inside of our comfort zones and only when we feel safe enough to stretch out does life (and our comfort zone) expand.

I am simply a huge fan of everyone feeling safe and I think safety has become linked up with weakness.

Here are just some of the factors related to weight fluctuations:

Metabolic changes , hormonal changes, side effects from medication , pregnancy, socio-economic class shifts, restricted & binge eating, grief & trauma, stress, returning to or away from intuitive eating, injury, changes in activity, depression, happiness, hydration, puberty, menopause, genetics…

I used to teach a course called Ease Hunting: Six Weeks of Discovering Every Exhale. The program included lessons, live calls, an ease scavenger hunt, expert interviews, and two guided audio meditations all aimed at supporting the hunters in discovering an easeful way of being, no matter what life was throwing their way. It was truly beautiful. One participant described it as "A yoga class for your mind."

Mental health medication gets a bad rap. Zoloft changed my life.