Category Archives: Food

The “Healthy Version” of Intuitive Eating

There is none.

THERE IS NO “HEALTHY VERSION OF INTUITIVE EATING”. Don’t do it. It will backfire.

Wanna know why? Because what you are really saying is: I am going to try and, like, trust my body. But I, like, can’t ever really trust my body. Obviously, so I’m gonna like fake trust it and, like, listen to it but only let it eat, like…. healthy foods.

No!

Your body will know what you are doing. And the part of your mind that you think you are tricking will know what you are doing too!

You cannot do the healthy version of intuitive eating, because intuitive eating is the healthy version of eating.

And it is healthy, even if you are eating lots of brownies.

It is healthy because it is free and curious and pleasure based.

It is healthy because it takes your eating controls away from your mind, and gives them to your body.

It is healthy because even if you are craving foods that you decided before were “not healthy” (or that anyone would tell you are “not healthy”), letting go of fear of food is immensely important for mental health.

Mental health is immensely important for physical health.

Learning to trust your body is the healthiest thing you could do.

But not even that, the idea is to neutralize all foods. Cravings have less power when they are allowed. Irrational cravings do not exist when they are allowed. They become neutral.

Your body knows what it needs. Your body needs calories. And your body needs to know it can eat.

Intuitive Eating is not about eating the smallest amount possible. Or being “so in tune with your body” that you only need to eat celery and goat keifer and sunlight.

No, intuitive eating allows you to EAT. For God’s sake EAT. Eat the things that nourish you and please you. The things that make your mouth water and that you only let yourself eat in your dreams.

That is the food your body is asking for.

And anyway, you’re never gonna really crave Kale til your body and mind both believe that it can also eat cake for dinner whenever it wants.

Fuck. IT.

Source: weheartit.com via C on Pinterest

In Defense of Emotional Eating

Emotional Eating is …. bad, right?

Even throughout all of my diet-dogma-busting, and coming to realize that sugar, carbs, fat, dairy, gluten, and calories were not the real enemies, it left me assuming that “Emotional Eating” was then the default problem.

If food isn’t inherently bad, then why do people run into problems with it? Why do people get fat or have health problems? Abusing Food…. Right? “Emotional Eating”????

I definitely can get into a state of being uncomfortable or jumpy, and that  will sometimes lead to eating on autopilot- (which is different and less intense than my past denial/hunger binges). And eating on autopilot- as opposed to mindful slow, pleasure filled eating- isn’t exactly great or the most joyful….. so…that is what they mean, right? That is “emotional eating”?

But after reading a quote by Gwenyth Olwyn, I think the term emotional eating needs to be redefined. I think the problem is abusing food. And abusing food can be restrictive or it can be excess- as a way for control , or numbness, or escape. And the only way to get over that is awareness, bravery: learning to feel your feelings, and consistently letting yourself eat whatever the hell you want (which is paramount)

Other than that, you must emotionally eat. Let me repeat: You must emotionally eat. Eating is not a logical game. Eating is an emotional game, an intuitive and gut-led practice, an “I-can’t-explain-why-I-crave-tuna-right-now” (or brownies, or crackers). You cannot rationalize everything you eat. You cannot eat in a bubble. You cannot only eat when you are completely emotionally neutral. You cannot only eat things because they are “the best and healthiest foods”. Because that is disordered eating. That is where we ran into trouble before, because that is where we start striving for perfection where perfection doesn’t exist.

Our best bet at wholesome, healthy, delicious, pleasure-filled eating is to eat from your emotions. To eat from your heart, and gut, and from the inkling that you have, and the sense that you need some pineapple but you will never be able to prove exactly why. That is why cravings shouldn’t be fought.

“We cannot eat logically. Our logical minds are too late to the evolutionary party, by millennia, to actually offer any value to how we pursue and stay optimally energized.

…

How you feel about your food is how you not only survive, but also thrive.“

-Gwenyth Olwyn in her post Bingeing is Not Bingeing

If you are stuffing yourself to a painful point often, or bingeing every night… you are probably still not letting yourself be free enough with food. There probably is a bit of restriction in the back of your head. A fear that next week or next month there may be another diet. Overeating naturally tapers off the longer your allow yourself to eat whatever you want. In time your body’s needs taper off and your restricted mind’s needs taper off.

Be patient, and eat freely, and nourishingly…. and even….emotionally.

Food is still not the problem!

Source: Uploaded by user via C on Pinterest

Food is Not Your Weakness

There was a long time where I believed that my inability to have (robotic) control over food was my biggest weakness. I filed it away as an indisputable fact that: Me + Food = Failure. It didn’t help that my mother also firmly believed this as well about me, and constantly implored me to overcome my addiction to food. For the sake of my health. And weight.

Worry over my “food weakness” and “addiction” then led to action: a continuous attempted (and sometimes successful) robot-like relationship with food. Until it backfired, of course. But, to my detriment, I was actually very “good” and robotic for months on end. I treated myself and food like a math equation, and reveled in the success of doing something ‘perfectly’. I was very good at eating the food in the “Allowed” column, and shunning, fearing and preaching against the food in the “Avoid” column.

Let’s not forget that this created the girl who eventually needed to give herself (a few) orthorexia interventions and eventually start a site devoted to helping people avoid and overcome orthorexia and diet mentality. Because, in the end, that life of feeling extremely in control with food, and then subsequently extremely out of control with food, was miserable. It wasn’t really living at all.

A recovery journey like this is a long one- and I couldn’t say that I am finished. And now the arguably harder journey has become accepting a body that doesn’t fit into my previous idea of “acceptable”. But as far as food goes, I know without a doubt that de-villainizing food is essential for a whole, nourishing existence.

Eating food is not a weakness. And you do not have a food addiction that needs to be conquered. That mentality will only push you further and further into a relationship that does not serve you.

If you feel like you ‘can’t get enough of food’ it is for the following reasons. You either:

1. Really aren’t getting enough food, still.

2. Never got enough food, and so now your body is going to make sure it does and-then-some, until it can trust that it will be fed

3. Or both.

Of course, there is Emotional Eating, which is very real. Yet still, when I was “dieting”, I often blamed my “addiction” to food on emotional eating. I was convinced my downfall was a combination of eating the wrong addictive foods (whatever that was at the time), and also my weakness for using food for anything other than virtuous, clean fuel (whatever that was at the time). For “eating emotionally” instead of like a robot.

I know that many people including myself eat for “the wrong reasons”: anxiety, boredom, sadness, and denial. But I truly believe, that once you take away the “denial” factor- conquering emotional eating is much, much easier.

Don’t you think it would be easier not to eat out of anxiety if you could actually count on being amply fed? With food you enjoy? Don’t you think it would bee easier to identify when you were eating out of sadness if you weren’t also starving on the “_________” diet? Or trying to cut down on ___________?

Once you feed yourself with trust and love for the purpose of nourishment and make a commitment to accept yourself during the process- the other reasons for emotional eating will be easier to identify with and cope with. Once you are living in a nourished body and can be counted on to feed yourself plentifully and wholesomely, the rest is a lot easier to bear.

If you have always felt like food is your weakness, believe me when I say it is not the food. It is your relationship with the food. The fear of it only perpetuates the dysfunction.

Food can end up being your strength. And it can be a nourishing cornerstone in your life and your emotional health.

The Nourishing Mentality Success

In just this past week I have moved apartments- and started a brand new job (in a brand new field). It has been…. crazy! To say the least!

However, throughout all the craziness, I have made sure to commit even more fully to EATING, and eating well.

Because this life transition has nearly wiped out all of my funds, I am also trying to eat the most food and calories (and nutrients) for the smallest amount of money. And this switch has allowed for a dynamic mental shift as well. I have already written about the importance of switching to a mental place of nourishing instead of a place of restricting when feeding yourself. So my initial mental work was already in place, but this week, with little food around and little money to buy my usual fussy, organic, and very expensive groceries- I have been left with a  very simple task:

To Feed Myself and to Nourish Myself.

A few things have been going on in the past weeks that have influenced my current state:

1) My body is becoming calmer, faster and more efficient. I have been committed to my badass eating for the past 7 + months, and I believe my metabolism is being repaired little by little. Meal by meal and day by day. In fact, I don’t need to eat a bedtime snack half of the time now, and instead a meal or snack from 2 or 3 hours before will be enough to let me fall asleep. Before, that was truly impossible.

2) The other factor, is that moving and starting a new job have kept me incredibly busy, nervous and excited, which has lead to longer than normal breaks between eating. For instance, I haven’t been thinking about food between lunch and dinner to that extent that I normally would. Of course, this nervous energy will pass and I won’t be this wired and excited once I settle in. But I think this has only worked in conjunction with my repairing metabolism. Also, in the past, I would have tried to leverage this into a good ol’ time of restriction: “Yesssss, I am not as hungry! I am distracted! AWESOME , MAYBLE I WILL LOSE WEIGHT AND FIT INTO A REGULAR SIZED BRA NOW”.

But this time, instead, every time I truly get hungry, (which was probably about 4 or 5 times a day) I will stop and EAT. I will eat to nourish. Not an ounce of restrictive mentality. Only nourishment. Calories and nutrients. But mostly calories.

Perfect stopping point? Don’t even care. I just stop when I don’t want to eat anymore.

And this is where the third part came into play:

3) Because these days I don’t have a lot of money for food (maybe I actually have a closer to normal amount now…. who knows, I spent a frighteningly large amount of money on food. It was probably part of my sickness…), in order to not feel any sort of lack or deprivation, I am focusing on adding and getting nourishment and calories. Potatoes. Butter. Cheese. Sourdough. Eggs. Full Fat Yogurt. Cream. Beans. Olive Oil. Quinoa. Obviously I still believe in meat, fruit and…. well, everything, but I am trying to focus on foods that are affordable, no-nonsense, dense and nourishing. And this has led to the complete opposite way of thinking about food compared to my mentality from my disordered days.

For instance, my expensive “thin cakes”, which are very thin rice cakes made into a sort of cracker, are a waste of money and precious eating time. I originally started buying them because they were light and I could eat a lot without filling up. I kept buying them because it became a habit and I sort of like them. Not any more. They are not enough calorie per dollar. Their addition to my diet was mostly just because of a restrictive mentality. I may end up buying them again, as they are right for some things, but for my purposes now… nah.

Now, it is all about eating. And eating enough and a lot. The guilt that I may have had in the past from a large meal is completely gone. It is a new era, and I trust every bit of food my body wants to eat, no matter how much, and no matter what. But this didn’t come without time amd commitment, and the journey has probably much further to go.

Another strange thing that has happened because of this is that it almost becomes “hard” to get enough. Because mentally I am not deprived and craving the act of overeating, so I don’t overeat or fixate on food. But then when I actually am hungry and eat: I need to EAT.

And even though my goal is not to focus or worry about weight (having success in that area as well), for those of yoyu who are interested, I have lost a little bit of weight by focusing on EATING. There has not been one time that I have left myself even the slightest bit hungry after any meal or snack in the past few weeks. And I have lost weight.

Also, as a side note… I got a hormone blood panel done, and my hormones are more balanced than they were. I think it is partly thanks to taking progesterone. But also…. I cannot pretend its not also partly because of no holds barred EATING.

BAD. ASS. EATING.

So if you are stuck in diet mode… keep commit to FUCK IT.

In Defense of Calories

The word “calorie” has a negative connotation.

In reality the word is very neutral, even positive.

Calories are how we have begun to measure the energy in food- which is a potentially harmless concept if it is seen as a positive thing. Calories are our sustenance and life force. It is the energy we consume in order to live and thrive. Not to mention one of our biggest biological pleasures.

But then, of course, somewhere along the way, calories suddenly became something we all were apparently getting too much of. Excess calories were bad. Hell, calories in general were bad. So we deprive, and count, and measure and worry and restrict and rebel and binge and worry more and count more and restrict more.

And then calories are your drug and you are convinced you are addicted to food and can’t listen to your hunger or stop with a normal portion.

Nah. You and sufficient Calories just had a falling out.

Calories are not a problem. Calories are essential- and lots of em. Not to say that consistent excess calories won’t make you gain weight. Or that sufficient calories in a compromised metabolism won’t make you gain weight. It can and it will. But that is not because Calories are bad. And it is not because Calories can’t be trusted.

  • Calories can be trusted. Trust calories more than a disordered relationship with food and calories.
  • Sufficient and even some excess calories speed up your system.
  • Restricting calories leads to food fixation- as a starving body’s main goal is finding food.
  • When trusted, the body will regulate it’s need for calories with your desire for them.

Instead of worrying- Fuck It.

Eat Calories.

Plenty.

 

What Paleo Taught Me

I turned to Paleo thinking I was being intuitively led to my health and hormonal balance. I was already pretty steady intuitive-eating-wise, but Paleo sent me back into another obsessed frenzy, nearly a year ago.

Looking back now, I get frustrated and sad that I hadn’t learned my lesson from all my other diet fails in order to avoid Paleo diet mania.

But, I am going to also look at what Paleo did give me.

The one obvious positive, is that the Paleo diet taught me about the benefit and importance of saturated fats. And then, through failure, the importance of carbs and not dieting.

That one last push into insanity made me choose peace. One last diet/binge-induced weight gain made me finally accept the weight- and and start to take away my fears by making me face them head-on.

It led me straight into the crisis that had become my identity. And this one was so bad, and so low, that it led me to the book “The Artist’s Way” (which I recommend), which led me to writing every morning as a sort of meditation, which led me to my own underlying truths. And led me to start this site, and write, and connect with people. And to dare to consider acting without the worry and heaviness of perfectionism. Which, has forced me to trust life and live more fully. And to challenge myself.

Yep, I can’t help but think that is why my intuition led me to Paleo. Maybe I also needed some more probiotics (thank you GAPS….), or maybe I needed some more saturated fat. But mostly, I think I needed to fail so badly, (for hopefully the last time), that I chose a completely different way to live and eat. It was the beginning of a new and even scarier journey.

I trust what it taught me. And I am thankful for it.

Fuck It.

A Week On The SAD (Standard American Diet)

Last week I went on vacation to Cape Cod with my best friend’s family. We were re-living our high school days by going on a nice, wholesome, family vacation.

Thank God I’ve been doing the work I’ve been doing to get over food fear. However, no matter how much ice cream and carbs I have been getting comfortable eating, I have still been a bit controlling and specific about my food. I choose very whole foods. No industrial seed oils, nothing with HFCS no hydrogenated oils. I shop at a natural food store. When I eat out at restaurants, I do my mental work to not worry about the questionable ingredients, and know that one meal will not do anything bad to me.

But, a whole week?

All I could do then, was a spiritual experiment. If I didn’t go with the flow, I would have a miserable time.

And the whole week I knew there would be no Kombucha, no kimchi, no sprouted grains.

Of course I still had some choices. But for the most part, I had to just eat what was there and in the restaurants and be fine with it.

I wanted to also be able to eat what I craved, and not worry that it wasn’t the “best” version of this product (which is what I would go for under my own control in NYC).

Bagels and cream cheese, chicken slathered in High Fructose Corn Syrup “BBQ” sauce, and pepperidge farm hamburger buns and who knows what kind of oils.

Whatever.

I consciously decided to just eat without worrying about what was in the things I ate.

And guess what? Nothing bad happened.

I even (legally) raided a candy shop at night (owned by someone they knew):

That’s me in the middle trying not to flatten down my arm. Because I am vain (crazy).

Yes, by the end of the week I craved a lot of fruit, I was so excited to drink kombucha again. I started eating a lot of kimchi again (not sure if I craved it or just imagined that my body needed it). But for the most part, it proved that a week of nearly the Standard American Diet + alcohol + sunburn will not kill me. Or even make me gain weight (Ooooooooooh).

Eating what you want – even “crap”- does not have as much power over us as we give it.

So Fuck It!

Eating the Smallest Amount Possible

Eating the smallest amount possible is not only something that dieters try to do, but it reaches even further than that. Culturally, we are so afraid of obesity and fat, as well as villainizing “gluttony”, that en-mas we view food restriction as a virtue.

I would guess that even people who are not mentally burdened with diet-mentality still think that logically, eating the smallest amount possible, is a good thing.

But let’s think about that for a minute… does it make any biological sense to go through life eating the smallest amount possible at meals?

The smallest amount that can fill us up the better?

The least amount of calories to make us not hungry anymore?

Egg whites and fake noodles and and fat-free yogurt and lots and lots of fiber and water. Yum.

Or maybe its carbs that are feared so its all fats ad proteins and low-glycemic everything, stevia stevia, almond flour and cream.

And 20 minutes later: Grumble Grumble.

I have spent so much time how to figure up how to fill up on the least amount possible. And it has always been a misery. The problem is… it doesn’t make any logical sense. Even that phrase “fill up on the least possible” doesn’t make any sense. It is almost an oxymoron phrase.

Just biologically, if some of our ancestors… even just 150 years ago (no matter what they ate, that is not part of the my debate) went from day to day trying to eat the least amount of food they could- afraid to fill up -afraid to eat a little too much from meal to meal- other people would have thought they were legitimately crazy. Why on earth would they try to eat little? Even if they were afraid of getting fat like their Aunt Marge? Eating normal, nourishing amounts doesn’t make someone fat. They would have known that then! And seeing restrictive food behavior back then would have left their peers so confused.

Even if you are calorically filled up on your egg-whites and flax fiber, coming from the mental position of trying to eat the smallest amount possible is stressful. It is stressful to your mind that wants to survive and flourish and be fed and nourished. That stress alone creates health problems, and further denial-based disordered eating.

The sooner you can switch your eating mentality to one of Nourishment instead of restriction, you will already be setting yourself up to succeed.

We are not wired to thrive mentally or physically on the least amount of food possible.

Fuck That Diet Mentality!

Source: wanelo.com via Caroline on Pinterest

In Defense of Caffeine and Coffee

This is more of a personal story than a list of facts, but here it is anyway:

From the standpoint of metabolism and adrenal recovery, caffeine is not the most helpful. It can tax the adrenals and spike cortisol making it difficult to completely restore the metabolism.

It is also used as a “diet aid”, as it can suppress the appetite and artificially speed up the system. This can only work for so long, eventually causing burnout, crashing and probably a slower system altogether in the long run.

I have been very addicted to coffee in the past. It was a crutch to my “intuitive eating”, and I would use it to stretch the time and hunger in between my “intuitive meals”. This was at a time when I was not eating very many carbs, and coffee was not only my appetite suppression, but my energy. I would always drink coffee with cream and no sugar. It was always the thing that I would go for if I was hungry but it wasn’t mealtime and I needed something to tie me over- it was very much my “happy” little vice.

It got to the point where no matter how much caffeine I drank, I didn’t feel a thing, yet I always craved it.

And while I don’t think that a life without coffee is anything that needs to be remedied, (if you don’t drink coffee, I am not telling you to start) my attempts at cutting out coffee completely made me sad! I really like coffee. I like the taste and I like the morning ritual. I didn’t want to be addicted to it, but I didn’t want to live without it completely either.

Adding It Back In

Of course we know that anything can be used and abused, coffee being a prime example of that, and caffeine is also addictive (they tell me). But after a few months without coffee at all (and upping my carbs) I decided to add it back in, thanks to reading Ray Peat.

He is a fan of coffee and claims that it supports the thyroid. How does that information compete with the evidence that it depletes your adrenals? No clue. One is wrong, both are wrong, one is right, one is wrong. Both are right. I don’t care. However, he always suggests it be consumed with food, or at least sugar. so it doesn’t spike and crash your blood sugar, which I have taken to heart.

So, I started back in with one in the morning with my breakfast….

and guess what?…

Having more carbs in general in my diet, makes me crave coffee way less as the day goes on. My body isn’t crying out for energy and stimulation as much as its used to be. And when I think I want a coffee in the afternoon like I used to have (due to boredom, or thirst, or hunger) imagining myself actually drinking a coffee -I realize I do not actually want it at all.

I happened to get my blood tested one morning after my coffee in that first week that I had added coffee back in, and the results came back without any elevated cortisol, so…. booya!

One cup (often a STRONG one) in the morning seems to end up being enough.

And I am very thrilled by the moderation…

Note: This is not a very scientific post…. obviously, but I figure some of you would like to know that a small to moderate amount of coffee isn’t going to senselessly ravage your adrenals.

Still, don’t forget about sleeping, working on stress, and eating food over drinking coffee, and you can probably indulge moderately.

So Fuck It! And drink a little coffee if you want.

So What About Emotional Eating?

If you have read enough of my posts already, you know I don’t believe in diets, I don’t believe in letting food choices stress you out, and I think  cravings are not demons within we need to destroy- but instead  are wonderful little messages that can lead us to delicious food choices and good intuitive, holistic health.

I also don’t believe that its helpful to hold ourselves to impossibly high health standards.

I argue in defense of sugar, fat, dairy, midnight snacks and more to come, in order to help people stop fearing food and start eating it.

Stop restricting and start nourishing.

….But, there is a little thing called Emotional Eating.

And while I argue that the majority of disordered eating is rooted in denial and disconnection from cravings (the physical), sometimes, people just eat to stop feeling.

And here we get into the emotional and the spiritual side of eating.

As Geneen Roth says in Women, Food and God, how we eat is how we live. And how we think of food is how we think of “God.” (Please please please substitute a word to your liking if the word “God” irks you. It can irk me. And I will use “Life” in it’s place).

The way we eat can reveal to us what we believe about Life. Are we afraid there is not enough? Are we constantly afraid to eat too much? Constantly restricting? Constantly guilty. Constantly hungry?

How to Address Emotional Eating

If you find yourself eating in response to sad or stressful situations instead of pure hunger, as many people do, you are afraid of your pain.

We are afraid that the anger we have will consume us. We are afraid that the fear we have will destroy us. We are afraid that the sadness we squelch will debilitate us. Yes it is scary, but we are wrong. It cannot destroy us. Pain is just pain. Our avoidance and resistance to the pain is far worse than actually just feeling it.

And the solution is simple, transformative, and not nearly as difficult as it seems: Feel.

“Whatever you accept fully, will complete itself, and disappear” – Working on Yourself Doesn’t Work.

You can always still eat after. In fact I encourage you to eat! But not before you feel. Simply feel the sensation of your pain. Label it.  Accept it, welcome it, and be curious about it. And when you feel it, accept it and welcome it non-judgmentally, it really does lose it’s power. It becomes just a thing- not a horror.

Then you can go eat whatever you want, not because you are avoiding your life and your feelings, but because you are damn hungry.