Back from Florida: Some observations on eating

Last week my husband and I returned from a two-week trip to Fort Lauderdale. I promised my newsletter readers I’d comment on some of my observations I made while down there, and here they are.  There are really two things I want to discuss - how I managed to keep up my own healthy eating habits and some of the ways American eating habits differ from our own (in Canada).

First off, it was surprisingly easy to stick to my intuitive eating habits that I’ve been developing over the last little while. I was actually stressing out a little before I left because I thought I’d be tempted to eat everything in sight because I was on vacation.  I was also worried that even if I wanted to make healthy choices, I’d be stuck with eating crap food from American chains like Cracker Barrel, McDonald’s (the horror!), and T.G.I. Friday’s because of a lack of proper restaurants that were reasonably priced.  Boy, did I surprise myself!

I found it was actually easier to eat intuitively while on vacation. No schedules, no running around and no stress meant that I could lounge about in the sun all day and eat whenever I felt like it, which was usually at very odd times of the day.  My day ALWAYS starts off with a healthy breakfast, so I just kept up that habit.  Having a mini-fridge and microwave in our room meant that we could do groceries and prepare a few of our own meals rather than have to eat out three times a day.  It also meant eating only when and if we were hungry.  Much to my delight, it turned out that there was a Whole Foods Market not far from our hotel, so I relished being able to to pick out healthy and delicious meals to keep in our room.  (To my Canadian readers, Whole Foods is a grocery store that specializes in gourmet, healthy, and organic food.  The next time you’re in the States, I insist that you visit one: Loblaws will never look the same to you again.)

In terms of restaurant choices, we deliberately only went to places that served proper food, as close to home-cooked as possible. We only ate fast food once, and that was to satisfy my husband’s cravings, not mine, if you can believe it.  We got snack-sized sandwiches, and shared the fries.  We found a great Greek place not far from our hotel, that was like eating at home.  It was so good, we ate there three times!  I also tried to eat one salad a day, since I have a tendency to neglect my vegetables while on vacation, which tends to “back me up” (a common problem with vacationers).

One disturbing observation, however: the times we did choose to eat out, I noticed the meals tended to be very rushed. Not by us, but by the waitstaff.  About a minute after being seated, often even before having a chance to open the menu, the waiter would come by to take our order.  When we stammered that we weren’t ready yet, they’d keep coming back every minute or so until we choose our dinners.  Talk about being pressured!  And everyone knows that when you’re pressured, you tend to make impulse (read: unhealthy) decisions.  The food usually arrived fairly quickly, nothing unusually fast, and then we proceeded to eat like we normally would back home.  Usually, when I eat out, I take my time, savouring each bite, making conversation, etc.  However, I noticed that down there, most of the time the waiter would come back with our bill about five minutes after starting to eat.  I thought was not only very strange, but very rude!  It really makes you feel like you’d better hurry up and eat and get the heck out of there. 

All this to say that eating out wasn’t a relaxing, enjoyable experience, but rather a rushed and somewhat stressful one.  If that’s how all Americans treat their meals, like something to be done with ASAP, then it’s no wonder mindful eating is so rare and obesity so common.  If anyone else has had similar experiences, I’d love to hear them! Feel free to comment at the end of this post.

33 ways to use your journal for self-discovery and self-expression

As a therapist, I often suggest to clients that they explore their feelings and thoughts by keeping a journal. I recommend choosing something that you’ll enjoy using and that you’ll stick to: a beautiful notebook, small enough to carry with you will make it easy to write whenever the inspiration hits you. 

Alternatively, you could also use any of the free online journals out there (www.inboxjournal.com, www.my-diary.org) or free blogs (www.blogger.com, www.wordpress.org) - just be sure to set your entries to “private” so the whole world doesn’t see what you’ve written!  The online diaries also send email reminders to write in them - I love built-in nagging!

The trick to making a journal work for you is knowing what to write in it.  Sometimes clients ask for a bit of direction with this process. Here are some journaling ideas if you’re not sure where to start:

1.  Write down what happened today and how you felt about it.

2.  Write a letter to a person you are angry with. Say everything you are feeling and wish you had the nerve to say.

3.  Draw a picture of the person you wrote the letter to in #2.

4.  Make a list of all the things you are grateful for. List all the big things, all the small things, and everything in between that you can think of.

5.  Circle the three most important things on the list you made in #4. Write a paragraph for each, expressing your appreciation to the person who had the most influence over it. If possible, turn this into an actual letter and send it.

6.  Make a list of the things that you feel upset about right now. Write down as many as you can think of until you can’t think of any more. Then choose the top five.

7.  For each of the top five things you identified in #6, list 10 things you can do to gain control of the situation. Circle the top three from each list.

8.  Make a timeline that represents your life. Fill it in with the most significant events that have shaped you: your early years, your teen years, and each decade that has followed. Draw pictures or icons next to the most important events. Use crayons or markers if you wish.

9.  Write a few pages about your feelings about the timeline.

10.  Describe how your life would be different if _____________ had or had not happened.

Here are some examples:
a.  If your parents had divorced
b.  If your parents had remained married
c.  If your parents had been married
d.  If your mother hadn’t passed away
e.  If you hadn’t moved to
f.  If you had gone to college
g.  If you hadn’t gone to college
h.  If you had gone to _______ college
i.  If you had never met __________
j.  If you hadn’t broken up with __________

11. Make a list of all the things you wish you could do before your life is over.

12. Make a list of the things no one knows about you.

13. Write about your first year in high school.

14. Write about what life was like before you became a parent.

15. Write about what you wish you had known before you became a parent.

16. Make a list of the things you still want to learn about being a parent.

17. Describe what it was like when you first met your partner.

18. Write about what you wish you had known about your partner before you married him/her.

19. Write about what you wish your partner had known about you before (s)he married you.

20. Write a letter to yourself as you were at age 10. Tell yourself:

a.  What your life is like now
b.  What you have learned since you were 10
c.  What you want him or her to know
d.  What you want him or her to beware of
e.  What you want him or her to enjoy every moment of

21. Write a letter to your own parents. Tell them what your life is like now.

22. Write a letter to someone from your childhood or adolescence who didn’t appreciate you or who misunderstood you. Tell the person what you want them to know and how you feel about the lack of connection between you.

23. Think of someone you never acknowledged for something important. Write that person a letter and acknowledge him or her.

24. Think of someone who never acknowledged you for something important. Write them a letter and tell them what you want them to know.

25. Make a list of five miracles you want to happen in the coming year. Write a paragraph or two describing each one and how your life will be better if it happens.

26. For each of the five miracles, make a list of:

a.  Five barriers or forces that block or prevent it from happening
b.  Five positive influences, things that encourage or support its happening
c.  Five things you can do to reduce the barriers and strengthen the positive influences

27. Write about the five things you most like to do.

28. Write about the five things you most dislike doing.

29. Make a list of five places you’d like to visit. Describe what you imagine them to be like.

30. Write about three things you most regret doing or not doing. Describe what happened and how you feel about it.

31. Write a letter to your children or grandchildren, even if they have not yet been born. Tell them what you want them to know about you.

32. Write a letter to your descendants one hundred years from now. Describe what your life is like today.

33. And for those of you who struggle with emotional eating, write about what life would be like if you weren’t addicted to food, where this need to eat comes from, what you learned about food and eating while you were growing up.

34. Add your own ideas here:

__________________________________

__________________________________

__________________________________

__________________________________

__________________________________

That should be enough to get you started! Keep it up on a regular basis, and you might be surprised at what you learn about yourself.

Sex and the City and emotional eating

I finally got around to seeing the “Sex and the City” movie this weekend. And believe it or not, among those unrealistically thin bodies was a segment on emotional eating!

Turns out Samantha had been using food to avoid cheating on her boyfriend with her hot next-door neighbour; in her words, “I eat so I don’t cheat.” Although it was really just a caricature of emotional eating (the “fat” she gained was the most microscopic of bulges in her tummy), I was pleased to see that this topic is gaining mainstream attention.

This scene got me thinking, though. Often people emotionally eat to avoid emotions, but what kinds of behaviours might people be avoiding by eating?  In this case, it was doing something that was in her nature, but given her relationship status, would have been wrong. 

Are there things you wish you could be doing that you feel are somehow wrong given your situation? Do you fantasize about running away and starting a new life without all your current obligations and responsibilities?  Do you wish you could be living someone else’s life? 

It’s worth asking yourself these questions, and answering them honestly. Even if you can’t do what it is you really want to be doing (in Samantha’s case, leave her boyfriend so she could go back to her free agent ways), just admitting to yourself that you’re not that happy might do the trick.  Finding a way to change the situation, compromising it, or accepting things as they are could be the ticket to reducing your emotional eating patterns.

The power of positive affirmations

Although some of you may have heard of positive affirmations, you may not be sure exactly what they are or what they can do for you.  In a nutshell, they can be an extremely powerful tool to challenge and overcome the negative beliefs that hold you back.  In this article, I explain what positive affirmations are, why they can help you, and how to implement them in a simple 3-step plan.

How Negative Beliefs Limit You

I’d like you think about an area in your life that you are struggling with.  Perhaps you’ve been unable to progress in your career, or have been trying to lose the same 10 pounds (or more) for the last several years.  It is very likely that part of what’s holding you back is a belief system that limits you.  For example, perhaps deeps down inside you believe that you don’t deserve that promotion, or that you deserve to be thinner.

The tricky thing with negative beliefs is that we are often unaware that we have them. And because they are outside of our conscious awareness, they become all the more dangerous, sneaking their way into our thoughts.  If you truly believe that you do not deserve to be happy or healthy, then you will unwittingly sabotage yourself each time you are faced with a new opportunity for growth.  Those who have tried to diet and failed many times over know how true this can be; each new attempt to lose weight results in frustration and hopelessness.

Negative beliefs work their dark magic in three ways. First, they do not allow you to progress beyond their upper limits.  You can only be as happy or healthy as your beliefs will allow you, not more.  Second, they attract people and situations that confirm them.  If you believe that you have no control over food, then each time you overeat will simply be a confirmation of that truth.  You will also attract people who reinforce your identity as an overweight person.  Third, they lead you to discount situations or behaviours that are incompatible with the negative belief.  If you manage to lose five pounds, you’ll tell yourself it’s only a matter of time until you gain them back.

The beliefs that we hold create our realities. Therefore, to change your reality you must change your beliefs.  Positive affirmations help us to just that.

How Positive Affirmations Work

A positive affirmation is an expression of your deepest desire. It is oriented towards producing an external reality that reflects your dreams, wishes and goals.  They are designed to challenge the beliefs that limit you.

Remember having to write lines on the blackboard in elementary school when you got in trouble? (I, of course, was a perfectly behaved child so I know nothing of this.) That’s exactly how positive affirmations work.  It’s likely that your negative beliefs, wherever they came from (messages given to us by others, hard lessons we learned in life, etc.), have been repeated unconsciously over and over for years.  And to replace them, new beliefs must be repeated over and over until they become just as deeply rooted.

The beauty of positive affirmations is that they can help you uncover negative beliefs you didn’t even know you had. And until they become conscious, you can’t challenge and overcome them.  You’ll see what I mean in Step 2 below.

Putting Positive Affirmations Into Action*

Be sure to put aside at least 15 minutes for this exercise.  Go somewhere quiet where you won’t be disturbed.  You’ll need to be able to concentrate fully.

1. The first step in your positive affirmation exercise is to create the affirmation itself.  The affirmation should be about the one thing that you need in your life that you are struggling to achieve.  Some examples:

* “I am the happiest and healthiest I’ve ever been.”
* “I am bounding with energy to achieve the goals I have set for myself.”
* “I have the skills and the motivation to move up in my career.”
* “I create a relationship that fulfills and nourishes me.”

Here are some guidelines to help you create an effective affirmation:

* Use positive language ("I am slim,” not “I’m not fat")
* Use the present tense ("I am slim” not “I will be slim")
* Focus on changes in yourself, not others
* It should force you out of your comfort zone, and be slightly on the unbelievable side ("I am bounding with energy” not “I have enough energy")
* Keep it short

2. Next, pull out a piece of paper and divide it into two columns. On the left hand side, write out your positive affirmation over and over, line by line.  Concentrate fully on what you are doing.  Start listening very carefully to the little voices that pop up.  At first, you may not notice them, but you might be surprised at what comes up.  They’ll usually be saying something like, “I can’t,” “I don’t want to,” “I’ll never,” “Yes, but.” Don’t react to these voices, just observe them and write them down in the right hand column as they come up.  Continue writing out your affirmation until the page is full.

3. The third step involves challenging your negative beliefs. Turn your page over and again, divide it in two.  One by one, write out the negative beliefs that came up and deal with them using the 3 R’s:

* Refute them: be objective and try to find evidence that is counter to the belief.  For example, if “I’m too lazy to lose weight” comes up, look for other goals in your life that you aren’t too lazy to achieve.
* Replace them: write out the opposite, positive statement.  For example, “I don’t deserve to be thin” becomes “I, just like everyone else, deserve to be thin.”
* Run through them: by repeating the positive affirmation over and over, eventually your mind will get tired of protesting.

Do this exercise daily for 30 days and watch what happens. You might start noticing changes almost immediately, but to get the full effect, you must give it time and be consistent.  This really does work, but if you find it difficult to get in touch with your limiting beliefs or uncover beliefs that are disturbing to you, you may want to consider reaching out to someone that can help.

* This exercise has been adapted from Lynne Grodzki’s “Building Your Ideal Private Practice.”

What a diet really is

In my book, a diet is anything that tells you what, when or how much to eat, no matter how sensible. It is based on something external.  It is not based on what your body is telling you it wants or needs.  Don’t be fooled by weight loss programs that claim not to be diets - if it tells you to do anything other than trust your instincts, it’s a diet.

If I lose the weight, I’ll be happy

I read a nice little post today by Oprah’s personal trainer, Bob Greene: http://www.oprah.com/omagazine/200708/omag_200708_worry_101.jhtml

In it, he describes the familiar pattern that a lot of people who struggle with their weight get sucked into: “If only I could lose X pounds, I’d be happier.” Think about whether you’ve ever had this thought, consciously or subconsciously.  If so, does it help motivate you?  Or does the fear of actually losing the weight and then not being happy hold you back?  What can you do today to actually be happier, whether or not you actually lose the weight?

“Diet” is a four-letter word

I recently started reading “Intuitive Eating” by Evelyne Tribole and Elyse Resch. In it, they list the multiple reasons that dieting doesn’t work.  They discuss how we have become a nation obsessed with dieting, weight and body image concerns.  While this is nothing new, they do make the point that all this talk of dieting is contributing to our weight problems by overemphasizing the what we “should” be eating instead of learning to listen to our body’s own hunger signals.

This reminded me of another book I read recently, “French Women Don’t Get Fat” where author Mireille Guiliano states that American women are obsessed with dieting and talking about their own weight problems. She says that in France, it is considered tacky and impolite to discuss such matters in front of others, except with your doctor if health is an issue.  I found that so refreshing, because it seems that whenever women get together, half the conversation is focused on how fat they’ve been feeling lately, what they shouldn’t be eating but will “indulge” themselves with this time, what they’ve been doing to lose weight, how it’s been working/not working.  Phew!  Talk about exhausting.

Next time you’re out with friends or family I dare you to completely refuse to talk about dieting, the “evils” of food, your body, or your exercise routine (or lack thereof). Don’t say anything self-deprecating (I look terrible in these jeans!), don’t comment on your conflicted feelings about your food (I shouldn’t be eating this but it tastes so good!) or how full you feel.  And if anyone else gets started, politely excuse yourself from engaging in the conversation by saying something along the lines of, “I would prefer to discuss something else if you don’t mind.” They’ll get the hint.