Tag: Binge

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General Weight Loss Tips

Brain Over Binge: Part 2: What I’m Learning

Tomorrow makes one week since I started reading and implementing the tools of Brain Over Binge.  In that week I’ve come to realize a few things that are helping this process:

1) Not every urge or feeling means something. I used to believe that all of my urges and feelings were me, that by not acting on them I was somehow denying myself and being unauthentic to who I am. And on some small level, I already got this. Denying every feeling is uncomfortable and often the only thing I’m fighting is the feeling or urge in and of itself, not the actual thought or feeling.

Here’s an example: Sometimes I over think situations and my relationships with people. Often I find myself truly not understanding the motives of a person and examining them. I mull over every detail  in frustration until I feel nauseous and agitated. This is especially true when I believe their actions are wrong, hurting me or themselves. These thoughts take over my mind and I gave them freedom to take over. I do this so often that is became comfortable and familiar, like a bad habit. Like eating 10 cookies. But now, I’m acknowledging that sometimes I just default and it doesn’t mean anything about me or the other person. Not every thing needs attention, examining, or confronting. Sometimes I just need to achnowledge the feeling and move on.

This is the same with the urge to eat more. Those urges are not me, but sometimes it’s confusing to know the difference because I’ve learned to give weight to them in my own, evolved voice that reasons and sides with the urges.

This is what they sound like: You already ate that cookie, you might as well eat all of them and start over tomorrow. Your breakfast wasn’t perfect you might as well eat everything you want for the rest of the day. You’ve been so good these past few days, you can slack off today. You didn’t lose any weight today, might as well throw in the towel and get serious tomorrow. 

2) I do not need the scale right now. It’s true, eating less usually results in weight loss, but not always and not every single day. Logically I understand this. I know that a few days before my period I hold on to water. I know that exercise makes me hold on to water as well. I know that salty foods make me hold on to water. I don’t want to use the scale as an excuse or motivator right now. So today, I’m taking it out of the bathroom.

3) Finding my voice. One of the biggest challenges right now is finding my higher voice and listening to it. My higher voice is logical and doesn’t want to binge. It doesn’t want to keep eating or make myself sick. It wants me to succeed and move forward and grow. But sometimes it tries to justify and encourage my urges and feelings that aren’t me, my animal voice. It’s helpful for me to have a clear idea of what I do want on a very basic level so that I can easily access this information. It’s also helpful to have it written down and handy. Sometimes I can honestly convince myself that I want to binge, that it’s who I am, but I know better.

4) Knowing the difference between overeating (or eating too much) and binge eating. This one is very personal and looks different for everyone. This topic is covered a lot in Brain Over Binge. People who do not have any sort of binge eating disorder, eat too much on occasion. Having a second cookie, another slice of pizza, or seconds is not binge eating. Sometimes I simply eat more than what I need and that’s all it is.  To me, at it’s heart, binge eating is eating that is in excess. If it interrupts my life or causes me to be unhealthy, it is binge eating. I have never eaten as much in one sitting as the author of Brain Over Binge, but that doesn’t mean that my excess or binge eating hasn’t caused health issues  like obesity or disrupted my life by over taking my thoughts and actions.

4) Practice makes semi-perfect. Changing my mindset is taking work. It’s taking practice and meditation. It’s not always a huge struggle because I’m not fighting my urges, I’m just sitting with them, but it’s still new to me. I still fear that I can’t do this or that I’m fooling myself. I still hear the words of therapy and self-help books ringing in my ears that I need to fix my life or find fulfillment or get over depression or find self-esteem. Everday isn’t perfect, and I’m becoming okay with that. I’m just riding it out. It’s been helpful to create mantras of self-talk written down and handy. It’s also helpful knowing that my urges cannot access my movement and that I always have the choice to binge or not. It’s totally up to me. I know that it isn’t going to be easy at first, and I’m prepared for ups and downs, but I know it doesn’t have the be the biggest struggle in my life.

 

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New vs. Old Habits

Old habits die hard. I’m hearing this a lot, as well as replacing old habits with new habits. And finding it difficult to identify these bad habits is a process in and of itself. Sometimes I don’t even know it’s a habit, or that it’s keeping me from my goals.

A couple of days ago I went through the house and threw out food that could cause me to binge. I went through this whole mental process of thinking this is wasteful, I can handle small amounts, and is this really bad to have around? It’s hard for throw away perfectly good “food”, but I did anyway and I have another round to go. I have boxes of graham cracks leftover from gingerbread house building, and right now they aren’t tempting- I could care less about graham crackers, but I worry about what they could turn into. So I will give them away.

And now I’m thinking of tackling my sugar/brown sugar and flour reserves. I cook occasionally with sugar, but I know I can use honey instead. Not much can be done (of the overeating variety, for me) without sugar, so I will keep the flour. I’m actually having these thoughts, what could I easily turn into a dessert? If this can be a dessert, it should go. This is the thing with being able to bake, you can do it quickly and easily without much on hand.

Old habits for me, are thinking “I can handle this”, and in the moment I can, but eventually something will pop up and I’ll find myself making brownies in the microwave and wondering how that even happened. Steps A to B to eating are a blur to me and I’m left with brownie residue in a mug trying very hard to wash away the evidence.

I’m asking myself, how can I  replace these habits and old ways of thinking? It’s a challenge, it’s hard to question a behavior you’ve worked hard at protecting.

What habits are you trying to throw away?

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Dole Health Summit Recap: Part One

Sitting down to write this post is daunting. Mainly because there is so much to cover and much to still think about. So my solution is to break it up into little pieces and go from there.

A couple of months ago I got an email from a PR firm representing Dole asking me to join other bloggers in California for a summit. They covered the airfare, hotel costs at the Four Seasons in Westlake Village, transportation and the food during my stay. It was hard to say no.

To start, I’m still not 100% sure why I was invited. I’m not a full-time blogger, nor am I a “popular blogger”, not sure what that means, but I’m no KERF, right? To be frank, I struggle with blogging. There were ladies at the summit who were blogging the entire time. Tweeting, facebooking, networking, linking, and did I mention blogging? They were on top of their blogging game.  I just kept looking around thinking “I’m at Dole! I’m in California! oooh this food is good! wow,  I’m learning so much! palm trees!”

Not to mention the elephant in the room. Pun intended, I can’t help myself. The thing is, if you look at the roster of bloggers, and the group photo. You’ll notice the obvious… I was the only fat person there.  I couldn’t help but sing “one of these things is not like the other”. For the most part, I was okay with this. But, I’d be lying if I said I was super confident about it either.  Before I even stepped foot on the first plane to California I did a lot of self talk. Some of it was purely indulgent to make myself feel better. Here’s what it sounded like in my head: They want you to go for exactly who you are now, you are providing a different perspective, you’re representing other Americans who struggle with binge eating, you are on a journey, you can do this!

At one point I almost asked for a refund and high tailed it home when I found out our first flight was cancelled.  I was uncomfortable. A lot was out of my control and I was vulnerable. If Josh hadn’t been there to convince me to keep going, I probably would have chickened out.

When we arrived in California 16 hours later, I didn’t care that I was sleep deprived and looking like a hot mess, I was in California. Once I stepped foot into the king suite at the Four Seasons, nothing else mattered. Awkward encounters and ugly duckling feelings be damned, there was a TV in the bathroom and a soaking tub, not to mention l’occitane soaps and shampoo. I was in heaven.

Because I arrived a few hours later than expected, I missed the cocktail hour and the Thanksgiving food challenge. But, I was just in time for the first Dole meal and it was incredible. We started with a creamy asparagus soup before we were lead to the buffet filled with fig salad, fish, turkey, cauliflower gratin, and the star of the show: roasted yams with bananas.  Everything was savory and flavorful, yet healthy and light. They even gave us recipes for the dishes served to recreate a home.

Enjoying a cup of banana soft serve- my favorite!

I ended up sitting with those working for and with Dole. Their PR team and marketers. I’m not sure how this happened, but it strangely put me at ease. I felt 12 again, hanging out with the parents on a 6th grade field trip. I  chatted with Marty Ordman, Vice President of Marketing and Communications, Donna Skidmore,  Director, Consumer Services and Michael, who works for Dole, but I cannot remember his last name or title. Amanda Notarangelo who does PR for Dole with Gibraltar Associates in DC was also at our table . We were ooh and aahing over the food when I had to go and ruin it with a question about local food and farming, GMOs (which I was told they don’t use) and pesticides sprayed on fruits and vegetables. I kicked myself immediately for asking during dinner, but it just came out. I thought for sure I was going to have to sleep outside of the Four Seasons that night. But, they took it in stride, apparently these were frequent, yet valid questions. They explained that they support and encourage local farming, they support people eating more fruits and vegetables regardless of where it comes from. And that they are always working on new ways to work with local farmers with their projects such as the salad bars they sponsor in public schools. But I learned something else.

Not everyone is as lucky as I am. I live in a town where local food is prevalent, abundant and affordable. This is not normal for small-town America. For example, on my way home this evening I stopped at a locally owned grocer and bought a big bag of local and organic mixed salad greens for $3, organic/fair trade bananas for about $4, and a few other produce items that were either local or organic, if not both. I even got a zucchini for free because it was a little soft. My total was $37 and the food will last till the end of the week. Not to mention that I was about 2 miles from my house.

But there are people in our country, children, who have never had fresh fruit or vegetables. There are a lot of mouths to feed in the world and I’m not sure that small farmers could keep up with the demand. I don’t have a major point or opinion other than, it’s easy to throw our hands up and talk about how screwed up the system is. It is. But, it’s complex. Dole is trying to make bananas affordable and look as cool as soda or twinkies. I can get behind that. I’m trying to get to a point where I’m not becoming narrow from my assumed opinions of the food industry. I think sometimes we want an easy answer, and there isn’t always one. There are better answers and solutions, but I appreciate that they are taking public opinion seriously. I appreciate that they took the time to answer the harder questions, because I wasn’t the only one asking.

I took some time to research Dole before I went on this trip and found the documentary “Bananas!” enlightening and heartbreaking. I also found out that Dole launched www.doleorganics.com in 2007  in response to demand from consumers who increasingly want specific information relative to the farms where the Dole organic bananas are grown or purchased from growers (referenced from www.non-gmoreport.com) You can also read about Dole, Monsanto and GMOs here.

Next up: Part Two, Dole food testing, the other bloggers and much more!

Here are a few recaps from some of the bloggers who attended.

Meals and Miles: Dole’s Test Kitchen, A Cooking Challenge

Run Eat Repeat: Double Dole Day, Dole Healthy Lifestyle Blogger Summit

Cranky Fitness: An Unusually Frank Blog Update

Iowa Girl Eats: Healthified Meat and Potatoes Meal

CarrotsNCake: Dinner At Onyx, Sunrise Run + New Dole Products, Dole’s Healthy Lifestyle Blogger Summit, It’s Over Already

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