The One Part of Intuitive Eating I Can’t Master [And how I'm getting help for it]
I can’t help it – every time I think of obsessive navel gazing, I look to the master. Of course Inigo Montoya was completely awesome.
Having a year-plus of Intuitive Eating* under my belt and counting nary a single calorie, fat gram or carb in that time has made me a bit cocky, I’ll admit it. I’ve even referred to myself as “recovered” a few times. I like absolutes. I’m a black and white thinker! I swing wildly back and forth between I’m cured! and I’m sick!. But as anyone who has ever had an eating disorder take up residence in their gray matter knows, it’s really not that binary. Which is how I have found myself in a deep funk for the past month or so, thinking that because I’ve made some mistakes that means I’ve failed at Intuitive Eating.
By “mistakes” I mean this: While I haven’t done anything major, I have ended up crying in my closet again. Over some rather silly things. One thing, actually. And this one this is so pernicious that despite all my IE progress, I’m baffled as to how to let it go. This thing is a thought that possess me, obsesses me, far more than I like to admit. But I’m not as subtle as I like to think I am. I was looking back over old posts tonight trying to decide what I hadn’t blogged recently. I’m weird that way; I’m never at a loss for topics to blog about – my brain is so frenetic I’ll wake myself up with ideas and scribble them in the margins of a crossword puzzle book I keep next to my bed – but I tend to get stuck in ruts. And tonight I noticed that I’ve been blogging a lot about diets, dieting, food and even weight loss over the past month or so. There was a period of time where I didn’t blog about these things (truly!) and now they’re back. Why? It’s the thing come back to haunt me. It’s the one piece of Intuitive Eating I simply can’t figure out.
It’s the thought that I’m never thin enough. I tell myself that 5 pounds, that’s all I need to lose and then I’ll be happy. Lie.
Even though I don’t restrict food anymore, I’ve let some old food neuroses creep back in. My anxiety over eating is back. Hunger is starting to feel more like failure and less like the natural, healthy, body cue that I know it to be. And all of it always comes back to the thought that I’m nothing if I’m not thin. I’m slipping, you guys. I’d be embarrassed to admit this to you all except that I’m guessing you already noticed.
But my brain is wrong and this time I’m fighting back, before it goes any further than just thoughts. I am more than the circumference of my thighs or the width of my waist. I am more than any stick-figure ideal touted by a few sick people in prominent places. I am more, even, than this body as flawed and beautiful as it is. I am worth so much more than this.
The hard part for me is really believing it. I know it on a cerebral level but through all my recovery I have never been able to fully exorcise that dream of perfect thinness. Just typing that is laughable – what is thin, after all? It isn’t happiness, nor health, nor longevity. And the “dream of” it turns into a shallow, self-serving obsession. Madness lies in a perfectly unattainable goal, always one step (or one pound) out of reach.
The thing that I hate the most about this Thought is that I can only really think about one thing at a time so if my brain is obsessing over holding my stomach in just so then I am not listening when my son tries to show me the apple he drew or my friend tries to tell me about her doctor’s appointment or my mom calls to ask about birthday party plans. When I’m consumed with not consuming, I can’t hear the little voice that tells me to write a note of encouragement to a neighbor or notice when a Gym Buddy looks sad or take cookies to the beloved teacher who just lost her job. I don’t hear the deep belly laugh of my toddler as she figures out how to throw every possession she owns over the side of the back deck. (The mystery of the missing shoes, solved!) All these blessed opportunities: missed.
But it isn’t enough to just write these words here. So, I’ve taken the real-world step of hiring a nutritionist and going back to therapy. Yay! The nutritionist (thank you to Quix for the inspiration!) is because I need to not think about food right now. I need to stop trying to figure out the exact best healthiest way to eat. I need someone to just tell me what to eat so I can focus on rewiring my brain to think about other things again. And to hit me with the reality stick when I veer off course. I’ve tried seeing a nutritionist once in the past and it ended rather badly. I didn’t return. I have higher hopes for this one and we have our first official meeting tomorrow! The trick, of course, will be to trust her judgement. I think I can do that.
This isn’t a black-or-white test that I pass or fail. Eating disorder recovery and Intuitive Eating are going to be a lifelong process for me but it doesn’t have to be a lifelong struggle. My dear grandmother was bulimic to the day she died and, forgive me if this sounds weird, but I’ve felt her presence a lot this week. When I was younger I used to think this disorder was the tie that bound us even across death but now I think that she does not want me to suffer like she did. She wants me to learn faster than she did that being more does not make us less. I will not miss this opportunity to listen. I am a fast learner.
What do you do when your thoughts don’t match your actions? Have you ever used a nutritionist? Any other advice about how you conquered the “thin at all costs” mental demons? I’ve returned to writing in my gratitude journal daily and pulled out the old CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) workbook!
*Every time I post about IE, people ask me which program I follow and which books I recommend so I’ll just get a jump on it here and tell you that I LOVE Geneen Roth’s version of IE. It’s been absolutely life changing for me. The first book I usually recommend to people is WHEN YOU EAT AT THE REFRIGERATOR, PULL UP A CHAIR: 50 WAYS TO FEEL THIN, GORGEOUS, AND HAPPY (WHEN YOU FEEL ANYTHING BUT)
One Year of Intuitive Eating and The Best Birthday Ever (Experiment Results are in!)
Is this not the best self-portrait ever? As my sister said, "Now we know what you'll look like as a little old lady." I was trying to get Jelly Bean's face as we went down the giant rainbow slide (it ends in unicorn poop and leprechaun gold) but instead got evidence of how my fear of sunburns trumps my fear of looking like a total dork.
“Um, don’t take this the wrong way but I always see you guys killing yourselves for like 20 minutes but then you just…” her voice trailed off.
“…Sit here and do this?” Gym Buddy Allison waved at us sitting and “stretching” (read: talking with one leg haphazardly extended).
“Yeah! What’s up with that?!” Our new friend Erika at the gym asked as people slogged away on ellipticals all around us.
“Oh that used to be us too, about 4 years ago,” I started.
“But not anymore!” Allison chimed in. “We’ve learned a lot.”
“So what changed?” Erika (who may soon become a Gym Buddy as I think I talked her into trying our workouts with us!) asked.
I paused, considering the roller coaster of the past few years of diets, exercise addiction, freak-of-the-week TV spots, 2 books and another baby. “Everything,” I said. “Absolutely everything.”
Last year, for my 32nd birthday I gave myself a special gift: I quit blogging. Jelly Bean was 7 months old and I found myself at the end of my rope with my eating and exercise. I was desperate to lose the baby weight and I could feel the crazy voices circling like vultures. But this time I was determined to not fall into old habits. I had a daughter now, one who would watch my every action and learn to love or hate herself as I loved or hated myself. Lest you think I’m giving myself too much credit, I found a panty liner in Jelly Bean’s diaper the other day. That girl watches me like a hawk, even when I don’t realize she’s there (like, um, in the bathroom – note to self: shut the door!). I have no doubt that if she saw me weighing myself, she’d be shoving me off the scale and planting her own pudgy toddler feet on it – the mere thought of which makes me shudder – before I could say “eating disorders run in our family”. I needed time to figure myself out and so I gave myself time.
Desperation and my daughter led me to try something I’d never considered before, something I was completely terrified of, something I was sure could never work for broken me. Intuitive Eating, Geneen Roth style, came into my life and that first month was intense. It was like learning to eat all over again but when I emerged – and started blogging again (turns out I just needed a month, who knew?)- I knew it had been worth it. That was one year ago. If you would have told me a year ago that I’d be able to eat basically anything and not gain weight, I would not have believed you. If you would have told me two years ago that I could go without weighing myself and not gain weight, I would have laughed in your face. If you would have told me three years ago that I could maintain my weight without doing hours of cardio every day, I would not have listened, would not have even been able to hear you, even. If you would have told me four years ago that I could lose my pregnancy weight and maintain that loss without food journaling and calorie counting, I would have sobbed and told you a hundred reasons why that wasn’t true for me.
And yet here I am. No weighing, no counting, no excessive exercise, and I’m fine. Today I weighed myself – don’t freak out, I don’t plan on continuing but I wanted to know how my Intuitive Eating Experiment had worked over the course of a year – and I weigh one pound more than this day one year ago. I consider this a coup of the grandest level. I am happy, I’m healthy and I’m sane. Well, sane-ish. I trusted my body to tell me what it needed and it did. I’m amazed. I’m grateful. I’m humbled.
I’m not perfect, however. I still have a long way to go – I have more “fat days” than I care to recount, I still compare myself to other women, I still have my favorite pair of “skinny jeans” that don’t fit and will never fit as long as I’m at a healthy weight – but look how far I’ve come, baby! Happy Birthday, indeed!
And to celebrate this momentous year, my sister and best friend Laura threw me a “Great Fitness Experiment Birthday Party” – best birthday party I’ve ever had! It was epic:
What was your favorite birthday? I got a jar of beets as a gift (from Laura, of course, she knows how I feel about pooping bloody entrails!) – what’s the strangest gift you’ve gotten?
Is Eating Red Meat Inhumane?
From here on out I’m only taking of my sweatshirt by sliding it down over my hips.
Recently Mark Zuckerberg (creator of Facebook for any of you that aren’t geeks or Justin Timberlake fans – although there is a surprising overlap between the two groups. Venn diagram anyone??) announced that he will henceforth only eat meat that he has killed by his own hand. Each year he takes on a new personal challenge (last year he learned Chinese… I know, it boggles) and this year he says,
“My personal challenge is around being thankful for the food I have to eat. I think many people forget that a living being has to die for you to eat meat, so my goal revolves around not letting myself forget that and being thankful for what I have. This year I’ve basically become a vegetarian since the only meat I’m eating is from animals I’ve killed myself. So far, this has been a good experience. I’m eating a lot healthier foods and I’ve learned a lot about sustainable farming and raising of animals. I started thinking about this last year when I had a pig roast at my house. A bunch of people told me that even though they loved eating pork, they really didn’t want to think about the fact that the pig used to be alive. That just seemed irresponsible to me. I don’t have an issue with anything people choose to eat, but I do think they should take responsibility and be thankful for what they eat rather than trying to ignore where it came from.”
Zuckerberg also makes it a point to eat all parts of the animal including the organs and even used chicken feet to make stock.
Have you ever killed an animal that you then ate? Other than a few fish as a kid, I haven’t. Honestly I don’t know if I could. I remember my dad deciding one day that he wanted to hunt a deer, kill it, skin it and butcher it (my dad’s big on survival skills). He was successful – a fact I discovered when I came face to face with the dead animal hanging by its feet under our deck as I tried to sneak in past curfew late one night (saying I screamed like a girl does not do justice to that scream. or girls.) – and it took us an entire year to eat all that venison which he insisted we do because it would be inhumane to kill an animal for sport and not nutrition. This is the house I grew up in.
You know who has killed a cow? Gym Buddy Krista. And not with her car, either. (I’m telling you, this girl has got stories. And they come out at the most random times in the gym.) As a practicing Muslim, she can only eat “halal” meat which means it must be slaughtered in a particular way with specific prayers. “Ḏabīḥah (ذَبِيْحَة) is the prescribed method of slaughtering all animals excluding fish and most sea-life per Islamic law. This method of slaughtering animals consists of using a well sharpened knife to make a swift, deep incision that cuts the front of the throat, the carotid artery, wind pipe and jugular veins but leaves the spinal cord intact.” You catch all that? Big knife, throat slitting, lots of blood – and she’s done it. When I looked like I might faint she told me to stop being such a baby. And I think she’s right. While it sounds awful, I think that it is a powerful way to connect people with what they are eating. Most of us who eat meat like to pretend it magically appears on store shelves in shrink-wrapped irradiated (there’s another issue for another day) packages. But every time we have “Beef, it’s what’s for dinner!” or “Pork, the other white meat!” or even “Chicken, we don’t need no slogan ’cause we make tasty nuggets!” we are, in effect, causing the death of another living being.
I take that very seriously. Even after examining all the health issues and research, this still weighs heavily on me. I know some of you are going to think I’m nutty (not that you need another reason) but for me when I decided to eat meat again, I also decided to stay as connected to the animal as possible. I’m not going to go slaughter my own cow – Krista, I’m getting pale again – but I can say a prayer of thanksgiving both to the animal who gave up its life for me and to the God who made it (the same God who notes the fall of every sparrow is surely going to miss something as obnoxiously flatulent as a cow). It also means that I sought out a farmer who cares about his animals and raises them in ways where they thrive, even if I have to pay more for it and drive home with a minivan stuffed full of bloody cardboard boxes like the dumbest serial killer ever. (Although price wise I’ve found it pretty economical when I buy 1/4 of a cow at a time.) Bob – yes he is Farmer Bob and I adore him – probably thinks I’m unbalanced but I always ask him how the cow was doing, what it weighed, if it was happy and if it had a name. (For the record, he does not name his cattle.)
Hippy-dippy feelings aside, a lot of people are very concerned about the economic and environmental impact of raising animals for food and rightly so. Animals, but beef especially, are very inefficient food sources and therefore take a lot of natural resources like water and grain that could be used to help a huge number of hungry and thirsty people. In a world where millions, including 15 million children, die of starvation every year it seems we should be focusing more of our attentions on how to best raise enough food and the most efficient ways to get it to where it needs to be. (Often, sadly, the issue isn’t so much a shortage of food but an issue of politics and logistics that keeps the available food out of needy mouths.) The environmental cost is also large. Pasturing cows is awesome as I pointed out yesterday but just like conventionally raised cattle, they take up a lot of land, contaminate water sources and – I swear I’m not making this up – cow farts (methane) account for 18% of global warming. In addition we accrue environmental costs in the methods we use to farm animals, butcher them and transport them not to mention the antibiotic resistances that we’ve introduced by injecting our food sources with antibiotics.
My Conclusion
These reasons are exactly why I will never ever tell someone they “should” or “need to” eat meat. The larger ethical questions of whether it is humane to eat meat and whether it is acceptable to do that kind of damage to the environment will have to be answered by each person in their own way but for me I need to eat some meat. And I will do it in the kindest, cleanest way that I can. It’s an uneasy compromise.
Have you ever killed an animal? Do moral/ethical concerns change the way you eat?
And just in case you don’t think fish are cute enough to warrant existential angst, check out this adorable vid of a toddler catching his first fish. (He names the fishy “Free” because he’s “beautiful” and then asks his dad “Does it like me?” The father wisely does not answer, “Well you put a hook through his mouth and are now suffocating him with air so he probably hates your guts right now.” because that would not have been adorable.)
Is Eating Red Meat Bad For You? [Research Porn!]
I’ve heard cow tongue can be a delicacy but I’m pretty sure they didn’t mean on the first date.
“Mom?” My freshly bathed son snuggled into my lap as we read through his favorite book before bedtime.
“Yes, honey?” I answered, prepared for one of his silly existential questions he likes to pose right before lights out. (“If I had a googleplex of licorice would you make me share it with my brothers?”)
His big sweet brown eyes looked up at me through those long lashes he got from my husband. Laying one little hand on my cheek he asked, “Do baby cows taste as delicious as mommy cows?”
Cough, choke, splutter. My baby wants veal?!? All this time I thought he loved Brown Cow, Brown Cow because of the snuggly baby animals and the cute way I sing the text (I do a very fancy trill on the last “No kittens, no kittens, but many many friends!”) but apparently he was reading it as a cookbook. I panicked – you do realize there is a goose in that book, right? How am I supposed to explain Foie Gras to a 3-year-old?? But in the end, what could I say? The boy has always loved his meat. He once ate five bratwursts at friend’s birthday party; he called them “meat sticks” and carried one in each fist, alternating bites. That would be another thing he got from my husband – I was a vegetarian then.
My history with meat and with dead cow specifically has been long and tumultuous. I was a vegetarian for years, then a vegan, then I realized one day that for my health I did need to eat some meat. Then I went on a meat bender for a few months. I’ve tried the Primal Blueprint which has you eat meat at every meal. I investigated Gary Taubes‘ (of Good Calories Bad Calories) claim that one could eat nothing but meat – yes you read that right, no fruits and veggies necessary – and be perfectly healthy. And then I embraced Intuitive Eating which may have ended up teaching me more about what meat eating means for my body than I learned from 100 books.
And I’m not the only confused person out there. These days it takes much less than a children’s book though to bring out people’s mixed feelings about meat. There are two main controversies surrounding red meat: Is it healthy? Is it humane? (I’m including both taking good care of the animals and of the environment in the latter.) Today I’ll examine the first question and tomorrow I’ll talk about the second. (I originally wrote this as all one post but then I figured I shouldn’t dump a 3,000 word article on you on a Monday. You’re welcome.)
Is Eating Red Meat Bad For You?
The other day my friend DarLee and I were waxing rhapsodic about the amazing grass-fed, grass-finished, pastured, kissed-by-angels beef we got from a local farmer – seriously this stuff is so amazing I don’t even bother seasoning it when I cook it – when another friend wrinkled her nose and said, “Ew. I gave up red meat a long time ago. Especially ground beef. It’s so bad for you!”
But is it?
For years the advice given us from everyone from our doctors to the government to celebrities was to “eat lean meats” like the perennial favorite, the Almighty Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast. (See what I did there? I proper-noun’ed it!) We were told by our doctors to avoid red meat especially because of the “artery clogging saturated fat” and told that if we must eat it then to stick to the leanest cuts we could find. Indeed it seemed that the research backed up this position with studies linking red meat consumption to higher incidences of cancer and heart disease. Just last a week a report issued by the World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute for Cancer Research concluded, “red and processed meat increases the risk for colorectal cancer, and the evidence that foods containing fiber offer protection against the disease has become stronger.” CNN.com in reporting a different study, declared definitively, “Want to live longer? Cut back on red meat.” It became one of those nutritional facts that everyone just “knows.”
But when you really look into the research that knowledge becomes a lot less sure. The main problem is that most studies are looking at people who eat factory-farmed animals whose meat has an entirely different nutritional profile than cows raised as they were meant to be. Conventionally raised cows are fed a diet of grains, sugar (seriously), and a melange of other things that can include beef blood, chicken feathers and even arsenic. They are also injected with hormones and antibiotics to help speed their growth and for infections brought on by crowded, unsanitary conditions.
However, left to their own devices cows prefer to eat grasses and roam Home On The Range style (no word yet on if the deer and the antelope want to play today – I hear they’re under investigation for becoming rowdy neighbors now that we’ve killed off the wolves that used to shut down their redneck parties.) The end result is a meat that is naturally “lower in fat, calories, and omega-6 fatty acids linked to heart disease. It’s also higher in vitamin E and heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids. (But not that high: You’ll get two to five times more omega-3 fatty acids from grass-fed beef than regular beef, but you’ll get 5,000 percent more from salmon.)” It also contains more CLA, a known cancer-fighter. The research supports that people who eat grass-fed beef get less cancer and have lower blood pressure and better lipid profiles than people who don’t.
The second issue with a lot of these studies is that they don’t differentiate between processed and unprocessed meats. Nitrates and nitrites among other preservatives commonly used in hot dogs, sausage, bacon and lunch meat have been linked to cancer but when you look at beef that has been naturally cured the link between cancer and red meat disappears again and it even reduces your risk of diabetes.
The third issue is that the link between saturated fat and heart disease has not held up under scientific scrutiny. I’ll give you a few minutes for that to sink in. I wrote about this before when I shared how I learned to embrace eating fat (all kinds of fat except man-made ones!) and how it increased my health but saturated fats are not the villains we’ve been taught to believe. A lot of that advice was based on Ancel Key’s 7 Countries Studies – a great body of research but his conclusions didn’t account for some important variables. Mark’s Daily Apple debunks this one more thoroughly and intelligently than I ever could.
A third consideration that I found buried in the studies is that ancient populations like the Inuit and Masai who subsisted almost entirely on meat, prized the fatty organ meat and often discarded the leaner muscle meat – which is exactly the opposite of how we eat it. Unless you’re a zombie (the apocalypse is here!) you likely have never eaten braiiinnnnnssss. When I asked on FaceBook and Twitter the best way to cook liver, the majority of cheeky answers said “Remove from fridge, throw directly in garbage.” (And no Naomi, I still haven’t had the guts – ha! – to try your liver recipe yet. But I’m going to, I promise!!)
My Conclusion
It appears to me (remember I’m no expert in this, just a neurotic speed reading overthinker) that it is the type of red meat you eat that makes the difference to your health. Indeed it seems that eating some grass-fed beef, especially the offal (organ meats), can provide a wide range of important health benefits that are difficult to get from other food sources. I eat it. Not every day. I love it.
Do you eat red meat? Is there any particular meat or meat dish you avoid? Any advice for cooking beef liver and/or heart?
*Check back in tomorrow to discuss the ethical issues surrounding red meat – so please don’t flame me in the comments for not talking about that in this post, ok?
Eating for your Skin
Ward Off Skin-Related Issues and Illnesses By Eating
Yes, it’s true! You can protect yourself from skin-related issues and diseases by eating, the healthy stuff of course. On your next trip to your local natural foods market or even the supermarket around the corner be sure to fill your cart with these highly beneficial items. They’re not only good for whole body wellness and health but also for your body’s protector, your skin.
- Tomatoes. Besides being delicious and adding flavor to almost any meal, tomatoes protect your skin against harmful sun rays. While you still want to slather on that sunscreen, tomatoes have the ability to increase your skin’s natural defenses against UV rays. Plus, the skin benefits only further increase when you cook with tomatoes, like in tomato paste, or combine the vegetable with olive oil. Tomatoes, basil, mozzarella and olive oil, anyone?
- Whole grains. Eating whole grains allows the presence of acne and/or oily skin to disappear. Put that piece of white bread down, as refined carbs cause acne by making insulin levels increase, and thus, affecting the skin. So, make the switch to whole grain pasta, bread and cereal today.
- Citrus. As you’re probably well aware, citrus fruits are high in Vitamin C. However, you might not know that Vitamin C works to fight wrinkles. This particular vitamin slows down the wrinkling process, but it must be consumed from food sources to reap this all too important benefit, rather than supplements. Besides oranges, munch on tangerines and grapefruit.
Flax seeds. It’s winter and you’re suffering from dry, itchy skin – what could be worse? Besides slathering your body with lotion to rid yourself of dry skin, you can choose to eat foods that are filled with omega-3 fatty acids, like flax seeds and salmon. Another bonus? Omega-3 fatty acids fight against skin inflammation.
- Green tea. Soothing in the winter and refreshing in the summer, green tea just hits the spot. And yes, the rumors are true; green tea protects your body from skin cancer. The antioxidants found in green tea work to kill tumor skin cells and all the while help to heal acne and relieve skin itching and swelling. Whichever way you choose to enjoy green tea, you can rest assure that it’s wholly beneficial.
So, choose to enjoy foods that not only taste good but nourish your skin and body. The above foods help protect against uncomfortable skin ailments and more serious issues, such as cancer. So, on your next trip to pick up food make sure these essential items are found in abundance within your cart.
Laurie Mitchell is a skincare professional who writes about Hydrolyze, a prominent brand on today’s market. With an eye for the most effective products in the skincare industry, Laurie has earned a reputation as the go-to resource for information about the market for many consumers. More information can be found at www.Hydrolyzeskinreview.com.
New Research: Late Night Eating Leads to Weight Gain [But no one knows why]
Google “funny sleeping baby” – it will make your whole day, I promise!
People have been talking about it for decades but it officially became A Thing when Oprah declared (Dear Oprah, I miss you already!) on her show that for her Best Life Diet she was no longer eating after 8 p.m. I scoffed. “Doesn’t she know that a calorie is a calorie no matter what time of day you eat it?” It turns out that Oprah was right and I was wrong. (She was also right about white jeans making a comeback.) As I got older and little deeper into this whole weight management thing – two rounds of eating disorder therapy plus a year with Geneen Roth yammering in your head will really make you examine every facet of your eating habits – I realized that what Oprah had said holds true for me too. (Still not buying any white jeans though.)
When I eat after dinner, I tend to gain weight. When I don’t, my weight is stable. I also discovered that I sleep better on an empty stomach – a big meal right before bed makes me restless, have heartburn and really whacked out dreams. Especially if that meal involved a lot of sugar. Although, not gonna lie, the crazy dreams can sometimes be pretty awesome. (There was this one where Oprah called and offered the Gym Buddies and I our own show. Strangely the part I was most excited about was that I got purple hair extensions.)
I always thought that this was because as I got more tired, I craved sugar and simple carbs to keep me awake. Plus the more tired I am the less inhibited I am and the more likely I am to make poor food choices. Half a pan of Rice Krispie bars once disappeared between 10 and 11 p.m. My kids have an ongoing investigation into who took their lunch treats but considering I was the only other person in the house that evening… If I stand at the counter and only cut off paper-thin slices that doesn’t count as “eating”, right?
New research published in the journal Obesity backs up Oprah saying that people who eat after 8 p.m. have higher BMIs than people who don’t, even when controlling for factors like “night owls” vs. “morning larks”, gender, intake of fruits and vegetables, sleep timing and sleep duration. In their words: “These findings indicate that caloric intake after 8:00 PM may increase the risk of obesity, independent of sleep timing and duration. Future studies should investigate the biological and social mechanisms linking timing of sleep and feeding in order to develop novel time-based interventions for weight management.”
Besides feeling like a zoo animal – “biological and social mechanisms linking timing of sleep and feeding in order to develop novel time-based interventions”, how many times do I have to press the level before I get bananas instead of electric shocks mommy? – this study surprised me just for the fact that the researchers basically admit they don’t know why this happens, only that it does. Perhaps there is some metabolic mechanism that alters digestion after the sun sets? The study was only 52 people but it certainly jives with my experience that weight loss is way more complicated than the calories in/calories out hypothesis.
My ideal bedtime is 10 pm at the latest (Danger Will Robinson, the time is now 9:46 p.m.) but I’m rarely in bed by then. I’ve noticed, however, that the nights I do hit the horizontal by 10, I don’t feel hungry but if I stay up even an extra hour I’m suddenly ravenous. Of course there are multitudinous other benefits to going to bed early besides weight management but I find this one fascinating. But why does it work this way? WHY??
Bonus – shortest mini-Experiment ever: So I recently read an article about the benefits of sleeping on hard surfaces and it convinced me to try it out. I often nap on the floor (I just lay where I fall , folks) so I didn’t think it would be hard to sleep a whole night there. It was awful. I’m a side sleeper and my hips soon were in so much pain that I penitently crawled back into my big squishy modern spine-wrenching bed. It felt AWESOME. I was never meant to be a cave girl. (Although I did run my Tabata sprint on Wednesday in my socks! Didn’t want to go totally barefoot – you never know what germies are on the treadmills!)
What have you noticed about your sleep habits vs. your hunger? Do you have a theory about why, even after controlling for other factors, people that eat after 8 pm gain weight? Have you ever slept on the ground? Will you wear white jeans??
Baby cheeks are the best!!
The Politics of Eating Healthy [3 rules for avoiding awkward dinner parties]
This is indeed a real cookbook.
Advice columnists have a sweet gig. Basically they get to tell strangers how to run their lives without ever having to deal with the consequences. And yet, as I discovered during my senior year of my Psych degree, I am really really bad at giving advice. Seeing as I generally manage to make easy stuff look hard (Person: “How do you do it all?” Me: “Badly.”) I don’t know why I thought advising people would be any different. I can’t even run my own life with any degree of sanity. So I figured it was a cosmic candid camera when I got the following two e-mails from readers within just a couple of days of each other:
Reader Danielle wrote a comment on my Intuitive Eating Meets the Easter Bunny post asking:
“How do you deal with those who don’t understand your deire to choose healthy options and to eat intuitively ?I feel like”well meaning” friends/family put pressure on me to “pig out”. And I can’t tolerate it psychologically or physically. Help! I’m running out of polite ways of explaining my lifestyle!”
Any person who has tried to maintain a healthy lifestyle in the face of the all-you-can-eat buffet that is our culture can relate to Danielle’s problem. I think we’ve all encountered a social situation where we felt like food we didn’t want (or perhaps food we did want but didn’t want to want – catch that?) was being pushed on us. In the past I used to use my magical excuse of -ism to get me out of it. Veganism, for instance, covers a lot of food bases. You can even knock out sugar with this one because, “Didn’t you know that beet and cane sugar is processed through bone char?!” Look appropriately aghast and most people will leave you alone. But when I started Intuitive Eating – and stopped inventing lifestyles to mask my food restrictions – I had to come up with a better answer than “my lettuce bikini is in the wash.”
While it’s true that Intuitive Eating is all about giving yourself permission to eat and enjoy whatever food you want – nothing is off limits! – the real genius of IE is that it teaches you to listen to your body and decipher want you want from what you really need. Deb asked on that same Easter post why I was worried about eating the jelly beans in the first place if IE says I can eat them and enjoy them. The nuanced answer is that my mind wanted the candy but my body knew that if I ate a ton of sugar I’d get a headache, bloat, and then need a nap when the sugar crash kicked in. I didn’t need the sugar and really I didn’t want it either. I don’t even like malted milk balls. But sitting with it all there spread out before me, it felt like I was being deprived if I didn’t eat it. This was different than when later that day I ate my friend’s Best Carrot Cake Ever and enjoyed every bite. So I totally get where Danielle is coming from – it’s hard enough figuring out what my body wants and needs without someone else trying to interpret it for me.
Then, just when I was getting all fired up to tell Danielle how to get the food pushers to back off, Reader Sue e-mailed me with a question about the flip side, asking:
“How far do I go to accommodate other people’s diets? My daughter (shes 20) is a really healthy eater and I feel like I have to bend over backwards to get everything just right for her and even then she sometimes won’t eat it. It makes family gatherings really uncomfortable. Where do you draw the line and just say who cares if it’s healthy- this is what I made, eat it?”
My immediate response to Sue’s e-mail was just like it was to Danielle’s: Boy have I been there! I have one friend who doesn’t eat sugar, another who doesn’t do gluten, a third who is still married to her low-fat dairy as well as a smattering of vegetarian and vegan buddies. Oh and my one friend who despite knowing her for years (YEARS!) and eating with her scores of times I still haven’t been able to figure out her food philosophy. It can make planning a party or other get-together nerve wracking. But not only do I relate to Sue’s problem, I also have to admit that I’ve been that person like Sue’s daughter whose food choices make everyone else uncomfortable.
So: What if Danielle is Sue’s daughter?? (Kidding! They’re not related. At least I don’t think so. I don’t know either of them in real life. But wouldn’t it be funny if they were?) But my point is that one person’s healthy diet is another person’s pain in the butt. And to make matters more complicated, what one person defines as a healthy diet can be seen as totally unhealthy to someone else. Short of never eating with anyone ever again without signing a liability waiver first, there’s got to be some rules. I came up with three and I’m hoping you’ll help me out in the comments with some more ideas for Danielle and Sue!
Charlotte’s Rules for Eating Nicely With Others
1. Ask yourself if the other person has a point. To Danielle: I remember getting really defensive about my food choices when I was deep into my eating disorder. The sicker I was the more defensive I got. I’m not saying that you have an eating disorder but there is some merit to asking yourself if the person pushing the food has a valid reason to be pushing food on you. To Sue: Perhaps your daughter is trying to help you make healthier food choices and she just hasn’t figured out a kinder way to make her point yet. Or perhaps this is your daughter’s way of asserting her newfound adult independence.
2. Ask yourself what your point is. To Danielle: Are you just being stubborn or are you genuinely trying to respect your body by eating in caring way? Sometimes food is really important to certain people in certain situations and by compromising and taking a bite or two, you show them that you acknowledge the love and effort they’ve put into the dish. To Sue: Are you trying to be a martyr or are you genuinely trying to respect your daughter’s food choices? By not making a big deal out of it you take some of the power struggle out of the situation. Also, if your point is to have a good relationship with your daughter then maybe you need to explore some other ways to relate. Ask her to make you her favorite meal. Or do something together that has nothing to do with food.
3. Get to the point and just say “no thank you”. To Danielle: There are times when people do not have a good reason for pushing food on you (or worse, they have a diabolical reason like jealousy, envy, sabotage or fear) and you do have a good point for refusing the food (i.e. too much sugar makes you feel sick). I’ve found the best way to deal with this is to just say “No, thank you.” Don’t feel compelled to give them reasons – you don’t owe them any and they’ll likely just argue with you. Don’t lie. Don’t get upset. Don’t explain yourself unless you want to. Just repeat “No, thank you” with a big smile until they desist. To Sue: If you are the one doing the cooking I think you have every right to say, “Dinner is served, I hope you enjoy it.” and leave it at that. If people make additional demands like requests for a meat-free dish or a gluten-free dessert you can decide if you’d like to accommodate them but only do it if you can do it and feel good about it. Don’t be afraid to say “No” if you feel like it is unreasonable. You are the host not a short-order cook. Don’t feel compelled to give them reasons. Don’t lie. Don’t get upset.
How do you handle situations where people are pushing you to eat something you don’t want? How do you handle situations where you are cooking for or eating out with people who have a lot of food restrictions? Hit me up with some great advice for Danielle and Sue because I know I missed a lot of points!
Intuitive Eating Meets the Easter Bunny
Jelly Bean – my inspiration and impetus for Intuitive Eating
Holidays can be scary times for people with food issues. For many years I spent the run-up to certain holidays panicking about what I was going to eat (or not eat) at home, at friends’ houses, at parties, at restaurants, at the next Royal Wedding (Seriously, was Kate’s dress not gorgeous? Also, now I want my long hair back.) The evil trifecta of Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas is usually what does most people in but for me, Easter is my crucible. (Whoa, did I just compare myself to Jesus there?) All my favorite foods come out at Easter time. It’s not just the 60 different varieties of jelly beans – this year’s winners were the giant cinnamon jelly beans from the hardware store down the street. Yes, the hardware store. Yes, the same one that sells pickled eggs in a jar of brine that you fish out with your fingers. I know. Anyhow, between the Cadbury eggs and the SweeTarts gummy bunnies all the way up to the raspberry jell-o pretzel salad on the day of, I’m surprised I don’t pee pastel from all the artificial food coloring I ingest.
But this year was different. This year was my first Easter as an Intuitive Eater. I’ve been Eating Intuitively (as in using Geneen Roth’s program
In fact I continued to do great – nothing major changed in my eating patterns, which is pretty major in and of itself – until a couple of days before the big event. And then me being me I got all freaked out as I started filling Easter eggs for my kids to fight over on Sunday morning during our annual Egg Brawl. Nothing like pouring bags of sugar indirectly into your already hyper and destructive spawn – I have mentioned I have 3 boys right? – and then trussing them up in suits and telling them to sit still for 3 hours (Mormons have long church services…). Ten minutes or less until one of them starts trying to hang himself with his tie. I digress. Seeing the piles of Whopper eggs and Starburst jelly beans (not the best kind) made me suddenly want to eat some. And since I am a black-and-white thinker, I panicked thinking that if I allowed myself to eat some that would mean I would eat them all.
- For once, the bunny ears are actually appropriate…
So I did what I always do when I panic about something first-world and ridiculous: I e-mailed a friend or five. (For the record, when I panic about something serious I call my dad and my husband. In that order. A fact that perturbs Gym Hubby seeing as we’ve been married for 11 years, I live with him and yet my auto-pilot is still set to Daddy. But only in red-level crises! Existential angst? Dad. Toilet overflowing thanks to my 4-year-old who poops elephant piles? Gym Hubby all the way. Love you, honey!!!) My friend Shellie immediately wrote back to me reminding me of all the things I’ve learned and practiced with Intuitive Eating. She reminded me to take it slow, eat what I wanted but making sure to sit down and savor it, to not eat standing up or hiding and to remember that for the love of little green apples, the whole point of the day is Jesus, not food! (Okay so that last part was just me inferring. Priorities Charlotte!!)
See what I mean about the shoes??
Some of our friends that a) know about my food issues and are still friends with me and b) are aMAYzing cooks invited us over for Easter dinner. You know what happened? We talked a lot. Then we ate some food of which I took exactly what I wanted and sat down and enjoyed every bite. There was even a moment where I had to pinch myself and think I can’t believe how lucky I am that I get to eat all this yummy food! No angst whatsoever. Not even at dessert time when I had a big slice of my friend’s Best Carrot Cake I’ve Ever Eaten in My Entire Life cake. I ate one slice, licked the frosting off the plate and instead of fretting about whether or not I should have another because this-is-the-absolute-last-time-I’m-ever-eating-cake-again-I-swear-I’m-starting-a-diet-tomorrow, I remembered that eating too much sugar gives me a killer headache and an energy crash and was satisfied with what I’d had. Then we all played a hilarious game that involved acting out famous people during which Gym Hubby set the record for not referencing Lady Gaga. I laughed a lot. I held a friend’s baby. I watched my baby try on all 30 pairs of shoes in the foyer (girl loves her shoes, takes after her mama!). I caught up with some old friends and got to know some new ones better. And you know what I didn’t do? I didn’t think about food after I was done eating. No obsessing over what I hadn’t gotten to eat (only to inhale a half gallon of freezer-burned sugar-free ice cream at home because I felt deprived) and no feeling guilty over what I did eat (only to vow to eat only salad for the next week). I left full but not stuffed. Happy.
A coup of the non-egg variety.
- Believe it or not, it snowed just two days after this picture…
What’s your holiday food strategy? Anyone else still call their parents first in an emergency even though they haven’t lived at home in years?
Want to talk about something totally unrelated to food or Easter? Try this invasive question: When talking about private parts do you use nicknames?? My undercover investigation in public bathrooms (born out of having someone potty training for last 5 years, I swear I’m not a creeper) says most people do! Check out my post on Redbook about what havoc parents wreak when they teach their kids about their hoo-has and winkies!
Advertise with The Clean Eating Mama!
I’m so excited to offer affordable advertising on The Clean Eating Mama!
As of today (4.10.11), I receive about 1,000 visits/ page views a day and 30,000 visit/40,000 page views a month. My numbers are consistently and steadily growing.
I write to a large audience – clean eaters, vegans, vegetarians, moms, health conscious people and more! I am always amazed by the unique readers that read and comment on my blog. They come from all walks of life but with one goal in mind: Healthy Eating, Healthy Living and Healthy Reading!
There are three different ad packages: 
X-Large Feature (only one available per month) $100.
includes:
- fixed, top ad space on the right hand sidebar of The Clean Eating Mama
- solo feature post
- prime ad space on the right hand sidebar of The Clean Eating Mama (rotating who is on top)
- spot in my monthly "large sponsor" highlight post, with an intro, photo and short bio.
Small ad/$30 includes:
- ad space under the large ads, on the right hand sidebar of The Clean Eating Mama
- spot in my monthly "small sponsor" highlight post with an intro and photo
—–
Giveaways are limited to two per month, must have a product value of at least $25, and must be arranged in advance via email. These are on a first come, first serve basis.
I am also open to review products, style items, or other promotional/marketing ideas you’d like to propose.
Contact me at thecleaneatingmama@gmail.com to secure your spot or to discuss reviews, etc.- new ads go up the 1st of each month. 
Still Getting Gluten Part 3 – Eating Outside Your Home
This series is aimed at helping people who are on a gluten-free diet but suspect that they are consuming gluten unintentionally. It is also great for anyone who is just starting out on the diet.
Please read Part 1 – Gluten-Free Food and Part 2 – Eating In Your Home.
After reading part 2 about eating in your own home (if you don’t have a completely gluten free home) you won’t be surprised that it’s even more difficult to eat safely outside your home. It can be done, though.
There are various situations in which we eat outside our homes.
- Eating in a restaurant or cafeteria or at a catered event.
- Eating at the home of family and friends.
- Packing our own food and eating it at work, school, or on a trip.
Eating at Restaurants or Similar Situations
I do not eat out very often, so I’m no expert on this, but here are a few tips.
1. Gluten-Free Food – You need to start with making sure there are gluten-free food options. I like to give my business to restaurants that offer a gluten-free menu. There are a few listed at the bottom of my sidebar with links to their gluten free menus or nutritional information.
If the restaurant does not have a gluten-free menu, scan the menu for items that are naturally gluten free, then questions the staff, preferably a chef, about anything that might have been added to the food such as marinades or seasonings and ask to see ingredients.
2. Cross Contamination – Once you are sure you have ordered gluten-free food items, you need to educate that staff a little about cross contamination. If bread is put on a grill, it will need to be cleaned before they grill your steak. If the salad bowl usually has croutons in it, they need to use a clean bowl to mix your salad. Also request that they keep your food away from bread and any other gluten containing foods.
Eating at the Home of Family and Friends
1. Gluten-Free Food – Try to discuss the menu with the cook before you arrive. If they are not sure what to prepare be ready with some suggestions. Basic meat, potato, and vegetable meals are usually safe. Don’t forget to discuss anything that will be added to food: marinades, seasonings, butter, etc. Remember, although butter is gluten-free, their butter might have crumbs in it. Ask them to use a new stick.
Bring food to contribute to the meal. I often bring dessert since that can be particularly difficult for someone to make gluten free. Otherwise you could suggest options such as fresh fruit and ice cream.
Don’t eat something that you know or suspect contains gluten just to make them feel good. It’s not worth it.
2. Cross Contamination – The percentage of times I have gotten sick after eating at a friend’s house is greater than the percentage of times I have gotten sick from eating at a restaurant. I believe it is because of cross contamination. For one, many restaurants are trained to think that way. They keep things separate and clean. Second, I don’t eat at restaurants that use much flour or do baking. My friends, however, do bake, and it can be very difficult to make sure that everything is clean.
Do your best to educate them about cross contamination. If you can be there to help with food preparation and cooking then you can make sure that everything is clean and handled properly. Your host/hostess might enjoy having the two of you cook together.
Packing Food and Eating it at Work, School, or on a Trip
1. Gluten-Free Food – This is probably the safest option of the three because you are more in control. You can bring your own safe gluten free food with you. You can make your own bread and pack a sandwich. Salad is one of my favorites for traveling. I include some type of meat to go on it and pack a few crackers or chips to go with it. There are more great lunchbox tips in this post.
2. Cross Contamination – This is mainly a problem if you are eating with other people, such as a child eating at school. Try explaining the situation to those involved such as your co-workers, and ask them not to wave their sandwich over your food. 
For children, make sure the teacher understands and is looking out for your child, and of course, educate your child. It would probably also help to talk with your child’s closest friends and their parents. I really don’t have experience in this area, so maybe some of you could give suggestions in the comments.
I hope you have benefitted from this series. I think it’s a good reminder for all of us as we need to be continually diligent about what goes into our mouths.
The Gluten Free Survival Guide is a very practical and thorough eBook which I recommend to beginners. The link to the survival guide is an affiliate link which will take you to another site.
Still Getting Gluten Part 3 – Eating Outside Your Home originally appeared on The Gluten-Free Homemaker on 04/22/2011.