Need Help Stopping When You're Full?

Eat when you're hungry. Stop when you're full. And love yourself. That was my vision for all my readers when I started this website five years ago. Pretty simple stuff, yet extraordinarily complicated for anyone who has spent time restricting food, eating emotionally or teaching themselves how NOT to listen to their bodies.

So I thought I'd share one little technique that I find useful to help me remember to stop eating when I'm full. Yes, I even need reminders sometimes too. A setting where I need some help is at one of my favorite burger joints: The Stand. Eating just half a burger usually leaves me feeling a bit hungry, and yet eating a whole burger generally leaves me feeling too full.

So when I'm really mindful while eating a meal at The Stand, I will cut my burger in half, eat the first half, and then cut the second half in half again. Doing so reminds me midway through the second half to put my fork (or burger) down and check in with my fullness signals. Unless I've arrived at the restaurant absolutely ravenous, I generally find that 3/4 of the burger is just right for me. I'm no longer hungry, yet not too full. I feel just about right.

I'm not sure why cutting the burger helps me out in this setting, but it does. Somehow it just forces me to check in with myself so I don't mindlessly eat that last 1/4 of the burger just because it's there. PLEASE NOTE: this technique is all about helping me stop eating when I'm comfortably full. It's not a diet-y mechanism (please, I hope you know that about me by now), but rather a way to help me end my meal at just the right spot.

When we were at The Stand a few weeks ago, I took this picture to show you what I left on the table at the end of the meal. It was just right, and I was so glad I cut that second half in half.

Better Candy

We took our daughter trick-or-treating this year and had a candy eating experience I just had to share. Before venturing out to the streets in our neighborhood for "real" trick-or-treating, we met a friend and her son at our local mall for indoor trick-or-treating since our kids are so young. 

Our daughter had a blast running in and out of stores collecting candy, and as soon as she got a Kit Kat, she decided that was the candy she wanted to eat.  Before leaving the mall, we let her eat the Kit Kat, after which she asked for more candy.  Unfortunately, the rest of the candy she got at the mall was hard candy that was clearly a choking hazard for a two-year-old. 

I told her, "This is yucky candy and a choking hazard, sweetie. We have better candy at home," thinking I'd give her some See's Candy we happened to have at home (that was not a choking hazard). For the entire car ride home, our daughter said, "Better candy, better candy, I want better candy." I had visions of her eating an entire box of See's Candies. When we got home, she opened the fridge, pointed at a tupperware full of pomegranate seeds and said, "Better candy, better candy."

My husband and I shared a quiet chuckle and got out the "better candy." And that's what she ate for dinner before "real" trick-or-treating in our neighborhood.

Cupcakes for Dinner? Sign Me Up.

My daughter came home from school recently with two cupcakes and a rice krispie treat. There was a bake sale at school, and daddy treated her to some goodies.  When they got home from school, our conversation went like this.

"Hi Emmy! How are you?"

"Cupcakes."

"Oh, do you have cupcakes?"

"I have cupcakes!"

"Can I have a hug?"

"Cupcakes! I eat cupcakes."

With that, she handed me the bag of baked goods and announced she was having a cupcake for dinner.

"Do you want spaghetti or broccoli?"

"Cupcakes."

I turned to my husand and said, "I'm letting her eat cupcakes for dinner." He agreed.

While Jeremy and I began eating spaghetti, meatballs and broccoli, our daughter began licking the icing off of her cupcake. She had a huge smile on her face. After a few minutes, she pointed at our broccoli and said "I want some."

"You want broccoli?"

"Yes."

We put broccoli on her plate and she proceeded to eat two+ servings of it (dipped in Ranch dressing). When she started to slow down with the broccoli, she stuck her finger in some remaining icing, licked it off and made a "yucky" face.

"What, it doesn't go well with the broccoli?" I asked.

"No," she said, and proceeded to eat a bit more broccoli.

As you can see from the picture below, my daughter never took a bite of the cupcake. She just ate some icing, which there actually wasn't very much of, given the damage done to the cupcake during its transport from school to home. And she ate broccoli. We re-filled that broccoli section at least twice until she got full.

Don't get me wrong. My kid likes cake. But on this occasion, all she wanted was the excitement of eating the frosting. I thought the entire experience was a wonderful example of what happens when you let kids eat intuitively.

Another time we were at a friend's house for dinner, and for dessert they served chocolate chip cookies. After eating one, our daughter asked for a second cookie. Due to me being in the middle of a conversation, I asked her to wait, which made her want that cookie even more. She kept asking, and kept asking until finally I got her another cookie (wondering to myself how many cookies she'd want). She was so excited to finally get her second cookie, and took a bite immediately (after looking at her cookie admiringly). Twenty minutes later I found that same cookie sitting on a side table uneaten (except for that first bite) while she was stacking blocks on the floor.

As parents, we want the best for our kids and therefore feel compelled to serve them (or demand that they eat!) the most nutritious foods. I'll admit that allowing a kid to choose what they want to eat (even if that means dessert for dinner), can feel totally wrong, especially when we're setting such clear boundaries in other areas of their lives. But I happen to be committed to raising a girl who knows how to listen to her body, too. I think the best way to do that is to support her natural inuitive eating instincts. Sometimes that means eating cake for dinner, and other times it means eating three servings of broccoli and calling it a meal.

Give Up Illusion of Perfection

I was talking to someone about Wheat Thins recently, and mentioned that I ate way too many of them one time and got a horrible stomach ache. He said, “But aren’t you supposed to be an expert in intuitive eating (i.e., not “overdo it” on things like that)?”
 
I immediately felt defensive inside until I stepped back and realized this was excellent material for a blog post.

One of my favorite treats (tin was empty by the time I thought to take a picture)Yes, I am an expert in intuitive eating given that I’m a certified intuitive eating counselor and a certified wellness coach. That doesn’t mean I’m perfect. It means that, for the most part, I am very in tune with my body and know how to respond to the hunger and fullness signals I get on a regular basis. It also means I am fairly well-versed in working with people who are not currently intuitive eaters but want to be. But – I’ll say it again – I’m not perfect.
 
I think it’s very easy for experts to fall into the illusion of perfection. Child development experts know how to communicate effectively with toddlers, so certainly they’ve never lost their patience with their own children, right? Psychotherapists know the inner workings of the human psyche so when they find themselves in emotionally turbulent situations they respond gracefully, right?  And intuitive eating counselors certainly stop eating at the perfect moment of satisfaction – not too hungry, but not too full – at every meal, right? Wrong!
 
If I’ve become an expert at one thing throughout my own journey to become an intuitive eater – and counselor – it’s been to learn how to give up the illusion of perfection.  For the most part, I do listen to my body.  I eat when I’m hungry, and I stop when I’m satisfied.  I also have come to realize how certain foods make my body feel and keep that in mind when preparing meals (or ordering them at restaurants).  That said, I’m human. 
 
As you know, the speed of my eating increased exponentially when I had my daughter because a) I was ravenous all the time, and b) there’s only so much time you have to eat when you’ve got a newborn in your lap about ready to eat again, herself (or need a diaper change).  Once my appetite evened out and I had a bit more time to enjoy my meals, I had to take a time out and re-tune in to a more mindful way of eating.
 
Similarly, when I’m stressed I’ve found that my eating changes somewhat.  Often it involves more processed foods, and yes, sometimes it means noshing on something salty that comes in a bag that, when eaten beyond a certain point, gives me a stomach-ache!  But let’s see, what other food “confessions” can I make: at Passover seder this year, I had to taste each of the desserts despite the fact that I was pleasantly full from the main meal. When my mom baked me lemon-rosemary scones a few weeks ago, I ate two of them (they were big!) after a full week-day lunch because they were so good. And she dropped them off at my office. And they were fresh. And yummy!
 
The funny thing is, I think a few un-intuitive experiences now and then are actually….entirely intuitive!  I think they are all a part of normal eating.  To splurge now and then because we want to is OK.  When my daughter is old enough to bake me chocolate chip cookies for mother’s day, you better believe I will eat one (or three) even if I’m not officially hungry for them just to show her how much I appreciate the gesture (and because they’ll likely be fresh from the oven, which you can’t recreate the next day when you’re finally hungry for said cookies).  For me, these experiences are all part of being mindful and free with food.  To be any other way makes me feel trapped and unable to listen to my body when I want to. 
 
Keep in mind that there are many a treat in the office that I turn down because I’m just not hungry for them.  There are times when my husband wants dessert and I don’t (and vice versa).  And there are times when my last meal ended at such a pleasantly satisfying moment, that I can’t ruin it with even a taste of anything until my body is ready to eat again.  I listen to my body in those instances, and on a daily basis, I’m very in tune with my hunger and fullness signals – I honor both. 
 
But, I’m not perfect.  I enjoy being not-perfect.  It’s just so much more interesting.

Intuitive Eating: Book Review

I've been putting off writing a review of Inuitive Eating because I'm afraid my words won't do justice to it at all. Because this book made such an impact on me, I want this review to be extra special. I was lucky enough to find this book right after finishing Making Peace with Food, and let me tell you, I couldn't put it down.

The first chapter of Intuitive Eating is called Hitting Diet Bottom, and hit it I did. The second chapter looks at what kind of eater you are: the careful eater, the professional dieter, the unconscious eater, an on and on. There are then sub-categories under each of these. If you've ever struggled with eating and cannot find a description of yourself on these pages, you should probably write your own book because I felt so immensely understood by these authors in their picture-perfect descriptions of me and how I chose my food at the time.

The book then takes you through the 10 principles of intuitive eating, starting with Principle 1: Reject the Diet Mentality. This principle was hugely important to me. It lays out in a very clear and compelling way, all the reasons why diets don't work and, frankly, aren't good for you. Here's just one nugget, from page 49 of the second edition:

"A thirty-two-year study of more than 3,000 men and women in the Framingham Heart Study has shown that regardless of initial weight, people whose weight repeatedly goes up and down--known as weight cycling or yo-yo dieting -- have a higher overall death rate and twice the normal risk of dying from heart disease. These results were independent of cardiovascular risk factors, and held true regardless if a person was thin or obeses. The harm from yo-yo dieting may be equal to the risks of staying obese."

Even after I'd finished the book, I often came back to this chapter after overhearing someone in an elevator at work talking about needing to "go on a diet" or "spend an extra hour at the gym" because she ate a, gasp(!), brownie. It was my salvation to come back to this book for reassurance that the non-dieting path I was on was the right one for me.

Another one of my favorite quotes from the book can be found at the beginning of chapter 12. It says:

"Accept your genetic blueprint. Just as a person with a shoe size of eight would not expect realistically to squeeze into a size six, it is equally futile (and uncomfortable) to have a similar expectation about body size. Respect your body so you can feel better about who you are. It's hard to reject the diet mentality if you are unrealistic and overly critical of your body shape."

So rational, and yet so far from the reality of so many people. We're taught that our bodies are a constant project to be poked, prodded, evaluated and dieted down to the "perfect" size and shape, which of course doesn't exist.

Elyse Resch, who I'm lucky enough to know and study under, brings a spiritual approach to the book which I found particularly comforting and inspiring. Evelyn Tribole brings an entirely different energy (and she has lots of it!) that's focused on the facts and motivating her readers to give up dieting and trust their bodies.

The one chapter that was tough for me to swallow while in the midst of healing from my eating disorder, was the one dedicated to Principle 10: Honor Your Health -- Gentle Nutrition. Because I had such a fear of fat during my unhealthiest years, this chapter was difficult for me. I had to put this chapter on the back burner for years because I needed to focus on anything but nutrition. To focus on nutrition at the end of this otherwise life-saving book, felt to me like giving an alcoholic a glass of wine on new year's. So I had to ignore it.

That said, the book is written by two nutritionists, so they had to share their wisdom about nutrition, and their advice is solid. I would just recommend skipping this chapter until you are fully recovered from your issues with food. I also know for myself that when I don't worry about nutrition, I get it. Does that make sense? When I don't worry about nutrition, I'm free to eat a burger and fries, but I'm also free to eat an entire bowl of brocolli. So I'm quite confident that all in all my body is getting a wonderful array of nutritients, vitamins and minerals. I just can't "try to be nutritious" because it screws with my head.

I could go on about this book, but I'll wrap it up here. If you had only one book to read on the subject of recovering from disordered eating, this would be the one book I'd tell you to buy. So, if you haven't already....