Category: Body Image

Dinner On My Mind

As I write this post I am waiting to meet with friends for dinner. I am taking them to one of my favorite local restaurants, one they have been wanting to try. The place is tiny, so the atmosphere will be cozy, and the open kitchen window ensures that we will feel like a part of the preparation. The food, rustic Italian fare, will look, smell, and taste delicious. Finally, the mood will be joyous, as we are celebrating their engagement.  All in all, the makings of a perfect evening.

There is only one problem: I am hungry, too hungry. So hungry, that I have been having trouble writing this post, switching from my work to rereading the restaurant’s web site and having an inner battle about whether I should have a snack before I go. Food, more specifically hunger, is taking over my thoughts. I am so hungry that when I meet my friends I will likely be distracted by my hunger, gazing at the plates of other people’s entrees as the come out of the kitchen, rather than fully listening to the story about their recent beach vacation and resulting proposal. I will likely grab a second and third helping of bread as I try to listen, becoming more impatient as I wait for my order. I will wind up eating so quickly that I will swallow my bites before I have actually tasted them. I wilI will be finished with my meal before I’ve even enjoyed it, feeling painfully full. This unwanted physical feeling will awaken upsetting psychological feelings and a potentially perfect evening in honor of my friends will be overshadowed by my own regret, guilt, and shame.

For too many people, regardless of their weight, shape or size, my scenario is all too familiar. Something happens, we feel out of control around food, and the process of eating becomes filled with negative emotions. Eating should be sensual, joyful, comforting, nourishing, delicious, but instead a plate of pasta or a piece of cheesecake turns into shame before we even swallow. What happened? In what reality should ravioli be a cause for shame?

There could be another outcome, a different scenario. I could be mindful. I could look up the menu before I go, carefully considering what I am in the mood for tonight, and getting a sense of what is on the menu that I would like to try. I could check in with my physical sensations and emotions to see if there are other feelings I am confusing with hunger, such as anxiety, bordem, fatigue or thirst and address them if possible. When we are at the restaurant, I could take a deep breath when the bread dish is placed in front of me, enjoying the aroma of fresh baked goods, choose a piece, and chew it slowly while I listen to my friends. When my meal arrives, before relying only on taste, I could engage my senses of sight and smell, appreciating the presentation, the way the food was artfully and carefully arranged on the plate, as well as the aromas, both thoughtfully considered when creating this meal.  I could savor each bite, observing details often over looked while eating, such as texture and temperature, and think about how the food makes me feel, physically and emotionally. I could pause between each bite, asking myself if I want to experience the taste again, and before continuing, notice if I still feel hungry. Without discomfort and the resulting guilt or shame, the food can simply be pleasurable and the experience can be go back to being the joyous celebration we intended it to be.

I know, the second scenario sounds too good to be true, too perfect, inaccessible. But it doesn’t have to be. This fall I has the opportunity to attend week long seminar which taught mindfulness based meditation practices, how to integrate them with eating and food, and how to share these techniques with clients both in group and individual therapy settings. Mindfulness Based Eating Awareness Training, or MB-EAT, created by Jean Kristeller, PhD, provided me with a new approach to working with clients who want to change their relationship to food, particularly those struggling with Binge Eating Disorder or compulsive and emotional overeating. Many people are initially intimidated by the idea of meditation, believe that they are too impatient, imagine they will be forced to sit cross legged for hours chanting, or worry they will have to adopt a dogma they do not believe in. But mindful eating is not that complicated.  Mindful eating can be as simple as taking a minute to decide what you would like off of the menu, taking five deep breaths before digging in to your meal, smelling the food before tasting it, or simply asking yourself, “Am I still hungry?”

Earlier this month I was excited to see an article by Jeff Gordinier in The New York Times, featuring mindful eating (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/dining/mindful-eating-as-food-for-thought.html?_r=1&ref=health). It’s a wonderful, straightforward article, providing a nice introduction to the topic. If you’re still curious after that, The Center for Mindful Eating (tcme.org) is a wonderful resource for both clients and professionals. Mindful eating techniques have made my clinical work more robust and I am always looking for ways to share them with clients.

Resolution Reality Check

As the first month of the new year draws to an end, I have been reflecting on resolutions. For many, New Year’s is a time to make resolutions, start fresh, eliminate a “bad” behavior, or lay the foundation for a major change. I have written about this idea a number of times, because I believe that at its core, psychotherapy is about making change. Healing from a trauma or loss, managing anger, improving communication with your partner, or advocating for yourself at work all require change, commitment and, of course, resolve. On this blog I have written about the importance of decreasing obsessions and their power over us, reviewed motivational tools, encouraged risk taking and even recommended reevaluating an over-scheduled life. I have repeatedly advocated for change. However, I did not do it at the New Year, and that was intentional.

I stay out of the New Year’s Resolution melee because usually it is focused on losing weight or dieting, and too often that focus feels like punishment or judgement on how we behaved in the holiday season. While less than a week or even a day ago, the media was encouraging us to spend, eat, and drink indulgently, on January first, the very same outlets begin selling us ways to undo or correct everything they just promoted.  This mixed message is not only frustrating, it can be crazy-making, depressing, and rooted in shame.

I am in support of making healthy changes, but not when they come from a place of self-loathing. No matter how out of control, unhealthy, or unhappy you feel about your weight, body, or current eating habits, you won’t be able to change them if you hate yourself. Positive, long-lasting change comes from a nurturing and compassionate place. After a month of reflection and as we head into February, which is National Eating Disorders Awareness Month, I think the best resolution is to work towards loving yourself and viewing yourself with respect. When that happens the changes will follow. As the famous, humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers explains, “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” 

Making Room

At the end of September I had the opportunity to attend a week-long seminar on mindful eating at a yoga facility in the Berkshires. The seminar was personally and professionally transformative, the setting was beautiful, and I plan to share and reflect on the experience repeatedly in this blog. The highlight of the experience was the interaction with other dedicated professionals in the mental health, nutrition, eating disorders, meditation and medical fields. It can be rejuvenating and inspiring to hear others talk about your field, from the practicalities of how they run their business to the philosophies that keep them excited about the work.

While in the gift shop/book store on one of the last evenings, a therapist I spent a good part of the week with was, at my request, making recommendations for my further reading, by pulling books related to eating disorders, mindfulness based mediation and psychology off the shelves and handing them to me. I’ve always been a sucker for books, so I walked out of the shop with a large pile. One of the books I purchased was When Food is Love by Geneen Roth and because my friend had gasped with delight, held the book to her chest before handing it to me and saying, “I loved this one,” I started reading it right away on the bus back to Boston and finished it in less than a day.

Roth has written a number of books on compulsive eating and women’s relationship with food, She made a name for herself with her book Breaking Free from Emotional Eating and its accompanying workshops. Roth writes from a personal, spiritual and reflective perspective, and helps readers explore their relationship with food on a much deeper level than weight or body image. Whether you have compulsive eating behaviors, bulimia, or have been on a diet, Roth’s books are worth reading. Roth captured me very early in When Food is Love:

“As I began spinning a world in which there were only two players, food and me, my capacity to be affected by other people diminished greatly…As long as my attention was consumed by what I ate…and what my life would be like when I finally lost the weight, I could not be deeply hurt by another person…When I did feel rejected by someone, I reasoned that she or he was rejecting my body, not me, and that when I got thin, things would be different.”

I cannot count how often the sentiment comes through in my work with women, and not just those with eating disorders. Life becomes about being on a diet. Identity is “Dieting.” Things like going to the beach, getting a message, having sex with the lights on are put off for “When I lose weight,” as if those activities are only reserved for women of a certain size and the only activity you are currently allowed is “dieting.” This world becomes very specific and very small.

Having an obsession, in this case food, shelters you from the truth.  The truth could be a trauma history, an unhealthy relationship, an unspoken fear, anything. But instead this very important thing gets played out as being unhappy with what you eat, how much you weigh, and dieting becomes the distraction. Diets keep us focused outside of ourselves, allow us to ignore bigger questions about our values, what we believe in, how we make meaning in our life, the kind of woman we want to be, how we will connect intimately.

“It is not possible to be obsessed with food or anything else and to be truly intimate with ourselves or another human being; there is simply not enough room.”

Not enough room…

If you talk with someone diagnosed with anorexia or bulimia about how much time they think about food, the answer is usually, “All the time,” or “I don’t think about anything else.” When a client tells me this, I ask them to imagine what it would be like if they had all that time back, how much they could do with that space, and where they would transfer all that attention and energy. For some this idea is liberating, others terrifying. For a small group of clients I’ve asked, this question is ridiculous. They are so stuck in their current obsessive state that they can’t even imagine this possibility. Their world has become too small and there is not enough room for anything else, even fantasies.

For the rest of us, though, we can acknowledge that an unhealthy relationship with food, hating our bodies and an obsession with dieting are taking up too much space. We can make more room. What would you do if you had more room? I’m not talking about more time in your day to add in another chore, nap, phone call to your grandmother, or any other “should” you think ought to do. I’m talking about more room in your heart, head, emotions. Would you be more creative? More energetic? More successful? More fun? More interesting? Would you feel more love or gratitude? Would you find it easier to forgive? Would you finally be at peace with yourself? Would you be able to let someone in, allow yourself a closeness with someone else deeper than anything you’ve ever had?

Imagine the possibilities.