avoid the forbidden fruit, or candy, or cookies...

Well, well, well… my wedding ring and my watch are getting looser – or rather my fingers and wrist are getting smaller. And it’s not like I have been eating perfectly, or dieting, or getting a lot of exercise, because I most definitely have not!

First of all, my son missed out on trick-or-treating on Halloween night because he has the flu. And then I caught it. And we have been in bed for the last 5 days. So there has not been much exercising around here.

Secondly, there was the Halloween candy. My kids have candy “preferences”, and I am the lucky recipient of the candy they don’t like: Reese’s peanut butter cups, Reese’s pieces, Oh Henry bars, caramels, etc. And believe me, I have been eating it! By the way, the reason Mitchell had candy, even though he was sick, was because his twin sister generously carried an extra bag and begged neighbours to also fill up his bag! And then there was the candy we had purchased to hand out to the trick-or-treaters. Mike did the shopping and brought home Rockets and Twizzlers, which I like, but I did not eat them – well, not all of them, and certainly not enough of them that we needed to go out and buy more!

And thirdly, there were the chocolate mint Girl Guide cookies (the traditional chocolate and vanilla are in the spring). My daughter is a Brownie and they sell cookies to raise money so that they can go on outings and go to camp in the spring, especially for those girls whose families may not be able cover the expenses. Well, the last two years we have just written a big cheque when it was time to hand in the proceeds of the cookie sales, because they were not sold door-to-door – I had eaten them all! I could easily sit down and eat a whole box of Girl Guide cookies, and the next day eat another, and then another, until the entire carton had been consumed. It’s kind of an expensive habit, at $4 a box, especially when I don’t really like the mint ones! But it’s for a good cause, isn’t it?

This year was different. When the carton came home it sat in our kitchen for a week, unopened. And I was really proud of myself for not opening it. Then I did open it … and had a box. And I was not feeling quite so proud of myself. And then I had another, and was feeling guilty. I didn’t have one every day. But still, when I did, I ate a whole box at one sitting – or rather at one “lying” (i.e. usually lying down reading a book). Then, when I couldn’t stand being mad at myself, I put the carton out in the sun porch so I wouldn’t see it and be tempted. But I still braved the cold of the cement floor in the sun porch to pull out the odd box. It seemed that telling myself I could not have them, and trying to use “will power” to stay away from them, just made them more desirable. You’d think that lesson of the forbidden fruit would have sunk in by now; why Ellyn Satter says restriction leads to dis-inhibition.

So why are my ring and my watch looser? What’s different this year? Well… despite having more candy and cookies than I need, I have been practicing the strategy of saying to myself: “I can have some. I can have as much as I want, whenever I want. It will still be there later, today or tomorrow, if I want some.” This seems to immediately make me feel more relaxed; there is no anticipation of restriction, deprivation, or starvation. No more of the “I might as well finish off this box, because I won’t be havin’ cookies once I start my diet tomorrow,… on Monday, … next week…” You get the idea.

Ellyn Satter says “Normal eating is… leaving some cookies on the plate because you know you can have some again tomorrow, or it is eating more now because they taste so wonderful.” So my approach is as follows. Food is plentiful. Food is something to be enjoyed. Food is something that we share. And food is something for which we are grateful, not guilty. It appears that this small shift in thinking can have a big impact on the girth of my fingers and wrist, and hopefully…, eventually…, on the girth of my waist.

TV, couch, eating - bad combo

I have not posted anything since the end of June, which coincidentally is when school gets out. Ah… coincidence? I think not. What does that say about my priorities, and how well I am taking care of myself? Clearly, when the kids are home with me, on their summer vacation, it is difficult to blog – or is it be a blogger? do blogging? Spell-check doesn’t like those words, by the way.

And of course in September there are all the transitions to new classrooms, teachers, and routines, buying school supplies, indoor shoes and outdoor shoes, registering for gymnastics or drum lessons, putting away summer clothes (and “outgrown” clothes), searching for the bin of “next size” clothes and winter clothes, volunteering with the school, and, last-but-not-least, my work – training, researching, writing, and prepping for the course I teach at the college: two sections, 62 students.

So, despite all of the above, it is the middle of October and the bingeing has stopped. I just don’t do it any more. Don’t reach for a bag of cookies, chips and dip, or a bowl of ice cream. What happened between June and October?

Well, there are a few things.

Even though we no longer have hot summer weather (we had a hint of snow today!), I still often have an ice cream cone for desert. It’s nice to cleanse the palate and savour the flavour.

I have gotten back to writing in my gratitude journal.

My son is finally happy to go to school and the stress-levels around our house have plummeted.

But probably the most significant thing I have done in the last 3 months is to stop watching TV. There are just not any shows running in the summer that I want to watch. So I got out of the habit. The habit I had was to plop myself down on the couch every evening, in front of the TV, thinking to myself “The kids are finally in bed, bedtime can be so stressful, I am so tired, I need to relax… what will I eat?” So I would eat without any conscious awareness of what I was eating or how much. But, and that is a big but (not butt), while we were on vacation for three weeks in Nova Scotia we did not watch TV. There was a television at my in-laws cottage, but there were no channels, no cable. The kids watched DVD’s, not TV programs. So, once the kids were in bed, we would sit around. And we would talk. My husband, myself, my in-laws, and when we were lucky, the aunts and uncles or other visitors. We would visit, connect, converse, laugh – what a concept! Or on more quiet nights we would just sit around and read. And it felt good. And natural.

Eating, without bingeing, without restrictions, and with joy – that is “normal” eating. With normal eating I hope to get to my “natural” weight. And make the time to blog about it!

I scream... You scream...

It’s been a few weeks, a rough few weeks. I have been feeling depressed and having to work on changing my negative self-talk. And now to top if off, I am fighting a cold, and I have a sore throat. And I want ice cream. You betcha. I scream, you scream, I always scream for ice cream – it is one of my binge foods. I am sure there are reasons that this is a comfort food for me. Let’s see.

My father didn’t do much with us when I was a child, but he did join us when we went out for dinner as a family, which I think we did quite often. We always had to go to a restaurant that had cheeseburgers on the menu, because my brother, who is three years younger than me, would only, ever have a cheeseburger, whether we were in a restaurant that served Italian, Chinese, or… I can’t think of what other kind of restaurant there was in Halifax in the 60’s and 70’s. Of course he now has the most diverse diet of anyone I know. And I mean the what-food-you-intake kind of diet, not the “Oh, my God, I have to lose weight!” kind of diet. He has been an on-and-off-again vegetarian for years and eats foods from every culture now (far more variety in Montreal now, than in Halifax then). I always relate this to parents when they feel like their child will only, ever eat grilled cheese sandwiches, plain pasta, or, well, cheeseburgers. Kids, like my brother, DO grow up with respect to food. They just don’t do it on their parents’ schedule.

When our family went to a restaurant I would always get an ice cream sundae, in one of those little footed glass bowls – vanilla ice cream, chocolate syrup, and whip cream, but no cherry on top. When we went for swimming lessons, every Sunday, at the Community College where my mother worked, we would always stop at Dairy Queen on the way home. I would always have a peanut buster parfait – made with chocolate sauce though, not hot-fudge (I didn’t like the ice cream melting so quickly, or how the hot-fudge sauce thickened as it cooled). Whenever I came home from university, my Dad would pick me up at the train station, and we always stopped at the ice cream shop for a huge chocolate sundae before heading home. I’m seeing a trend here.

When I was growing up we had a “housekeeper” we called Chad (a nickname, shortened from her last name). I’m not sure why my parents called her “the housekeeper” when she was clearly supposed to be a nanny, or a care-giver as they are called today. Maybe they felt we would sound too rich, or British, if we had a “nanny.” My mother worked full-time as a teacher, volunteered at the church, grew vegetables in the garden, sewed her own clothes, and much of mine, knitted our mittens, red seven mystery novels a week, and was always taking university courses, out of interest, or to upgrade her teachers’ license. She, if anyone, needed to hire a nanny!

And yet it seemed like Chad felt the priority for her job was, not to care for the children, but to "keep" the house: make the beds, clean the floors, hang out the laundry (we use clotheslines in the Maritimes), bring in the laundry (before the fog rolls in, another Maritime issue), and get dinner started on the stove - all before my mother got home. Chad only stopped long enough for a “cuppa” in the afternoon (tea, that it) – she was very Scottish, from “the old country.” Maybe she was the one that felt it would sound too highfalutin’ to say she was a “nanny”.

I never had my tonsils out. But I wanted to get them taken out. Because I always heard about the fact that after the surgery your throat is so sore that they actually give you ice cream in the hospital! Maybe it’s not so surprising that now, when I have a sore throat, as an adult (well, almost an adult), I associate being loved, cared for, and waited on, with ice cream. The one thing that I want, that feels good to my throat, and makes me feel safe and cared for, is a bowl of ice cream … or two bowls… or three bowls – preferably with chocolate sauce, whip cream optional.

When I think back and picture myself staying home from school when I was sick, I am lying on the couch, with only the television to keep me company. Not really alone, exactly. We had an antique hand bell, and if I needed something I was to ring that bell. I told this to a friend of mine when I was in university and she told me how her mother would make up a special tray, so she could have breakfast in bed – or lunch. She would fluff her pillows and tuck her in. Then they would read together or play games – and she felt very loved and cared for. Her mom was a stay-at-home-Mom, and, as luck would have it, also a nurse.

Years later when I talked to my mother about this, she couldn’t remember me ever being sick and staying home from school, and was sure that if I had, it could only have been a few times. But of course she may not remember because she didn’t have to stay home herself… because she had a housekeeper. And of course my father was “around” – caught up in his own stuff, not attending to me or anyone else – but somewhere in the building. It was very upsetting for my mom to learn, years later, that I did not feel cared for in my own home, especially when I was sick. She sure did not care if the beds were made, or the floors swept. Taking care of my brother and I was supposed to be the priority. So, surprise, surprise, when I am sick, I desperately want to be taken care of. And if I take care of myself, I do it with ice cream. And then I beat myself up.

When my brother and his family were here for the weekend, my sister-in-law bought a box of ice cream cones. I had never before purchased ice cream cones and brought them into my home! I'm not sure why not. But we have been eating them ever since. They are, as Martha would say, a “good thing.” They are fun. And the kids love them – all the kids in the neighbourhood. Although my kids often use a spoon to scoop out the ice cream and throw away the cone itself. I know, it makes me shake my head too. But, “Whatever!” as my saucy seven-year-old son would say!

It feels like normal and natural eating to sit on the steps and lick an ice cream cone. It feels like summer. And I feel like a kid again, actually enjoying ice cream. I discovered that when you put a scoop of ice cream on a cone, and lick it – not so fast that you get brain-freeze, but not so slow that it will start dripping – you can really savour the flavour, enjoy the texture, feel the coldness, and be satisfied. With one scoop! Which is, according to Canada’s Food Guide, a “serving” of ice cream – about the size of a tennis ball. Just the right size to sit on top of an ice cream cone – regular or sugar cone?

I'm gonna stop "should-ing" all over myself

My brother and his wife and son visited us this weekend from Montreal – the first time in a very long time. In preparation for their visit, we swept the patio, and we cleaned the lawn furniture and patio table and chairs. We had purchased a new barbeque and so we christened it on Saturday night and had our first meal outside alfresco. I made a broccoli salad – a very tasty mix of red onion, raisins, sunflower seeds, feta cheese, and a dressing of yoghurt and mayo, with a touch of lemon - oh yeah, and broccoli. My husband roasted asparagus with Parmesan cheese and cooked a flavoured wild rice mix. He seasoned the tenderloin steak and it was, well, tender – and delicious. It was so good that I had a second helping of the salad and an extra little piece of steak. We celebrated my nephew’s birthday, very late, and had store-bought cake and ice cream. And I had two helpings. And I have been chastising myself every since.

But isn’t that normal eating, “… being able to choose food you like and eat it and truly get enough of it – not just stop eating because you think you should,” and sometimes, “… eating more now because they taste so wonderful.” (Satter)

It is so hard to quiet that voice in my head that tells me what I “should” or “should not” eat. “You shouldn’t have a chocolate bar; you are trying to lose weight.” “You shouldn’t eat that, it is full of sugar.” “You should cook spinach and beet greens.” Whose voice is that? And where did it come from?

I would not say these things to my children because I want them to believe that all food is food, some foods are just more nutritious than others. With children they will eat something if they like it, and they won’t eat it if they don’t like it. As parents we choose what food comes into the house, when we eat, and where (in our house, it’s in the kitchen or sitting down at the dining room table). Sometimes we can convince our children to try new things on the menu, but they still get to choose the how much and whether and I can’t force them to. If they are not ready to taste something, they can grow it, prepare it, look at it, smell it, or talk about it. If they are ready to try it, they can always taste it but not swallow it (we have the “paper napkin rule” – please spit it out into a napkin, and not back on your plate!). But if they don’t like it, they are not going to eat it, even if it is "good for them"!

Ironically, I realize there are many foods that my husband or I say we “don’t like” and we’ve never even tried them. If we are going to convince the kids to be more adventurous and “grow-up” with respect to food, then we ought to do the same. We decided we would start going to the market and all of us would try new foods, like fiddleheads, or pomegranate – or cooked spinach and beet greens.

Because I taught our children that we are not short-order cooks and we don’t prepare separate meals for those who don’t like what’s on the menu, they know they can choose from what’s on the table, and decide if and how much they want to eat. One day when I let myself slip into my old ways, trying to convince my daughter to try something, she shot back at me “Mommy, it’s MY body and I decide what goes in it!” And she’s right – I was crossing the line of the division of responsibility. And I realized it is a good philosophy – for when she is a teenager and her friends want her to try some drugs, I want her to be able to say “It’s MY body and I decide what goes in it!” When her high school boyfriend is pressuring her, I will be reassured when she says, “It’s MY body and I decide what goes in it!”

I know that when children and parents struggle over food and feeding, children lose track of their internal regulators and make mistakes in the amount they eat. As Satter suggests, “Children must be allowed to rely on their internal regulation or they will lose the ability to be tuned in, and they will be forced to rely on outside sources of regulation instead.” This is when they are susceptible to those external voices – what their friends say, what the magazines say, what the music videos say, what the diet and fitness industry says. And in the extreme, these struggles can lead to eating disorders, as they did in my case.

According to Ellyn Satter, the secret of feeding a healthy family is to:

1. love good food
2. trust yourself and
3. teach your children to do the same

I am teaching this to my children but I am not setting the example of trusting myself. I have lost track of my internal regulators and I don’t know when I am hungry or when I am full. For now I need to “normalize” my food intake, with the goal of having those signals return, so I can come to trust myself. I need to trust the wisdom of my body to know when it is hungry, to know what I have an appetite for, and to know when I am satisfied. That is the voice I need to tune in to.

The other voice – the one that’s telling me all the “shoulds” – is like a parent’s voice talking to a child in trouble: warning, threatening, and scolding. And sometimes I respond with the voice of the rebellious child – “Oh, Yeah! I am going to eat cookies, and I’m going to eat the whole bag. And you can’t stop me!” (I am good at knowing what this voice might say because I have 7-year-old twins who frequently argue with their parents.) But being rebellious does not mean that my behaviour is a good choice. Instead of talking to myself parent-to-child, I need to talk to myself adult-to-adult – and with love and compassion. I will stop listening to all those negative voices in my head. No more self-sacrificing, or self-flagellating. It’s time to stop “should-ing” all over myself.

Any time is brownie time!

Things are looking up this week. I tried on my spring and summer clothes a few weeks ago and discovered that most of them did not fit! I did go and purchase some Capri pants in my current size, so I had something to wear. But after three weeks of no binging, eating consciously, and getting 2-3 episodes of 10-minutes of low-intensity walking almost every day, I can now zip up my favourite shorts. Yippee!

This past weekend was a long weekend and we had lots of fun with the kids. We were not at home much so we ate a lot of take-out. Pizza for dinner on Friday, MacDonald’s for lunch on Saturday, and so on. But that’s OK, because food is food. I ate. I enjoyed. I did not overeat or binge. And I didn’t beat myself up. As Ellyn Satter recommends, I will trust my body to “make up for these mistakes in eating” – although maybe calling them “mistakes” is not the best term to use since it conjures up guilt for me.

Some foods are more nutritious, they contain more fibre, they are richer in vitamins and phytochemicals, they provide important minerals, they have protein for building and maintaining our bodies, and carbohydrates for energy and brain fuel – but they are not “good” or “bad.” They are just food. Take-out, fast-food, whatever you call it, it is food, and it can be convenient and enjoyable, if not the most nutritious.

On Victoria Day Monday we took our son and daughter, and three other girls, to the Tulip Festival for “circus school” and, to our surprise, midway rides. Carnival fare was consumed at various points throughout the day: cotton candy, candy apples, popsicles, popcorn, hotdogs, and – only at carnivals in Ottawa – Beavertails (No Tallie, they are not real beavers’ tails, I was just pulling-your-leg). I managed to eat when I needed to, and kept my energy up for 6 hours of hangin’ with the kids. I drank lots of water and had a hotdog for lunch. And later in the afternoon, when I could tell that I needed more fuel for both my brain (to keep track of five kids under nine), and my body (to endure standing in one line after another), I had an ice cream drumstick – and it was gooooood. It was a Crispy Crunch drumstick (which just happens to be one of my favourite varieties of chocolate bars), so it had that peanut flavour, combined with chocolate, and ice cream, and it was cold, and it felt gooooood to enjoy. And then we came home for pizza, yet again; but this time, homemade.

Last night my husband and kids were dropping me off at the college where I teach an evening course and because we were running late they were heading to McDonald’s for grill cheese and the Play Structure. I surprised myself when I actually decided I did not want to feel that heavy greasy food in my stomach while I was teaching and I opted for a toasted cinnamon-raisin bagel with margarine, and apples slices with slices of cheddar cheese. When I got home I was hungry and had a glass of juice and a bowl of party mix. But there was a very large bag of two-bite brownies in the cupboard, purchased two days ago, and it wasn’t calling to me. I am telling myself: I can have them if I want them. They are there if I want them. There will be more tomorrow if I want them.

A few years ago my aunt from California came to visit. We offered sherbet with two-bite brownies for dessert – brownies piled on a plate, and brought to the dining room table by our then 4-year-old twins. My aunt asked me how many brownies I was going to let the kids have. I said “Wait and see.” Each of the kids had one brownie, not necessarily in two-bites, and then a second brownie. And in the middle of the second brownie they both put their brownies down on their plates and asked to be excused, they wanted to go play. They each left half a two-bite brownie on their plate! I doubt that I have ever left half a brownie on a plate, or in the bag, whether it’s two-bites or ten, until this week.

Why can my kids do this? Because we follow Ellyn Satter’s Division of Responsibility: the parent is responsible for the what, when, and where of feeding, and the child is responsible for the how much and whether of eating. That means trusting children to decide how much and whether to eat. Children need to know that they can come to the table hungry, eat what they want and how much they want, eat until they are satisfied, and then stop. They will find a stopping point. They also need to know that there will be another meal or snack in a few hours. Brownies are just food, a particularly enjoyable food, but still just food. They are not forbidden, given as rewards, or earned by eating some other yucky thing like spinach. There will be brownies again, if not today, another day. So I am learning to do for myself what I do for my children. "Forbidden" foods like brownies will not be so enticing when I know I can have them anytime.

It's a pleasure to eat you.

So what is “normal” eating? Well, the dieticians and therapists that work with people with eating disorders are no longer using the term “healthy eating” because that has been turned into eating that is low-fat, low-cholesterol, high protein, low carbs, etc – in other words dieting. And then the things that are “unhealthy” are “bad.” Once we get into thinking “good” vs. “bad” it leads to trouble. When food is something we avoid, it becomes deprivation and restriction. When we do “indulge” we feel guilty. When we say it is “bad” it becomes desirable. We feel we have to eat something “good” to EARN the permission to have the “bad” – often in the form of dessert.

Why can I not remember the spelling of this word – “dessert”? Do I really think it is the “desert” – a dry arid and barren land that does not support much life, defined by a lack of (water, life, soil)? Hmmm.

Food is food. It is not “good” or “bad” except in terms of taste, flavour, or past-its-expiration-date. Eating is not a moral issue (except for those who make food choices based on their religious beliefs). You are not a better person when you eat well, and less deserving when you do not. People will often say “I was really bad this weekend” meaning that they ate more then they “should” have or ate the wrong things. Then they have to start their diet all over again on Monday. But since you are going to start on Monday maybe you should get your fill of the “good” stuff before the diet starts (good as in taste, bad as in naughty – so confusing). Because we think eating is all-or-nothing (either good or bad), when we are trying to be “good” we can’t eat the “bad” foods that taste so good! If you are going to have to deprive yourself once you are back on the diet, then you should have lots of your favourite binge food, because after Monday morning it is off-limits.

I was disturbed last year when my daughter had a lesson in grade one about Canada’s Food Guide and came home with the information that we should be “careful” with eating fat, especially since I had taught her that fat helps our brains and nervous system develop, gives us energy, and makes food taste good. The previous food guide had a category for “other foods” which included sweets, oils, etc., and the recommendation was that we should limit these foods. The new food guide does not have that category although it does recommend limiting foods and beverages high in fat, sugar and sodium (and lists examples of those tasty treats). And it actually recommends getting unsaturated fats and oils in the diet. This year at school I also saw a display with one board showing pictures of “healthy” foods and another of “unhealthy” foods – pretty clear for a child which is “good” and which is “bad.” This out-dated thinking creates the fear of fat that has led to so many problems in our food- and weight-preoccupied culture. Children need to learn that all food is OK, although some may have more nutrients than others, they all fit into normal eating.

Food is food. It is fuel for our muscles, and brains, and hearts, and skin – but it is not just fuel. It can be medicine – fighting the damage from free radicals, keeping our bones strong, repairing our blood vessels, removing waste from our bodies, and managing our mood by keeping our brain and nervous system healthy. It can be social – something that brings us together, something that expresses our ethnic culture, something we enjoy with friends and family, something we share, to entertain and celebrate. It can be joyful - something we plan and prepare, for the pleasure of being creative and expressive, something to nurture ourselves and our families, something to be enjoyed for its flavour, texture, smell, colour, and satisfaction. As the Korean proverb says “Eating is heaven.”

When I was in treatment for my eating disorder one of our homework assignments was to describe a food. I chose peanut butter, which I eat almost everyday and have for as long as I can remember. But I couldn’t describe it – I was stuck. I said to Mike “How do I describe peanut butter?” So he proceeded to say “It’s smooth or crunchy, a little oily, thick, and sticky…” I think my jaw must have dropped because I was so amazed that someone could do that – I didn’t realize that people did that! My eating was all about thoughts and emotions, obsessing about what I should not eat, planning what I would eat, feeling guilty about what I did eat. And then calculating how much exercise I would need to “work it off.” But it was NOT about tasting or experiencing or enjoying. It wasn’t “normal” eating.

To find out about normal eating we will quote the expert on the question. Ellyn Satter is a dietician and psychotherapist who has worked in the treatment of eating disorders and first coined the phrase “division of responsibility” focusing on feeding dynamics with children. Her website is a wealth of information for parents, in terms of how to feed, and for adults, in terms of how to eat. One of my favourite things is her term “treating the dieting casualty” which describes A LOT of people, especially women.

So we return to the question: what is “normal” eating? Well it is certainly NOT the norm, but it is the correct, the natural, the intuitive, way to eat. Following this approach to eating and weight management gets you to the point where, as Ellyn Satter puts it, “eating will take its natural place of being one of life's great pleasures.”

What is Normal Eating?

Normal eating is going to the table hungry and eating until you are satisfied. It is being able to choose food you like and eat it and truly get enough of it – not just stop eating because you think you should. Normal eating is being able to give some thought to your food selection so you get nutritious food, but not being so wary and restrictive that you miss out on enjoyable food. Normal eating is giving yourself permission to eat sometimes because you are happy, sad or bored, or just because it feels good. Normal eating is mostly three meals a day, or four or five, or it can be choosing to munch along the way. It is leaving some cookies on the plate because you know you can have some again tomorrow, or it is eating more now because they taste so wonderful. Normal eating is overeating at times, feeling stuffed and uncomfortable. And it can be undereating at times and wishing you had more. Normal eating is trusting your body to make up for your mistakes in eating. Normal eating takes up some of your time and attention, but keeps its place as only one important area of your life.

In short, normal eating is flexible. It varies in response to your hunger, your schedule, your proximity to food and your feelings.

Copyright © 2009 by Ellyn Satter. Published at www.EllynSatter.com. For more on eating competently (and for research backing up this advice), see Ellyn Satter’s Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family: How to Eat, How to Raise Good Eaters, How to Cook, Kelcy Press, 2008. Also see http://www.ellynsatter.com/commerce/catalog.jsp to purchase books and to review other resources (Reprinted in its entirety as requested)

I can't get no satisfaction.

Why is it that I can consume such large quantities of food some times? It seems that I have lost the cues from my body which tell me when I am full. This is especially true when I am eating mindlessly – while reading, watching TV, on the run, in the car, or while on the computer (not a great idea by the way, due to crumbs in the keyboard and occasional spillage!).

On the weekend we decided to watch a movie after the kids were in bed. When Mike went out to rent the movie I asked if he could bring me back just one chocolate bar. Knowing that I would want to eat something during the show, I figured that would fulfil my craving but not be a huge caloric consumption. But he also bought a bag of Twizzlers, presumably for himself. And between the two of us we ate the whole bag. Sigh.

Have you ever read the “nutritional panel” on Twizzlers? Seems funny to call it the “nutritional panel” when there is clearly not much “nutrition.” Well, it doesn’t contain much except carbohydrates in the form of sugar (don’t get me started on the ridiculous trend to avoid carbs in any form). And who would have guessed that they contain over 200 grams of salt! Of course that is for the recommended serving size of 4 Twizzlers. Four Twizzlers! Can anyone sit down and only eat four? Well, maybe I could if I just sat down, and paid attention to eating them. Do they even taste good when you pay attention to what you are eating? I’ll have to give that a try.

I need to remember that over-eating is a normal response to under-eating. In the “starvation study” the men lost control of their appetites and couldn’t find a point of satiation – some “ate more or less continuously.” After 5 months of “re-feeding”, the majority returned to their normal eating patterns, and after 8 months most had, although some continued to eat more than they had before the experiment began.

So many people that I know, and have worked with, especially women, are in a constant state of “semi-starvation” as they diet. There is a lot of evidence that habitual dieters have the same “overcompensation” in eating behavior as the men in the study, and people with eating disorders. Ellyn Sater refers to this as “dis-inhibition” – we lose our inhibitions with respect to food. And our internal regulators are not helping us control our eating.

I also see this in children who are overweight and obese. Because the doctors have told the parents that their overweight child needs to lose weight, or the parents themselves are concerned, the parents start controlling and restricting their child’s food intake. With the result that whenever these children have access to unlimited amounts of food (like a birthday party, buffet, etc.) they gorge themselves and can’t seem to stop. Some parents I have worked with have had their child tested for Prader-Willi disease, a condition where children can’t stop themselves from eating. This is a rare condition, and they inevitably find out that this is not the explanation for their child’s behaviour. The explanation lies in the body’s lack of trust that it will get fed. The parent needs to get-it-together and feed their child in a predictable fashion. The bodies of cave-men children must have been the same: “Hey, we finally have food so I better eat while the eatin’s good! Never know when our next meal will be!”

So the plan is to get-it-together and feed myself in a predictable fashion and re-teach my body to trust that I will feed it on a regular basis. To do this requires eating at appropriate intervals (even if I am not getting the signal for hunger), eating reasonable portion sizes (even if I don’t feel satisfied at the end), and knowing that it can take months of this “normalized” food intake to re-establish those internal regulators. And then I need to trust that eventually my body will tell me when it is hungry and when it is satisfied – not full, not stuffed, but satisfied.

How much have we evolved from the cave-men days?

One of my biggest challenges is to try not to binge in the evenings, especially if I am watching TV. It's that mindless eating where you get to the bottom and think "Oh my God, did I eat the whole bag?!!" I should probably not call it a "binge" because I had an eating disorder in the past, where my bingeing was out of control and it did not feel possible to NOT binge - it ruled my life.

When I first realized I needed to get professional help with my eating was many years ago when I was in my twenties and working in an office. I was taking the bus home from work one day and all I could think about was what was waiting for me at home: the last row of cookies remaining in the bag. When I got home I discovered that my boyfriend had eaten them - all of them! I went ballistic! I was so mad at him! Yet at the same time I realized "It is not normal to get this upset about leftover cookies!" I did forgive him by the way - and got a husband in the bargain. But I also went out and got me a therapist - and went to an eating disorder clinic.

One of the many important things I learned from the eating disorder clinic is the need to "normalize" food intake. We always spend so much time beating ourselves up when we over-eat, wishing we had the willpower to NOT binge. But what we don't realize is that it is not about willpower, it is about physiology. When we don't eat enough, or we don't eat regularly and frequently enough, our body sends very strong signals to get us to eat - and this is what is hard to ignore or resist.

Back in the 50's they (Keys et all) did an experiment on a group of men in an isolated situation - they had them on a semi-starvation diet (a diet of 1200 calories is semi-starvation for a man or a woman). Of course, as they expected, the men lost significant amounts of weight. What they didn't expect was that these men would get the drive to eat! They started reading cookbooks, sharing recipes, talking about and generally obsessing over food. Now this is not a behaviour we typically associate with men. But we know lots of women like this!

The reality is that we have not evolved much from the cave-man days, at least physiologically (or psychologically for some). So in the cave-man days, if there was a famine, the men would be given a signal from their bodies and brains telling them to go hunting - sabre tooth tigers, mastodons, whatever they could find. In the lab experiment, the men couldn't go hunting (or grocery shopping) so they found other means to fulfil their drive to "find food!" Like many women who are chronic dieters, restrictive eaters, or just "watching their weight", this obsession with food is physiologically driven. Many of us who feel cravings and urges to overeat, are getting this same signal, this physiological drive to eat - because we are not eating enough!

In case you wonder what happens to the cave-men women, while their men are out trying to "bring home the bacon"? Well they, of course, stay home and look after the kiddies, maybe pick some berries, and literally "keep the home-fires burning" - waiting for their he-men to return with the kill. But they also undergo physiological changes, mostly from a reproductive point of view. If they were to become pregnant during a famine, they may not have enough food available for them to support a growing fetus, or breastfeed a baby after delivery. So their body says "let's just stop this whole reproductive thing until we get some regular meals!" Which of course translates into putting the kibosh to menstruation AND the drive to reproduce. Whether they have snagged a prehistoric animal or not, their hubbies may not get as enthusiastic a welcome home as they might expect.

And what happened to those dieting (starving) men? When the experiment was over - they binged! Oh, boy did they binge. As their prehistoric relatives would do. Once that carcass is brought back to the cave, there would be a feast - i.e. an eating binge. And once there is food available it needs to be stored, in preparation for the next time there is a famine. And without fridges or freezers, that storage is ON the body - hips, thighs, and pot-bellies - the extra fuel tanks of the human body.

Even if a woman is not overweight, her body can still react this way, if her eating is restrictive or sporadic. She may have lower sex drive, no menstrual flow, and preoccupation with food. And when there is food to eat, the body will pack-it-on when it can. If we can eat enough, regularly and consistently, we can convince our bodies that we do in fact have refrigeration and do not need to store it on the body, thanks very much.

So rather than giving myself 50 lashes with a wet noodle (even if it is whole wheat) for foraging in the dark recesses of my cupboards, trying to find something to fulfil this craving, I will EAT. I know that I need to plan my meals so that I have the food available and eat every 2-4 hours whether I am hungry or not (I actually set the alarm on my watch to remind me). When I have done this before my experience has been that gradually those cravings, binges, and eating orgies subside, and I can think about something besides what I can't eat, what I did eat, and what I will eat next. It is such a relief to clear these thoughts from my head and free up brain-space for other things to enjoy. And my body will come to trust that I will feed it on a regular basis and it does not need to store every last calorie that I ingest, whether in front of the TV or not. There will be no more famines in my house!

I split the ass of not one but two pair of bottoms

We went on vacation in March - not far away, but away from home, where my kids were happy because there was a pool and a TV, actually 2 TV's - and I discovered that I had outgrown my pants. Now when my kids outgrow their pants I just go to the storage room in the basement, and pull out the bin of "next" clothes, i.e. hand-me-downs, purchased second-hand clothes, or gifts of new clothes. Then I add the current pants to the "outgrown" bin to be passed on to someone else or sold second-hand. But when I outgrow my pants it is a royal pain in the ass, both literally and figuratively.

Please tell me this happens to someone else: your inner thighs rub together and gradually wear out your jeans until you "could read the newspaper through them." That is an expression I am sure I learned from my mother, maybe a carry over from the depression, when you really did wear your pants until they were worn thin, but why read the newspaper? I heard a friend once call it "chub rub" and I say this to myself but try not to say it out loud as it seems very ... I don't know... non-PC - if it is possible to be politically correct or incorrect about your inner thighs. Whatever you call it, that is the only way my pants wear out and leave me needing new ones.

So while we were on vacation, I was spending some time hangin' in my pj's - comfy blue and green flannel pj's that I am sure I bought at Victoria's Secret over 15 years ago - and clearly seemed sexier then. Actually I was wearing the bottoms only as I had to give up on the top a long time ago when the button holes got too lose for the buttons and it was indecent to wear at my in-laws. So, wearing comfy bottoms (and a T-shirt), I straddled the ottoman to one of those ugly fake-leather swivel chairs and sat down. As I sat I heard a huge ripping sound and that was the final straw for my comfy pj bottoms.

And then there were the jeans. Same problem, worn-out inner thighs. I knew I was testing fate when I put them on, as you really could see through the last few threads holding them together. And when I bent over I heard that now-familiar sound. The rip went right from my inner thigh across the back of my buttocks, at about the level I would have made cut-off jeans back in the 70's when I was a "crazy chick" and my thighs were ready for the "we wear shorts shorts, who wears short shorts?" In the fitness and anatomy world we call this the "gluteal fold" but I am not sure if that accurately describes "back there" now. Luckily on this walk with the kids through small-town Ontario, I was wearing a sweatshirt and was able to tie it around my waist to conceal the gaping hole in the ass of my pants!

You do know what that is called don't you? Putting a sweatshirt around your waist is a S.O.F.A. - sweater over fat ass - and it only makes your ass look BIGGER. And my ass was (is) fat and my pants were no longer concealing or containing them (it).

On returning to the big city, I went to my one-and-only store where I buy plus-size clothes and they didn't have any jeans! ANY jeans! What? Was there a run on jeans for some reason? Where did all these jean-shoppers come from? They had had a sale and all the jean stock was purchased by other plus-size women in need of jeans to conceal and contain their asses - at a sale price. They called other stores for me. "Which store is most convenient for you?" I will go anywhere there are jeans in my size. No jeans in the city. "Call in a few weeks as we should have them in stock by then." What am I supposed to do in the meantime? Wear a sofa I guess. Feel like a sofa.

Finally, weeks later we are at the mall and there are jeans in the store, only one style, but who cares! I try on my new jeans and have to REALLY suck in my gut to pull the zipper up. I needed to move up a size in jeans - crap! Despite the apparent re-stocking of jeans, they do not have the next size up - and I wouldn't have bought them if they did - no way, I am not goin' there. So I buy the jeans that ALMOST fit, and swear, then and there, that I am going to start taking better care of myself! I have hit my "tipping point" - and not the tipping-of-the-scale kind of tipping point.

According to Malcolm Gladwell, "The three characteristics [of a tipping point are] - one, contagiousness; two, the fact that little causes can have big effects; and three, that change happens not gradually but at one dramatic moment... The name given to that one dramatic moment in an epidemic when everything can change all at one is the 'Tipping Point.'" Splitting the ass of not one but two pairs of bottoms was my "dramatic moment."

But I also know that there is a contagiousness out there, and we are all tired of struggling with weight, we all know that diets don't work, and every last one of us wants to feel good about ourselves - and our bodies. And this blog is about the fact that little causes can have big effects. We only have to make little changes in our lifestyle - I call them "shifts." Like the passengers of Oceanic flight eight one five, a small shift in our flight path can drastically alter our destination.

A week after purchasing the jeans that ALMOST fit, I was able to zip them up without causing a hernia. Whew!