Thursday, February 25, 2010
Eating Disorder Awareness Week Thought of the Day
Male or female. Young or old. Black or white. Anyone can get an eating disorder. It's not just a rich white girl's disease.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Eating Disorder Awareness Week Thought of the Day
I appreciate how tough it can be to reach out and let your family and friends know you are struggling with an eating disorder. I also know you don't want to be stuck with his manipulative nonsense ruling your life for the rest of your life. Letting those closest to you know about your disease has the power to break Ed's back...and getting professional help may paralyze him forever.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Eating in the Ligament of Treitz: When Normal Needs to Change
We are upon the eve of National Eating Disorders Awareness Week (NEDAW) and are encouraged this year to talk about it. So much about this eating disease is hush hush which only strengthens Ed's (that is how we loving refer to a person's eating disorder) manipulative powers. Although I agree we need to talk about those with eating disorders and bring the struggle into the limelight, I am being drawn to discuss something else: normalized disordered eating.
Everyday disordered eating experiences include:
What concerns me is without a diet in hand, most do not know how to eat. Even more, our children are being brought up to consider only external cues to make food decisions. Internal cues to eat are not trusted or even acknowledged. I believe hunger, fullness, and satiety are God's given gift to regulate our healthy weight on our own so we never have to visit with a dietitian for weight management. Yup, you have your very own dietitian residing inside you! It is probably somewhere between the pyloric sphincter and the Ligament of Treitz.
While I was relaxing on a beach chair a few weeks ago, I overheard a sad conversation. A normal-sized woman was telling her friend how she was having a tough time limiting her eating while on vacation. She listed the thorns in her side to be sweets, chips, and large portions served. Without taking another breath, she went on to tell her plan upon arrival home: a fish and carrot diet. A sort of detox that would "trick" her body into not wanting tempting foods and get her back on track.
I felt deep sadness for this woman. Instead of mindfully savoring her time and tastes while vacationing she set her brain in deprivation mode before the diet even began. And she wondered why each bite felt like a Last Supper. I also felt sadness for the fact she probably has a deep grievance within that is so tough to think about. Thinking about food in this way helps fill the space she doesn't want to uncover. Why are so many more of us hurting?
According to the Academy of Eating Disorders, 4 out of 5 women practice disordered eating in their lifetime. I realize not every woman is experiencing an eating disorder as physically debilitating as Karen Carpenter but just because it doesn't look as severe, does it mean it isn't serious?
I regard disordered eating as serious because it is spreading like the plague. We are getting farther away from our body's own intelligent mechanisms to promote our healthy natural weight. The more we fight the mechanisms, the more we become off kilter: too large or starving or both. The larger people become, the more disordered eating is culturally encouraged. Do you know any other industry that is allowed to promote a product that is 97% of the times ineffective or reversed after a year?
As I ponder my place in NEDAW, I know I am culturally a salmon swimming upstream. Thankfully, I know I am not the only one swimming against the current. A mindful and attuned movement toward eating is here and can save us. For an example, consider this resource: Intuitive Eating.
Everyday disordered eating experiences include:
- exercising only for the purpose of burning off what is consumed
- eating in hopes to survive the discomfort from uncomfortable emotions
- equating morality to food choices (good vs bad foods) and
- believing certain foods should have the power to promote internal shame and guilt.
What concerns me is without a diet in hand, most do not know how to eat. Even more, our children are being brought up to consider only external cues to make food decisions. Internal cues to eat are not trusted or even acknowledged. I believe hunger, fullness, and satiety are God's given gift to regulate our healthy weight on our own so we never have to visit with a dietitian for weight management. Yup, you have your very own dietitian residing inside you! It is probably somewhere between the pyloric sphincter and the Ligament of Treitz.
While I was relaxing on a beach chair a few weeks ago, I overheard a sad conversation. A normal-sized woman was telling her friend how she was having a tough time limiting her eating while on vacation. She listed the thorns in her side to be sweets, chips, and large portions served. Without taking another breath, she went on to tell her plan upon arrival home: a fish and carrot diet. A sort of detox that would "trick" her body into not wanting tempting foods and get her back on track.
I felt deep sadness for this woman. Instead of mindfully savoring her time and tastes while vacationing she set her brain in deprivation mode before the diet even began. And she wondered why each bite felt like a Last Supper. I also felt sadness for the fact she probably has a deep grievance within that is so tough to think about. Thinking about food in this way helps fill the space she doesn't want to uncover. Why are so many more of us hurting?
According to the Academy of Eating Disorders, 4 out of 5 women practice disordered eating in their lifetime. I realize not every woman is experiencing an eating disorder as physically debilitating as Karen Carpenter but just because it doesn't look as severe, does it mean it isn't serious?
I regard disordered eating as serious because it is spreading like the plague. We are getting farther away from our body's own intelligent mechanisms to promote our healthy natural weight. The more we fight the mechanisms, the more we become off kilter: too large or starving or both. The larger people become, the more disordered eating is culturally encouraged. Do you know any other industry that is allowed to promote a product that is 97% of the times ineffective or reversed after a year?
As I ponder my place in NEDAW, I know I am culturally a salmon swimming upstream. Thankfully, I know I am not the only one swimming against the current. A mindful and attuned movement toward eating is here and can save us. For an example, consider this resource: Intuitive Eating.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Trusting the airplane peanuts
A recent trip provided me the opportunity to experience not trusting the process. The trip included getting on an plane and then connecting on another. Prior to even packing my bag, the airline called to tell me weather promoted my flight to be cancelled. Although travel companions on other airlines were diverted to another company still with flights, our airline refused such options. We had to wait 24 extra hours to board the plan.
During the early morning hours prior to this next departure time, the airline called to let me know this flight was cancelled too: the pilot needed sleep. So did I and that is why I was going on a vacation! This new change would get us to our destination a few hours later.
I finally boarded and took off on the first leg of my flight. The flight attendant got us prepared and the pilots kept us posted. Everything seemed routine while we prepared for landing. As our plane was feet from touching down in the runway, I felt the plane surge back upward. Without warning or explanation, we were back in the air and circling the airport. I felt my mind race with panic as to what kept the plane from going through the normal motions.
Once this plane landed I found my connecting flight to be delayed another 4 hours. I had to hold my ears to keep the smoke and fire from hitting those around me.
A few hours later, I was standing by the baggage claim in my final destination. I stood with other nameless travel companions all with our fingers crossed. The baggage claim belt went around and around and my now awfulizing brain messages dwelled on the expected outcome: no luggage.
In this moment, I started to feel something familiar: plans being made only to have outside forces change the timeline, feeling dread and fear for the unknown and unexpected, having to make do with the options at hand. Hmmm, I never knew getting on an airplane was like a feeding relationship. Sometimes it can be so easy to trust my body and its messages whereas other times, the pilot does a trick landing and throws me for a loop.
Considering the similarities, I calmed my brain by giving it similar food-like messages: trust the process. Trust that it will work out ok. Trust those that guide us. You cannot control the timeline just the reaction to it and the choices you make from those at hand.
While my heart went from the pace of a rabbit to a human, I saw my familiar luggage pop onto the baggage claim. I grabbed my bag and slowly strolled to a late dinner.
During the early morning hours prior to this next departure time, the airline called to let me know this flight was cancelled too: the pilot needed sleep. So did I and that is why I was going on a vacation! This new change would get us to our destination a few hours later.
I finally boarded and took off on the first leg of my flight. The flight attendant got us prepared and the pilots kept us posted. Everything seemed routine while we prepared for landing. As our plane was feet from touching down in the runway, I felt the plane surge back upward. Without warning or explanation, we were back in the air and circling the airport. I felt my mind race with panic as to what kept the plane from going through the normal motions.
Once this plane landed I found my connecting flight to be delayed another 4 hours. I had to hold my ears to keep the smoke and fire from hitting those around me.
A few hours later, I was standing by the baggage claim in my final destination. I stood with other nameless travel companions all with our fingers crossed. The baggage claim belt went around and around and my now awfulizing brain messages dwelled on the expected outcome: no luggage.
In this moment, I started to feel something familiar: plans being made only to have outside forces change the timeline, feeling dread and fear for the unknown and unexpected, having to make do with the options at hand. Hmmm, I never knew getting on an airplane was like a feeding relationship. Sometimes it can be so easy to trust my body and its messages whereas other times, the pilot does a trick landing and throws me for a loop.
Considering the similarities, I calmed my brain by giving it similar food-like messages: trust the process. Trust that it will work out ok. Trust those that guide us. You cannot control the timeline just the reaction to it and the choices you make from those at hand.
While my heart went from the pace of a rabbit to a human, I saw my familiar luggage pop onto the baggage claim. I grabbed my bag and slowly strolled to a late dinner.
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