One of my favorite ways to relax these days is getting together with one of my best friends at a coffee shop, enjoying a latte, while we sit and vent about what’s been going on in our lives. It gives my friend and I both an opportunity to not only spend time together and bond, but to relieve ourselves of what annoying, angering, exciting things we’ve been holding in and dying to tell someone. Now don’t think this was always the case. A few years ago, I deserved a prize for being the best at holding everything inside. I didn’t want to share what was going on in my life with anyone, whatsoever. I isolated myself. I feared talking about everything that made me happy, sad, angry, or guilty, thinking it would just make me feel even worse. The desire to be perfect overwhelmed me. When I wasn’t being perfect in a certain aspect of my life, my world flipped upside down.
One of the main aspects of my life that this occurred was in my diet. I was determined to make some sort of ‘lifestyle change’ in which I would dedicate two hours of my day to the gym and wouldn’t eat anything that came out of a box. (Yes, I hopped on the clean-eating, no processed food crazy train.) This was not maintainable. I think I knew that deep down. So when I broke my diet, I broke my ‘streak of perfection’, and would cope with my feelings of failure using food.
One of the main reasons people restrict their food intake, binge out of control, purge after meals, or graze during the day is to avoid facing uncomfortable or overwhelming emotions. In times of boredom, procrastination, depression, or anxiety, food can have a very numbing and soothing effect, but it’s not needed to experience those feelings.
Feelings cannot resolve if you try to deny they exist. Imagine the stress you would feel if you never journaled or vented to someone about what went on during each day you spend at work, school, or other activity. You cannot hide from your emotions either. Feelings must be processed, rather than being ignored. How? Identify them — try to understand exactly what you are feeling and why you are feeling that way — then ‘sit with the funk’ until the intensity of the emotion fades.
Like coaches always say, “practice makes perfect”. Learning how to deal with your emotions will not come quickly. Over time, however, it will become second nature to actually feel your feelings. For me personally, learning to process my feelings helped me to understand who I am as a person. It’s crazy how understanding what you feel and why you feel that way can help you develop and define a strong sense of self.
Deirdra Price, PhD, lists a number of ways to help process your feelings in her book Healing the Hungry Self: The Diet-Free Solution to Lifelong Weight Management.
References:
While I was researching for my next post, I ran across the video. It was featured on the Intuitive Eating home website. I watched it, and knew I needed to share! Produced by a woman that spent years yo-yo dieting, it features great questions and statistics on why we are putting off stopping this madness that is dieting. Check it out here!
Once upon a time, a girl awoke in the early AM to get ready for work. She takes a dreaded first look at herself in the mirror. ‘Ugh… eww’ is all she can think.
She starts to take specific notice of her face first. ‘My eyes look so tired. But I slept so good last night. Why do I have such ugly bags under my eyes all the time? I look like I haven’t slept in days. And that stupid zit… There’s just no getting rid of it. It’s going to take a lot of concealer to cover this one up, and even then people are still going to look at me and think ‘pizza face’. Oh, well. Can’t beat the dark spots. Thank the Lord for make-up.’
She starts to undress for a morning shower, immediately recognizing other ‘trouble spots’. She thinks, ‘I should really start working out more because my arms and legs look way too flabby. There’s no way I’m going to look good in my dress this weekend. I probably shouldn’t even go out on Friday with my friends … If I wait until I’ve lost some weight, I’ll probably have more fun and feel more confident. While I’m at it, I’ll work on the rolls that show when I sit down. There’s no way that looks attractive to anyone.’
Then she runs into the enemy that is the closet and clothes. ‘These pants make my legs look fat. I need to get rid of these love-handles. I wish this shirt wasn’t so tight. It shows everything! That’s it, my diet starts today. Anything I wear is going to look horrible.’ She leaves the house, already lacking the confidence she needs to get through her work day.
And that’s only the beginning.
This scenario represents the daily thoughts that ran through my head each morning only a short few years ago when I was seriously obsessed with diet, exercise, and my physical appearance. I would feed myself thoughts that turned my days that had the ability to be great to absolutely horrible. And as a result, by the time I’d get home from work or school, I’d feel so bad about myself that I would isolate from friends, family, and other priorities and cope with my emotions by eating, most often times binging.
Have you ever noticed yourself thinking nothing but negative thoughts about yourself? The reasons we feel anxious, discouraged, self-conscious, and other feelings that tend to drag us down, come as a result of negative thinking. And often times, the thoughts we think are not trustworthy. Just because you have a thought about yourself doesn’t make it a fact. Everyone at some point has negative thoughts that cause them to believe things about themselves that are not based on reality.
Even in certain situations, how you interpret them affects how you feel. It might not be what’s actually happening to you or around you that is making you feel anxious, sad, self-confident, happy, angry, or neutral. It’s how you have interpreted what’s happening. The same goes for when you interpret your reflection. In reality, it’s not your appearance that causes you problems, but rather your evaluation of it.
But let’s face it, in our society today, we are bombarded with images of ‘picture-perfect’ celebrities and super-beautiful cast members on our favorite TV shows. How are we seriously supposed to feel good about the way we look? Just like a lot of things in life – it’s simple, but it’s hard.
Let’s start with the first step: acceptance. Did you know that despite their best intentions to increase confidence and self-image, when most people lose weight, they still tend to feel negative about themselves and the way they look? A recent study preformed at Purdue University showed that self-esteem in some overweight girls didn’t bounce back, even after weight was lost and their body mass index returned to normal. In other words, slimming down doesn’t guarantee you improved body image. It’s important to understand the significance of who you are and what you look like. It does one no good psychologically or physically to stress over their looks when comparing themselves to others.
Now to introduce our new favorite enemy: automatic negative thoughts.
Automatic negative thoughts, developed by Dr. Aaron Beck, a highly respected cognitive therapist, are situation specific, so they can change somewhat depending on where you are and whose company you are in. But they always end up making you feel bad. Why is this the case? Most often, it all comes down to the much deeper beliefs you hold that underlie your thoughts. Your thoughts are influenced by the beliefs you hold about yourself, your future, and the world around you.
Most of our automatic negative thoughts are a result of disordered or distorted thinking, most often, but not always, related to our physical appearance. It’s important to find out whether your thoughts are useful and true or unhelpful and distorted. A good way to do this is to check your thoughts for certain self-defeating biases. Sabime Wilhelm, PhD, notes these specific types of distorted thinking in his program Feeling Good About the Way You Look.
TYPES OF DISTORTED THINKING
So you may be thinking – ‘That is a lot of information… BUT I’VE TOTALLY DONE THAT!’
Join the club.
Here are some questions you can ask yourself to help evaluate your negative thoughts.
I challenge you. Try to catch your negative thoughts when they occur. Ask yourself questions and answer your negative thoughts with rational answers. Believe me, not obsessing over the very things you think about and that bother you the most can be extremely freeing. You are more able to enjoy your life when you are not constantly thinking about yourself compared to others or what they could possibly be thinking about you. A very wise Dr. Suess once said, “Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”
Julia Bluhm, 14, has started a petition for Seventeen Magazine to feature one unaltered photo spread each month! AWESOME!
Check out this article!
Like the article? Sign the petition here and follow the petitions progress with updates!
[Raises hand... very, very high.]
Scene.
"At any given time, one out of three women and one out of four men are on a diet or trying to lose weight." Credit: www.eatingdisorderfoundation.com
I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone that has said they haven’t been on some sort of diet — not anyone of any certain shape or size. Personal experience? I took in diet tips and passed them on as easily as I said hello and goodbye. I had a folder full of pages torn from fitness and clean eating magazines for daily use and inspiration in trying to achieve the ‘perfect’ body according to magazines and tv shows and, well you know, our entire society. And after years, I still wondered — “If I am consistently on my diet, then why am I not losing weight or keeping it off?’
The answer is simple. Because I was dieting.
Dieting taught me nothing but shame, guild, restriction, and blame. I was a walking encyclopedia of fat grams, calories, and carbohydrates. I didn’t know how to connect with someone on a personal level, but I sure did know how many calories were in a slice of pizza.
So many times, usually on Monday mornings when I would ‘start fresh’ after a weekend of gorging through my pantry and binging on the ‘bad stuff’ at nights, I would tell myself and everyone who asked me about my diet that I was just “trying to be healthy.” But let me assure you I was lying to myself and those around me. I hated my body and wanted nothing more than to change it to fit the mold of perfection. What I was doing to my body was not healthy at all.
Jessica Weiner provides a ‘What is Healthy?’ checklist in her fabulous and inspiring book Do I Look Fat In This?: Life Doesn’t Begin Five Pounds From Now.
Is healthy….
Or is healthy….
Weiner says, “…to talk about health is to talk about more than just weight charts and fat counts. It is to talk about wholeness, wellness, and a sense of complete balance mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.”
She is completely right. The health industry makes an outlandish amount of money each year by crushing our self-esteem, claiming to have the next magic pill or other product that will make us feel better and happier about ourselves.
Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty and face the truth:
When people say that they just want to get healthy (not out of medical necessity), they are really saying they don’t want to be fat or look the way they do — the ‘get healthy’ trend is popular, yet eating disorders and depression cases are on the rise — so many women and men completely miserable with the way they look, restricting themselves of foods they enjoy, beating themselves and having little self-esteem, feeling guilty and depressed after giving in to any food deemed ‘bad’, then gorging themselves on other ‘bad’ foods to cover up the feelings of guilt and depression, declaring a fresh start with a new diet the next day, then repeating it all over again –SERIOUSLY, a vicious cycle. We have to redefine what is healthy and what isn’t.
“There’s lots of of people in this world who spend so much time watching their healthy that they haven’t the time to enjoy it.” – Josh Billings
I always think back to my days of dieting… How after a weekend of ‘cheat meals’ and binging and feelings of resentment, I would tell myself ”I’ll start my diet on Monday” — in other words, I was telling myself that I can start being happy on Monday – the day of promise to myself to be a thinner, happier me, as if all of my issues will just disappear when I could fit into a smaller size. The thought of giving up dieting was frightening! Because when I was ‘doing good’, I seemed the happiest! Why would I want to stop dieting and be sad?
Has the fact that you haven’t reached the size you desire masked any other accomplishments you have or want to achieve? Has your so-called love addiction to your diet and workout schedule become priority over your relationship with friends and family? Do you think of yourself as a failure for not reaching your goal weight or size? When your life becomes your image, you tend to restrict in other areas of your life.
Guess what… I could have been the physically healthiest person in the world, eating everything I was supposed to, avoiding foods I wasn’t supposed to eat, working out on a consistent daily two-hour schedule — and I totally could have still stepped off a curb into the street and gotten hit by a bus. And I thought dieting took all my problems away!
Dieting, going off my diet, binging, and then dieting again was not a pattern I could live with for the rest of my life. Being healthy is about living a well-rounded life — moving your body, eating balanced meals, and working on your mental and spiritual health. There is so much to receive from life NOW, not five, ten, fifteen pounds from now, and consuming your life with dieting and a lack of self-esteem and confidence can hold you back.
There is no universal image of ‘healthy’ — it comes in all shapes and sizes (despite what the charts at the doctor’s office tells you).
As you can see above, fitting a certain image (six pack, toned arms, skinny legs, etc) is not one of the specific responsibilities you have to your body. Believe me, I know it’s not easy to feel happy with the way you look, especially if you have been body-concious for years or if your body is larger than what, by our society’s standards, should be. But remember biology class and learning about genetics? Plastic surgery and diet and exercise can only get you so far. Your genetics are instilled in you and are not changing. The nutshell version: Everyone comes in different shapes and sizes, some large, some tall, some short, and some small. Each person’s weight and size is their own business and no one has the right to offer insight on how to ‘fix’ it. Even doctors must look at each patient differently, one case different from another.
Our daily lives consist of happenings and interruptions. Health must be based up this — reality. You must take reality into consideration when defining your success in health. Learn to love what you’ve got. Don’t throw away your power on gimmicks, diets, and magic pills. You are the only one that holds the key that unlocks the door to happiness, and you can open that door today — not when you lose a few pounds.
Read the rest of this article here.
“Israeli lawmakers have banned underweight models from catwalks and commercials, a measure they hope will reduce eating disorders and promote a healthy body image.
The law, passed late on Monday, says women and men cannot be hired for modeling jobs unless a doctor stipulates they are not underweight, with a body mass index (BMI) — a measure expressing a ratio of weight to height — of no less than 18.5. The law also bans the use of a person who “appears underweight” and says advertisers must explicitly state if graphic manipulation was done to make a model look thinner in a photo.”
"We are constantly comparing ourselves to others..."
Some of the most popular websites we use today are becoming top spots for users seeking ‘thinspiration’, otherwise known as inspiration to be thin. I recently made a Pinterest account, and no doubt, I can honestly say that every day I see at least one pin of ‘thinspiration’ from pinners that I follow. I tried searching thinspiration, and well, here are just a few of the many pins that resulted. Included are the captions that were posted with the pictures onto the users’ pin boards.
Caption read - 'thinspiration!!'
Caption read - 'clavicles! I want to see my clavicles! #skinny'
Caption read - 'putting this on my mirror and refrigerator! gotta be bikini ready.'
Caption read - 'new diet for summer. #skinny'
Of all the pins I saw on Pinterest after searching 'Thinspiration', this was the most popular and commonly pinned.
Pinterest users can easily find ‘thinspiration’, whether they search for it or not. The last pin that reads, ‘Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’, breaks my heart. As the most common pin I found, it seems to be an anthem in pursuing thinness, or in other words, a different body type, that is making waves in the Pinterest world.
In the most recent blog post, The Evolution of Beauty and Self-Image, I stated that it was in the 1960′s when Twiggy came to be a model-superstar and became the face of what is ‘beautiful’. Thinness started to become an obsession. Twiggy was known to be a naturally thin woman. Yet, so many fans tested their body’s limits, using extreme diet and exercise, often developing eating disorders, in trying to achieve her ‘thin’ look. It seems as if this is still what many people today would consider beautiful. These pins represent the many pictures online that are reinforcing users’ beliefs that they are ‘not good enough’ or ‘not beautiful’. And the team at Pinterest and other websites, like Facebook and Tumblr, are beginning to take control.
Here are some recent news articles regarding ‘thinspiration’ and what the websites are doing about it.
Have you been witness to ‘thinspiration’ on the internet? It’s not just seen on Pinterest, Facebook, and Tumblr. Thinspiration is seen everywhere — in the magazines we read, on the TV shows we watch, in the songs we listen to… We believe that bodies come in all shapes and sizes and one should embrace the body they have. Comment below, we’d love to hear your opinion!
Our society is obsessed with vanity – would you agree? Thin is in. Looking through the latest fashion magazines makes this quite clear. But thin wasn’t always what stood as an idea of beauty. The western culture’s perspective of beauty has evolved throughout the decades in both negative and positive ways.
Check it out… Prior to the 20th century, the only job of a woman was to make herself look what the Victorian culture considered beautiful. This included but was not limited to wigs, corsets, powdered faces, long elegant dresses, etc. The society at the time expected women to be ‘chaste and delicate’. In the 1910′s, cosmetic fixations came onto the scene. Can you say metal nose shapers? No thanks!
"Wigs, corsets, and dresses, oh my!"
In the 1920′s and 1930′s, beauty was perceived in less extreme ways. The use of cosmetics and cosmetic advertising increased and there was more importance placed on the natural endowments of a woman. Modest was hottest. Hem lines dropped, and waistlines were accentuated. A natural perspective was taken on beauty. Until the mid 20th century, women were expected to dress to impress.
"Cosmetics and cosmetics advertising was seen more than ever in the 1920's."
The 1950′s brought about a new era. Emphasis on concealing flaws, self presentation, and conformity was still pushed upon women. However, beauty was not seen in tiny waistlines and unbreathable dresses. The average woman wore a size 12 to 16 and extremely curvaceous stars like Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield represented the ideal beautiful woman. What happened to this perspective on beauty??? When did thin become ‘in’?
"Marilyn Monroe was the face of beautiful women in the 1950's. She wore a size 12-14. The average woman in the 1950's was a size 12-16 and embraced that size."
In the 1960′s, models began to rival movie stars for the title of beautiful. An increasing focus on sexuality came into play, and young people began to leave behind values of modesty set by earlier decades. The natural approach to looking beautiful took a woman an average of 40 minutes to put on. (WHAT?! Doesn’t sound as natural as it may seem..) It was when Twiggy hit the scene of the fashion world that thin became a model of beauty. Twiggy was a naturally thin woman. Yet, as obsessed as women were with this look, most had to struggle to achieve it. Cosmetic surgery became more popular and an obsession with image and thinness was more vibrant than ever before.
"Twiggy was a naturally thin woman. Yet, many women, obsessed with her thin look, struggled to achieve it."
By the 1980′s, the health and fitness boom began. Underwear became outerwear, shorts got shorter, and tops got smaller. With this new interest in health and fitness for everyone, the ‘thin-is-beautiful’ mythology and underweight waif look was reinforced.
"The 1980's brought about a health and fitness for all boom, reinforcing the mythology that 'thin is in'."
By the 21st century, Marilyn Monroe, one considered to be extremely beautiful in the 1950′s, was considered fat. Although since the start of the millennium, curves have gotten more positive attention, they are still generally seen as negative by the media and fashion world. Still, the fashion world calls upon thin models to serve as ‘models’ for women across America.
Beauty has definitely evolved according to the evolution of our culture and times… But why is this….
and this…
… now considered more beautiful than this…
and this?….
Embrace yourself as you are. There is no exact definition of what beautiful is.
Every other week at Nutrition Paradox, we host a group called Intuitive Eating 101. Some weeks we focus on intuitive eating, and others we focus on body image and other topics. Last week, we focused on the big fat lies we tell ourselves. Adapted from the book, Big Fat Lies Women Tell Themselves by Amy Ahlers, it deemed to be a successful topic. Our group members were into discussing it, and it impacted me personally. (I’m totally a perfectionist and an overachiever!) Most of the things we tell ourselves about our body and our personal success are irrational thoughts. They often center around perfectionism, feelings of unhappiness, and comparing ourselves to others. It’s really easy to feel as if we aren’t perfect, that we are unhappy, or that we don’t measure up to others, especially in a society where image is such a huge concern for everyone.
Think about how many ads you see and hear on the TV, radio, in magazines, and even on billboards telling you how to ‘fix’ yourself – whether it be weight loss, plastic surgery, ‘magical creams’ to get back that youthful glow, etc. Everyone has a coworker that seems to take on so much and still tends to have it all together. You want to make sure you impress your boss or other authority figure. Some students feel guilt, anger, and disappointment towards themselves for getting a grade less than an A+.
Here are some common irrational thoughts and lies that we tell ourselves, and the positive affirmations, thoughts, and questions to consider in order to work through them.
I had better be perfect.
or
It has to be perfect. I have to get it right.
Perfection is unattainable. Again, perfection is unattainable. Falling into the trap of perfectionism leads to perpetual procrastination. When we fear we may not be doing things ‘right’, we often do not finish tasks or allow ourselves to move forward. Or worse, we don’t start tasks at all because we fear we will fail at doing them right or perfectly. No one is grading you.
Practice going for the ‘B’ rather than the ‘A’.
I am too [insert how you see yourself] .
(fat, thin, ugly, tall, short, etc.)
According to media experts, the average american is exposed to three thousand ads every day! And almost every one of those ads is telling us that we are not good enough and is selling us something to make us look prettier, younger, thinner, or all of the above.
Let that just…. sink into your soul for a minute.
Think of a person who is also ‘too fat, too old, or too whatever-you-think-you-are who does have the success, love, or career that you want.
Try to think of something you don’t like about yourself, but something that you do like. Look at the whole person that you are by filling in the blanks:
When I get [insert characteristic] then i will be happy.
When I am [insert characteristic] then I will be happy.
Look back on all you have obtained.
Pick one appreciation and one desire to focus on each day.
Expressing gratitude for your life today as well as your desires for what you want next will allow you to experience the delicious anticipation of what’s to come.
MSNBC recently released an article and video news story about males and anorexia. It makes me really happy to see attention being brought to males finally!
Boys Dying to be Thin
Make sure to watch all the videos. There are two other additional videos included in the article that are very interesting and informative.
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