Body image

How does exercise affect your motivation to eat well?
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How does exercise affect your motivation to eat well?

Some days you want to eat well and some days you don’t. Have you ever noticed if your exercise affects how you eat? A research article published in the May 2019 edition of the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition Dietetics looks at this very question.

After surveying 1600 women between the ages of 40-50, the following obeservations were made:

  • Those who exercised with the main motivation to lose weight, were less likely to eat intuitively, less likely to listen to their body’s feelings of hunger and satiety, more likely to restrict their food choices based on a specific diet, and more likely to eat for emotional reasons instead of physical reasons.
  • Those who exercised because of intrinsic motivation (health, enjoyment, improvement of mood, and pleasure) were more likely to eat intuitively, listen to their body’s signals of hunger and fullness, not restrict their eating to a certain diet, and eat for physical reasons instead of emotional ones.
Exercise for fun, not for weight loss!

This study illustrates that if you can focus on exercise for the positive benefits it brings to your life, instead of weight control or improving your appearance, you may be more likely to eat intuitively. And why is that important? Because intuitive eating has been linked to the following benefits according to other research:

  • Improved well-being and mood
  • Greater body acceptance and appreciation
  • Higher self esteem
  • Greater satisfaction with life
  • Lower body mass index

Aren’t those amazing benefits? I think so too. If you need help learning how to eat intuitively, trust your body, and exercise for the right reasons, click here to fill out a request to become a client.

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How to Avoid the Quarantine-15 (aka How to NOT gain weight while stuck at home)

I know you’ve seen them: the memes about how much weight we are going to gain while stuck at home, the pictures of food all over social media, comfort-eating, and baking galore. How else can we release some energy while stuck at home?  Cleaning out our closets is no fun.  And you can only take so much news.  My clients are starting to ask, “How can I stop gaining weight?”  

Step 1: Have a plan.  “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”  If you just plan to eat whatever you have around, it might not the best thing for your body.  But if you have a loose plan, then you will most likely go for the planned meal.  I try to have a list of about 7 dinners that we have all the ingredients to make.  That way when dinner comes we are not tempted to order take-out.  Having a plan also keeps you from making more frequent runs to the grocery store.

Step 2: Designate only one area in your house for eating.  If eating locations become a free-for-all, you might start finding crumbs in your laptop, on your couch, and in your bed.  Limit eating to just the kitchen or dining room table and you will eliminate a lot of mindless eating.

Step 3: Make a list of positive things to do when you want to reach for food and are not hungry.  Now that you are working from home, do you find yourself drawn to the kitchen when you need a break or are bored?  You’re not alone.  Everyone does it!  Instead, keep a list on your fridge or pantry door with other enjoyable tasks.  Here are some examples: go outside for fresh air, stretch, call a friend, write in your journal, put on your favorite music, work on a hobby, write a letter or card, play a game, pray, meditate, do something creative, clean out a drawer, organize your files, etc. 

Step 4: Set regular meal and snack times.  Make a realistic eating schedule for everyone in the family.  After each meal or snack, clean up, turn the lights off, and “close” the kitchen until the next meal or snack.  With children of various ages, this is a work in progress for me.  But I’m trying.

Step 5: Embrace it.  You know what, what’s the worst thing that could happen if you gain some weight over the next few months? We are all going through an experience we’ve never been in.  It’s OK if you eat more than usual, stress-eat, or boredom-eat.  This is a learning experience.  Be patient and compassionate with yourself.  Take it one day at a time (one bite at a time) and you’ll get through this.  Give yourself a hug and keep this in perspective.  There are a million things worse than gaining weight.

We are OPEN and happily seeing clients virtually!  All insurance companies have temporarily allowed telehealth and we are so pleased to be able to still meet with our clients and help you through this difficult time.  Go here to become a new client.  Or, if you are a returning client, go here to schedule an appointment.  I look forward to “seeing” you from the comfort of your home or office.  We are here for you. 

Stop the Food Fight
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Stop the Food Fight

I know this is a personal question, but how do you feel about your body?  What do you think when you look in the mirror?  Are your thoughts positive or negative?  What do you think when you see models and celebrities?  Do you envy their slender bodies or do you think that you would not want to work as hard as they do to maintain that shape?   How do you feel about your relationship with food? Is food the enemy?  Take a few minutes to think about these questions, or better yet, discuss with a friend or write them in your journal.

Thinking about these questions can be eye-opening for some or painful for others.  I bring this up because my goal for all my patients is to accept their bodies where they are.  Next time you are in a crowd of people, notice the vast difference in our bodies.  No one person is the same and that’s what makes us unique. Life would be boring if we were all the same height, weight, and shape. 

Do you think that everything you see in magazines and TV is real?  You would be surprised how some of what we see is not real.  Illusions are created by the power of technology in the hands of the beauty industry who wants us to believe that we are not good enough as we are (so we will spend money on their beauty products).  This illusion of beauty and “perfect” bodies are all around us. So much that we don’t know what reality is anymore. Want to know what reality is?  Go to the mall or other public place and people-watch.  Reality is every day people in all shapes, sizes, and colors; real people with real struggles and real lives.  In my Stop the Food Fight class I’ll be showing you a few pictures of air brushed celebrities that will surprise you.  I know we can’t change the media and beauty industry, but we can change ourselves.  We can remind ourselves and teach our daughters and sons that what we see in the media is not always real.  Beauty has nothing to do with your weight or body fat percent.  It’s all about what kind of person you are.

My hope is that you can get to the point where food is not the enemy and your body is not the enemy.  You can do that by what I call, “Stopping the Food Fight.”  That means you learn to accept the diversity of our body shapes, just as you accept the diversity of nature.  And second you learn to nourish your bodies by honoring your hunger and fullness. How do you do that, you may wonder? 

1. Keep a food log of when you eat and WHY you eat.  Notice how the foods make you feel. 

2. Consciously observe the people around you and say positive things about their bodies (not out loud!) and your body (you can say them out loud!).  This is a gradual process that I love to take my clients through. 

If you need more help with this and want to discuss this with like-minded individuals, join me for my June Master’s Group where we are learning to “Stop the Food Fight.” 

In the meantime, please share: how do you feel about your body?