Weight Loss for People Who Feel Too Much (12 page)

D. Convince yourself that everything will be fine, start to feel very panicky when you get hungry, and end up eating half a pizza and a decadent dessert afterward because after all that stress, you deserve it. When you finish eating, you feel ashamed.

2. Your usual eating pattern is:

A. Three meals and two healthy snacks a day.

B. A healthy, light breakfast to start, then somewhere around midday, the plan for healthy eating goes away, so that by the end of the night you're not sure what you ate or when.

C. A rigid plan for three low-calorie meals and no snacking, which never seems to work out because you actually eat all day long but rarely have a square meal.

D. You either have no eating pattern or an extremely rigid one that isn't healthful and which you have strong emotions about.

3. You wake up in the middle of the night and scrounge for a snack:

A. Never.

B. Rarely, but you do snack throughout the day, “grazing” or nibbling here and there, but you've read that's a healthy way to eat. Still, your weight and mood are not what they should be and you have to admit, your “grazing” foods include more cookies and white bread than raw vegetable sticks.

C. Sometimes, when you're under a lot of stress. The bigger problem is that you have vowed never to snack but find yourself doing so regularly, and snacking on junk.

D. Almost always. You can't help it.

4. It's holiday time again, and you've scheduled several parties where there will be calorie-laden holiday foods. You:

A. Come up with a reasonable plan for what you'll consume and stick to it for the most part.

B. Come up with a reasonable plan for what you'll consume, then discover afterward that you gained several pounds in a week.

C. Vow not to eat any holiday goodies at all—then find yourself bingeing on treats at the very first party you attend.

D. Figure, “What the hell? It's the holidays,” and tell yourself the weight gain won't be significant.

5. When it comes to vegetables, you:

A. Eat five to eight servings a day of them daily, usually steamed, raw, or sautéed.

B. Intend to eat them, but find it easier to grab a sandwich because you always seem to be famished and on the go with no time to prepare meals.

C. Have dozens of recipes and cookbooks with vegetable-based recipes in your kitchen, but you're constantly throwing out spoiled produce, and mostly you eat vegetables in the form of french fries.

D. Gave up on vegetables long ago, although you do eat fruit here and there.

6. To you, the perfect meal would be:

A. Balanced in color, nutrition, and texture, served at the usual time, and enjoyed with friends or while sitting in a beautiful spot.

B. Delicious, filling, healthful, and inclusive of a rich dessert, but very low calorie and available at any food court or mini mart when you're on the go.

C. Prepared by someone else because you haven't a clue what constitutes a healthy and delicious meal.

D. Anything involving yummy food, food, food!

7. When it comes to weight loss and gain, you:

A. Have mild fluctuations in your weight but can almost always attribute these changes to differences in how you're eating or how much exercise you're getting.

B. Experience big weight swings that seem to have little to do with how much you're eating or exercising.

C. Set out to lose lots of weight, get frustrated by your progress, binge, and watch your weight balloon, much to your dismay.

D. Are waiting for the magic pill or operation that will fix your weight problem once and for all so you don't have to think about it because you've tried everything and nothing works.

8. The noisy food that seems to call out to you “Eat me! Eat me!” is:

A. Nonexistent. You don't have strong cravings for foods and you eat a balanced diet that includes the occasional sweet treat, junk food, or rich entrée.

B. Chocolate—no, wait, chocolate cake—no, potato chips. The sour cream and onion ones.…
Well, anyway, there are some noisy foods.

C. Nonexistent. You don't have strong cravings for foods and you eat a balanced diet that includes the very occasional sweet treat, junk food, or rich entrée. That bag of mini candy bars in your desk drawer and the huge chocolate chip cookie you buy when you get your 3:00 coffee every work day don't count.

D. Just about everything in the junk food aisle or the deli counter at the grocery store, so you dread going grocery shopping because it's all too tempting.

9. Maintaining your weight is:

A. Fairly easy.

B. Impossible; in fact, you're not sure what the right weight for you should be.

C. An endless battle for you and you never seem to win.

D. Something you try not to think about. It's easier to simply wear loose clothing and not own a scale.

10. When it comes to how the people and animals who brought your food to the table are treated, your attitude is:

A. Eat organically, close to the earth, in a sustainable and humane way.

B. I wish I ate better, and I hate to think about what they do to those cows and chickens on corporate farms, but it stresses me out to think about the origins of my food because I feel so little control over what I eat and how it got to my plate.

C. Eat organically and cruelty free at all times even if you have to go without. You are a rigid vegan and are horrified by people who eat hamburgers. You've been known to lecture people about what they eat.

D. Whenever I look at food, I feel guilty because I can't stop thinking about the poor cows and chickens, the underpaid migrant workers and grocery stock clerks, and those who go without food. The only thing that helps me feel less upset is to eat, eat, eat, but then I feel ashamed afterward.

Scoring:

Mostly A's: You probably don't have disordered eating except in rare circumstances but you might want to gather a few more helpful ideas about eating and weight maintenance.

Mostly B's: You may be in denial about how disordered your eating is. This book will awaken you to how much your “eat on the go” habits are affecting your weight, mood, and health, and how much your emotions are affecting your food choices.

Mostly C's: Your eating is disordered because you anxiously set unrealistic goals and, understandably, fail to achieve them. This book will help you let go of your guilt, shame, and anxiety and help you start creating some realistic goals about food and weight that are rooted in a healthy sense of self.

Mostly D's: Your eating is disordered because you have no food and weight- loss or weight-maintenance goals. You simply go for the gusto when you see food and feel awful afterward. This book will help you get to the root of why food and weight are such issues for you.

As you commit to giving up disordered eating and instead eating mindfully according to a simple plan, you're bound to be a little resistant. How does it feel to control your eating and have a beginning, middle, and end to every snack or meal? Are you worrying too much about what you're eating and when, and using perfectionism about eating as a detour?

Some of you may go back and forth between bingeing and deprivation, or even bingeing and purging: you binge when you're on empathy or emotional overload, and you purge or start to restrict yourself when your feelings simmer down and you suddenly become aware of your rising shame and guilt. You want to self-correct—and you overcorrect. It is very important that you allow yourself off days and that you develop a new habit of responding to any binges by exploring your emotions and processing them. Feeling ashamed blocks you from that exploration. Look at that binge or that off day as an opportunity to make some serious progress in empathy management. Aim for progress, not perfection. As soon as you notice you've engaged in disordered eating, stop what you're doing, find a quiet place, and do the following From Here to Your Sanctuary exercise. (If you didn't do the earlier exercises on creating an inner sanctuary and identifying your food landscape, do those first, as this one combines them.)

FROM HERE TO YOUR SANCTUARY

Whenever you're feeling agitated by any strong emotion, close your eyes and take a few deep, slow breaths, concentrating on your breathing. Ignore any thoughts or word messages that come up and let your subconscious mind speak to you through pictures.

Continue to breathe in and out, slowly. Hold on to one intention: Seeing a landscape that reflects what you're feeling at this moment. Ask yourself,

Where am I?

Allow your imagination to deliver the answer. It always will, by the way. Observe the landscape or place that appears before you. If it's not very detailed, that's okay. Simply observe it and its features. What's the weather like in this landscape? Is it storming? Gloomy? Windy? Notice the state of the sky and the ground beneath you. Are the skies threatening? Is the ground secure beneath your feet?

Even if you are scared, remain here long enough to take in the details of the landscape, then look into the distance, toward your sanctuary.

Does it feel far away?

How do you feel now looking at the place?

Connect to the sensation of being the observer of it, rather than the person feeling the emotions. What is blocking you from getting to your sanctuary? Are there any obstacles in your way?

Now notice something in the landscape that will take you to your sanctuary. It may be a giant bird that swoops down and picks you up, or a bridge, or other means for escaping to the landscape you'd like to be in.

Remember that this is
your
place,
your
imagination, and you have the power to summon anything to reach the Sanctuary.

Now, take your escape. Then savor the feeling of being in your sanctuary.

When you are ready, open your eyes and think back to the first landscape. What did the features of that land represent? How did you interact with the land? What does that tell you about where you were emotionally a few minutes ago?

How did you escape the land? What does that tell you about your power to shift your emotions? What landscape did you find yourself in?

You may find it helpful to describe the exercise in your journal. Don't analyze it until you have written down all the details you remember about the landscape, your sanctuary, and how you got from the distressing landscape to your sanctuary. Then you can let your logical mind figure out what the symbols mean.

Later, you will explore this landscape more, when you've gotten more practice at using the IN-Vizion Process and tolerating difficult emotions. For now, know that even though you might end up in that distressing landscape again, at least now you know how to escape it and get to your sanctuary.

When you feel on the verge of eating a food that's noisy for you, you can use the From Here to Your Sanctuary exercise and then ask yourself,
Is this what I'm hungry for?
You might be surprised by how much easier it is to walk away from that noisy food when you use this simple process before putting the food in your mouth. Remember to write in your journal to speak your truth about your experiences and feelings, because this will help you to develop the habit of managing your porous boundaries and difficult, powerful emotions. On off-days, it's especially important to speak your truth as you write in your journal pages.

As you become more mindful of your noisy foods and the emotions that make foods noisy for you, you may realize your disordered eating is more problematic than you thought it was. Some of you might sense that you have the symptoms of an eating disorder. Denial is a huge part of eating disorders, and that confused, distorted thinking is easier to correct when you get the nutrition your body and your brain need. If you even suspect you have an eating disorder, or your friends and family are worried about you, please read about the symptoms, below.

SYMPTOMS OF ANOREXIA NERVOSA

People with anorexia nervosa obsess over foods and thinness, and they starve themselves. Symptoms include:

• very low calorie intake

• skipping meals

• a distorted body image and self-image (do your friends say you're too thin or that you're not eating enough?)

• ritualized eating of a very limited number of foods (for instance, only eating parts of lettuce leaves)

• using medications and supplements for weight loss

• dry skin, hair, and nails

• hair loss and loss of muscle tone

• bones sticking out because you're so thin

• soft hair recently appeared on your body

• loss of menstrual period, or irregular period

• fear of gaining weight or eating too much

• stomach pain or bloating

• mouth sores

• feeling cold most or all of the time, low body temperature

• tiredness

• low blood pressure

• ignoring hunger signals to the point that they may even disappear

• dehydration, thirsty all the time

• constipation

• extreme exercising

• defensiveness about your weight and eating

• lying about what you eat or weigh to keep others from criticizing you

• isolating in order to avoid uncomfortable questions about your eating and weight

• disguising your thinness with baggy clothing

SYMPTOMS OF BULIMIA

Bulimia involves bingeing on large qualities of food (typically, a noisy food for you), then causing vomiting afterward in order to rid yourself of the calories. Bulimics may be thin, overweight, or in between.

• eating a large amount of calories very quickly

• eating so much, so quickly, that you feel physical discomfort

• feeling disgusted and ashamed after eating a large amount of food

• fear of gaining weight, which doesn't prevent the bingeing

• constantly thinking about food, eating, dieting, and exercise

• eating alone or privately, fear of eating around others, sneaking food