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November, 2011

How Much is Enough?

 

There are 4 Questions you can use throughout your day that will ultimately change your relationship with food and your body. One of the 4 Questions is “How much is enough?” For example, how much is enough chocolate cake? Your body signals will tell you if you are tuned in, but what if you’re not attuned to hunger and fullness because you are stressed or tired or something else?

The other day I met a woman who used to be a bookkeeper, and now she is a customer service Rep at a BJ’s Wholesale Club. When she was a bookkeeper, she was always stressed and unhappy. As a Customer Service Rep, she walks out the door at the end of the day and leaves her stress and worry in the confines of concrete walls at the discount playground. She makes less money, but has less stress.

So, here is the question again: How much is enough: worry, stress, money, unhappiness? How much is enough fullness,happiness, money? How much is enough chocolate cake? How much is enough of anything depends upon asking yourself this: “What matters most in my ‘one wild and precious life*?’”

 

* Excerpt from: "The Summer Day," By Mary Oliver. Copyright 1990.

October, 2011

Time Is On My Side

Lately I feel pressed for time. I have too much to do, so I have been mutli-tasking. The other day I walked the dog while eating a snack and making phone calls. All of this, I know, is not good for my health!

What would you do if you had an extra 20 minutes a day for the rest of time? Would you call an old friend, paint your nails, clean a closet? Can you pause for a moment and ask yourself this question (I know I posed it in my last blog, but I think it’s a vital question to  living more FULLY).

This week is Fat Talk Free Week, so you now have an excuse to not talk about your body or anyone else’s for an entire week! And if that goes well, you have permission to stop forever. Here is the pledge from the End Fat Talk website:

“Today I promise to End Fat Talk in conversations with my friends, my family and myself. Starting now, I will strive not for a thin-ideal but for a healthy ideal, which I know looks different for every person, and focuses on health not weight or size. I will celebrate the things about myself and the people in my life that have nothing to do with how we look”.

 

Will you take the pledge? Think of all the extra time you will have. So, what will you do with the extra time? Post your answer on Facebook for a chance to win The Diet Survivor’s Handbook. One winner will be drawn at random on October 25.

 

September, 2011

How Much is Enough?

Question 1: How often do you:

Tell yourself, “I can’t have dessert because I don’t deserve any.”

 Berate yourself when you eat past comfortable fullness.

Tell yourself, “I will look better/ be more loveable/ have a fuller life, when I lose _____ pounds.

Vow to start a diet on Monday.

Take part in Bad Body Talk

Question 2: How much is enough of:

Berating yourself?

Volunteering?

Saying “Yes” to one more project, friend, family member?

Chocolate cake?

Can you breath and be still for a moment and now ask yourself, “What will I do with all my newfound free time when I discover “How much is enough”?

 

August 2011

After a long holiday weekend, what are you telling yourself today? “I was good, I only ate ___ slices of apple pie instead of the usual ___. “  or maybe you aren’t feeling good, and instead feel “bad”. “I ate so many slices of that damn pie. Today is diet day.”

The squeaky wheel gets the grease = when we listen to the mind, we don’t hear our body.

The answer to returning to your natural weight resides in our body – our home -  not our mind. Sadly, the mind is really loud, so the body is silenced. Our mind gets us to the binge,  or the point of eating past comfortable fullness, and then berates us when we arrive. Who needs a friend like that?

Our body does all the grunt work – pumps the blood, filters the oxygen, delivers energy to cells. Do we listen? Do we thank our body?

When we begin to listen to the faint signals our body is telling us – feed me, walk me, rest me, take me to on vacation, a little less work please…we arrive home.

July 2011

What’s the best diet for weight loss? According to a US News Report, it’s Weight Watcher’s. If you want to see how the others performed, click here

Have you even been on a diet and lost weight? Did you gain it back? How does it feel to lose and gain and lose and gain….over and over and over?

justBstill now for a moment and imagine this:  never dieting again: no more points counting, scale weigh-ins, thinking about what, where, when, how to eat? What would you do with all your newfound free time if you stopped dieting, and stopped the war with food and your body?   What would you do with this free time?

 

 

 

MAY 2011

Dis-Connection

 Have you ever felt disconnected from yourself or from others? If not, how about your body? When you eat past comfortable fullness to numb out, escape, take a vacation from reality; do you like your body afterwards? What do you tell yourself after these moments? This is a moment of stillness to notice when the body separates from the mind. The body wants to tell us to stop, but our mind rules the body, and as the saying goes – the one with the loudest voice gets her way.

We may have the perfect life, hair, looks, clothes, car, job, family. We love these aspects of our life....But can you justBstill for a moment and ask yourself, “Do I love my body?”

Okay, so maybe not love, how about like? Do you like your body, right now, in this moment?

Sometimes changing our relationship with food involves shifting our perspective. The way we view food, its function, our beliefs, our thoughts – all of these things affect our connection to our body. If you have a moment, here is a short video to watch on a program helping others to change their lens – the way they view food. The takeaway message, in case you are busy - (aren’t we all!) – is we are not alone, we are all connected, so volunteering to eliminate hunger or donating food to a food pantry may help us to see the bigger picture when we pay it forward, and realize we ALL have some kind of connection with food that is interconnected.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isZcenctldY

 

Simply Feeling

 

In a medical miracle Recipient of double hand transplant, Richard Edwards now has 2 hands after 5 years of losing his hands in an accident. Our hands are the lifeline to most of what we do, and yet how often do we still ourselves to really feel what’s happening at the tip of our fingertips? During an interview Richard stated, “I like to hold my wife’s hand and feel her skin.” Our sense of touch is the least of our 5 senses we pay attention to. We spend a lot of time using our eyes to look at things. Our eyes bring the world to our 6th sense, the mind, which we spend a lot of time living and listening to. We spend a lot of time hearing. Usually we have ear buds, or a Bluetooth or a cell phone up to our ears. We smell. Maybe not as much as seeing and hearing, but we know a good or not so good scent when it arrives at our nose. We try to taste our food, although sometimes we eat without truly tasting. Yet how often are really feeling our body, looking but not seeing, listening but not hearing, eating but not tasting?

Our skin is the largest sensory organ of our body, and we can come back to our body when we are feeling stressed, overwhelmed, and about to eat past comfortable fullness. By simply feeling our breath and body. This self-soothing practice is a mindfulness practice.

JustBstill Yoga Practice – Coming into an upright comfortable posture, and closing your eyes, take several breaths and notice what your breath is feeling like in this moment – rough, smooth, jagged? Or perhaps there is no feeling of breath, and that’s okay. Just breathe and be still. When you are ready, shift your attention to your hand, or both hands. While inhaling, make a fist. On the exhale, allow your hand to open. Practice linking your breath to this movement for as long as you would like. Each time your attention wanders – and it will – can you bring it back to this movement? When you have finished, notice the sensations in your hands? What does it feel like now? Perhaps stiff, relaxed? There is no right or wrong answer. Your experience is the practice.

P.S. Yes, this is yoga! You do not have to stand on your head to be in yoga. Simply link your movement with your breath, and you are in yoga.

 

March, 2011

How Much is Enough?

It’s National Nutrition Month. You may hear messages telling you how and what you should eat, such as, “Eat right with color.” “Make half your grains whole.” And so on. Do you already know that eating more vegetables may prolong your life, prevent cancer, reduce weight? We have been hearing the same message for years: Americans do not eat enough fruit and vegetables. What do you feel when you hear this message?* Perhaps guilt, shame, worry? How much “healthy” food, such as fruit and vegetables, is needed in your daily intake – for you?

 

The other night I met a young woman who is also a wife and mother of a young child. She has a successful career, and she volunteers her time for an organization we both belong to. I asked her about a project we were working on, and she rolled her eyes as she replied, “I will go home after this meeting and be up until 11 doing more office work. Then I will try to work on this project. It never ends. I am always tired.”

My heart dropped into my feet as I envisioned her burning the midnight oil, only to get up and begin again at dawn.

 

How much is enough? How much is enough of: work, volunteering, play, sleep, ice-cream? Vegetables? How do we know when to say, “Enough!”

 

We often look for answers to these questions from the Outer Landscape – our doctor, nutritionist, the media, our friends and family, the diet book. This is fine up to a point. However, the one who really knows the answers to these questions is us. Our body will tell us, because our body knows. We know, we just haven’t become still enough to feel into the answer; or possibly feel into the moment to moment awareness of, “What’s Needed Now?”

 

When we can breathe and be still, let go of judgment and thinking, we can tune into our Inner Landscape. Then the answers come.

 

 

*Inner Landscape Practice: Closing your eyes, breathe and be still, repeating the phrase, 5-7 times, to yourself: “I don’t eat enough fruit and vegetables.” What is your experience after this practice? Can you locate where you feel this response in your body?

"One’s action ought to come out of an achieved stillness: not to be mere rushing on." - D.H. Lawrence

 

 

February, 2011

How Bridget Jones’s Diary is Like a Diet

“Bridget Jones is an average woman struggling against her age, her weight, her job, her lack of a man, and her many imperfections. As a New Year's Resolution, Bridget decides to take control of her life, starting by keeping a diary in which she will always tell the complete truth. The fireworks begin when her charming though disreputable boss takes an interest in the quirky Miss Jones. Thrown into the mix are Bridget's band of slightly eccentric friends and a rather disagreeable acquaintance who Bridget cannot seem to stop running into or help finding quietly attractive.” 

(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0243155/).

The person she keeps running into, Mark, is in love with Bridget but she continues to reject him as she thinks she's in love with her boss, Daniel, played by Hugh grant. Daniel is like the ultimate diet book: he's seductive and promising. He exudes fantasy and the promise of the perfect, glamorous future.  When Daniel cheats on her, Bridget is devastated. It’s like the perfect diet -  it feels good at first, but then the diet cheats us when it stops working. (NOTE: we did not fail the diet, the diet failed us)…Then she runs into Mark and he tells her, “I like you just as you are.” Yes, Bridget is quirky, but authentically, as hard as she tries, she’s unable to change into someone new. She keeps trying to change who she is, writing her in her diary about her life, trying to escape from her current weight and all that she truly is. She keeps running into situations where she is forced to revert back to who truly she is, at heart. Ironically she's happy with who she is, she just needed to go full circle before figuring this out. 

How about you? Do you love yourself just as you are? On Valentine’s Day can you accept yourself just as you are? One of the keys to changing your relationship with food is being able to start where you are. Not to be confused with staying where you are. Transformation is not about changing into something NEW, it’s about returning to your authentic self: yourself. Returning to yourself begins by accepting yourself just as you are.

JustBstill Intention: I accept myself just as I am.

 

 

January, 2011

Part II of a II Part Series

Part 2 of “Why Be Vulnerable?”

Feeling joy + Feeling suffering = Equanimity

Brown’s concept of vulnerability is a mindfulness practice. When we learn to accept the present moment of whatever is arising, allow ourselves to feel into it, rather than run or numb, we are experiencing vulnerability. When we practice becoming vulnerable to whatever is arising, we are cultivating equanimity. What is equanimity? The wiki definition is: “a state of mental or emotional stability or composure arising from a deep awareness and acceptance of the present moment.” Being able to Know, Accept and Respond (KAR) to pain and joy are the key to breaking free from emotional eating and eating past comfortable fullness. How do we “do” this? Since most people seem to like to be told what to eat, how much to eat, when and where to eat (aka – a diet), I will spell this out in 4 steps. It may be easy to understand, but sorry, it’s not always easy to “do”.

• The first concept is to understand the KAR principle. K stands for “Knowing”, as in “What’s here now?” This is the concept of checking in with yourself throughout the day and you can begin to practice right now. JustBstill – close your eyes, breathe and be still – and check in with how you’re feeling. Do you feel sensations in your body, such as tingling, heat, coolness? Or possibly nothing at all. It’s ok, the idea is to simply become aware of whatever your present moment experience is right now. This is Knowing. Next, check in with your emotions or feelings. Do you feel stressed, tired, happy? Right now I feel ______.
• The second principle of KAR is “Accepting”. When we feel emotions arising or physical sensation in our body, we can allow ourselves to become curious about our present moment experience as we turn toward “What’s Here Now?” for example I always seem to have pain in my neck and shoulders. When I sit in stillness and bring my awareness to this physical sensation, I bring my focus by noting the size, shape and color of my physical pain. Checking in with feelings, I notice fear and anxiety, and then the voice chimes in, “I am not going to be able to get through the day at work.” Now what?
• The third principle of KAR is “Responding”. I can react to my fear and anxiety of my pain and either sit and worry with my fear and anxiety and physical pain, or I can Respond to “What’s here now?” by asking myself, “What’s Needed Now?” for me, I usually respond with a warm heating pad, some yoga stretches, a massage, or rest. Using my breath as an anchor, I can let go and let be the story of fear and anxiety, realize that pain is there, but suffering is optional.
• KAR-ing- by using the 3 part KAR principle, we are able to arrive at a place of self-care. Taking care of our own needs, or putting on our own oxygen mask first, will allow us to tend to the needs of others.

Sitting with negative and positive feeling/emotions allows us to be with whatever is arising in any moment. As we practice this mindfulness skill, we begin to cultivate equanimity.

Equanimity+Kindness= Freedom from eating past comfortable fullness.

 

Part I of a II Part Series.

Part I: Why Be Vulnerable?

“Happy New Year!” We say it, but what does it really mean? Are we happy? Turns out if you want to be happy, you need to be vulnerable. HUH? Dr. Brené Brown is a vulnerability researcher. She has spent the past ten years studying vulnerability, courage, authenticity, and shame. Brown spent the first five years of her decade-long study focusing on shame and empathy, and is now using that work to explore a concept that she calls Wholeheartedness. She poses the questions:

“How do we learn to embrace our vulnerabilities and imperfections so that we can engage in our lives from a place of authenticity and worthiness? How do we cultivate the courage, compassion, and connection that we need to recognize that we are enough – that we are worthy of love, belonging, and joy?”

In her research she found that it boils down to this: there are two groups of people. One who has a sense of worthiness and one who does not. If you are in the second group, you may lack not only connection and joy, but you may also lack the ability to feel suffering. If you are numbing suffering, then according to Brown, you will also lack feeling joy.  Dr. Brown is making the point that we need to feel suffering if we ever want to feel the moments of joy.

Are you avoiding moments of suffering by using food or eating past comfortable fullness? Food is a panacea for numbing the vulnerable moments of our lives. Do you use food to cope with suffering? Or, if you are not eating past comfortable fullness, do you beat yourself up when you eat a “bad” food? Does the voice in your head say, “I can’t believe I ate that!  I am never going to be thin______(fill it in for yourself: rich, loved, happy, successful)….

People who have a strong sense of love and belonging, believe that they are worthy of love and belonging. When Dr. Brown looked at the interviews of people who believed they are worthy, she found that what they all had in common is a “sense of courage to be imperfect, the compassion to be kind to themselves first and then to others, and finally they had connection as a result of authenticity. They were willing to let go of who they thought they should be to instead be who they already are authentically.” They embraced vulnerability. They believed that what made them vulnerable made them beautiful. This means to be willing to sit with good and bad. Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, joy and connection. When we numb vulnerability not only do we numb feelings of suffering, but we may even be numbing feelings of joy.

We may not want to feel suffering, but don’t we all want to feel joy? Turns out if we want to be happy this New Year, we need to sit with suffering and joy. Next time we will take a closer look on how to practice both.

Happy New Year!

 

December, 2010

Making Friends with Fear

“If it doesn’t feel right, don’t do it.” – Oprah.

When she was asked to host her show 25 years ago, Oprah was told that she should change her name because no one would accept the word Oprah. Her Producers suggested “Suzi”. She knew she did not like the name Oprah, but she checked in with her inner landscape and the name Oprah kept coming up. “Every big decision I have ever made has come from my gut,” she declared. The rest is history.

Most decisions we make on why, what, when, where, and how to do something come from our outer landscape – the media, a friend or relative, our doctor, hairdresser, mother…. As dieter’s we are ingrained to seek information from our outer world: we count calories and points; look to nutritionist on what to eat to be healthy; physical trainers on how much to exercise. When did we stop trusting ourselves? Have you recently checked in with yourself to see what’s here now? What’s needed now?

Yesterday I had a conversation with one of the smartest doctors I know. She is in a cast and can’t move or play the way she is used to. She was worried about weight gain so she calculated her daily caloric needs and is trying to use this as her guide. I asked her if instead of using the calorie chart if she would be willing to check in with her physical and emotional hunger every few hours instead. She hadn’t thought of that, but when she came into a moment of stillness, she realized she could give it a try.

How about you? Are you willing to try checking in with your inner landscape for several hours, or an entire day, especially during this season of extra food and parties? If it brings up fear, don’t be surprised. Just go with it.

You can conquer almost any fear if you will only make up your mind to do so. For remember, fear doesn't exist anywhere except in the mind. – Dale Carnegie.

 

 

Novemeber, 2010

“Our normal approach is useless here”

“Perhaps this can be our new rallying cry. If it's a new problem, perhaps it demands a new approach. If it's an old problem, it certainly does.” (Seth Godin. “Seth’s Blog” November 18, 2010).

So, here is the age old problem: The holidays are around the corner, you turn the corner and bump into the same old feelings – joy, fear, anxiety, anger. Your normal approach is to run and hide, or run to food to numb and escape. Is this a useful approach? Probably not, so let’s look towads a new approach: stillness.

When we sit and feel the feelings that come up before we come to the Holiday Table/Gathering, will the earth quake, will the sky fall? No. We can examine these feelings in a safe place. For example, your yoga mat is a safe space, all your own, not unlike a home. When we flow through the practice, we sometimes catch glimpses of thoughts and emotions. Then, when we hold the postures a little longer, we begin to feel a tad uncomfortable. However, the mind tends to give out before the body, so notice the difference here. Hold Warrior II pose for 10-15 breaths. What happens? Your front thigh and shoulders may begin to tingle, feel warm. Feel into these bodily sensations and breathe. When someone pushes your buttons or the feeling of old emotions surface, where in your body do you feel this?

Bridge this practice from your mat to your life. Stay with the discomfort for as long as you are able. Breathe and be still – and don’t worry, your body will survive! And your mind may welcome this new approach.

A Bump in the Road

Today I watched The A&E TV Biography on Cher. Meryl Steep was interviewed on the show as she discussed her friendship with Cher.  Streep recounted the exact moment in 1965 when she first heard the infamous song, “I Got You Babe.” “It’s funny how we can locate certain moments in our life by a song. I can remember a bump in the road on my way to school as I was walking, and I first heard that song, on my transistor radio.”

A bump in the road is what struck me as the most interesting part of Streep’s statement. How many times have we driven the same route to work, and never noticed the bump in the road that has been there forever, or even the feel of the leather seat or the steering wheel, as we navigate the road with the bump? Since we are usually multi-tasking, we have come to feel that life is multi-taxing. This relationship with our lives often parallels our relationship with food. Whether we eat mindlessly, or eat past fullness, we may be unaware of how these relationships are connected. But if we can JustBstill: Just Breathe and Be Still,  for a few moments a day, these relationships tend to become more clear.

Practicing breathing and stillness, whether in meditation or yoga, are ways to slow down our thoughts long enough so that we may become present to what’s here now – whether it’s a bump in the road, or a reason to binge. As we pay attention to more moments, we are cultivating mindfulness. Next time you are in the moment of eating more than what’s needed, you can practice being in presence with whatever is here now.

 

October, 2010

Feeding Myself

Remember when you were little and someone took care of you, changed your diaper and attended to your needs? Ahhh. I feel all warm and fuzzy just being in that moment. We were having all needs taken care of, and all we had to do was cry to get what we needed. Over time, we learned how feed, clothe and bathe ourselves. We went to school to learn how to write and read, and this is when we had to learn how to learn, an experience we may have regarded as painful , because no one was feeding us the answers to the math problems. We had to learn how to solve these problems on our own.

When someone hands you a diet plan or book, it feels good because the guesswork is taken out of the process. We are being fed and this can even feel nurturing. We learn to trust the professional who believes he/she knows what will work for us, after all he/she is a doctor, or a dietitian or health coach. They have  the answers you are looking for. We often turn to others for answers, just as we would turn to the back of the math book for the answer key to check the problems assigned for homework. But how many times has someone handed you a diet plan, and it works because you lose weight, but you gain it back because you stopped following the plan? To have to figure out on your own how to reach your natural weight is filled with uncertainty any fear. The truth is, the best diet plans are within your own intuitive body and mind. These 2 parameters are often disconnected because we rely on others (professionals) to tell us what to do. We stop trusting our body signals because the clock is there to tell us when to eat, and our diet coach is there to tell us what to eat. It’s such a relief to not have to think! Then our chatterbox voice is there to beat us up when we make a mistake and overeat.

Do you want to reconnect to your internal wisdom? Your internal wisdom is the bridge which connects your physical sensations of hunger to your emotional needs, and this bridge is where the answers reside. Are you hungry on a 1200 calorie diet? That’s great, because that’s your physical bodily sensation talking to you. Are you feeling guilty about the chocolate cake? That’s your chatterbox voice, but that’s not you the core of who you are. When you crave foods or overeat, your body is really craving something emotional. It could be love, less stress, rest, or a warm bubble bath. If you can justBstill for a few moments a day, you can begin to bridge your needs, both physical and emotional, to lead you back to your natural weight.

Reconnect with Your Satiety Meter

The headlines on the obesity epidemic are staggering. Everyday there are numerous
articles, statistics, and suggestions of what and how to eat. It’s enough to send you to
the refrigerator for comfort. Last week Heidi Dalzell interviewed me for “The
Philadelphia Eating Disorder Examiner” about an article on teen obesity. She asked my
opinion of the reasons for teen obesity, and I replied, “One of the causes of teen
overweight may come from disconnected satiety meters. As young children we have the
ability to distinguish when we are hungry and when we are full, but temporarily lose
this skill as we disengage from our body-mind connection.” This disconnect is carried
into adulthood. One of the ways to fix our satiety meter is through the practice of
awareness and reconnecting to our mind and body. The union of mind and body is called
yoga. Yoga means to join or yoke. Joining the mind and body is why the ancient yogis
developed yoga.

The point is, if you want to lose weight, first do nothing. Don’t exercise. Don’t diet.
Just breathe and be still. Just sit and tune into your breath, bodily sensations and
thoughts. This is the true essence of yoga. As you sit and breathe in meditation, ask
yourself, “What’s here now?”  Allow acceptance of whatever arises, and then return your
attention to your breath and body. Through this practice, we can make the reconnection
to what our body is asking for. It may be food when we are hungry, rest when we are
tired, hugs when we are lonely, or movement when we want to play. This is exactly what
we did when we were babies and toddlers. Our body is born with the ability to discern
what it needs at every given moment. That half eaten cookie on the coffee table? It’s
because that little girl’s body decided she was full and then wanted to run off and
play. Smart.

Our bodies are so smart, but then someone came along and told us we had to finish our
dinner because there were starving kids in another part of the world. We became members
of the clean plate club.  Or maybe we heard, “Don’t eat too much; you don’t want to get
fat.” We embodied these moments and they became our new reality and became embedded into
our memory. The good news is that modern research has told us that our brains, because
of their “plasticity” can build new neural pathways. There is plenty of research that
shows meditation changes the brain to build these pathways.  These pathways are there
for the asking, so why not use them? JustBstill. Just breathe and be still and build
some new pathways. This is the path to changing your relationship with food.

 

September 2010
Letting Go
Letting go of negative thoughts can not only help you to feel like you have lost a dress size, but may actually physically do so as well. When we let go of old thinking patterns, we may also let go of using food for comfort. Marissa* was stuck with the thought that her ex husband would be angry if she told him to buzz off when he constantly stopped over, unannounced, to see what she was up to. The other women in our “Body Mind-fullness” group tried to help her realize that since she was no longer married to Tim, she had every right to tell him he could no longer stop by her house when he simply wanted to. “But I am afraid to make him angry because he will report it back to my (grown) kids. I don’t want my kids to be mad at me.” Marissa was stuck in this holding pattern and so she was continuing to eat emotionally.

When we get stuck in thinking patterns, we are holding ourselves hostage, unable to see that we shouldn’t believe everything we think. Thoughts become like clutter in our mind, not unlike the clutter we find in our home or car or desk drawers. One way to let go of thoughts is through yoga. When we come to our mat to practice yoga, sometimes the mental clutter becomes dislodged because we are willing to sit and breathe and observe our thoughts and emotions in a safe place. Our mat is a personal space and boundary that we can use as a home to explore not only our bodily sensations, but also our mental chatter of thoughts and emotions. Yoga teaches us to let go of our attachments to our mental stories which clutter our mind. As we move and breathe on our mats, our minds actually slow down and become still. As Eckhart Tolle says, ”Stillness is where creativity and solutions to problems are found.”

Today is the second day of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. As Jews, we go to synagogue to sit in the stillness of prayer as we reflect upon the previous year of our actions and try to begin again the process of starting over. Thankfully we are given a new start each year to let go of sins and old mental stories that are keeping us stuck. One of the most beautiful rituals of this holiday is called Tashlich (pronounced “tosh-LEEK”). We wander down to a creek or river and throw pieces of stale bread into the water as a symbol of casting away sins from the previous year. This ritual is not unlike a metaphorical meditation that is commonly used in yoga or meditation – when thoughts are churning through your mind during your practice –visualize letting go of a thought by imagining a leaf floating down a river. So yesterday as I watched the piece of bread float away from me, I visualized the bread as a leaf.

Letting go of old clutter, casting away sins, and saying “no”, can feel like a huge weight being lifted from our shoulders. Once Marissa let go of her story about her children “but they will be mad me!” she was letting of the clutter of her ex -husband’s shadow at her front door. (Literally!) She finally told him to stop! “Stop coming to my house without an appointment.” He listened, and she came to class to tell us. “Last week my ex-husband tried to contact me again and ask for a favor. I just said, ‘No!’ And the sky didn’t fall down, and there was no monsoon, and no earthquake. I just said, ‘No.’”

*Not her real name

July 2010

Health At Every Size and Yoga

 

The Health At Every Size (HAES) philosophy “is based on the simple premise that the best way to improve health is to honor your body. It supports people in adopting health habits for the sake of health and well-being (rather than weight control).” HAES also encourages acceptance of the diversity of body shapes and sizes, finding joy in body movement, and normalized eating. We can begin to embody this no-diet philosophy through the practice of yoga.

When we come to our mat to practice yoga, we are not only moving our body into poses (asana) we are turning our attention inward to connect with our breath and mind. By turning our attention inward, we will discover that we already have a toolbox located inside ourselves; we only need to quiet our mind to connect to our intuitive skills. This is where we breathe and become still – to justBstill.

While yoga provides us with a work out, it is meant to be more of a work-in. Our work out and work-in require us to start right where we are in each new moment on our mat with acceptance and awareness. To begin tuning into and feeling our mind and body in yoga, we bring our attention to the movement of our body and our breath. When we feel into our body, we can observe thoughts, as well as bodily, emotional, and spiritual sensations. When we observe these thoughts and feelings, they can become our greatest teacher. Over time we learn that patience and compassion for our body will transform not only our yoga practice, but also our way of eating.

On our yoga mat, we learn that healing and transformation come not from striking the perfect pose, but from accepting ourselves in the pose that’s possible in that moment. Some days our bodies are tight or tired, so our practice will reflect the body’s status. We are honoring our body’s needs when we listen to our body as it tells us to work deeper or back off. As we become aware of finding our edge – the place between not doing too much or too little - we can take this practice from our mat to the table. Discovering what amount of intensity feels right for our body in our yoga practice, we are supported to tune into and to trust our body’s sensations that tell us how much food it needs meal by meal.

Sometimes we strive to be perfect on our mat and then we lose our balance and fall down. When this happens, we can lighten up by not worrying, and simply get up to start over. When we have overeaten, we can sit with these feelings at the table, and rather than judge ourselves, we can tune in with curiosity to discover what, if not food, we may have needed more of. And, instead of trying to fix the overeating episode by planning to eat less at our next meal or by burning off calories with exercise, we can simply wait for our uncomfortable fullness feeling to shift over time and for our hunger sensations to reliably arise when it’s time to feed ourselves again. No striving or forcing or punishing. Just being aware of our sensations and wisdom and working with instead of against our body. This is the practice of intuitive eating, mindful eating, or attuned eating.

 

Recently I attended a yoga class at the Center for Yoga in Birmingham, Michigan. At the end of class, our teacher, Nicole, suggested to us, “Check in to see if your body is asking for anything else we did not do in class today. Maybe you need another posture, or maybe you don’t.”  As I turned my gaze inward, I took a breath and became still. I took child’s pose because I was aware my body needed rest. The HAES philosophy also teaches us to move our body in a manner that bests suits our physical and emotional needs. If you dislike public gyms, maybe a walk in the woods would best serve you. The idea is to take an inventory of where you are in this moment, and make a decision based upon your present moment needs.

The practice of HAES also allows us to accept our current state of health, and decide what lifestyle changes we want to make based upon our physical, emotional and spiritual needs. When we work-in, we find the tools for transformation by making small, attainable goals. HAES and yoga is about taking care of yourself on and off your mat.

 

http://haescommunity.org/

 

June 2010

“Feast on Your Life”

In the July issue of Oprah Magazine, Oprah discusses how her relationship with food is beginning to shift. In her “What I Know For Sure” column, she makes reference (again!) to Geneen Roth’s book, “Women, Food and God”, as says that since she has now allowed/permitted all foods into her life, she is beginning to crave them less. She has stopped dieting and restricting foods she likes. When she feels lonely or tired she is finding new ways to satisfy these feelings.

In the last sentence of the column, Oprah states that she would rather “feast on life” than use food as a panacea. She is referring to a poem that Derek Walcott wrote called “Love after Love” that describes the reconnection to one’s true self after losing a lover. He tells the reader to come back to yourself after a bad break up, because you will always have yourself. Often we lose our true identity in a relationship, and that is how we lose connection to ourselves. Losing ourselves in a binge or mindless eating moment is no different. The last line of the poem Walcott writes, “Sit. Feast on your life.” It is a beautiful poem and you can read it on my website. (http://www.justbstill.com/whatsnew.html)

What does it mean exactly to, “feast of your life?” Try to recall a meal that was memorable. You may remember the meal as pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. As you remember this moment in time, who was with you; where were you; what did you eat; what were you feeling/thinking? The answers to these questions are the definition of the term “mindful eating”. When we begin to eat mindfully at the table, we are connecting back to ourselves and our own wisdom about why we are eating in the moment. This connection is a nourishing awareness-ing that we can begin to cultivate through food. There is more to mindful eating than just noticing the taste of the food. When you still yourself and breathe before, during and after eating, you may begin to notice that food starts to taste differently. You may discover you don’t like so much salt on French fries. You may notice that you are eating for a reason other than hunger. The chocolate cake you eat everyday may taste okay, but it’s not the same chocolate cake you had while on vacation on your Caribbean cruise. Maybe you are just eating it because you were trying to recreate that wonderful moment once again.

As we connect to our plate and ultimately into ourselves, we may begin to notice that food can become a pathway that leads us to connect from our plate to our life. In yoga, we like to say “take your practice from your mat to your life”. Mindful eating helps us to unfold into ourselves. When we begin to notice why we are eating, we can also begin to notice why we live the way we do. Once we sit with this awareness, let go of the judgment, we can begin to feast on food when we are physically hungry, and feast on our life as though it really matters.

 

Climbing Mt. Everest

 

For Jordan Romero, the 13-year-old American who became the youngest climber to summit Mount Everest, it all began with the desire to dream big. "I'm doing this to inspire other kids hopefully across the world, to get outdoors and to set goals in life. I'm doing this to set an example for them," he said. Yesterday I saw the young Jordan as he was interviewed by Matt Lauer on the Today Show. Matt asked him, “How do you prepare your body to climb Mt Everest?” The young man responded that he trains his body, but that “only 10% of the actual climb is climbing. 90% of it is resting. We took our time climbing.”

What if we actually spent more time resting, sitting in stillness, and then used the rest of our energy to work on our own goal? Take weight loss, for example. When we expend so much time restricting food, worrying about good vs.  bad foods, we are only wasting valuable energy. What if we actually rested for a moment, and asked the tough questions like, “Why did I emotionally eat today?” And then,  “What can I do this week/day/moment to inspire myself?” Setting one small attainable goal, known as intention, is the key to 10% effort. The other 90% - resting, is where we become still before eating, and ask ourselves/our body  questions such as, “Am I hungry? How much is enough to eat now? If I am not physically hungry, what does my body/self/soul/heart need right now?” These are big question that require 90% stillness and mental awareness. We achieve the answers to these big questions with moment to moment awareness.

When we set attainable goals, take our time, rest in awareness, we begin to traverse the mountain. The climb is long, and sometimes it is hard, but resting along the way, we realize we can inspire ourselves using our own inner wisdom, rather than a diet plan which dictates how much and what to eat. Diets don’t ask the life changing questions such as “WHY am I eating in this moment?” Can you JustBstill and notice that, one step at a time goals are milestones that may last a lifetime? In the words of young Jordan, "The record is one thing, but standing on top of the world is just the best feeling you could ever imagine,"

 

 

May 2010

 Owner of a Lonely Heart:

Today I read an article called: “Loneliness Can Lead to Weight Gain”. Here’s the link if you are interested: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/189287.php

My response is - this is not an “a-ha” moment. Of course loneliness can drive someone to seek comfort in the pantry or refrigerator! The question in my mind is, “What can you do about your loneliness, especially if you are trying to lose weight?” My immediate thought was most people would consider a program like Weight Watcher’s.

One of the reasons the Weight Watcher’s program is so successful is because it entices people who are hungry for community to join together and form a support group. However for the vast majority of people, Weight Watcher’s is still a diet program, and if you are on the same page as me, you already know diets don’t work. Despite the WW claim that it is not a diet, when a program tells you when and how much to eat by counting calories (points), that’s a diet. If you think WW is not a diet, and you would like a more convincing answer, in the interest of time, please email me and I will email you a longer answer.

Therefore, please consider this: when you form a community, group, sangha or whatever you want to call it, can you feel a sensation of warmth and comfort at the mention of connecting to a community of likeminded people?  Be still for a moment and allow this feeling of connection to pass through you.  One of the main goals of a community may be to be able to feel your body again. A community allows us to feel the comfort, joy and even sorrow pass through us, as we share our story, and then listen and feel stories from others. When we sit with those feelings and let them become a part of our present moment awareness, we become once again connected to mind and body. The hunger for connection is the intention of a successful community.

In yoga, we sometimes chant “Om” before and after a class. If you have ever experienced this, then you may also notice the difference of the sound and tone before and after class. After we have practiced together as a community, in unison, we are connected by some energy source in the room. ( I don’t mean the airy fairy kind of connection; it’s a fact that brain MRI scans are different before and after yoga practice). When we chant Om at the end of class, we are often in the same key, and on the same note.

If you are interested in joining a community of people where you can sit on your comfy couch, listen to other people’s stories, share your story and understand what’s happening in your life that may be causing you to use food when you are stressed, tired, irritable or lonely, consider Geneen Roth’s online retreat to begin May 25. Here’s the link:

http://womenfoodandgod.com/onlineretreat/index.html

 

Why Can’t Oprah Lose Weight?

Many people ask me why I think Oprah is overweight. After all, she has a private chef, personal trainer, etc. I always give the same response: I think Oprah is addicted to food. In her April issue of O magazine, Oprah admits that she uses food emotionally. Emotional eating is defined as a way to suppress or soothe negative emotions, such as stress, anger, fear, boredom, sadness and loneliness with food. Oprah says she does not like the word “addiction” but now admits that she eats when she is stressed.

 

Last week I attended the Oprah show taping of best-selling author, Geneen Roth. Her new book, “Women, Food and God” was the show topic. My guest and I watched in amazement as the women in the audience appeared to awaken from a deep slumber. These women, who have been dieting most of their lives, shared their stories of shame, fear and disgust with their bodies and their experiences with deprivation driven eating. Oprah told the audience that now she “gets it” and is becoming more aware of her food using moments. And herein lies the point, when we can pause before eating and ask the question, am I hungry for food or something else, we can begin to explore with gentle curiosity the moment of what is here now. This awareness of sitting in stillness can allow an unfolding of why we are eating when we are not physically hungry.

I highly recommend Geneen’s book, and also the Oprah show interview, which will air Wednesday May 12.

Interested in the no diet approach to eating? See this link for more info:

http://www.justbstill.com/Classes.html

April 2010

I Love My Body

Last week the Victoria’s Secret catalog came in the mail. I think I get one every week, and I usually throw it away, but this one caught my attention. It wasn’t the picture on the cover that caught my attention. I am so used to seeing half naked women in the media, that I have conditioned myself to block it out. It was the statement on the cover that gave me pause. The beautiful, ultra thin model was wearing an affirmation that emblazoned the cover: “I Love My Body”. Before you read further, please become still for a moment and close your eyes, breathe, and notice any thoughts that arise when you repeat the statement “I love my body”. So, do you? Love your body?

I showed the cover to my husband and I expected him to say, “Oh yeah. She’s pretty!” He didn’t say that. Instead he sighed and said, “I saw that and it made me feel like a fat slob”. My husband is not fat. He thinks he needs to lose weight, and therein lies the point. Are we ever happy with our bodies? Why can’t we accept our bodies right now, and be happy with what we have? Do we ever tell our body “thank you?” When is the last time you thanked your body for doing all that it is designed to do – both on the inside and out? Whether it’s bodily function, walking the stairs or birthing children, your body has supported you along the way, and she is listening to everything you say.

If you read the book, “The Law of Attraction”, then you may agree that there are advantages to saying positive statements. In a study conducted by UCLA researchers, participants who used positive affirmations had lower cortisol levels during a laboratory stress challenge. Maybe you aren’t ready to say “I love you”, but what would happen if you said “thank you?”  If you spoke to your partner, child, parent, friend with the bad body talk you use on yourself, would they still speak to you? Probably not. In the words of Megrette Fletcher, “If I put a microphone in your mind, would the FCC have to bleep put the language you use to judge yourself?”

“The pervasiveness of bad body talk in our culture harms our emotional and physical well being and can increase body dissatisfaction. This dissatisfaction can lead to unhealthy or even eating disordered behaviors,” according to Dr. Nancy Logue, a Yardley, PA psychologist. When you speak kindly to yourself you may find that your relationship with food may begin to change. Can you play with positive body talk, or try them on for a few moments? If you decide to try it, please consider telling me your outcome.

 

March 2010

Heart Hunger

As Passover and Easter draw near, will you spend time at the table with family and friends? When you think of these meals, what comes to mind? Special foods, memorable meals? Were these foods prepared by someone close to you? Even if  these foods you recall where store or restaurant bought, what is it about the meal that you remember? Many times we are flooded with feelings when holidays approach, and many of these feelings are based around food. If you love spending time at the table eating the food your mom or loved one has prepared, you are satisfying a kind of hunger that is nourishing the heart. Heart hunger cannot be fulfilled by food, but it can be satisfied with intimacy and connection with others. This is the kind of hunger that we feel when we reminisce of times past that were enjoyable when spent with people we feel connected to.  Heart hunger is satisfied by intimacy and connection with others.

On the other hand, sometimes family gatherings bring up past memories that are not so pleasant. Recently a client, Estee, shared a story with me about her memory of family holiday meals. Her mother lovingly prepared many delicious foods, and received rave reviews for her culinary skills at every gathering. However, Estee was the one who had to wash the dishes after the meal was finished. While she enjoyed her mother’s cooking, the chore that awaited her made her feel less satisfied physically and emotionally. When this happens, many of us turn to comfort foods to fill the negative emotions we experience, even though we are with people we love, who love us back. Sometimes we eat past fullness at these meals to soothe and comfort ourselves.

As you sit at your family meal, or any meal shared with others, take observation of what the voice in your head is telling you. If it is pleasant, or even neutral, notice if you leave the table satisfied, both physically and emotionally. If you feel uneasy, unhappy when dining with others, what happens when you push away from the table? Beginning to observe and simply watch these thoughts and emotions, without harshly criticizing yourself, is a step on the path to eating more mindfully. When you dine with others and your heart if filled with joy, you have satiated heart hunger. If you leave with a hole in your heart, can you sit still and turn your gaze inward? When you do, your heart will guide you with other ways to satisfy this kind of love.

February 2010

Eyes Wide Shut:

Yesterday I heard an interview with Jane Fonda describing her recipe for looking young. She said “I eat a purple, red and orange food everyday”. She’s describing what nutritionists refer to as “eating around the rainbow” for exposure to all vitamins and minerals. I thought her observation was interesting, because I wonder if most people actually look at the color of their food, the texture, the size, shape. If you eat the same breakfast everyday (hopefully you do eat breakfast!), have you ever seen it with fresh eyes? Can you describe the colors on the package, the plate or bowl? Can you recall the color of the napkin you used?

So often we spend our days with our eyes open, but in reality we don’t see anything. We miss the moment of the first flower in spring, because there is so much other stuff to process that we are on autopilot. When we close our eyes, our other senses become heightened to what’s going on. Do you close your eyes when you truly want the full experience of a moment? Like when you eat chocolate,  meditate,  pray, bathe, listen to music, have difficulty recalling the name of someone, or even having sex?

Try it for fun: the next time you eat, look at the colors, then take the first bite and close your eyes while you chew, chew, chew, and savor. Just notice if the taste, texture, temperature is more noticeable. When you are finished with the first bite, just breathe and be still for a moment, and ask yourself, how was that different?

December 2010

How to Eat Like an Olympian

USA Women’s Snowboard Winter Olympian, Gretchen Bleiler, was interviewed this morning on the Today Show. She described for Matt Lauer what it’s like to be cruising inside the half pipe. She talked about altitude and how she loves to give people a show that compels them to look up and watch her fly into the air. When asked what’s going through her mind she replied, “It’s quiet inside”.

Athletes are notorious for focus and concentration on their game. In order to win, sheer moment to moment awareness is key to the Gold. In the moment of their performance, they don’t have time to think of past or future events. It’s the most important moment of their life; this is the only moment they have to get the Gold. This defining moment will determine their future. What did they bring to this moment? Awareness,  focus, and of course their skill. That is all they bring to the game. A quiet mind is a mindful moment. A quiet mind is filled with awareness of the moment. This is mindfulness.

When you can quiet your mind and bring awareness to your plate, you are performing like an Olympian. This is mindful eating in its true essence. Rather than allow the chatter to dictate emotions running wild: “this food is bad for me;” “ If I eat this, I will gain weight;” “ I don’t deserve this;” can you notice those thoughts, and then release them? Can you give your thoughts some “altitude”, and let the chatter rest so you can focus on the game – your food? When you still your mind and bring awareness to your eating, you are on the path to Gold Medal eating.

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