It’s that simple. When you take care of yourself and give yourself what you really want, the need to overeat dissolves.
In this chapter, you will learn how to recognize your eating triggers. You’ll understand why food doesn’t fix feelings and explore the links between emotion, hunger, and eating as you learn how to recognize and short-circuit those connections. Once you learn how to take better care of yourself, you will lose interest in eating when you’re not hungry.
When you’re only eating when food appeals to you, you no longer have to try to control every bite that goes into your mouth. Eating is simple. You eat what you want, and you get pleasure from satisfying yourself.
Chapter 10 helps you decide
what
to eat and
how
to live well.
You’ll learn which habits are wholesome and how to become naturally drawn to these wholesome habits rather than consciously having to choose them and fight other desires. What if being vibrant and active was a core part of your identity and you didn’t feel the burden of needing to “work out”?
Chapter 11 helps you change your tastes.
What if your mouth watered at the smell of roasting beets? If you craved an apple, fennel, and watercress salad drizzled with balsamic vinegar? This chapter uses the latest in “taste science” to show you how to retrain your taste buds and reinvent your eating patterns. For instance, did you know that your taste buds have a three-week lifespan? After three weeks of eating foods with less salt, you won’t even notice that the high sodium of yore is missing.
Enjoy your journey into Health at Every Size.
EIGHT
Respect Yourself, Body and Soul
N
o matter how closely we resemble the ideal seen on television, in magazines and advertising, most of us—particularly women—feel shame about our bodies. We don’t create this shame out of thin air: Our culture constantly sends us messages that who we are and how we look is definitely
not
okay.
Just think about how many times you’ve heard the following:
• “You have such a pretty face; if only you’d lose some weight.”
• “It’s your fault you’re single. If you’d lose weight, others would notice you.”
• “Lose weight, girl! Don’t you have any self-respect?”
• “If you really loved me, you’d lose weight.”
People think they’re being kind when they tell you, “It’s what’s on the inside that matters.” The unspoken assumption, of course, is that your outside is unappealing—which is really an insult, thinly veiled as support.
We also heap the shame on ourselves. One participant in our study encouraged her family to snort like a pig every time she moved her fork to her mouth. She thought the shame and disgust it inspired would help her stay on her diet. The result? She exhibited tremendous self-control during family meals, but the binge during cleanup more than offset the saved calories . . . and she dreaded family meals.
Even if you’d never go to such extremes, and regardless of your weight, you might still feel like a “pig” inside, certain that neither you nor anyone else can like you until you’re thin enough to measure up to cultural standards. That’s because our culture accepts dieting and body hatred as normal. We unconsciously absorb these disturbed messages. So instead of uncovering and confronting our disturbed attitudes about our bodies or food, we focus on trying to change our weight. Our unsuccessful efforts at losing weight or maintaining weight loss just reinforce our feelings of personal failure and disgust.
To break out of this cycle and heal, you need to recognize the value of your body and understand that you—and only you—own it and live in it. This chapter provides you with the tools you need, enabling you to reclaim your body and your sense of self no matter what size jeans you wear. Most importantly, it will help you develop compassion for your body, enabling you to trust yourself with food and make better, more enjoyable choices.
Shame Backfires
If you’re hesitant about reading this chapter, you’re not alone. Many people are concerned that if they accept their bodies they may become complacent and remain “stuck” forever with a body they’ve grown to loathe. They believe that hating their body is an essential motivation for change, so they resist letting go of that self-hatred.
These fears are not only unfounded, but also stand in the way of your ability to make changes. Change comes from valuing and caring about yourself enough to want to improve your life. By first learning to have a positive relationship with your body, even if that body is not “perfect,” you strengthen your ability to make change.
Think about it. When you feel better about yourself, you make better choices, whether it’s how you eat, how often you exercise, if you’ll quit smoking, start walking, etc. But when you’re down on yourself and your body, you’re much more likely to act self-destructively. If you exercise as “punishment” for weighing too much, how can you learn to enjoy being active? If you eat salads only as a way to change the body you hate, how will you enjoy the wonderful tastes of fresh vegetables?
Besides, if hating one’s body effectively motivated change, do you really think there would be many heavy people in the world?
Accepting yourself as you are today doesn’t mean giving up. It means learning to live in the present with the body you have. It means facing and acknowledging reality.
Change the Question
It’s way too easy to believe that a thin body will right everything wrong in your world. It won’t. Moving toward increased self-acceptance and taking power away from your weight will do much more to improve your life.
Think about what you have believed you will gain from being thinner. Fill in the blank with your fantasies: When I’m thin, _____________.
These were some responses from the research participants:
• When I’m thin, I’ll be more attractive to others.
• When I’m thin, someone special will love me.
• When I’m thin, I’ll have a sex drive.
• When I’m thin, my sex life will get hot.
• When I’m thin, I’ll get the job I’ve always wanted.
• When I’m thin, my dad will be proud to be seen with me.
• When I’m thin, I’ll be more outgoing and charming, have more friends.
• When I’m thin, I can go to my high school reunion and show them how successful I’ve become.
• When I’m thin, I’ll order what I
really
want at a restaurant.
• When I’m thin, I won’t have diabetes.
• When I’m thin, I won’t feel guilty about having diabetes.
• When I’m thin, I’ll be more athletic.
• When I’m thin, I’ll be more adventurous.
• When I’m thin, I’ll be a rock star.
Once you consider the extent of the magical thinking that tends to be tied in to the fantasy of thinness, you can understand how threatening it is to consider the idea that you may never get the thin body you crave. It means that you never get to become the person you want to be. Wow! No wonder it’s so painful to let go of the drive to lose weight! Accepting your body is not just about physicality, it’s about accepting
who you are
, not continuing to wait until you become the person you imagine being.
The truth is, fat or thin, you may never be a rock star. You may never get the job you want or feel your father’s pride. You may never get the attention you want from someone unwilling to give it. It’s not because of your weight . . . it’s because you’re you and others are who they are. When you’re invested in your thin fantasies, you avoid the opportunity to face who you really are and to try to become who you really want to be. It’s the hope that your life will automatically improve when you’re thin that stops you from taking steps to improve your life right now.
Your anger gets directed at yourself for not fitting in, as opposed to a prejudicial culture that values certain bodies over others. After all, thinner people often
do
get better treatment and more respect in this culture. But rather than directing the brunt of our anger where it belongs, many of us feel ashamed of ourselves. Instead of trying to erase the stigma, we try to fight the fat. Think about it: Would you encourage people who face prejudice due to their dark skin to try to lighten their skin? Or would you support them in appreciating this aspect of themselves and fighting the prejudice?
If there is one message to take away from this book, it’s this: Start living life fully now, in your present body, because waiting until you lose weight is a big old waste of time. Your fantasies are available to you, right now. The thin person inside you can come out, though he or she may just reside in a fat body. As you become more legitimately accepting of yourself, you’ll find that you will make better choices that support a healthy body. Others will react differently to you as you hold yourself with more pride, and even more so as others do the same.
It’s a big leap of faith to move on from the “when I’m thin” fantasies. But when you change the question to reflect what you’re really looking for, your fantasies become more achievable.
Instead of asking “How can I get thin?” ask yourself, “What can I do to [fill in the blanks with your response, such as . . . be happier, get others’ respect and attention]?” Go after those directly, instead of believing you need to first lose weight. Everyone has a right to respect and happiness in their life, regardless of what they weigh. Trying to achieve them through weight loss provides a hollow and tenuous victory, not the core satisfaction that you are really seeking.
As you learned in earlier chapters, your weight is not necessarily in your control. The way you live your life
is
.
What Are Your Myths?
In earlier chapters, you learned to identify the “obesity myths” so prevalent in our culture. Myths that say you must lose weight if you want to be healthy, and losing weight is just a matter of control and discipline.
Learning the truth about these myths will help destroy the power they have over you now. That’s why the first half of this book is so important. In fact, you might want to go back and reread the early chapters. Remember learning in chapter 3 that diets don’t work? The message in chapter 6 was that you can be healthy even if your weight is still in the “overweight” or “obese” range? That biology, not discipline, controls our weight?
Start by acknowledging the cultural and societal voices you’ve unconsciously absorbed and believed throughout your life. These are the voices that say things like:
• Fat people have no self-control.
• How you look is what’s most important.
• No one will love you if you’re fat.
Now take this quiz to learn how much you’ve internalized these hurtful cultural messages.
Answer each question with either “never,” “occasionally,” “regularly,” or “often.”
How often do you . . .
1. Talk negatively about your own weight?
2. Choose clothes based on your perception of whether or not they make you look fat?
3. Assume that someone wants to lose weight?
4. Assume that someone should lose weight?
5. Make negative comments about someone else’s weight?
6. Encourage someone to lose weight?
7. Admire someone for having lost weight?
8. Admire someone’s ability to control his or her eating?
9. Admire someone for burning calories through exercise?
10. Assume someone is doing well because he or she lost weight?
11. Admire someone’s slenderness?
12. Assume that being fat is bad?
13. Disapprove of someone because of what he or she weighs?
14. Make comments to a heavy person about losing weight?
15. Smile or laugh at fat jokes?
16. Compliment a fat person on his or her appearance?
17. Compliment a fat person on his or her personality traits?
18. Actively oppose anti-fat comments?
19. Challenge someone who conveys a myth about body fat?