Category Archives: tuesday topic

Mind vs. Scale

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15

In my attempt to immerse myself into the world of eating disorders while I have the opportunity during this rotation, I am gathering as many references and resources as possible, both physically and mentally. What I mean by that is, anything that I can’t take a copy of, I spend my free-time on one of the comfy therapy couches reading through.

The great thing about this is that I’m not just flipping through textbooks. No, eating disorders are much more complex than that. Psychology comes into play, making the reading material much more enjoyable, at least in my opinion.

There are many books, self-help novels and long stories that are helpful in recovery from an eating disorder. Most of the time, these books are helpful not only to the patients, but also for the therapists, doctors and dietitians involved in recovery. It helps to understand.

So, today I picked up a book from one of the dietitian’s bookshelf and plopped down to read through a few chapters: Eat, Drink and Be Mindful, by Susan Albers.

Albers’ book is all about mindful eating. In fact, it’s woven with workbook-pages so that you can not only read the book, but become engaged and practice what you’re reading. If you’re curious about mindful eating, I suggest you read this book. It’s incredibly helpful, and if you haven’t a clue where to begin when it comes to eating mindfully, this book is for you.

But it’s not mindful eating that compelled me to write this post. No, there was a specific chapter that caught my attention. It caught my attention because, although I have a healthy relationship with food, there is one relationship that I still struggle with: the scale.

You see, I don’t quite know life without my scale. I started weighing myself in high school and really haven’t stopped ever since. Every morning, before I get into the shower, I step onto the scale. It used to be an obsessive-thing, but now it’s out of habit.

I know that it’s only habit because, back when it was an issues, the number on the scale dictated the mood for my day. Now? I take a mental note and move on. The number no longer affects my emotions.

But in Albers’ “Self Assessment” chapter, she addresses the need to not focus on specific numbers. She states that if you focus on your weight in numbers, you are less likely to focus on the behaviors that are being reflected in the weight.

She also acknowledges that there are those people that just use the scale to keep themselves accountable, being aware of what they weigh.

“These are the people who gain weight and don’t even realize it.”

I read that, and then re-read it. And then read it again. Is this like an editing error or something? I just didn’t get it.

But then I sat and thought about it, and realized that when I gain weight, I almost always see it on the scale, and not in myself. I see the numbers creeping up day by day, and that is what tells me I’m gaining weight. But I never stop to acknowledge whether or not my body feels this way. Are my jeans tighter? Is my face fuller?

Because of my habitual morning weigh-ins, I’ve totally disconnected my mind from my body. I may have the healthiest connection between mind & food, and body & food, but what about mind and body? The connection isn’t even there anymore.

This is urging me to do two things:

1) Ditch the scale. There is absolutely no need for me to know my weight. I am worth far more than the number on the scale. The way my clothes are fitting is a better indicator of my body, and in order for me to be more connected then I need to start taking this into account.

2) Be more aware of my body during yoga. I tend to be in my mind more often when I’m doing yoga because it’s a huge way to relieve stress. But this makes yet another disconnect with my body. Yoga is all about balance, so I need to take this into practice with my focus on both mind and body.

 

Hopefully in doing this, I’ll find that connection with my body and mend the relationship.

 

Do you weigh yourself often?

Dairy and Acne

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18

When we talk about nutrition, we often think of how the diet affects specific organs, like the heart, the intestines, the liver… but one organ that is commonly overlooked is skin… the largest organ in the body.

Ok so you kind of forgot, or maybe just didn’t think of skin as an organ, right? It’s okay because I actually seem to forget this quite a bit as well.

I’m usually stuck thinking the appearance of my skin, specifically my face, is from my skincare routine: wash and moisturize twice a day, toner once a day and exfoliate every other day. Everyone does it differently for their own skin type.

skin

But I always forget that I may be doing everything just fine from the outside, but what about from the inside? Am I feeding my skin what it needs, or maybe too much of what it doesn’t need?

The reason I bring this up is because lately, I’ve unfortunately been suffering from a bit of acne. I’ve never had a full-face of breakouts and still don’t, but what I mean is that there are more blemishes that seem to be reappearing once I seem to finally tackle them. This is a big issue for me currently because of this internship, I’m meeting a lot of new people and making a lot of first impressions. I’m in my twenties, I thought this shit was suppose to end, not get worse, what’s going on!?

Like I said before, I forgot that my skin is an organ too. And once I remembered, I realized that maybe my diet is what needs some adjusting… to make changes and work on my skin from the inside out.

Since being on a budget, many times I go for calorie-dense foods in order to get more bang for my buck, which often times includes dairy… like cheese, cream, milk, yogurt, etc. Well, one big controversy in the world of nutrition is with acne and dairy. It’s been studied and studied and studied, but even though there are many signs pointing to dairy in the diet being the culprit, there is hardly any scientific proof that it does in fact cause acne. It’s suggested that the hormone in cow’s milk (IGF-1) affect our bodies and the normal balance, and also that the dairy increases the amount of sebum, or oil, that we produce.

So, since evidence is sparse, I thought maybe I would do a little self-study of my own and see how my skin would react to this change. I’ve read a lot of stories where people mention they saw a difference in their skin in less than a week, so my goal is to cut dairy from my diet completely for two weeks. This works out pretty well actually because in preparation for our apartment move, we have been in “Operation: eat everything in the kitchen” mode, so we don’t have a whole lot of food lying around. In terms of dairy, we do have about a half-gallon of milk and a few yogurts, so I’ll be starting this little dairy-free adventure on Sunday once that’s all gone.

This means, of what I currently eat, no…

  • milk
  • sour cream
  • yogurt
  • cheese
  • ice cream/froyo
  • butter (rarely, if ever used)
  • whey protein

If you know me, you know that I love overnight oats (goodbye yogurt), protein smoothies (goodbye whey), ice cream (goodbye, my sweet love), and anything with cheese… So this is not going to be a walk in the park for me. But I’ll survive.

(haha)

Depending on the outcomes of my experiment, dairy may, sadly, just need to be eliminated from my diet. I’ll need to shift my focus from trying to recreate the same dairy-heavy meals and snacks. But since this is a totally new thing for me, I think substituting.. or at least trying to substitute.. for the lack of creamy-yummy-goodness will make a huge difference in my happiness. Obviously there are different kinds of milk to choose from, and I’m on a mission to find nutritional yeast, but does anyone have any other suggestions for replacing dairy products? Vegans, I’m looking at you because I know you have ways of making things “creamy” and “cheesy”!

Any suggestions?

Tuesday Topic: Struggles

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22

When someone knows that I’m on the path to becoming a dietitian, typically they see this as an invitation to comment on my food choices.

For instance, at family gatherings, distant relatives will ask me what I’m doing with my life and blah blah blah, and once I tell them, it’s like whatever is on my plate then becomes the center of attention. “Oh little-miss-dietitian is eating two kinds of dessert”…

Or even people that I come into contact with en route, like fellow interns or dietitians, that feel the need to comment on what we’re eating. “Pizza sounded so good but I know I shouldn’t be eating this much cheese”…

Ok ok I get it. You hear “dietitian” and immediately think food police. But let me tell you, food police have feelings too.

Honestly, studying nutrition has really strengthened my relationship with food, tenfold. But I would be lying if I said there weren’t still struggles every now and then… I wouldn’t be human if there wasn’t something I struggled with. And these feelings tend surface when people make comments like the ones above.

I bring this up because recently, with the people around me, I’ve heard all this negative jibberjabber about food. You would think that this would make me step back and be restrictive in my habits, but it’s actually done the opposite. The more negative comments I hear about eating cupcakes or ice cream, the more I want to eat it.. and then the more I eat.

I’m not hungry, nor am I even craving what I end up eating, but I still eat it. And I’m not saying that I have an issue with binging, because that’s not it at all, but it’s still eating things that I hardly want. It’s different when you’re actually craving chocolate as opposed to when you’re just eating it because of the backfiring effects of peoples’ comments. It’s almost like I’m eating it in rebellion, like “damn right I’m eating this cupcake, what are you gonna do about it”.

What it boils down to is me not listening to my own wants and needs. I’ve read a few posts on intuitive eating lately around the blogosphere just in passing, but now I find myself coming back to those posts and feeling a connection. I never thought I had an issue with this, and I still don’t really see it as a “problem”, but I think it’s important to remind ourselves that what matters most is YOU and your needs. Not what everyone else is saying.

 

How do you feel when people comment on your food choices?