intuitive eating Archives - Page 3 of 3 - Everyday Chocolate

January 5, 2022January 4, 2022 by Libby

What Foods Do You Consider Healthy?

Hello! I hope you enjoyed the holiday season and were able to spend time with friends and family. I always find the week after New Year’s a bit challenging in terms of getting back into normal rhythms and routines and no longer having the Christmas season to look forward to. Anyone else??

The holiday season got me thinking about wanting to write a brief post on “healthy foods.” What comes to mind for you when you think of healthy foods or eating healthy?

I tend to hear more comments at the holidays about foods being healthy or unhealthy, good or bad. It seems when people make these sort of black-and-white comments, the general consensus I notice is that they are referring to a food being (1) relatively low in calories (such as a salad automatically being healthier than a burger) or (2) relatively nutrient-dense (such as a carrot automatically being healthier than pretzels). People may feel guilty after eating a food they deem bad and may feel the need to compensate in some way (for example, through restriction at the next meal or increased exercise).

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October 27, 2021November 10, 2021 by Libby

Eating Disorder or Disordered Eating?

Happy Wednesday! I hope you are having a nice week so far. I have been enjoying the fall colors lately and getting outside when I can, especially when it is sunny! I just finished my five-week-long food service management rotation at one of the dining halls at U of M. I enjoy food service and learning more about managing food operations – it was especially interesting/crazy with all of the supply chain and staffing issues going on with COVID! Not fun for the staff when they are trying to feed and forecast menus for 2000 people multiple times every day… This week I am doing a one week clinical rotation with the maternal and infant health unit at Michigan Medicine. The one constant of this internship is that it is always changing and quickly on to something new!

Today I’m going to be covering a few concepts…

- - What is an eating disorder?
  - What is disordered eating?
  - What does it look like to be a healthy eater?,

I often talk about both eating disorders and disordered eating, so I think it’s important to take some time to explain what each means. It’s necessary to make this distinction because one can have a disordered relationship with food without having a full-blown eating disorder, and both are important to address for optimal health and well-being.

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September 29, 2021September 24, 2021 by Libby

Rediscover a Joy-Based Approach to Eating

Most of us probably grew up as kids with what I would consider a “joy-based approach to eating.” What I mean by this is that most of our food decisions were made with little to no thought, were primarily chosen based on what would satisfy us, and despite all of this our nutritional needs were largely if not fully met. If you were like me when you were younger, you didn’t know in detail what protein, fat, and carbohydrate are, you didn’t feel bad for eating “too much ice cream,” and you probably ate 3 relatively balanced meals and at least 2-3 snacks each day. How did eating, something so fundamental to sustaining human life, become so complicated for so many of us as we got older? And are we any better off for it?

The opposite of a joy-based approach to eating is what I would consider a fear-based approach to eating. A fear-based approach to eating is one that is rooted in guilt, fear, and shame, and leads to obsession and chaos. Unfortunately, this is what many of us develop in varying degrees as teenagers or adults. Living in a culture in which we are constantly inundated with messages about what is beautiful (i.e., one body size – very thin), what and what not to eat, and what new diet or exercise regimen to try can leave many of us feeling confused and obsessive when it comes to food and nutrition. We may start to become very black and white about food, labeling some foods “safe” or “healthy,” and other foods “off-limits” or “bad.” We may develop rigid food rules and shame ourselves when we break them. To pay the penance for our “mistakes” with eating, we may resort to dieting, shaming ourselves, obsessively exercising, or other unhealthy measures to remove the guilt we feel and the fear of gaining weight. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that the way some of us interact with food is like a religion – I can say that because I have been there! Rigid rules, efforts to remove guilt and essentially internally cleanse oneself, and the reality that it is never enough no matter our best efforts. If any of this resonates with you, know that you are not alone.

While I could go on about what it is like to live in a fear-based approach to food, I will save that for another time. Today I want to focus more on two facets of a joy-based approach to eating:

Why is it important to have a joy-based approach to eating?
How can one rediscover a joy-based approach to eating?

Let’s look at these questions one at a time.

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May 25, 2021May 25, 2021 by Libby

Some Takeaways From School

I’ve had several people ask me recently some version of the question, “After learning all that you’ve learned in your program, what can you just not eat now??” I think they are expecting me to share something along the lines of the “horrors” of McDonald’s, added sugar, or processed foods. My attempts to answer this question got me thinking about how going through a master’s program in nutrition has actually increased my flexibility with eating and confidence that a healthy diet can incorporate all foods – hence, there is nothing that I, as a nutrition professional and enthusiast, “can’t eat now!”

So, I thought I’d share a few key takeaways of what I learned from my time in school. I’d love to hear what resonates with you!

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May 12, 2021May 12, 2021 by Libby

Self-Prescribed Rigid Box Thinking

Today I’m going to talk about a concept I think of as “self-prescribed rigid box thinking,” – rule-bound, all-or-nothing, black-and-white thinking we can impose on ourselves. This is something I used to struggle with a LOT when I had an eating disorder and this way of thinking can still impact me regularly (but thankfully usually in much lesser degrees).

About a week ago I decided not to do a marathon that I had been training for the past few months. The marathon is only a month out, but I was at the height of my training plan and my knee was starting to flare up a bit. I felt like I could have pushed through it and done the marathon, but I really did not want to risk any injury, especially since the last (and only) time I did a marathon I was out for 5 months after the race recovering from a knee injury in the same knee that was flaring up last week. (The marathon was totally worth it at the time, but I would not recommend running a marathon on a semi-good knee!) I also felt like my motivation for doing this marathon wasn’t in the best spot. For the first marathon, I had a lot of fun training, and completing the marathon was my only goal – and it ended up being one of the best/most exhilarating days of my life! Running a marathon was something I had always wanted to do, and I didn’t know for a long time if it would be possible for me to run a marathon healthfully due to my history of anorexia nervosa and 6 years of restrictive eating/overexercising-induced hypothalamic amenorrhea.

Running across the finish line at the Ann Arbor Marathon in 2017!

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January 13, 2021November 10, 2021 by Libby

What is Intuitive Eating?

Today I want to spend some time discussing what intuitive eating is, as this framework of eating underlies much of what I believe and talk about when it comes to food. When I first learned about intuitive eating towards the end of high school, it greatly helped me in my recovery from an eating disorder and in improving my relationship with food.

The intuitive eating framework was developed by two dietitians, Eveyln Tribole, M.S., R.D.N., and Elyse Resch, M.S., R.D.N. The first edition of the book, Intuitive Eating, was published in 1995, and the fourth (and most recent) edition was published just this past June. The book goes into depth on the ten principles of intuitive eating (which I will describe more below) and is a resource I would HIGHLY recommend if you are interested in learning more! (*There is also a workbook that you can get to go along with the book that is also really helpful!) Since the publication of the book, there have been over 100 studies on intuitive eating, validating its effectiveness when it comes to improving one’s overall health (both physical and mental), including one’s relationship with food.

Intuitive eating is a way of eating that focuses on tuning into your own internal bodily cues, mind, emotions, and overall intuition. It places emphasis on the reality that our bodies know best what/when/how much to eat – better than an app or calorie tracker, a meal plan, or a diet (or “lifestyle/wellness plan”) – YOU yourself innately have the ability to eat in a way that cares for YOUR body and YOUR specific needs at any given point in time.

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