This week I thought I’d share with you one of the weekly discussions/exercises from my new Web-Based Program. This discussion is on the topic of Natural Eating. I’ve attached a copy of the Natural Eating handout as well and encourage you to make use of it!

If this article resonates with you and you’d like to experience a life free from your stressful relationship with food, I hope you’ll consider joining our web program, attending a workshop or taking part in some one-on-one counselling. You don’t have to continue to feel stuck and ruled by food one more day.

Many folks when they hear the term “Natural Eating” begin to imagine whole grains, vegetarianism or perhaps even a raw food diet. Something beyond wholesome, something restrictive, something granola-cruncher-esque.

Well, that’s not what we mean when we use that term. Natural Eating for us means simply eating in response to your body’s natural cues of hunger and fullness and also to its signals of what it specifically needs.

Yes, when you stop feeding or restricting your body from a purely reactive/emotional place, you find quite quickly that your body not only knows exactly how much it’s hungry for and when but it is also very clear, and able to communicate to you quite clearly, what it needs in order to feel its best.

It really is effortless to eat naturally, it’s the diet mentality that is the problem: The head space you’re in, the stories you tell yourself about what you’re “allowed” and what others will think, the stories about what you have to weigh or what you have to look like in order to relax your rigid all-or-nothing approach to food and start listening to your body.

Many clients have shared that they began our work together with the following story in their heads: “I’ll just get a little information now, then I’ll go and diet and lose the weight, and then I’ll come back and really start using these tools.”

Now the obvious problem with that is that they have been dieting in some form or restricting in some form or focusing on food as the problem in some form for years already – in some cases, decades! And yet, because of the all-or-nothing thinking, they can’t see that at the same time as they are reaching out for something completely new as a solution (our work together), they are telling themselves they can’t do it, can’t be successful, that they can’t really trust themselves and that the only real solution is to keep dieting – which they’ve been doing already in some form for many, many years.

Many times I’ve heard people say, when they begin to understand but don’t quite “get” how their diet mentality and misplaced efforts towards healing have undermined them, “But, if I stop dieting and do this Natural Eating thing, that would mean that all those years were a waste! I can’t do that!” “I’ve been taught by diets and society that I have to look a certain way, weigh a certain amount and that the only way to be that is to restrict, to focus on food. And even though that diet mentality hasn’t actually worked yet in any lasting way, I can’t possibly just trust my body – I can’t let go of some external guideline and just listen to my hunger and fullness cues!”

Ummmmm, okay.

To any rational mind that makes no sense at all; to persist at something you now understand will never work only because you’ve been at it for so long???? ….but having been immersed in that diet mentality, all-or-nothing brain for many years myself, I understand it completely!

As much as those men and women understand intellectually that what they’ve been trying for so long can’t work/doesn’t work, they still, on some level, hope it can because they don’t know what else to do, and because they’ve been told by key people in their lives or by the diet industry that the problem is not the concept of restriction, it is them.

Therefore, they can’t really believe me. They can’t really trust that it’s that simple. They don’t believe that they can actually trust their bodies because of the diet mentality training they’ve received and the emphasis that has been placed on their weight and appearance as the key to their happiness and peace of mind.

But that’s the crux of the issue: The diet mentality you’ve been taught to believe in is the problem, not you! And as long as you keep putting any faith or trust in the diet mentality as having anything at all but suffering to offer you, you will only stay stuck. You have to begin to get that. As soon as you can allow for the possibility that that’s true, you are beginning to step free and you can be very quickly successful with this process of eating naturally and being a natural weight for your body effortlessly.

Explore the Natural Eating handout, print it out and post in on your fridge. Give yourself the gift of reinforcing these new ways of thinking and being around food a bit each day and you’ll be amazed how quickly you return to your natural state of being physically and mentally.

Have a fantastic week!

Love

Whether you prefer one-on-one counselling (in-person, by phone, or email), our intensive and transformative workshops, the self-help approach with the book, or our Food is Not the Problem Online Membership Program, take action today to have a stress-free relationship with food. Sign up for our free newsletter today (see the left top side of your screen). Newsletter subscribers receive exclusive product discounts and are first in line to get on all the latest new at CEDRIC.

© Michelle Morand, 2010

Hello CEDRIC Community Members.  In this article we are continuing with our goal exploration and creating small, doable steps to get you from where you are to where you want to be.

If you’re just joining us as a community member and want to take part in this series about self-care and forward momentum, I recommend you follow the link to the first article in this series and build from there. You’ll get much more out of the process and it will transform your current use of food to cope.  We have two more weeks (after today) of the self-care series and then we’re on to other key bits and pieces of the recovery and freedom process.  Eating when you’re not hungry, eating more than you’re hungry for, not allowing yourself to eat enough, and purging are all harmful ways of coping with the world and the stress it currently presents to you.  They are learned patterns of behaviour. They are not who you are. They are behaviours, and behaviours can be changed.

Those harmful behaviours are triggered by undermining thoughts such as I can’t. I am incapable. I am bad. I am wrong. I am undeserving of health, of love, of caring. I am unlovable. These thoughts are just stories. They aren’t true. Even if someone said anything like that to you, or behaved in such a way that made you feel that way, that is their interpretation and not the truth. No scientist would ever use the feedback of one subject as absolute evidence for her life theory, regardless of who that subject was (mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, brother, sis, teacher, coach, ex-partner, etc.). No scientific study is ever considered to have validity until it has been tested across many populations and has been found in each situation to have statistical significance. Statistical significance is not one person, not one family, not one school, or one office.

Chances are you are basing your entire life right now on stories you received, or told yourself about yourself from a very small (but influential) subject population. That only works if you completely tune out any rational approach to determining the truth and if you believe that those people were perfect, God-like beings who were healthy in all ways and had no growing to do whatsoever and no issues whatsoever. Do you know anyone like that? No? Then, the people who influenced your current perception of yourself and thus your current behaviour were imperfect, ordinary humans with issues of their own. In other words, they weren’t and aren’t God. They didn’t know the “Truth” about you. They only had their opinion and they were only ever doing their best, which, depending on their upbringing and life experience and training to be a human, may have been quite dysfunctional and misguided.

The choice of course is yours. You can keep believing those folks and the stories you tell yourself, but my recovery has shown me that if something doesn’t feel good it means it’s not right for me. And calling myself a fat, ugly, stupid, lazy pig never felt good to me. How does it feel to you?

If you’d like to step free of those limiting behaviours and thoughts, you can. You just need a little guidance. Neuropsychological studies have proven that the human mind cannot conceive of anything it hasn’t already experienced in some way. That means all you folks out there who have a Drill Sgt. in your head telling you that you shouldn’t need any help, that you can figure it out on your own and you’re stupid and lazy if you need help. are just spinning your wheels and will continue to do so until you allow yourself to seek out some new information and new ways of approaching things. The truth is, without outside intervention in some new form, your brain will not be able to conceive of things in any new and lasting way. It’s human nature. It’s not a flaw in you. It’s the way we’re wired. So perhaps you could cut yourself some slack and let yourself take some steps towards a new perspective. It’s the only way to finally step free.

This week we’re going to finish up with the goals piece and then next week we’re going to explore creating a plan to make some space in your week for the first steps on your path to freedom from 24/7 food and body focus.  A quiet mind is on the way!

Last week I covered goal #1, so if you want to explore some suggested small steps for that one, read Self-Care Part IV on the blog.

Goals (Where you’re going to be):

1. I want to be a natural weight for my body. (I realize that many of you will not know what that weight is as you’ve never been there – we’re going for a feeling of health and strength and tone in your body that you can sustain without restriction and over-exercise – you’ll definitely know it when you get there – if it’s not enough to be going for a feeling of ease and movement then go ahead and pick a ball-park number but don’t get caught up on the number, it’s the feeling of strength and ease of movement you’re really going for.)
2. I want to have a peaceful relationship with food.
3. I want to have an abundant financial situation.
4. I want a career that fulfills me financially and intellectually and allows me time and energy for my personal life too.
5. I want to have a loving, considerate, intellectually stimulating, passionate romantic life partnership.
6. I want to have a healthy and enjoyable relationship with my …(fill in the blanks) mother, father, brother, sister, grandmother, uncle, my best friend that I’m currently estranged from etc.  (I’m going to pick sister on this one but you can pick anyone)

Where you are now:

1 a. I am currently 75lbs over my natural weight.

b. I am currently 15 lbs under my natural weight.

1. I currently think about food in an obsessive and stressful way 24/7. L
2. I currently have 25K in debt.
3. I currently have a job that doesn’t stimulate me or pay me well enough to achieve my goals financially.
4. a. I currently have no partnership.

b. I currently have a partnership that doesn’t meet my needs in a key way (intellectually, sexually, emotionally, consideration, communication….)

1. I currently have no connection at all with my sister.

So, let’s look at # 2

I want to have a peaceful relationship with food, but currently I think about it 24/7 in a stressful way.

So, I take out some paper, turn it sideways (landscape) and on one end I put:

24/7 stressful thoughts of food

And at the other end I put: I have a peaceful and effortless relationship with food.

In between I make 3 marks so it end up looking like this:

24/7 thoughts    >>>>   X   >>>>>>     X     >>>>>     X >>>  Food is Peaceful/Effortless

Then I identify 3 small steps I can take that will lead me to where I want to go.  You might discover that you hit a wall about now. That’s a great indicator that you need to stop and figure out what your barriers are. What is it that keeps those 24/7 thoughts in check and what prevents you from moving forward. (This will help you to identify the steps you need to take).

So, we back up just a titch and we ask ourselves:

What are the stories I tell myself about continuing to think about food as I do?

What are the stories I tell myself about what will happen if I change my relationship with food and the way I think about it?

What’s going to happen if I feel peaceful about food?

Your answers may sound something like this:

If it’s not in my mind 24/7, I’ll forget and eat something I shouldn’t; I’ll lose my motivation; I’ll just get even fatter; I’ll get complacent and stop trying to be thinner/healthier etc.; Others that I diet with or who know I’ve been trying to heal will judge me if I don’t focus on it as much, they’ll think I’ve given up or don’t care about myself; I’ll lose the friendship with X because it’s something we do together; I can’t; It’s too much work; It’s too hard; I’ve never been successful before so I won’t be now; I shouldn’t even bother trying……

Any of that sound familiar?  Each of these stories is what we call “all-or-nothing” thinking.  They are not true. They may be things you’ve experienced in the past, but remember, your brain cannot conceive of anything it hasn’t already experienced, so of course your brain is telling you that you can’t, because it hasn’t experienced you doing it yet. We all have doubt about things that are new and different, it’s how the brain functions in its attempt to keep us safe (It doesn’t care if it’s keeping us safe in heaven or in hell, pleasure or pain, just as long as it’s familiar.).

Yes, we all have doubt and uncertainty about things that are new and different. It’s just that some of us understand, because of our life training, that we need to try anyway and that we’re more likely to succeed if we try than if we don’t.  Others have had life training where trying something new led us to be ridiculed, shamed, berated or harmed physically if we weren’t perfectly successful the first time.

I was beaten once by my dad when I was a very little girl for spilling milk that I was just learning to pour from a big glass jug. How long to you think it was before I ever dared to try and pour milk for myself again?  It wasn’t safe to make mistakes in my home. From that I got the story that I had to be perfect or very bad things would happen, and since I couldn’t guarantee that I could be perfect with things I hadn’t done or experienced before, I had better not even go there! Fortunately for me, life forced me to get out of my home early (15 years old) and I had to try new things, perfect or not, or die. I was still terrified and had incredible self-judgement around anything new for many years because I had no support and no way of knowing that it was my story that was harming me and not my actual abilities.

So, back to your stories. If you hear any of those stories popping into your noggin while you’re on the path to your ultimate goal don’t buy into them, instead, just gently remind yourself that those are just old all-or-nothing stories and you don’t wish to buy into them any more.

Now identify 3 small goals for the chart. How will you get, in a sustainable way, from here to there?

A first step on the path to a peaceful connection with food may be to encourage yourself simply to notice when you’re eating or wanting to eat and ask yourself: Am I truly physically hungry? If so, what would allow me to feel the most comfortable in my body and mind after eating it? And encourage yourself to do this more and more frequently throughout the day. That would be a great first step. Be prepared to sometimes choose to overeat or to eat things you know aren’t in your best interest. Just remind yourself if you see this happening that it’s a work in progress and as long as you’re checking in and making honoring choices more than you were last week you’re doing great!

If you notice you’re restricting at any point in the day (withholding food when your body is hungry of showing you signs of poor nutrition – fatigue, moodiness, hard time concentrating), invite yourself to remind yourself that your ultimate goal is to have a peaceful and easy relationship with food. Ask yourself if you would be willing to have something small right away when you notice any cues of hunger (not just the growlies). A few bites here and there. Consider foods that pack big bang for the buck like nuts, seeds, protein powders, etc. They will provide the most nutrients for the smallest amount of food and are always a good place to start.

For this goal, I would say that steps 2 and 3 would simply look like working through any barriers in your all-or-nothing thinking to allow yourself to do step 1 more often throughout your day until it becomes second nature. This takes such a short period of time once you begin. It’s getting over the inertia created by all the stories of what’s going to happen if you change your behaviour that is the hardest part. And that’s where most of us need assistance because of our pesky brains and their current limited perspectives.

The only people who expect you to be perfect are those with their own incredible insecurities. No healthy human on the planet expects anything more than a sincere effort. That is a fact.

Explore your stories and your goals. Do your best to use this exploration to identify some goals you’d like to attain. Plot them on your paper and take the first step.

Don’t give up. The only thing that stands in your way is the old stories and the limitations of your brain in its ability to only imagine things it’s already experienced. Just because you haven’t yet had complete success with being free from food stress doesn’t mean you can’t be. It just means you need a new perspective. Trust me. You can do it!

Love Michelle

Whether you prefer one-on-one counselling (in-person, by phone, or email), our intensive and transformative workshops, or the  self-help approach, take action today to have a stress-free relationship with food. Sign up for our free newsletter today! Newsletter subscribers receive exclusive product discounts and are first in line to get on all the latest new at CEDRIC!

Okey dokey!  We’ve done all the prep work. We’re ready to dig in and start identifying the steps we’re going to take to achieve our goals. For those of you just tuning in, and those of you who may need a reminder, we have, for the past 3 weeks now, been on a mission. A mission to identify the goals you have in each of the key areas of your life; to identify the values and principles that you believe in and currently embody or that you’d like to embody in your day to day life; and to make sure that the goals that we identify are actually ours and not what others think we should do so that we can have the sense of purpose, motivation and excitement that we deserve to have when achieving our dreams.

This week we’re going to begin to identify some small steps we can take to get you from “here” to “there.”

I’m just going to pick a few goals out of the air and show you how to break them down into doable steps for some of the key areas someone might have.  If you’d like help to sort yours out or with the recovery process in general, let me know and we’ll arrange a session.

Our current mindset, when we begin the journey from using food to cope (overeating, restriction, purging, dieting) is what I call “All or Nothing.” We most often believe that things, including ourselves, are either right or wrong, good or bad. The actual truth is that there are very, very few absolutes in the world; very few things that we can know for certain; and very few things for which there is only one right answer or one right way of thinking or approaching something. Our own truths change as we grow and experience different things too. For example are you still madly in love with that boy from grade 6 that you thought for sure you’d love forever? Is Bubblegum still your favorite ice cream flavor?  Do you still love that suede jacket with tassels that you were certain you’d wear forever? Do you still believe it’s a great idea to lie to your parents to get what you want? Do you still fit into your grade 10 jeans? Chances are, those and many others things that you believed were absolute and life-long pieces of who you were, how you should be, or how life would always be have changed.  That’s good, change is natural. It means you’re alive!!!

When we attach to behaviours or even beliefs as being “us” or “who we are” we get into trouble. We are organic, growing and changing beings. What we like or don’t like, want or don’t want will change with time unless we’re telling ourselves that there’s something wrong with us for changing our mind or our behaviours. If we’re doing that, we’re likely to end up dependent on some form of harmful coping behaviour to deal with the depression and anxiety that is created by stifling our lives indefinitely.

When we believe that our beliefs and behaviours define us, we lock ourselves in a small box for life. We feel beholden to those patterns and we feel shame and guilt for having them and for being dependent or controlled by them. We also feel bad and wrong and that it’s too scary to contemplate, when we have the fleeting thought that we need to change that pattern in order to be happy.  We stick ourselves in a time machine and don’t allow ourselves to grow and change with the experiences of life. No wonder many of us who use food to cope feel depressed and wish that bus would just hop up on the curb and take us out of our misery.

But, when we have a solid sense of our values and principles; when our values and principles are what we believe in and what grounds us, everything can change. As long as I’m honoring my values of integrity, honesty, reliability, trustworthiness, respect, knowledge, self-awareness, authenticity, empathy, compassion, peace and family I can change what I think and what I do anytime and still feel grounded and authentic.  I can admit I was wrong; I can admit the truth in someone else’s perspective, regardless of how different it is from mine; I can comfortably and sincerely apologize for the things I did or didn’t do that didn’t meet someone else’s needs without saying I was wrong (ie. without diminishing myself and my own perspectives and needs. This is such a gift – we’ll talk more about this soon). In other words, when I am not attached to my beliefs or my behaviours as being “who I am” but rather I am grounded by my witnessing of my own adherence to my values and principles in life I feel so solid, so strong, so loving and respecting of myself and do darned free and grown up all at the same time. I am not at all diminished by others with different opinions or judgements of me or what I should be doing or what I should look like. It’s true freedom.

One of my favorite quotes about values comes from the movie “The Contender” – I won’t go into the story line but suffice it to say that by the end of the movie you have a profound amount of respect and admiration for the heroine.  At the end of the movie, when her opposite is asking her why she didn’t just cave in the previous months and give in to the pressure around her; get down to the level of the others who were actively trashing her, she responded like this: “Our principles only mean something if we adhere to them when it’s most difficult to do so. ”

I love that quote! It has grounded me many a time when, in relationship with myself, I was about to bail on a commitment because “no one else would know!”  When I remind myself that my principles, the foundation of my life, only count when I stick by them during the challenging times, a sense of peace and strength is generated. What you are doing here with this process with me is generating your own inner peace and strength; your own rock to stand on as the river of life rushes by you on either side.

Now, are you ready!?

Let’s take a few goals:

1. I want to be a natural weight for my body. (I realize that many of you will not know what that weight is as you’ve never been there – we’re going for a feeling of health and strength and tone in your body that you can sustain without restriction and over-exercise – you’ll definitely know it when you get there – if it’s not enough to be going for a feeling of ease and movement then go ahead and pick a ballpark number but don’t get caught up on the number, it’s the feeling of strength and ease of movement you’re really going for.)
2. I want to have a peaceful relationship with food.
3. I want to have an abundant financial situation.
4. I want a career that fulfills me financially and intellectually and allows me time and energy for my personal life too.
5. I want to have a loving, considerate, intellectually stimulating, passionate romantic life partnership.
6. I want to have a healthy and enjoyable relationship with my …(fill in the blanks) mother, father, brother, sister, grandmother, uncle, my best friend that I’m currently estranged from etc. (I’m going to pick sister on this one but you can pick anyone)

That’s good for now.

Now for each of those goals make an honest statement of where you are now:

a. I am currently 75 lbs over my natural weight.

b. I am currently 15 lbs under my natural weight.

1. I currently think about food in an obsessive and stressful way 24/7. L
2. I currently have 25K in debt.
3. I currently have a job that doesn’t stimulate me or pay me well enough to achieve my goals financially.
4. a. I currently have no partnership.

c. I currently have a partnership that doesn’t meet my needs in a key way (intellectually, sexually, emotionally, consideration, communication….)

1. I currently have no connection at all with my sister.

Okay, now that we know where we are and where we want to be, as well as what our values and principles in life are, we’ve got all the info we need to begin.

Currently you’re likely considering your goals in an all-or-nothing way: I’m either here or there; I have it or I don’t; I’m a success or I’m a failure. That’s not true and not at all helpful. If you consider your goals as being on a continuum, you’ll feel the difference:

Where I am:                 step 1               step 2               step 3               goal realized

———————————————->—————————->————————->——————————————->

Notice how we’ve got continual forward movement? We can see our goal getting closer and closer with each step. And with each step our trust and confidence in ourselves builds. Our hope builds. Our sense of belief in our ability to, at long last, realize our greatest goals flourishes and we are sustained and re-motivated each step of the way by the recognition of our progress and how different this feels from any of our previous all or nothing approaches to success.

Once we learn this and begin to think in a more “possibilities mindset” we can allow ourselves to celebrate and recognize the steps we are taking each day towards our goal. We don’t punish ourselves by waiting until we’re solidly “there” to acknowledge any progress whatsoever. I’m reminded of my 9-year-old son and his reading practice. He must read to me for 20 minutes a night as part of his homework. I’m loving it! But I notice that if I don’t have any acknowledgement for him after each few sentences (“great suff” “wow that was a tough word” “awesome bud” etc.), he starts to get tired and discouraged and wants to stop after just a few minutes. If I offer any criticism at all (however constructive I might feel it is) he wants to stop and give up. However, if I just keep the acknowledgement coming every few sentences (authentically of course) he’s motivated and can easily read well past 20 minutes without even noticing it.

You see he, like you, wants to be successful in his goal. But because he’s never been successful at it yet, he doubts himself and he needs support and reassurance. He needs to know that his efforts are paying off and that that effort is recognized or his motivation dies very quickly. We are exactly the same. We may last longer than 20 minutes without positive reinforcement but it’s absolutely clear that if we don’t allow ourselves to regularly acknowledge and celebrate the things we did each day towards our goal, we will lose hope, we will feel diminished and fatigued and will not have faith in our ability to get “there.”

So, back to our small steps.

Let’s start with my #1.

1a. Where I am: I am currently 75 lbs over my natural weight.

Step 1: For 2 weeks: Encourage myself to wait until I’m hungry to eat and to stay tuned and stop as soon as I can when I recognize I’m full. Have one meal a day with no processed refined carbs and when I do feel the need to binge/snack, have lots of fruits and veg prepared and around so I have the option to have that instead. Carry snacks that I like the taste of and that are low in sugar with me everywhere and when I start to notice any signs or sensations of hunger have some or all of a snack – no matter how close to mealtime it is. Exercise once each week for ½ hour.

Step 2: For a month or two (depending on how long it takes me to get up to speed and feel like I have a rhythm with this), encourage myself to wait until I’m hungry to eat and to stay tuned to my body for cues of fullness so I can stop when I feel comfortably full. Have 2 meals a day with no processes or refined carbs (in case you aren’t aware, this includes multigrain and whole wheat as well as rice pasta) – go as whole grain, nuts and seeds as you can. Don’t concern yourself with fat content or caloric content, concern yourself with the quality of what you’re eating. Trust me! Continue to carry snacks and let yourself have one or part of one as soon as you notice you feel hungry, regardless of when meals are coming. Have lots of fruits and veg around for you to grab any time you feel munchy. Again, focus exclusively on quality and natural-ness right now not on caloric content and fat content. Those things really don’t matter when you eat well and eat when you’re hungry, stop when you’re full. Exercise 2 x’s a week for ½ hour (can be anytime – can be back-to-back days – can be 5 days apart – doesn’t matter – just be consistent, 2 x’s a week.)

Step 3: For as long as it takes: Only take step 3 when you have had a sense of ease and flow with step 2 for a few weeks. Continue as you are with food, eating when hungry as much as you can, stopping when full as much as you can, having snacks with you that you feel good about eating and that don’t trigger your Drill Sgt. (your inner critic). See if you can have a few days a week with no processed or refined carbs (by now you’re very likely noticing how fatigued and bloated you feel after eating them so it’s not a hardship to step back from them a little more. The goal is isn’t to never have them but to recognize their impact on your body physically and emotionally and choose them every now and then as opposed to daily.) Exercise 3 x’s a week for ½ hour. Again, don’t get attached to when or how close together or even what you do during that ½ hour. It doesn’t matter. Just move.

Realization of Ultimate Goal: I am a natural weight for my body and maintain that weight easily. Oh Ya! Check you out!

1b.Where I am: I am currently 15 lbs under my natural weight.

Step 1: For 2 weeks: Identify foods I already eat that I feel really comfortable eating (even if there is just one) and encourage myself to have a little more of that food each day. If I start to get preoccupied with the sensation of fullness in my tummy, remind myself that feeling full is healthy and natural and that as long as that feeling doesn’t last more than an hour, I haven’t overeaten I’ve just eaten more than I’m used to.

Step 2: With your increased sense of comfort with a little more food in your tummy and a sense of fullness, invite yourself to pick 2 foods you’d like to experiment with. Add a little of them to one meal each day. Pay attention to the feelings of fullness and allow yourself to stop when you start to feel a little full. If you get hungry an hour or so later you know you didn’t eat enough for your body’s needs, and next time you can comfortably ask yourself to have just a little more. You’re shooting for a balance between your own physical sense of comfort in your body and having about 3 hours between sensations of hunger. You must commit to feed yourself as soon as you start to get hungry, don’t wait – even if it’s just a few mouthfuls, otherwise you’re just playing games with yourself, and you can’t build trust and really honor the signals of your body. If you’re exercising more than 4 x’s a week, ask yourself to either take a few minutes off each workout or to take one out all together – you decide. You can always add it back in later if you really truly enjoy exercising that much and truly have time for it in your life once you have achieved a state of balance.

Step 3: For as long as it takes: Once you have a sense of ease and flow with Step 2 for at least 3 weeks, you can begin step 3.  Pick a few more foods to add every 2 weeks. It doesn’t matter what they are, just whatever you like and whatever is going to feel good in your body physically (enhance your health). Add them in the same manner: A little bit here, a little bit there, always listening to the signals from your body about hunger and fullness. There is no benefit whatsoever in extending hunger just as there is no benefit whatsoever in overeating. That just triggers the Drill Sgt. and his all-or-nothing thinking, so go slow. There is no rush when you think big picture and that you are creating a life of freedom. Taking an extra few months to get where you want to go is absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. Just keep moving forward. Make sure you carry snacks with you that you feel comfortable having and make sure you have some (even a few bites) as soon as you start to feel hungry.  Check in about how your body is feeling with the amount of exercise you’re doing and if it’s feeling fatigued at all let it be okay to have an expectation of 3 workouts a week as a minimum, and when you truly have the space and the energy you can always do more. Take it day-by-day, week-by-week regarding any additional exercise as long as you’re doing your 3 a week. And when you exercise, listen to what your body says each time about how much energy it has and what it really wants to do. Honor that and you’ll get much more benefit from your exercise over all.

Realization of Ultimate Goal: I am a natural weight for my body and maintain that weight easily. Here you are! You have a relationship with food and with your body based on listening to what it needs and wants and you’ve seen yourself respect those signals for months. You have a sense of ease and trust in yourself that you’ve never had before, and food just isn’t an issue.

Next week I’ll run through examples of some of the other goals I made up above. If you’d like me to work on one of yours, email me and I’ll do that.  Give this a go this week. Let me know how it goes.

Remember, I’m here for sessions if you want to have some one-on-one with this. And also remember, we’re kicking off our web program in a few short months where we’ll be working as a group through exercises like this. So if you’re wanting a sense of connection and support as you step your way to freedom, consider joining our web program (more info on that to follow).

Have a great week.

Love Michelle

Whether you prefer one-on-one counselling (in-person, by phone, or email), our intensive and transformative workshops, or the  self-help approach, take action today to have a stress-free relationship with food. Sign up for our free newsletter today! Newsletter subscribers receive exclusive product discounts and are first in line to get on all the latest new at CEDRIC!

Whenever you are faced with a choice to eat ask yourself the following two questions:

1. Am I physically hungry?
2. Is what I’m about to eat going to support me to feel psychologically, emotionally and physically well after I eat this and tomorrow morning? If not, what will?

Give this a whirl, see what happens. Let me know.

Love Michelle

Whether you prefer one-on-one counselling (in-person, by phone, or email), our intensive and transformative workshops, or the  self-help approach, take action today to have a stress-free relationship with food. Sign up for our free newsletter today! Newsletter subscribers receive exclusive product discounts and are first in line to get on all the latest new at CEDRIC!

Natural Eating, also more recently dubbed “Intuitive Eating,” refers to the simple process of eating when you’re hungry and stopping when you’re full. As a natural eater you are conscious of your body’s signals of hunger, fullness, lightness, energy, or bloating, lethargy, fatigue and heaviness. These are your cues about what your body likes and needs vs. what it doesn’t. In a natural eating approach, you honor those cues and are drawn to choose foods that allow you to feel light, full, and energized after eating rather than heavy, bloated, and pooped out.

When your food choices are determined by how your body feels when it eats certain foods and your inner trust to eat when you’re hungry and stop when you’re full, you are a natural eater: That means you’re one of those “annoying” people who don’t think much about food, and seem to be able to eat anything and still not gain weight even though they’re not at the gym all day.

However, if you use food to cope, you will have a difficult time honoring the signals from your body. You’ll find yourself eating things you know make you feel heavy, bloated, or tired or that give you headaches or rashes or diarrhea or constipation, etc. because you want the texture or the taste and the chemical release these processed, refined, fatty, and sugary foods bring. You’ll make choices from a sense of urgency instead of what’s best for you.  The immediate sense of gratification helps fill the emptiness within and soothes you – for the moment.

Other people choose drugs and alcohol, you chose food. Whatever we use to lean on is a coping strategy, and until you’re willing to ask the million dollar question, the best you can do is to maintain a white-knuckle grip on your binging and restricting while trying to put on a happy face. The million dollar question? Why?

“Why, am I so desperate to numb out, to fill the void, that I will eat foods that don’t serve me?” “Why do I eat more than I’m hungry for?” “Why don’t I allow myself to eat when I’m hungry but will instead force myself to wait until the time that someone or some external program outside of my body tells me is the acceptable time for me to eat?” “Why do I feel the need to use food to cope?”

When the “why” question is answered, it will lead you to true freedom from food and body image focus and to a happy and peaceful and fulfilling life on all levels.

My own life experience has proven this in spades. I was immersed in the diet mentality from the age of 10 onwards due to messages from parents, peers and society about what was ideal vs. what was me. I was, in hindsight, a healthy natural weight for my body. But I wasn’t thin by society’s standards. I have a medium frame and I have curves. I will never be ‘thin’ – that’s not my frame. I will never be an ‘athletic’ frame either – that’s not me. Even though I exercise and really enjoy it and am quite a tomboy at heart, I will always have curves and be more on the voluptuous side than thin or athletic. The point I’m belaboring here is that there are many different body shapes and sizes that are healthy and fit other than just “thin” and/or “athletic” ones, though you’d never know it if you follow mass media marketing and Hollywood. We must realize there is a big difference between media messages and reality.

I spent many, many years trying to be thin; trying not to have hips and a belly and to have no fat at all. I restricted types of foods and quantities of foods; I forced myself to go to the gym no matter how tired I was, no matter how my body felt or what else was going on that should have been a bigger priority. I had internalized my parents’ and society’s messages that told me unless I was thin I couldn’t possibly be happy or loved or accepted for who I was. Everything hinged on being thin because only then could I relax and life could begin.

This all-out obsession with “thin” took over my life. I tried every available diet program, diet book, diet supplement in my frantic search for the cure for my fatness. Now keep in mind that for most of this frenetic time I was 5′4″ and 130-140 lbs. I am now 5′4″ and about 130lbs. The irony is not lost on me, neither is the fundamental message that it was not my body, but my head that needed tweaking. At that time I believed I was the fattest, ugliest, most disgusting thing on the planet. Now I believe I am beautiful and feminine, and I frequently get feedback from men and women that they agree. I’m almost exactly the same weight I was back then but now in a phenomenally different head space and enjoying a much better quality of life.

The beginning of the end of my eating disorder came when I lost my tenuous grip on food and subsequently my weight. I wasn’t able to keep up with the cycle of restricting binging and exercising I had engaged in for over a decade. Suddenly, the binging I’d always done (to cope with stress and anxiety and to “sneak” in those foods that I wouldn’t otherwise allow) had no counterbalance. I gained 40 lbs. in a few short months and topped the scales at 170 lbs. I was panicked. I felt so incredibly depressed and anxious and out of control. I didn’t know what to do.

I had completely lost connection with my body from the years of dieting and supplements and self-loathing that I had no idea if I really felt hungry or was just trying to trick myself into eating or was perhaps suffering from indigestion. I had no idea what comfortably full felt like because I was so familiar with overeating. It scared me to think about not feeling that overfull feeling because that was the hungry feeling that led me to binge so often. I was stuck. Panicked, depressed, fat, and stuck. Not good.

I thought about suicide. I thought about running away. I thought about each of those things many times each day. I couldn’t imagine feeling happy and peaceful in my body, and unless I could feel happy and peaceful in my body I was going to feel panicked, depressed, fat, stuck and suicidal. What was the point? Why keep on trying to keep it together? Why flippin’ bother if the best I was going to be was overweight, alone, unloved?

Yes it was a dark time, and my Drill Sgt. with his all-or-nothing thinking was on a rampage night and day. All the diet programs I had tried had deeply imprinted the message in me that my inability to stick to a diet meant that I had no willpower, that I was weak and that I just didn’t really care enough about myself to try hard enough to be successful. I was weak. I was bad. I would never be acceptable. It was hard to get myself out the door in the morning because I felt so gross and was afraid of people seeing me, and especially of anyone saying anything about how fat I was.

During this time it never occurred to me that there was any reason other than laziness and lack of willpower that I might be eating when I wasn’t hungry. I had bought so fully into that diet centre message that I didn’t even consider that another explanation existed. And in fact, even when I was blessed to stumble upon a counselor who could offer me another explanation, I wouldn’t allow myself to accept it or embrace it for some months because it felt like a cop-out and like I was just making excuses for my weak disposition. Can you believe it? Yes, you, of all people, probably can. Here I was, being handed a golden ticket out of the hell that I lived 24/7, and I was pushing it away because it conflicted with the messages that had put me in that hellish state to begin with. Not at all logical but then the use of harmful coping strategies isn’t at all a rational pursuit. It’s a desperate one. And desperate people do silly, short-sighted things, even with the best of intentions.

Little by little I began to experiment with some of the new behaviours and thoughts my counselor suggested, and little by little, I saw that things started to make sense in a completely new and rational way. I saw the connection between my being stressed about something and desperately wanting to eat something carby and sugary. I saw the connection between my feeling insecure about a situation and immediately berating my body as bad and wrong and fat and unacceptable. I began to see how the stories I carried in my head from my past made me feel unacceptable and anxious, which drove me to behave in ways that reinforced those old stories.

And, most significantly, I began to see that it wasn’t food itself but the reasons behind why I chose to eat when I wasn’t hungry or restrict myself from eating when I was that was the problem. The more energy I focused on identifying and resolving the “why” the less I thought about eating to cope. I began to come to a natural weight for my body with no dieting and even without exercising (I went a little to the extreme and took 2 years off any formal exercise because I didn’t trust myself not to get hooked into body image focus and calorie-counting again – this isn’t at all necessary or even recommended but taking a little break until you can trust yourself to approach exercise from a self-care perspective rather than a self-harm perspective is a valuable consideration).

Now I focused on recovering from the use of food to cope, a.k.a. “The Diet Mentality.” I encouraged myself to honor the guidelines of natural eating as best I could; to eat when I was hungry, stop when I was full, and not engage in guilt or shame for what I was eating as long as I kept on the right path. And if I found myself wanting to eat when I wasn’t hungry or wanting to overeat or restrict, I would encourage myself to ask a short series of questions to find out what was really troubling me and what I could do to resolve that rather than harm myself with food and bury my head in the sand.

If any of my story resonates with where you are today, I urge you to take steps now to answer the question “why?” Stop spinning your wheels trying to change your diet or increase your exercise regime and instead figure out asap why you use food to cope in the first place. Ask yourself what prevents you from being a natural eater?

Within just a few sessions, my clients uncover the answer to this question for themselves and start using the tools necessary to change their approach to food. Then it’s simply a matter of putting one foot in front of the other and continuing to walk down the path of natural eating and self-confidence. When I said before that natural eating is simple – I meant it – what can be simpler than eating when hungry and stopping when full? Nothing really. Where it gets complicated is when you have a mindset that tells you that you can’t trust your body to know what and how much it needs and that you must put your faith in some externally-imposed diet-mentality message or you’ll lose your grip and everything will fall apart.

That inner voice by the way, is your precious Drill Sgt. with his lovely message of fear and doom, designed to keep you in check. Don’t let the cycle continue. Natural eating is super simple. Re-educate your Drill Sgt. on what is truly a healthy and lasting approach to your food and body image stress. It takes time, but no worries, you can do it! And we’re only talking months here, not years.  If I can do it, you can, too.

For now, start with the basics:

1. When you reach for food or think about eating, ask yourself, “Am I physically hungry right now?” (By the way, if you’re not sure you’re almost certainly not hungry and instead you’re wanting to use food to cope.)
2. If the answer is “Yes, I’m hungry,” ask yourself, “What could I choose to eat that would allow me to feel fulfilled and peaceful when I’ve finished?” Then have whatever that is.
3. If the answer is “No, I’m not physically hungry right now” your response for now needs to sound something like this: “I want to use food to cope. I’m going to allow myself to eat if I want to and I’m going to also ask myself, “What was I just thinking or what just happened that might have made me feel unsettled or like I need to distance myself from life right now?”

These questions will help you in each and every moment you reach for something to eat. If you can identify why you’re eating and prove to yourself that your desire to eat when not hungry or to restrict when you are is coming from a confused attempt to cope with stress, and doesn’t have anything to do with food or body image, then it’s a hop, skip and a jump to freedom.

For those of you who are interested in being free, I’ve put together a program to guide you through the key steps in figuring out why you do what you do with food; how to resolve the causes of your use of food to cope, and how to enjoy natural eating in your day-to-day life. You can take part in this program through the use of my book “Food is not the Problem: Deal With What Is” and the CDs, DVDs and workbooks that accompany it. Any or all of them will benefit you. You can also move through this process with some individual counseling or by attending one of our transformative weekend workshops.

There is no reason for you to continue to feel stuck or to continue to settle for anything less than a peaceful and easy relationship with food and a natural weight for your body.  The CEDRIC Centre exists to guide you to that place as quickly and easily as possible. Let us help you to step to freedom from the food power struggle.

Love Michelle

Those of you who have worked with the CEDRIC Core Beliefs booklet are probably familiar with these stages, but seeing as how June is ‘Natural Eating’ month, we thought that you might enjoy a quick reminder to help you grab the nutshell of where you are in your process, right in this moment, taken from our Natural Eating booklet.

1) Unconscious Incompetence: Something isn’t working in your life, but you are not aware of what it is or that anything could be done to change it. You may be looking to others or things outside of yourself as the source of your current difficulties

2) Conscious Incompetence: You are aware that you are not functioning well, but you do not know what to change about your behaviour. This can be an extremely scary and frustrating stage, but it also opens the door for you to take action to change your patterns. Clearly, until you know it isn’t working in your life, you are powerless to change it.

3) Conscious Competence: After becoming aware of your problem, you have sought some expert advice. You now have some tools to change your behaviour. Your conscious effort is required to replace old unhealthy habits, with new healthy ones. You are actively working at this stage and it can feel laborious. Therefore, it is important to seek motivation in the small signs of progress you’ll be seeing, rather than focussing on your end goal, which may seem far away at this stage.

4) Unconscious Competence: You have the tools. Thanks to all of your awareness and effort, your behaviour has changed. You don’t even have to think about what to do. The new, healthy behaviour has replaced the old unhealthy one, and it is now second nature.

Where are do you find yourself in your process of change?

Consider taking the time, this summer, for some group process as CEDRIC’s Transformative Weekend Workshops take off, the good news is that there’s still time to sign up. Join with others who share your journey to identify steps to your process that are ideally suited to you. For more on CEDRIC’s Transformative Weekend Workshops with Michelle Morand, please click HERE.

Tina Budeweit-Weeks is a member of the CEDRIC Success Team in the role of staff writer and executive assistant for Michelle Morand. Her philosophy has always been one of self-nurturance and dignity. In support of the complex difficulties clients may experience around regaining a healthy balance, Tina’s writing is designed to sympathize, support, encourage and inform. Although there are many similarities in Tina’s process, she is not a client, but a hard working, behind-the-scenes member of the team, dedicated to helping the CEDRIC Centre stay current and effective.

The thing about having an issue with weight is that it translates to an issue with food. This relationship is something that is mismanaged and misunderstood by the best of them, but when you are dealing with personal challenges, the relationship gets even more murky.

There are so many opinions in the western world for the person who is having self esteem issues around the fact that they are considered overweight or are gaining weight.

There just as many options as there are opinions for the person who is dealing with this and they come from all sides as our culture invests a fortune in keeping the superficial issue of body image in the forefront of the collective consciousness.

We have people on tv, in white coats, claiming to be specialists. They give us the gears for being hefty by informing the population that we are ‘less than’ if we don’t buy their plan for salvation, hook, line and sinker. We hear about Food for nurturing and Food for self numbing as an opiate. Martha Stewart tells us that we need to be making the meals pleasing to the eye, Rachel Ray says we should be making four course meals in half an hour to measure up. Even Oprah, who is a cultural icon in today’s world, has her own kitchen staff that includes a world class chef so she has NO idea what she’s eating as she’s passed that on to her dietitian and yet her weight STILL has more ups and downs than a staircase.

How can a little person from small town wherever, with shoelaces for a budget, compete? How can we get away from the constant berating that we are living with a ‘problem’ and if we aren’t constantly doing something about our ‘problem’, we may as well move to the Tennessee Ozarks into a decrepit trailer park right now. Its bad enough that the reality is our bodies need food for fuel and three times a day or more, we better gas up or we won’t have to worry about it, we’d be dead! How does one address mealtime without confusion when messages are coming at us from everywhere with an opinion of how to think?

As a person with a lotta heft in my left, a lotta junk in my trunk, I take offence at the skinny mini diatribe that besieges me constantly. I don’t WANT to be skinny. My loving hubby doesn’t want a stick. I just want to know what is safe to eat and do while keeping a quality of life that is nurturing and gentle to me. Michelle says that food is not the problem and that we should unearth what it is in us that is the real issue that sends us running to food for a crutch.

I can’t argue with that as in my case, she’s right, but now I’m not running any more. I use food as fuel for sure, but I also eat only what I want, what I crave, what is available at the moment if its not too big a common sense compromise and I stay within boundaries of freshness, proximity to home, organic standards rather than the old days where I would starve all day to eat anything all night, undiscerning between dingdongs and other fattening treats, to fried foods and snack products that have no nutritional quality whatsoever.

In spite of changing so drastically, now that I’m informed, I’m still not losing weight. So what’s up with that?

I am coming to realize that the shifts that have occurred in me are bringing about change, but it’s long term, behavioural change and that means the results will be taking long term to come about as well. This isn’t the ‘24 pounds in 24 days’ gimmick; this isn’t some pie in the sky grapefruit and cabbage diet that will yoyo me back and forth through the sizes in my wardrobe. This is a long slow curve that will organically turn me around slowly as I begin to address the need I have to be patient and gentle with myself.

I’ve had harsh judgement and hard times, I’ve been shot, robbed, molested and lied to.  Now, I have to turn my back on my need to be nurtured and follow the tenets of ‘no pain, no gain?’ I don’t think so.

In fact, I’ve been thinking…  Why IS the diet industry so heartless towards us? Is it in the guise of ‘tough love’ or is it just that patriarchal need to be an authoritative force to motivate us off the couch because we are so fat that the chub is also between our ears and we don’t hear so good unless you’re yelling or berating us.

Case in point are the tv shows that pit people against one another in the ruse of losing the most weight. For days, morbidly obese people are filmed morning, noon and night wearing little more than a spandex jumpsuit in gawdy colours, forced to do unthinkably difficult tasks much to the entertainment and enjoyment of a slim and trim, uber critical audience that must figure as long as we’re pointing fingers at the fatties, no one will notice the cellulite secrets they hide under their girdles.

Not only do the contestants of these shows have to run themselves to the edge of death in order to lose the most weight, but they are also pitted against one another in alliances and secret arrangements that erupt when emotions are stretched to their limits. I’m surprised that these contestants don’t commit suicide in droves, they take so much verbal abuse on top of the humiliation of knowing that millions of viewers watch their bellies jiggle weekly.

To be honest, I began watching these shows out of initial curiosity from my natural sociological stance, but I soon found out that the experience was a little like witnessing traffic accidents. Each participant becomes the victim of her own intentions as they allow constant crap and abuse to belittle and diminish them in mind and spirit under the lame excuse that it would help decrease their girth.

I admit that watching people exercise while I sit on the couch with my sliced mango, stinky cheese and nut plate is far more fun than being in the front of those invasive cameras and a way for me to say to myself, see… that’s how NOT to do it… and this is how TO do it. (As long as somewhere in my day, I manage to disengage from the comfortable furniture to eject myself outdoors to do a bit of adventuring in the fresh air.)

I can’t support any process that isn’t gentle to me. Now, ‘Staying in the love’ is the mantra that helps me to judge whether something is for me or not. I’ve gotten to the point that ideally, i f I must suffer or sacrifice in order to manifest something into my life, then I take that as a signal to self assess why I am overriding my main intention, to be good to my self.

This is me, as I say time and again, your mileage may differ.

I’ve thought about this cultural acceptance thing a lot these past months. Its been frustrating as I picked up the CEDRIC principles and started applying them to my life because I wasn’t seeing immediate physical results. That really messed with me, as I have been diligent, moved through my life with integrity- to myself and to others, utilizing the coping skills I’ve learned, and still I strain to put on my socks with my poor squished organs groaning under the pressure of ribs without enough room, due to pudge. I want to lose weight, I want to fit in chairs, I want to fly without the imminent threat of thrombosis from getting scrunched into tiny seats without being able to move for hours.  But I don’t want it if I am going to have to experience one more effing hardship.

This means that changes aren’t going to come overnight. They didn’t pack on overnight, after all.

I suggest that staying in the love is critical.  Feed yourself in ways that feel right and responsible for you. Eat fresh, eat lots of leafy green and whole nuts and grains, stay away from artificial ingredients, sugars, refined foods and fried things. Eat till you’re full, eat when you’re hungry and stay in the love. And hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.

I haven’t felt a hunger pang that has sent me packin to the snackin since November. Even when faced with trials and tribulations that used to drive me to the snack aisle or worse, the liquor store, I’ve managed to pull out my shiny, wise, newly acquired coping tools and slay that weakening willpower almost effortlessly. I don’t WANT junk in me.

I’m going to persevere.  I KNOW that as the weather improves and I ride my bike more, I will finally see what I truly crave, the return of my healthy, whole self. The mind has trimmed up, the rear is always the last to go.  But know that once one begins the journey that is loving oneself as one is losing, if you are anything like me at all (human, mortal, alive) your hungers will indeed take a permanent holiday.

ps. I realize that the issue of Hunger is very real. The world has people who are struggling to get enough to eat and I don’t use the word disparagingly.  In seeking a graphic to illustrate this article, I google-imaged the word and was reminded that many don’t make it due to the simple need of having enough to live on.

It also reminded me that many might not have the fiscal resources to acquire Michelle Morand’s book, or to take advantage of the Web Program we are developing, or to come in for workshops or counselling sessions… but take heart, as over the next year, ‘Food is not the problem’ will be the theme for my articles and even without the book, follow my ‘Tina’s Journey’ thread, here and in the CEDRIC newsletter (Food is NOT the problem- Find out what is!) to travel through the exercises and processes along with me. Computers are freely available in local libraries so the technology IS available to anyone who desires staying in touch.

There are many hungers,  and this article outlines a different kind of hunger, that is, a yearning that becomes a hole needing to be filled, no matter what, no matter how, when we are broken and hurting. CEDRIC suggests that once you have healed that emptiness inside, the rest will follow.

Having a social conscience is a part of being whole and I strive, when I can, to make a difference in the world by volunteering. The issues I choose to support aren’t always about hunger but they are about giving the marginalized a leg up or helping young women realize their full potential, starting with body image.

I’m kicking my old ways of coping to the curb, giving hunger a permanent holiday.

Tina Budeweit-Weeks is a member of the CEDRIC Success Team in the role of staff writer and executive assistant for Michelle Morand. Her philosophy has always been one of self-nurturance and dignity. In support of the complex difficulties clients may experience around regaining a healthy balance, Tina’s writing is designed to sympathize, support, encourage and inform. Although there are many similarities in Tina’s process, she is not a client, but a hard working, behind-the-scenes member of the team, dedicated to helping the CEDRIC Centre stay current and effective.

If all it took was to write down everything that I eat, recording caloric intake as well as nutritional content, I would have done it a long time ago. Unfortunately, the things that make us rely on food for comfort or problem solving run deeper and more complex than that and in my case, focusing three times a day on my mealtimes with a critical analysis of each one’s contents would just trigger me with food cues MORE!

Not only that, but who has time to plan, prepare, eat a meal, and then record the entire meal. Food journals are purported to make for more personal accountability. The article criticizes and diminishes the overweight by referring to them as underestimating their intake, and panderers of their indulgences. What scientists who advocate food journals don’t take into consideration are all the social, personal and emotional issues that the person with a food disorder is up against. Taking a person who should be gentle with themselves, who should feel redeemed and appreciated and instead, making them feel less than, in light of all their former failures at weight loss, is hardly a solution that stands a chance of being any use at all.

Sure, common sense says eat aware, but what does that mean? Later this year, we will focus two of our newsletters on nutrition and healing where we will discuss trans fats and why they are to be avoided, and other ways of becoming more nutritionally literate, which is the fine art of how to utilize what’s available in your community that will give you the most bang for your buck, nutritionally, emotionally and creatively when it comes to your meals.

Counting calories has been encouraged as a part of weight management for a long time. CEDRIC teaches instead that this is irrelevant in the long run as if you are still in the place of your healing where you need to count calories and focus on foods in an accentuated way, you are still at a place of not being ready to move on because once a person deals with the complexities of issues they are up against, in a caring nurturing way, the need to crutch on anything becomes almost nonexistent.

I know from talking with Michelle that she has seen what happened to her happen to many clients who finally took responsibility for their own nurturance and healing and got to that place of no longer being adversely affected by the constant barrage of food cues that our world throws our way. Like a domino process, once a state of self understanding is reached, residual issues that seemed paramount fell away, and as a result, these clients discovered that their metabolism changed, they became more active, which led to craving new foods that were lighter in their process of consumption, which in turn, led to the person’s health not only stabilizing but improving. This, combined with feeling more active and getting out to do more gently, gradually brought their weight to where it should be for that person.

I’m only in the beginning throes of this but am avidly pursuing the process. I’m doing the work and reaping initial benefits as I have learned how to be more nutritionally adept, now tackling the challenge of completely altering my mealtimes WITHOUT dwelling on food. The other day Michelle looked at me with a quizzical grin as what’s going on for me sunk in to her.  She said ‘You really got thrown into the thick of things here, didn’t you?’ I had just told her about how crowded it was getting inside of me, what with the nurturing parent, the drill sergeant, my inner child and the self all vying for my attention now that I was doing the reading about them. I nodded and laughed. ‘I was just looking for a nice job’, I said… ‘innocently seeking employment’… and now here I am… this rollercoaster of self understanding and ignorance having its way with me as I sort out much more than the tasks of my position with CEDRIC.

So remember, when you see articles in publications that speak to you as a person of size with diminishing inflections that are designed to lower or shake your self esteem, remember that for every one of the people who think like that, there are more of us out there who are struggling to learn to respect and value ourselves, and who strive, like me, to develop the kind of critical eye that lets us see past the criticism, an eagle eye, if you will. Let those who are not yet ready to do the work that truly is what needs to be done, painfully catalog each calorie. I’ll be over here with the warm, loving, thoughtful people who accept me as I am now, celebrating my role in their lives, and who are willing to give me the emotional support I need as I follow the CEDRIC process to ultimate wellness in a significantly smaller body without beating myself up about it every inch of the way.

I rode my bike yesterday for the first time this year. Change is upon me. Good gentle, caring change.

Tina Budeweit-Weeks is a member of the CEDRIC Success Team in the role of staff writer and executive assistant for Michelle Morand. Her philosophy has always been one of self-nurturance and dignity. In support of the complex difficulties clients may experience around regaining a healthy balance, Tina’s writing is designed to sympathize, support, encourage and inform. Although there are many similarities in Tina’s process, she is not a client, but a hard working, behind-the-scenes member of the team, dedicated to helping the CEDRIC Centre stay current and effective.

As I write this, it’s beautifully sunny outside and warming up. Yay!!

My dear friend Mark is planning to come and visit from a far away warm and sunny place but he won’t come until it’s warm enough to wear shorts!!! Says he doesn’t even own a pair of long pants! Can you believe it!!?? So, I’m hoping the warm weather comes soon. I’ll let you know when he arrives as that’s a sure indicator that summer is here.   Mark is a great spiritual teacher for me and I always learn so much about myself in his presence so no doubt I’ll have lots to share about my own personal process in the next few months.

I just wanted to check in with you ladies and gents and see how your inner feedback balancing was going.  Who has taken up the challenge? How are you doing with it? (Don’t have a clue what I’m talking about? Check out this link and start to heal your negative self-talk and all or nothing thinking!)

If you haven’t started the exercise even though you read the article ask yourself “what’s creating the procrastination?”. Is it true that you don’t need to enhance your ability to allow authentic feedback on both sides of the equation (positive and “constructive”)?  Is it true you don’t have time today to take 10 minutes to write out things you’re grateful for from your past/present and future?  Is it true that you can’t begin to allow yourself the constructive feedback you feel is true while also offering yourself gentle reminders of what is working in your life?

Ask yourself what may be preventing you from taking this next step in your healing of your use of food to cope?

Chances are, it’s an all or nothing story that when brought to light is easily debunked! Don’t let those old bogus stories of how you don’t have time or how it won’t work for you. Don’t listen to the Drill Sergeant who says you need so much more help than this little tool can offer so there’s no point in doing anything. Don’t let these initial hazards stop you from taking the next step on your path to healing.

It’s the all or nothing thinking that keeps you stuck using food to cope. Don’t let that old harmful mindset be the thing that drives the show and prevents you from moving forward. Remember dear old Einstein said “The same mind that created the problem can not be used to solve it!” And don’t leave it up to your old all or nothing mindset to determine whether there is any point in you using a new tool to help you overcome your restriction or your binging or purging.

Let me know how it goes!

Love Michelle

I realize that in reading about how to cope with my issues, in the book that my boss, Michelle Morand wrote (Food is not the problem- Deal with What is!) I am learning things that are making my internal censor incensed. He’s kicked it up a notch and the infernal belabouring has increased to fever pitch. I notice that I over-analyze, read too much into things, second guess myself, talk myself out of things that I need like to go for a walk, before I’ve even solidified the thought. I seem to have a black cloud over me that makes me be a negative nelly about anything. And don’t let me hear that the bears are skinny in the Great Bear Rainforest. I carried THAT bit of grief around all week when I found out about it.

Normally I would note the ecological travesty and then get on with my life, but for some reason, these days, as I process the things from my misbegotten past that have given me enough grief to pad my self with this much excess, I am noticing that I not only have to deal with loose cannons in my physical world, but that I have a loose cannon in my own mind, as the Drill Sergeant has amplified his messages, deepened his nosiness and is acting like he’s on steroids.

What I’m thinking, is that this stuff is working. All the work I’m doing internally as I process the CEDRIC philosophy, is making the creature that drives that negating commentary and judgment in my mind nervous enough to feel he needs to step up his game because he’s LOSING me!!! That means, although my clothes are still stretched to their limit with the ebb and flow of my bloating and puffiness and discordant chub, I see a light wayyyyyyyyy off in the distance. The light of the promises that I have taken from doing CEDRIC work, that promise me (with the proof of seeing how Michelle and others have used the philosophies and succeeded) I will stop relying on old patterns of nutritional intake and activity and that the weight will fall away in its own time, just as it packed on, until I become a weight that is efficient for my body frame. And in the meantime, the promise of self acceptance even now, as I am at the extreme of my body weight.

So give it what fer, Drill Sergeant. There’s organic juice sending enzymes into me that are turning my body from a slow and sodden wasteland to a vital and vibrant vista, my eating habits have changed, my metabolism is adjusting and I know that things are starting to be different in my life as a result of all these newfound skills.

Mr. Drill Sergeant, its over. The love affair (she says sarcastically) you tried to interest me with, trying to be all authoritative and bossy like my Mother… Well, I want you to be nervous because you are OUT and in your place, I am accepting a kind, gentle internal voice that comes from my heart, not from the dark recesses behind my packed and purging colon where one would surmise you must lurk.

You
Are
So
Out
Of
Here!

You had your chance to see the error of your hurtful and diminishing ways, but I no longer accept that kind of behaviour. I have learned about healthy boundaries and my rights, and you cross the line of both of those.  I know that I can put up a barrier to keep myself safe from being exposed to the caustic comments that you interject to blindside and make me feel inadequate. And the disrespectful, both in my real world and in my mind, are not invited. I know too, that I have the basic human right of dignity, and anything that contributes to the erosion of that can kiss the part of my anatomy the colon leads to.

So take a bit of your own medicine, you hurtful, unhappy Drill Sergeant in my mind. Its no different than when I was raising children who were disrespectful. You don’t know how to act, you don’t get to be a part of the action.

Maybe this ranting purge will quell that dismissive dialogue and I can get on with the business of entering my future with new ideas, new tools and a brighter, new outlook that has the Drill Sergeant banished, and the complimentary, sincere and loving internal dialogue I desire, in its place so that I can get past the skinny bears, my tendency to be over critical and stop this urge to cry.

Maybe.

If it takes a few tears as my hormones adjust, so be it.

Tina Budeweit-Weeks is a member of the CEDRIC Success Team in the role of staff writer and executive assistant for Michelle Morand. Her philosophy has always been one of self-nurturance and dignity. In support of the complex difficulties clients may experience around regaining a healthy balance, Tina’s writing is designed to sympathize, support, encourage and inform. Although there are many similarities in Tina’s process, she is not a client, but a hard working, behind-the-scenes member of the team, dedicated to helping the CEDRIC Centre stay current and effective.