Posts Tagged acceptance

Reasons Why Childhood Obesity Is On The Rise

reasons why childhood obesity is risingHello all, If you or someone you know has an interest in health and fitness for children I encourage you to check out this site! There is a lot more great information about eating issues in addition to the reasons why childhood obesity is rising. Below is the link for an article that site creator Len Saunders posted recently using key info and quotes from me. If you like it please pass it on! Have a great day!     Topic: Reasons Why Childhood Obesity Is On The Rise Question: Provide a few sentences why YOU think childhood obesity is on the rise. I want your opinion, not something you read. On the surface, obesity, whether in adults or children is the simple and natural outcome of eating more than our body requires given the amount of energy we are burning. The more we continue to allow ourselves as parents and as a society to focus on the surface the more this problem will continue to grow because we are missing the most important piece of this puzzle: Why are children (and adults) eating more than they are hungry for? Yes, the kinds of foods our kids are choosing is a factor; the proximity to junk foods, ie. sugary treats and processed carbs is higher than ever before and that naturally has an impact. But the amount of food our kids are ingesting is not in response to their hunger and fullness cues. If it were they would not be obese. (more…)

Posted in: 2012, Relationship with Food, Relationship with Self

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How to Let Go of Self-Judgement

How to Let Go of Self-Judgement Hi Everyone, The easiest way to let go of self-judgement and set about the sometimes challenging but also fun and exciting experience of truly living life to the fullest, is remind yourself daily of the following premises until they simply become the way you live your life; no reminder necessary.
  1. The truth of human nature is that there is always a valid reason for why we feel and behave as we do.
  2. Your feelings are always perfectly appropriate for what you are telling yourself about the situation or person that seems to be triggering them.
  3. Your behaviours are always just a reaction to what you’re feeling, which, as I’ve said above, is just your natural response to what you are thinking/how you are perceiving the situation at hand.
  4. Therefore, it makes no sense whatsoever to judge or shame yourself for how you feel or what you do.
  5. What does make sense however is to learn:
a)     To immediately identify what you’re thinking (ie. what’s triggering you to feel and behave as you are) and then; b)     How to quickly assess whether your perception is accurate or not, or whether you need more information to decide. (more…)

Posted in: 2012, All-or-Nothing Thinking, CEDRIC Centre, Relationship with Self

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Committing to Natural Eating ©

Committing to Natural EatingI want to share a tool I discovered to deal with the guilt I felt about eating.  But, before I do, I must digress for a moment and ask you if you have ever been in a relationship with a person that commits to doing something and then does not follow through?  If you have, then you know that your relationship with that person weakens because with each breach of commitment, it indicates that they cannot be trusted.  We are inclined to ask ourselves to overlook “small” things and not to be “too sensitive” or “needy” or “demanding”. We force ourselves to detach from our own authentic self and his or her appropriate feelings. We align more with the untrustworthy person than we do with ourselves. What message do you think this sends us about our perception of our own worth and about our perception of the validity our feelings?  Well, it simply reinforces that old story about you not being good enough or deserving enough of honesty and integrity in your relationships on all levels. It sets you up to expect relationships to lack follow through and to force yourself to accept less than you deserve and need in the way of trustworthiness. I want to make you aware of the feeling you get when someone breaks a commitment, regardless of how small or large it is.  It is the same feeling each time you tell yourself that you are going to eat a certain thing or not eat a certain thing, or that you are going to eat only a certain amount or only at a certain time and you don’t follow through on that commitment.  You are breaching your own trust in yourself, undermining your own self-esteem and sense of safety within you. (more…)

Posted in: 2012, Natural Eating 101, Relationship with Food, Relationship with Self

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How To Get Free Of The Diet Mentality Part IX ©

Get Free Of The Diet MentalityHello! This is Part IX in our Diet Mentality series. Can you believe it!!? We’ve almost covered all the key points of the diet mentality and now you’ve got some clear and specific suggestions of what to do to change and let go completely of each of them. In case you’re new to our community you should know that my mission statement as an author/educator and counsellor is to ensure that anyone who wants to change their stressful relationship with food, regardless of where they live or their financial situation, gets the tools they need to step free!  So this series is just another in a long line of articles, stemming back over 10 years, that I have written every week to provide you with tools and information to change your relationship with food. The CEDRIC Centre and our counselling and support team offer personalized healing retreats, individual counselling and group support, workshops, an interactive web based program and books, workbooks and many other resources like cd’s and video clips to help you step free completely from any stress around food and body image. (more…)

Posted in: 2012, CEDRIC Centre, Natural Eating 101, Relationship with Food, Relationship with Others

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How To Get Free Of The Diet Mentality Part VIII ©

Get Free of the Diet Mentality

Hello! This is Part VIII in our How to Get Free of the Diet Mentality series, (visit The CEDRIC Centre blog for immediate access to all articles in this series). If you’re new to our community, welcome! You’ll fit right in here if you are an emotional eater, or find that you binge, restrict, or struggle with anorexia, bulimia or some other stressful way of relating to food and want to learn how to stop. Last week I shared with you about what a diet mentality approach to exercise looks like and asked you to be on the lookout for it in your own approach to fitness/exercise and body image. This week I want to teach you about what a balance, life-enhancing and sustainable and, gasp… FUN, approach to exercise looks like. This is an approach you’ll enjoy so much you won’t even know you’re exercising! You’ll become one of those folks who just naturally enjoys moving their body and seeks to bring movement into their lives, not because they need to lose weight or feel crappy about their body, but because it’s fun and feels good. Really! (more…)

Posted in: 2012, CEDRIC Centre, The Diet Mentality Series

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How To Get Free Of The Diet Mentality Part V ©

Get Free Of The Diet MentalityHello! This is Part V in our Diet Mentality series (visit The CEDRIC Centre blog for immediate access to all articles in this series). If you’re new to our community, welcome! You’ll fit right in here if you are an emotional eater, find that you binge, restrict, or struggle with anorexia, bulimia or some other stressful way of relating to food and want to learn how to stop. All righty! In the past few weeks we’ve covered:
  1. The perils of both just arbitrarily restricting the amount of food you’re “allowed” to have regardless of your true hunger levels; and
  2. Of feeling obligated to eat what is placed in front of you – whether or not you like it and whether or not it is too much.
  3. We’ve also addressed the stress of labeling foods as good/bad legal/illegal and the nasty consequences of doing so.
  4. And last week we talked about what happens when we get stuck in rules about when we can eat rather than just listening to our body’s natural cues of hunger and fullness.
Whew! We’ve covered a lot already and we’re only about half-way through the key characteristics of The Diet Mentality. No wonder it’s such a quagmire and that we need guidance and support to find our way out!  That’s what my team and I are here for. So read on and take another step toward the light. This week’s Diet Mentality trait is a BIGGY! You engage in all or nothing thinking regarding food and meals. Meaning: You set strict goals and guidelines for yourself and if you waver from them at all or miss a step/day/meal you feel like a failure and make harsh judgements about your lack of willpower and inability to follow a plan. (more…)

Posted in: 2012, All-or-Nothing Thinking, CEDRIC Centre, The Diet Mentality Series, Tips for Natural Eating

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How To Get Free Of The Diet Mentality Part I ©

Get Free Of The Diet MentalityOne aspect of The Diet Mentality that you must be on the lookout for in order to step free of that old way of thinking and step into an effortless relationship with food and a natural weight for your body without dieting is the pattern of restricting the amount of food that you are ‘allowed’ to have. In a rational, functional relationship with food, what you are physically hungry for is what you are ‘allowed’ to have. And the only one who ‘allows’ you is you. Not the other people you’re eating with; Not Jenny Craig; Not Dr. Bernstein; You! Your primary responsibility where food is concerned is to wait until you are hungry to eat something. Your next responsibility is to learn to stay present while eating and to identify and listen to the cues of comfortable fullness you are eating naturally.  You are not responsible to buy into anyone else’s ideas of what you should have or how much. (more…)

Posted in: 2012, Relationship with Food, Relationship with Self, Tips for Natural Eating

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Examining The Origins of Your Diet Mentality ©

Origins of the Diet Mentality

For the next few weeks in my articles, I’m going to be exploring each of the key points of what we call ‘The Diet Mentality.’  Each week I’m going to briefly explore one key characteristic of this harmful way of thinking and offer you a suggestion of something you can do that week to begin to directly address this issue if it something that you recognize in yourself.  For this week though we’re going to start with an exploration of where The Diet Mentality comes from and some background on diets in general: The Origin of Our Diet Mentality The Diet Mentality is a way of thinking that has been ingrained in us by messages we receive predominantly from our primary caregivers and our peers. These messages are then often reinforced and enhanced by teachers, coaches, advertisements and media messages, and from diet and exercise programs that we may have tried in the past or may currently be pursuing. It is easier to understand how we came to be where we are when we keep in mind that as children and adolescents, because we were limited by our brain’s inability to realize that not everything is about, or caused by, us, and because we had no other frame of reference than that of the family in which we were raised (and the community surrounding us), we had no contrast and therefore no ability to see clearly when our parents and peers, teachers and coaches were, themselves, confused in their thinking. We just believed that they were right and we followed blindly and innocently along. (For a more detailed article on brain development and its impact on our lives , and our relationship with food please see: http://www.cedriccentre.com/blog/lets-talk-about-your-brain/) (more…)

Posted in: 2012, Tips for Natural Eating

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Fear of Making Mistakes – Review

Fear of Making MistakesThose of us who use food to cope, or drugs, alcohol, shopping, procrastination, isolation, busywork, and even more socially-sanctioned strategies like over-exercise, co-dependency and workaholism, use those strategies in an attempt to distance ourselves from the constant sense of anxiety we feel within.
The anxiety that we feel is borne out of harmful all-or-nothing stories that I call “learned helplessness.” The learned helplessness stories sound something like this:  
  • I can’t
  • It’s too big
  • It’s too much
  • I’m not capable
  • I won’t be able to do it
  • I’m not allowed
And, those learned helplessness, all-or-nothing stories (that trigger our anxiety and our use of harmful coping strategies) are triggered by a naturally and appropriately occurring sensation in our bodies that I call “the niggle.” The niggle arises when we have needs that aren’t being met. If you used food to cope as a child (or any other of the strategies listed above), it is extremely likely that when you felt that little niggle inside that let you know you needed something and you tried to get that need met through your words or actions, you were unsuccessful, or perhaps even berated or shamed or physically harmed. (more…)

Posted in: 2012, All-or-Nothing Thinking, Relationship with Self

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The Process of Lasting Change

Process of Lasting Change

Repeated patterns are a window to your needs and the process of lasting change will help you address those needs. For every pattern you repeat, for example: overeating, purging, or restriction, there is a need which is being met within you. Your inability to change the undesirable pattern has nothing to do with lack of willpower or discipline. The pattern is merely a symptom of a deeper problem. If you direct your efforts only at attempting to eliminate the symptom without putting effort into understanding and dissolving its cause, you are setting yourself up for a very fatiguing and defeating battle.

Understanding the Process of Lasting Change

Awareness is the first step in changing any behaviour. You must first become aware that you are doing something which is detrimental to your values and life plan. Resistance is often your immediate reaction to becoming aware of what you are doing and why. This makes perfect sense. You have lived your life with a certain set of behaviours and beliefs. Given this, change, even if desired on some level, often feels less like innovation and more like annihilation of your entire existence as you know it. You wonder what will be left of you, your relationships and the life you know, when you have made the changes necessary to free yourself of this debilitating behaviour. This really means: when you are fully aware of the underlying need that led you to execute this behaviour, will you still choose the people and things you have chosen thus far? From this perspective, change can look very scary and the outcome very lonely. This is why so many of us have to hit our own personal “rock bottom” before we are ready to challenge old, harmful patterns of thoughts and behaviours. You must reach a place where you say, “I don’t care what the outcome is. Just make it stop!”

(more…)

Posted in: 2012, CEDRIC Centre, newsletter, Relationship with Food, Relationship with Others, Relationship with Self, Tips for Natural Eating

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