Posts Tagged eating disorder treatment
Posted by mmorand on March 30, 2012
Hello!
This is Part VI 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:
- The perils of both just arbitrarily restricting the amount of food you’re “allowed” to have regardless of your true hunger levels; and
- 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.
- We’ve also addressed the stress of labeling foods as good/bad legal/illegal and the nasty consequences of doing so.
- And we’ve 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.
- My last article discussed the biggie of engaging in all or nothing thinking regarding food and meals.
This week we’re going to explore the topic you love to hate: Your weight!
In the diet mentality perspective on life your weight is the central focus of your life.
You base decisions about what you can have, do and be on how much weight you have lost or gained.
Therefore, if you have gained a bit you feel deserving of punishment and will attempt to restrict yourself or isolate yourself.
If you have lost weight you feel more deserving of “treats” and feel more positive self-regard.
The truth is, once your self-esteem becomes attached to a number on a scale or a particular pant size you’re in big trouble. This is because now you’re attaching all your worth to one thing which makes any human obsessed about that one thing, which means we get in there and micro-manage that one thing and pretty soon we forget how to just be normal and natural and let our body do what it naturally does (eat when hungry, stop when full and be a natural healthy weight without effort).
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Tags: all-or-nothing thinking, Chronic dieting, compulsive eating, dieting, eating disorder treatment, eating disorders, how much you weight, overweight, restricting food, self esteem, self love, self worth, the diet mentality, triggers
Posted in: 2012, Relationship with Food, The Diet Mentality Series
Posted by mmorand on March 24, 2012
Basic Statistics on Dieting Video and Why it so Rarely Works for Anyone.
This video will quickly provide you with some interesting Basic Statistics on Dieting, including how they can lead to eating disorders for our Video Blog.
Some of them will surprise you, others will be familiar. All of them will help you to understand why you’ve struggled with dieting and weight loss and body image.
Dieting for anything other than health reasons and from any mental attitude other than self-esteem and good self-care will fail. This is because if you’re not thinking about your long term health and overall self-esteem you will engage in diets that are extreme and therefore cannot be sustained for any length of time.
What we really need if we want to be successful in weight loss and in creating a relationship with food that makes us feel good mentally and physically is an approach to food and to self-care that comes first from trusting the cues that your body is sending you about how you feel and what that means about what you need.
In essence, good self-esteem is required before any change to a pattern in your life can be lasting. And good self-esteem comes from you taking the time to listen to how you feel emotionally and physically and responding respectfully and reasonably to those emotions and sensations. If you learn to do this – and it isn’t hard – you will have no problems with overeating, emotional eating, binging, eating disorders or weight loss ever again.
I know this from personal experience and I’ve seen it time and time again in my 20+ years as a counselling specialist helping people to stop binging and lose weight. It’s the same for those who struggle with anorexia or bulimia or other forms of restriction and confused relating to food.
Figure out what’s getting in the way of you feeling worthy of good self-care and worthy of love and acceptance from others, as you are and you’ll be your best, sexy, happenin’ self before you know it.
It isn’t hard, it doesn’t have to take long – you just need a good teacher and solid, simple, clear tools.
I can help. mmorand@cedriccentre.com email me and we can talk about how things are going for you and what you can do to quickly and simply get a grip on food and weight for good.
Michelle
Once you’ve learned about the basic statistics on dieting, click on this link to purchase the full video or reach out to Michelle for an individual session or for more information on the best approach for you to completely step free for good from your stressful relationship with food and weight loss.
Just click on the image to hear a few minutes of an excerpt from Michelle’s presentation of ‘Sidestepping the Food Emotion Power Struggle’
Tags: anorexia, binge eating, bulimia, Chronic dieting, compulsive eating, dieting, eating disorder clinics, eating disorder treatment, eating disorders, overeating, rebalancing, recovery, self care, the diet mentality
Posted in: 2012, CEDRIC Centre, Relationship with Self, The Diet Mentality Series
Posted by mmorand on March 10, 2012
This week we instead of bringing you Michelle’s message in print, we are introducing our CEDRIC Video Blog.
Please click on the image provided to hear a few minutes of Michelle explaining the importance of the ‘Drill Sergeant’ and some steps to take to retrain your thinking and have an immediate and powerful influence on your behaviour.
I chose the ‘Drill Sergeant Dialogue’ to kick off our monthly video series because it is such an important concept to grasp. Self-esteem is one of the very biggest areas to work on for complete recovery from your stressful relationship with food. It is the solid foundation from which the rest of our life practically falls into place.
Just recognizing the dynamic of the ‘Drill Sergeant’ dialogue is helpful and I thought this clip explained it well. After you watch it, you may find just having a quick flashback to Michelle encouraging you to deal with your D.S in a different way will help you adjust your thinking that much faster when you are being down on yourself.
After absorbing the material at the weekend workshop myself, I practiced the process of rephrasing things to be more positive and encouraging and now when I want to quickly zap myself into coming from a positive place of love, patience, understanding with lots of great options in front of me, I just say “Be Kind.” Then I can quickly remember to adjust my thinking to override the negative thoughts. It really does work if you practice the correct phrasing to play in your head to replace the negative stuff that is hindering you on so many levels. After all positive breeds positive and vice versa. So do whatever you can to stay in the positive, even if it feels like just a baby step!
Have a watch of the video and then really get to know your own ‘Drill Sergeant’ so you can integrate that well-meaning but confused aspect of yourself and truly support yourself in ways that are kinder, more patient, forgiving and encouraging.
If you want to read more about the ‘Drill Sergeant’ just search that term on our blog and you’ll find lots of great articles that help you to change the way you relate to yourself. From there it’s a hop, skip and a jump to forever changing the way you related to food.
Enjoy the Video Clip! You can see more clips at CEDRIC’s YouTube Channel
Janice
Posted by mmorand on March 3, 2012
Hello!
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:
- The perils of both just arbitrarily restricting the amount of food you’re “allowed” to have regardless of your true hunger levels; and
- 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.
- We’ve also addressed the stress of labeling foods as good/bad legal/illegal and the nasty consequences of doing so.
- 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…)
Tags: acceptance, all-or-nothing thinking, anorexia, anxiety, binge and purge, binge eating, Chronic dieting, compulsive eating, eating disorder treatment, emotional eating, natural eating, rebalancing, self esteem, self-judgement, triggers to use food to cope, unreasonable expectations
Posted in: 2012, All-or-Nothing Thinking, CEDRIC Centre, The Diet Mentality Series, Tips for Natural Eating
Posted by mmorand on February 17, 2012
Welcome! If you’re new to our community and find that you binge, restrict, or struggle with anorexia, bulimia or some other stressful way of relating to food you’ve come to the right place to learn about why you do it and what you can do to stop once and for all.
This is Part III in our Diet Mentality series. You can just start here or you can hop back a few weeks to the initial discussion of The Diet Mentality and statistics and then look at the previous Diet Mentality points to make sure you’re up to speed. Either approach will be helpful so don’t sweat it if you just want to read from here. Just do what you have time for, it will be enough.
So, we’ve already discussed the perils of both just arbitrarily restricting the amount of food you’re “allowed” to have regardless of your true hunger levels, and 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.
This week we’re going to discuss two points rather than just one as they feed in to each other and keep a nasty cycle of food preoccupation and self-recrimination going full tilt.
1. You label foods as good or bad – legal or illegal.
2. Your thoughts about having certain foods lead to negative self-thoughts and judgements.
The problem here of course is that #1 naturally triggers #2 should you think about or, gasp, actually have one of those forbidden/bad foods. Then that makes you buy into #1 even more which creates even more judgement and labeling of yourself as lacking willpower which undermines your self-esteem and leads you, typically, to feel so hopeless and overwhelmed that you just give up and eat those ‘baaaaaad’ foods which then, in our Diet Mentality mindset makes you ‘reeeeeaaaaally baaaaaaaad.’
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Tags: binge eating, Chronic dieting, compulsive eating, counting calories, eating disorder clinics, eating disorder treatment, healthy eating, natural eating, obsessing about weight, rebalancing, reducing calories, restricting_food, the diet mentality
Posted in: 2012
Posted by mmorand on February 10, 2012
This is Part II in our Diet Mentality series. If you’re new to our community you can just start here or you can hop back two weeks to the discussion of The Diet Mentality and statistics and then look at last week’s key Diet Mentality point to make sure you’re up to speed. Either approach will be helpful. Just do what you can.
Another key indicator that you’ve got some Diet Mentality going on is if you feel obligated to eat what is placed in front of you – whether or not you like it and whether or not it is too much.
This might not seem like it has anything at all to do with dieting. But it has everything to do with the co-dependent mindset and all or nothing thinking that under pin The Diet Mentality.
You see, if you are so concerned with what other people think or what they would feel that you would compromise your body’s needs and not be authentic about what you like or what you need it is highly likely that you do this in other areas of your life too.
This is very dangerous as this way of being in the world creates great anxiety and insecurity because you really don’t trust yourself to take care of yourself and put your own needs first. This is, ironically, often why we start dieting, binging, purging or engaging in full blown eating disorders like anorexia, bulimia or binge eating disorder in the first place.
(more…)
Tags: all-or-nothing thinking, binge eating, body image, compulsive eating, eating disorder treatment, eating out, insecurity, natural eating, peer pressure, rebalancing, the diet mentality, triggers
Posted in: 2012, All-or-Nothing Thinking, Natural Eating 101, Relationship with Others, Tips for Natural Eating
Posted by mmorand on February 3, 2012
One 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.
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Tags: acceptance, body image, bulimia, Chronic dieting, compulsive eating, diet mentality, eating disorder treatment, eating disorders, overeating, rebalancing, restricting, self-judgement
Posted in: 2012, Relationship with Food, Relationship with Self, Tips for Natural Eating
Posted by mmorand on January 20, 2012
Those 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 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.
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Tags: acceptance, all-or-nothing thinking, anxiety, critisism, drill sergeant, eating disorder treatment, eating disorders, forgiveness, healing, insecurity, learned helplessness, making mistakes, self care, self confidence, self esteem, self worth, self-judgement, shame, triggers, unmet needs
Posted in: 2012, All-or-Nothing Thinking, Relationship with Self
Posted by mmorand on January 13, 2012
Why is it so Hard to be Honest?
One of the hardest things for people to do, especially people who have received any co-dependent training, is to hold themselves to the core value of honesty. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Read on to find out why honesty is so challenging some times and what you can do to start feeling more confident in your ability to be honest with everyone, all the time.
The answer to the question ‘Why is it so hard to be honest’ is twofold:
1. We often (usually) don’t even know what we truly feel and want and need. We might know something doesn’t feel right or good or okay but we have our inner critic immediately judging our feelings and so we mistrust our emotions just as we mistrust our hunger and fullness cues.
2. We are scared crapless to piss people off! Let’s just admit it! We don’t want to upset anyone. We don’t want to be the bad guy. We don’t want anyone saying anything about us that isn’t nice and warm and fuzzy. And so we bail on ourselves.
And just in case you’re still wondering if this applies to you: If you have any food and body image stress, or if you binge, or struggle with restriction (dieting or anorexia or orthorexia (an obsession with eating “clean”), or purging (through exercise, laxatives, or vomiting) or with drinking, drugs, too much t.v. or internet; feeling overrun by your relationships or frustrated in your career, you can guarantee that you have a high dose of co-dependent training.
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Tags: accepting truth, all-or-nothing thinking, anxiety, be honest with others, be honest with yourself, binge eating, body image, body/mind/spirit, compulsive eating, core beliefs, eating disorder treatment, grounding, healthy eating, nurturing, overeating, reality check, rebalancing, self esteem, self love, triggers
Posted in: 2012, All-or-Nothing Thinking, CEDRIC Centre, Natural Eating 101, Relationship with Food, Relationship with Self, Tips for Natural Eating
Posted by mmorand on January 6, 2012
I’ll bet you know something about goal setting. I’d actually be willing to bet that you’re very good at setting yourself goals each and every day about what you’ll eat, what you won’t eat, when, how much exercise you’ll do, how much sleep you’ll get, whose call you’ll return and how much you’ll get done at work or around the house. Chances are, you’re really skilled at setting goals. But…how often do you actually follow through with them? How often do you get to the end of your day feeling peaceful and relaxed that you achieved what you had asked of yourself that day?
If, more often than not, you reflect on your day, and hear the Drill Sgt.’s critical voice in your head pointing out your shortcomings, it’s a good indication that you did not achieve the goals you set for yourself that day. Same goes for those of you who wake up in the morning to the Drill Sgt. telling you what you will and won’t do that day to make up for what you did/didn’t do the day before.
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Tags: achieving goals, baby steps, binge eating, compulsive eating, eating disorder treatment, eating disorders, goal setting, goals, healthy eating, natural eating, overeating, realistic goals, self care, setting reasonable goals, taking things day by day, unrealistic expectations
Posted in: 2012, All-or-Nothing Thinking, CEDRIC Centre, Complete Recovery, Relationship with Food, Relationship with Self, The Law of Attraction, Tips for Natural Eating
