The Obese's Fear of Food Helps Keep them Obese
Many of my new clients panic when I suggest that they eat whole healthy foods for fast weight loss. I can sympathize with them. As a child I would feel guilty if I ate a second apple in one day or if I wanted a second glass of milk. I had a bigger appetite than my thin siblings, but knew that to eat more than them proved to the world I deserved the extra weight I carried, even if that food was a couple of cucumbers for a snack in the summer. By the time I met my naturopath I weighed 256 pounds and was in a deep depression. I had gone armed with information and demanded blood work to see if my problem was liver/nutrient based. I made some great discoveries and was able to shed the depression and start a raw foods diet that let me lose 136 pounds in 9 months. When I returned to see the naturopath for my final blood work, she showed me the notes she took the first day we met. They said: "Patient views food as poison."
For the woman I was when I first met her, that statement was very true. After working with so many other obese women, I have learned that is actually a very common idea. Food has been our lover and our enemy. Most of us don't really know how we feel about it, but we all fear our relationship with it. The most common complaint I hear from dieters on why they quit most diets is that they just wanted to eat like a normal person.
One of the biggest concerns for the obese in our relationship with food is that we have no idea how to eat "normal." We are great on diets, but outside that structure, all we seem to know is how to overeat. It is that overeating that makes us obese and ill, so in our minds even though we love food and go to it for comfort and joy we know that it is killing us.
One of the first things that becomes very clear when new obese clients start my program, and what they actually all voice is: "I don't know how to eat like a regular person." When I tell them I want them to eat 1800 calories their first two weeks to find out what their true maintenance diet will look like, their eyes pop, their voices quake, and they stammer: "1800 calories, that is insane. I will gain weight." It takes me a while to convince them otherwise.
I check their food every day. The first week is always predictable. The food logs are packed with diet type foods in quantities that wouldn't satisfy a child. The calories rarely come close to the 1800. For that matter they rarely reach 1500. When I start to question the choices they actually defend the food saying they prefer it to other "real" food. After a long lecture on what we are trying to accomplish the second week is better, but it still takes a while to get them to give in to foods they feared all their lives and to eat enough to feel sated before leaving the dinner table.
I don't believe there is anyone diet that works for everyone. We all have different likes and dislikes and our bodies react to certain foods in both positive and negative ways. Some of us do better with low fat, some thrive on higher fats. Some of us are insulin resistant with some foods spiking our blood sugar while others can eat what they want. We also have different appetites that dictate if we are grazers or three meal a day type of eaters. There is no one right or wrong way to eat. Yet most obese men and women feel they have to conform to dieting standards which have always been about deprivation and obsession.
That fear of eating that has been hammered into us all these years has to be tackled. The only way to do that is to eat. Sounds simple enough, but in my experience I have found it is harder to get people to eat then it is to get them to diet. Why? Because all we know is deprivation or guilt.
My new obese clients are always tentative eaters. They tend to eat foods from their dieting backgrounds and always in small amounts. When I ask them what appealed to them in these foods, they squirm and even try to convince me they actually like all that diet food. When I stand firm that diet food is not on our program they are lost to figure out what they should eat. Some even swear they cannot live without their liquid diet foods and insist on including them in their new programs. I just shake my head. Drinking calories and calling it nutrition was a bad idea, people need to eat, and they need to learn to eat healthy satisfying foods in quantities their body and psyche can handle.
Making that switch is not easy. It takes me a while to calm their nerves and get them to trust the process. Once they do, they are surprised by the types of foods they can have in their lives and that yes, even with 1800 calories a day they can maintain their weight while feeling satisfied and full. But still that nagging thought that they are cheating, that they are breaking the dieting rules persist. Even when they are experiencing fast weight loss.
For so many years the obese have fought their inability to control their weight and take responsibility for their relationship with food. That loss of control makes food the enemy for some, and an abusive lover for others. But food is only as powerful as e make it. The obese must open their eyes to the true value of food. It is nutrition for the body. Like gasoline for a car. There is no need to fear it, there is only a need to build a solid relationship with it where we are the ones in charge. - 17268
For the woman I was when I first met her, that statement was very true. After working with so many other obese women, I have learned that is actually a very common idea. Food has been our lover and our enemy. Most of us don't really know how we feel about it, but we all fear our relationship with it. The most common complaint I hear from dieters on why they quit most diets is that they just wanted to eat like a normal person.
One of the biggest concerns for the obese in our relationship with food is that we have no idea how to eat "normal." We are great on diets, but outside that structure, all we seem to know is how to overeat. It is that overeating that makes us obese and ill, so in our minds even though we love food and go to it for comfort and joy we know that it is killing us.
One of the first things that becomes very clear when new obese clients start my program, and what they actually all voice is: "I don't know how to eat like a regular person." When I tell them I want them to eat 1800 calories their first two weeks to find out what their true maintenance diet will look like, their eyes pop, their voices quake, and they stammer: "1800 calories, that is insane. I will gain weight." It takes me a while to convince them otherwise.
I check their food every day. The first week is always predictable. The food logs are packed with diet type foods in quantities that wouldn't satisfy a child. The calories rarely come close to the 1800. For that matter they rarely reach 1500. When I start to question the choices they actually defend the food saying they prefer it to other "real" food. After a long lecture on what we are trying to accomplish the second week is better, but it still takes a while to get them to give in to foods they feared all their lives and to eat enough to feel sated before leaving the dinner table.
I don't believe there is anyone diet that works for everyone. We all have different likes and dislikes and our bodies react to certain foods in both positive and negative ways. Some of us do better with low fat, some thrive on higher fats. Some of us are insulin resistant with some foods spiking our blood sugar while others can eat what they want. We also have different appetites that dictate if we are grazers or three meal a day type of eaters. There is no one right or wrong way to eat. Yet most obese men and women feel they have to conform to dieting standards which have always been about deprivation and obsession.
That fear of eating that has been hammered into us all these years has to be tackled. The only way to do that is to eat. Sounds simple enough, but in my experience I have found it is harder to get people to eat then it is to get them to diet. Why? Because all we know is deprivation or guilt.
My new obese clients are always tentative eaters. They tend to eat foods from their dieting backgrounds and always in small amounts. When I ask them what appealed to them in these foods, they squirm and even try to convince me they actually like all that diet food. When I stand firm that diet food is not on our program they are lost to figure out what they should eat. Some even swear they cannot live without their liquid diet foods and insist on including them in their new programs. I just shake my head. Drinking calories and calling it nutrition was a bad idea, people need to eat, and they need to learn to eat healthy satisfying foods in quantities their body and psyche can handle.
Making that switch is not easy. It takes me a while to calm their nerves and get them to trust the process. Once they do, they are surprised by the types of foods they can have in their lives and that yes, even with 1800 calories a day they can maintain their weight while feeling satisfied and full. But still that nagging thought that they are cheating, that they are breaking the dieting rules persist. Even when they are experiencing fast weight loss.
For so many years the obese have fought their inability to control their weight and take responsibility for their relationship with food. That loss of control makes food the enemy for some, and an abusive lover for others. But food is only as powerful as e make it. The obese must open their eyes to the true value of food. It is nutrition for the body. Like gasoline for a car. There is no need to fear it, there is only a need to build a solid relationship with it where we are the ones in charge. - 17268
About the Author:
Carlene Jones is a Fast Weight Loss Coach for the Obese. There are before and after photos of herself and her clients on her website. In her workbook Fat Brain Lies Lies she helps the obese come to terms with their relationship to food so they can build a livable unique diet to take them to their goals and keep the weight off for life.
posted by X - Men at
12:33 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home