Be Nourished

A Year of Being Nourished

By Amaya Villazan

Last week, I attended a wellness fair at a local university in which I hosted a table introducing people to Be Nourished along side co-founder and dietitian, Dana Sturtevant, MS, RD. I was tentative at first, nervous I wasn’t going to be able to properly explain and give insight into the tenets of Health At Every Size and Intuitive Eating. However, as I started talking to people, I was astounded by how much I had absorbed after only a year of working at Be Nourished. More importantly, I was completely inspired by the deep seated hunger in the community for an approach that fully embraces every human shape in all its perfection and the growing desire to let go of destructive dieting and embody a more positive and sustainable path toward health and weight neutral self-care.

I spoke with one young woman who came by our table after having visited a table hosted by a certain dieting program. She had just spoken with someone there about her body mass index and how their plan could offer her a way to reach her ideal size and stay that way. She shared with me that she had spent years of yo-yo dieting without the results she so desperately strived for. When I started explaining the concept of Intuitive Eating and that health does not need to equate a number on the scale, her eyes lit up.  It was though she had been waiting to hear those words her whole life and had no idea it was even a possibility.  It was a beautiful moment to witness.

Over time, I’ve witnessed countless friends, myself included, struggle with an ingrained ideal of beauty; constant comparing, constant vigilance over food, constant feelings of inadequacy hidden behind a false image of confidence.  I talked about mindful living and acceptance but would then go home and stare at myself in the mirror wishing my body was different, that this was less, that that was more. But now a shift has happened. My eyes have been opened. A year ago I was looking for a job to help pay my rent and support my habit as an actor and singer. Instead, I was given the keys to a radical path toward self-love and sustainable health.  My body and I are very grateful.

Amaya Villazan is the office coordinator at Be Nourished. When she's not organizing events and assisting in spreading the message of HAES and  Intuitive Eating, she is performing as an actor and singer/songwriter in the Portland area. To hear about her upcoming performances and to listen to her music, please visit www.amayavillazan.com.

How light is too light?

A few weeks ago I went to heat up an Amy’s frozen meal for lunch – roasted polenta with swiss chard.  “Yum,” I thought.  Then I realized when I opened the box that this was an “Amy’s light & lean” frozen meal, which translated to 140 calories with 4 grams of fat.   “Yikes,” I thought, “I’m going to be hungry in an hour!”

I love Amy’s frozen meals for the occasional day when I don’t have anything else to take for lunch.  They taste good and when you look at the ingredient list, you don’t have to get out a chemical dictionary to understand what it is that you are eating. This one had sweet yellow cornmeal polenta topped with an organic summer stew of squash, sun-ripened tomatoes, mushrooms and a side of fragrant slow-cooked chard. (Take a look at the ingredient list of a Lean Cuisine or Weight Watchers frozen meal – you might be surprised.)  When you open the box and look at the food, it looks like something that I would have cooked and put in the freezer for a quick meal.

Now, I bought this meal because it sounded good, not because it was ‘light and lean.’  After discovering the nutrition facts, I wondered how many people would eat just this for lunch or dinner and think they are being ‘so good.’  Paired with a lean protein, this could be a very satisfying meal.  But on it’s own, it is not enough to eat.

When I got home, I looked at the “Southern Dinner” that I usually get – cornbread and beans with greens and sweet potatoes to see how this meal compared to the ‘light and lean’ one.  This meal has 310 calories and 7 grams of fat.  What’s wrong with this?  Why isn’t this one considered ‘light and lean?’

The mentality of many people in this culture is the lower or lighter the food is, the better.  My clients who severely restrict their eating because they are dieting or have an eating disorder eat ‘light’ like this all day long.  And they complain of being hungry all the time.  They also report craving carbohydrates like pretzels, bread or muffins.  And if they tend to ignore cues to eat and live with extreme hunger, they crave simpler carbohydrates like jellybeans and candy corn.  Sound familiar?

“Becoming familiar with your physiological hunger and working with vs. against it is helpful in avoiding overeating and/or feeling out of control” says Amy Tuttle of Nourishing Connections.   At Be Nourished, we work with clients to improving their meal mix by eating a combination of protein, fat and carbohydrate and they discover they are not hungry ALL the time.

Eating foods, meals, or snacks that provide us with a combination of carbohydrate, protein and fat helps keep our energy level up and our mood more manageable.  And it enables us think more clearly because our body and brain are receiving better fuel and we are not distracted by hunger. 

So the next time you are thinking about what to eat, consider composing your meals and snacks differently.  We’d love to hear what you discover along the way!

 

Building Body Trust in Relationship

By Teresa Weis, LPC, LMFT

Often times we hear people talk about working on one’s self before getting into a new relationship. “It’s time to work on yourself!”, “I can really get strong and figure my stuff out!” or even most powerfully, “You can’t love someone unless you learn to love yourself first!”.  While it’s important to actively support anyone’s desire to do this work, this life is rarely black and white and/or absolute.  We can’t always plan when we fall in love, or when we meet someone of interest.  And even when we do all the independent growth work in the world, building our awareness and strengthening/shifting into new healthier patterns, inevitably we may find ourselves in another relationship and quickly triggered back into old unhealthy patterns of interaction and relating. Even in the middle of a long-term relationship, an aware life means that growth and change can happen at any time.  How does one build the skills of interdependence while in a relationship?  How can one strengthen one’s own self care patterns when deeply engaged with a loved one? 

Each of us brings our own history, beliefs, values, assumptions, meanings and triggers to a relationship.  Even when we find partners that share many experiences, beliefs, values in common, we may still feel challenged, especially in the course of modern busy lives, to do the hard work of creating the life we want within the context of an intimate relationship.  A couple’s level of cohesion, communication and secure attachment can potentially exacerbate the difficulties of maintaining a new pattern, especially when this new pattern involves one’s relationship to food, weight, and body image.  It is the people with whom we live that we will more often share meals, see naked, share physical activities, insecurities and health concerns.  Our partner’s beliefs about food, weight, and dieting can impact our feedback loops and those impacts can range from strong support to insidious sabotage.  It is easy to declare, “I will TRUST my body” and can still be hard to maintain if the meaning our partner’s derive out of that statement is a far cry from our own newfound body wisdom and awareness.  Stepping into the Intuitive Eating world, building body trust, and stripping away our old protective coping skills to reveal this deeper connection to our emotional lives and needs, can potentially complicate our feelings about our relationships.  Our partners may not know how to respond or grow with us, and it may reveal hidden tensions, surprising feelings, and or misunderstandings.  Even partners with the best of intentions may still find themselves on the outside of the partner’s process, feeling supportive yet disconnected.

As many know and have experienced, it is possible to change and grow together…even around deeply vulnerable topics with often disparate histories such as food and weight.  How do we invite our partners (often more than willing in intention) along with us on this journey?  How do we bridge the gaps in understanding and unpack the triggers each brings to the conversation?  How do we transform the fear of change and its associated losses into a powerful vehicle towards deeper intimacy and mutual understanding?  How do we ask for what we need in ways that neither require parts of our new self to disappear again nor sabotage our needs to be loved and cared for?

At the February Body Trust Network discussion on February 4^th we invite you to join us for a skill-building workshop that addresses these questions and concerns.  We’ll identify the strengths you and/or your couple already possess and expand the ways in which you make use of those strengths to deeper your mutual understanding and intimacy especially around food and weight.  Join us to really explore how body trust looks in the context of a relationship and how the relationship can blossom as a result of this shared journey.

 

 

The Stages of Intuitive Eating, Part 1

By Hilary Kinavey, MS, LPC

The beginning stages of intuitive eating often require us to hold opposite experiences as truth at the same time. We can feel relieved and excited to have found something that finally feels right, new, and sane. We can also feel confused, alone and as if we are stumbling down an overgrown path with little information about what is to come.

Becoming trusting of and intuitive about your body’s signals and wisdom is a tall order when your body has been the place you have directed blame and self-hatred. Often, in order to get all that feels out-of-control back in line, the mind wants to make Intuitive Eating into the new Plan. Plans generally have to be done ‘just so’ and they are largely outcome (or weight loss) focused. When we are navigating the beginning stages of intuitive eating, the dieting mind/inner critic is always lurking, waiting for an “in”.

This challenge calls for a firm belief (that comes from you) about really and truly being done with dieting. This often involves reminding yourself over and over again of all the reasons you came to intuitive eating that don’t have to do with weight loss. What have you given up in pursuit of the thin ideal – joy, flexibility, spontaneity, friendships, a sense of self worth? Why are you truly seeking change for yourself right now?

The early stages of intuitive eating also call for you to investigate permission and pleasure with food. This can be truly scary if you have spent time trying to do food “right” (i.e. restricting) and then over-indulging in a flurry of self-blame and hatred (i.e. overeating or binging). People assume that “overeating” is about pleasure and indulgence. If we look a little bit deeper, we often find it is not. If you have used food to numb difficult emotions, then you have numbed ALL your emotions. You don’t get to be selective about this. Learning to heal your relationship with food to become an intuitive eater means learning to feel joy and pleasure again too.

Intuitive eating invites you to eat what you want. Even you if you have judgments about the food that you want. You then want to couple that desire with permission to eat and enjoy your food so you can actually have the eating experience instead of being distracted by shame and self-hatred every time you eat. It is here that you begin to connect with an internal voice that has been waiting to be allowed choice. This choice involves becoming more honest with yourself about whether or not you truly like the food you choose, and if you are really hungry for it and satisfied by it.

We will continue to explore how intuitive eating unfolds in real lives in future posts. In the meantime, tell us, what are the real reasons (other than weight loss) that brought you to intuitive eating?

When I practice Intuitive Eating I am...

When I Practice Intuitive Eating I Am…

• Trying to go slow with my thoughts about food and my body.  Intuitive Eating is not a “plan” for weight loss. It is a way of being connected with what is really happening in my life and my body today.  This connection is what puts an end to the obsessive thinking about food and body image and allows me to live more freely.

• Choosing food based on what I really want.  I am taking inventory of the many, many voices and hungers in my body and choosing nourishment that will satisfy my desires but will allow for me to stay connected to my body and myself.

• Working on flexibility. I am recognizing that each day will afford me many opportunities to eat and I will let each meal be separate from the last.  My needs and desires for specific foods change as the day goes on.  I try to practice openness to this and sit with disappointment about not having what I “thought” I wanted.

• Fighting back against my tricky inner critic.  That voice is the ultimate manipulator.  It will use any tactic to separate me from my connection with myself and distract from my inner wisdom.  I know that I need to repeat my chosen mantra of “Stop it” to get that sucker to back off.  When that voice retreats, I seem to have no trouble knowing what I want and what is truly enough. 

• Recognizing the distinct voice of deprivation in my head.  This one tht believes that nothing is ever enough and wants to keep me on the hamster wheel of getting more, more, more.  If I try to fill myself with food to quiet deeper sadness, anger or longing, I will only be temporarily numbing myself, and it will not support truly knowing myself. 

• Listening to my hunger.  I feed myself when I am hungry even though “it’s not time to eat” or “I shouldn’t be hungry yet”. Sometimes it means having to wait for hunger to arrive at all.  Hunger changes day to day.

• Keeping food nearby.  I am planning for hunger, so it is not a last minute scramble or an inconvenience to feed myself.

• Practicing saying yes and no myself.  Intuitive eating is a practice of legalizing food, shutting down the food police and truly eating food you enjoy.  Intuitive eating is also knowing when is too much, knowing that honoring my metabolism, and my body’s boundaries will reward me with increasing my trust in my body and myself.

• Reminding myself that it doesn’t have to be perfect to keep doing it.  Intuitive eating is a meal by meal practice for me.  No problem if I have an eating experience that is less than attuned.  Another opportunity is always around the corner.  Knowing my true hunger is a practice to be continually explored, not a plan to be mastered.

Eating is an Opportunity

by Kate Suddes, MA

Food is everywhere.  Have you noticed this?  And with it comes the opportunity for choice, reflection, self-care.  These opportunities are ubiquitous and relentless.  I had a death in my family this month and I still had to make decisions about food.  I made decisions about food the day I ran a marathon, the day I graduated from college, the day I was married and the day my daughter was born.  There have been millions of minutes in between these events, most of them mundane.  But all of them have been punctuated with decisions about eating.  We come from many walks of life, but the need for food is something we all have in common.  For those of us that struggle in our relationship to food and body, the journey is even more intense.  I believe that food acts on a symbolic level in our lives.  The foods we choose or don't choose can tell us something about where we are, how we're feeling, what we're struggling with at any given moment.  Eating gives us a way to know ourselves - separate from judgement, criticism, health mandates. 

At the core of this eating journey is you.  It's not about the food.  The food is a doorway.  Eating is an opportunity.  Oprah Winfrey was once quoted as saying "I don't have a weight problem - I have a self-care problem that manifests through weight.".  Does this ring true for you?  How do you (or don't you) take care of yourself through eating? The bad news is you have a lifetime to work through your eating journey.  The good news is you have a lifetime to work through your eating journey.    The food is not going away.  Neither are your moments for opportunity.  Your ability to care for yourself.  The pauses in your day to reflect.  I invite you to join next month's Body Trust Network based on Geneen Roth's book, "Women, Food and God".  You will have to make many eating decisions between now and then.  I hope to see you on this particular day in your journey.  In the meantime, may you be gentle and fierce in caring for yourself.

We're excited to invite Kate Suddes to facilitate October's Body Trust Network "Women, Food and God". Kate is the founder of Cage Free, a space for conversation and connection. To learn more about her work, please visit www.cagefreepdx.com.