Home Archive by category 'Restriction'

Restriction

  • Body Image, Dieting, Emotional Eating, Recovery, Restriction

    “Come As You Are” – But I Am Not Sick Enough To Need Help? #NEDA

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    Let’s cut to the chase – you don’t need to look a certain way in order to ask for help relating to your relationship with food or body image.

    You don’t need to be “fat” to have a problem with your body image. You don’t need to be skeletal thin to have a serious obsessive problem with dieting.

    There is a common misperception around our emotional and mental health that we need to be diagnosed with a clinical condition in order to be ‘sick enough’ to get help.

    This is certainly the case with eating disorders. We believe we need to look a certain way in order to consider ourselves a candidate to get help.

    This is definitely NOT TRUE.

    When we are struggling and we hide it, if we pretend we are ok when we are living in a mental hell we are denying our own humanness. As humans we live in community, we share stories and we support each other. We share joy and we also share the hard times. This is how we get by. This is how we create society. This is how we heal.

    Helping each other and standing side by side is a crucial part of being human.

    You don’t need to look a certain way, display certain diagnostic criteria or be any type of way in order to qualify for asking for help. All you need to know is that you are finding it difficult to cope and you want to change because you know there is more to life.

    If you feel that you are struggling with dieting, bingeing, any facet of your relationship with food or your body image then send me a message now. Don’t wait. It is unlikely to ‘just get better’. We can change how you’re feeling in a matter of weeks, your life can completely change within months and in years…? well all your dreams can come true.

    Don’t delay the start of living the life you truly deserve.

    Message me here or comment below.

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  • Binge Eating, Blogvember, Dieting, Intuitive Eating, Restriction

    26 – Appetite, depression, bingeing – what’s the common thread

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    Did you know that when we feel depressed we are more likely to lose our appetite than to want to binge?

    Surprised? I was too.

    I always believed that feeling unhappy and depressed was what made me binge eat. I thought I binged because I felt down, hated my life and hated my body.

    Biologically speaking bingeing actually has little to do with feeling low, sad or depressed.

    The reason we believe that we want to eat when we are depressed is, paradoxically, because we diet. So many of us chronically under eat (a lot of the time on purpose) on a day to day basis using our will-power, hiding behind our busy schedules or over-exercising. Many of us don’t even believe we are under eating because we are so desperate to be slimmer and completely consumed with our mission to eat less.

    Then when the emotional shit hits the fan and something happens in our lives that really throws us off, that sinks us into depression, our mind is suddenly not able to use all of its normal control tactics to keep us eating less. All bets are off and our body begins screaming for food.

    Suddenly we are ravenous and all we want to do is eat high calorie snacks and comfort food. Our mind has moved into a different mode – into the ‘IDGAF, couldn’t care less about anything, about who I am, I don’t ever want to get out of bed’ zone. Suddenly the normally oppressive controlling voice of our minds has been switched off and cravings are allowed back in.

    When your mind shuts down your body actually starts waking up. This allows it to start self-regulating again after you have spent days, weeks, months trying to force it to survive on less than it requires for optimal functioning. Your mind’s depressed state and inability to maintain control any longer frees your body and you binge, or you find yourself eating way more than you do on a ‘normal’ day.

    The most important point here is that it is NOT the low mood or depression that causes bingeing, it is the restriction beforehand.

    What does it look like then for someone who is feeling down but who doesn’t normally control their food?

    When we eat normally, following our intuition, cravings and natural appetite fluctuations we are feeding our body exactly what it needs. When something difficult happens in our lives and we find ourselves in a low mood or in a depressed state, we become disconnected from our bodies. Very simply put depression is a form of disconnection. When feel low, sad, depressed we feel disconnected from life. Our mind becomes disconnected from our body and the normal messages that go back and forth telling us when and what to eat are no longer being received clearly. We lose interest in life and we lose interest in eating. Think of this example – what do you give to people when a loved one has died? You go round with food, right. You take them food because more often than not they are so overwhelmed with grief they forget to eat.

    If you are chronically under eating then trust me you will not be forgetting to eat any time soon.

    As I often like to say this blog is more personal and practical rather than scientific but there is a whole heap of research around this topic, so go ahead and do a deep dive online.

    But when we think about it logically from an emotional standpoint doesn’t it make so much more sense that if you are in a place where you are less interested in life and feeling disconnected then you would also be less interested in food and eating?

    So next time you feel down and you reach for the biscuit tin and then feel even worse…why not ask yourself whether you have really been nourishing your body adequately recently. Ask yourself whether this could be your natural hunger showing up after having been repressed for so long?

    Any time we feel the need to over-eat or binge there is something else going on for us. The only time humans really binge is when we have been restricting our food. So if you really want to stop bingeing when you feel down then you need to start eating when you’re up…

    Sending you lots of love xxx

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  • Blogvember, Body Image, Dieting, Emotional Eating, Intuitive Eating, Recovery, Restriction

    24 – Find Flexibility – Find Food Freedom

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    A huge shift has taken place in the diet/health industry. People have woken up to the fact that being skinny does not necessarily equate to being happy and healthy, that fat loss is not the be all and end all. Size zero is definitely not as ‘in’ as it once was.

    However this has given rise to a new obsession with finding what ‘healthy’ really is. In comes the race to find the most super superfood, the ‘best’ balance of macro and micronutrients, the best time to eat. It’s not just about counting calories anymore. The diet industry is morphing into a health and wellness industry focused on ‘healthy’ eating and with that a growing number of us falling into orthorexic tendencies.

    As you know I like to keep this blog pretty practical and personal rather than going into the factual minutiae but for background orthorexia has been defined by NEDA as “an obsession with proper or ‘healthful’ eating”. It is not clinically diagnosable at the time of this blog but it feels like it’s only a matter of time.

    Not only is there a general push towards finding the ‘healthiest’ diet people have also become more conscious of the environmental implications of the food industry. This has led to a shift towards more people choosing veganism and claiming that it is the healthiest way to eat not only for your body but for the planet as well.

    As a coach supporting absolute food freedom for all I don’t actively support any particular way of eating or trends in the wellness industry. I remain neutral not because I don’t have an opinion but because we are all totally unique and different and therefore what looks and feels like food freedom for me will be different to what looks and feels like food freedom to you.

    I also focus on the emotional basis of our crazy eating habits, binges and fad diets because if we don’t dig deep and look at the real reasons WHY we get so obsessed with particular dogma around food we won’t be able to heal it and find a healthy food freedom that will last a lifetime.

    With this move towards healthy eating now being equated with clean eating, i.e. eating in the most nutrient efficient, unprocessed way, and people getting confused with the all too nebulous term ‘balance’ I want to broaden your minds as to what ‘healthy’ could mean in reality for you.

    Health and balance when it comes to food and your body is not just about what you eat and what you look like, it’s not even just about what you feel like. Having a healthy and balanced relationship with food and your body means eating in a way that not only feels good to you and your body but that also slots into your life with the proper priority level.

    Eating well and caring for our bodies is super important. I am a huge advocate of taking care of ourselves in every way we can so that we can show up in the world and give our true and best selves. However sometimes this doesn’t look like waking up naturally at 7am sipping on a lemon water and eating overnight oats then eating our carefully planned, prepped meals every 2-3 hours.

    Sometimes this means getting up super early in the morning to go and pick our family up from the airport, grabbing a coffee and croissant there even though we know that’s not the best for our energy levels, spending the day running around doing chores to get ready for a work event, having an impromptu pizza lunch date, then collapsing onto the sofa with random leftovers we have put together from our fridge.

    Even though that day didn’t look like a perfect ‘healthy eating’ day, we still fuelled ourselves, we were able to get on with what we wanted to do that day and we showed up in our lives without letting the food options available stop us.

    The magic thing is that after a few days like this, if you are truly seeking health and balance and are able to listen to your body, it will naturally start craving more variety, more fresh foods, different proteins and vegetables. You will find yourself reaching for different foods if your follow your body’s intuition. You don’t need to reverse engineer or restrict your daily activities thinking that you need to eat in a certain perfect way to be healthy. Your body is constantly working on the subconscious level to keep you alive and healthy. When you start allowing your mind to dictate everything you are actually fighting against your body. When you are trying to second-guess what your body needs all the time you are trying to predict the future.

    The only way to find food freedom and be healthy is to listen to your body in the moment. To be aware and use your knowledge to support the choices you are making but not to be bound by this knowledge if your day does not go exactly to plan.

    I encourage you before you say no to things because of the food options available to remember that your body is an incredible, amazing thing that is able to self-regulate and is always looking to bring you back to balance. Knowing what is healthiest for your own body doesn’t mean you have to be dogmatic about sticking to those exact things.

    Life is really just about how well we can adapt to constant change, you’ve heard it before and I will say it again, the only thing we can be certain of in this life is uncertainty!

    Be careful when you are saying no to things because of food choices that you are not actually saying no to life.

    If this resonated check out this blog on how to cope with body change; this one on change in our daily food requirements;
    and this one on finding freedom outside of control

    Lots of love xxx

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  • Blogvember, Dieting, Intuitive Eating, Recovery, Restriction

    4 – Why structured diet plans are always wrong for you long-term

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    What I am about to say you already know intuitively because you are a human being with a physical body you have had since birth. And when you read it, hopefully a little light bulb somewhere inside will go off and you will realise you have always known this (!)

    One of the most fundamental things that rigid diet and exercise plans fail to take into account is that you’re human. Humans are living beings who’s energy requirements CHANGE all the time.

    The amount of food, water, sleep and activity you need changes pretty much on a daily basis. It depends on your environment, the stress you’re under, your emotional state, your menstrual cycle…I don’t mean drastic changes, these are subtle and unique to you. Some days you might just not feel like breakfast and other times you’ll need an extra afternoon snack. If you do hard exercise you’ll want some extra nourishment and if you sit around doing nothing on a Sunday you’ll likely be less hungry.

    A random structured diet plan you found on the internet that says you need to eat 1800 calories a day across 4 meals everyday is going to be incompatible with your energy requirements pretty much the majority of the time…this kind of prescription can’t work long term for anyone. It simply doesn’t make sense as a way of eating because of the constant changes in our energy requirements. Our lives evolve and ask different things from our physical bodies all the time.

    Once you understand this and honestly truly believe it for yourself will come to realise, on your own, that the only sensible way to work out how much food is optimal for you to eat for good health is by listening to your body every single day and eating in line with your own body’s requirements.

    If you are not sure what intuitive eating is or how to get started look out for the blog post coming soon! Or please get in touch sasha@sashafardell.com I would love to help.

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