Crime and Punishment

I was just re-reading some of my old Oxygen magazines; I have a collection of about 100. There was once an article written by respected bodybuilder, fitness magnate and publisher Robert Kennedy (may he rest in peace) where he says that you should strip down, get in front of a mirror, and upon careful inspection, proceed to be utterly and completely disgusted by yourself.

This is the kind of flawed (and dangerous) idea that leads to distorted thinking and disordered eating. The point is that if you loathe yourself enough, are disgusted by your very being to the highest possible degree, if you hit rock bottom like an addict who loses it all, you will ultimately have no choice but to turn the corner and somehow generate actions that will bring about fitness, thinness and therefore greatness. This is the kind of thinking that led me to not eat in front of anyone for almost a year, to sit on the corner of my chair at the kitchen table during a meal, as if to say – don’t worry, I’m not really going to eat, I’m not committing to this food, I know that I don’t deserve it, I know that I should be outside running sprints instead.  Never mind looking at myself in the mirror, getting my picture taken or letting anyone else see me without the requisite covering (see Ninja Suit).

The collateral damage from this fruitless battle can be catastrophic.  And what a community of practice - others, like me, are more than a little twisted and obsessive about it. Some of us have developed whole friendships based on commiserating about losing that last 20 pounds, the untruth that “I cannot be trusted around cream cheese icing”.  We fit in by hating ourselves.

Anyone would agree that the nature of a diet, the proverbial yoyo – being either ‘on’ or ‘off’ - is damaging to the psyche.  I have friends whose current diet plan is immediately obvious from the minute we step into a restaurant. They’re either ordering a naked salad to go with the protein shake they've stashed in their purse, or a triple-stacked bacon burger, sandwiched between two buns made of bacon, with a side of bacon. And don’t even ask them if they want to split a dessert. ‘On’ means eat your naked salad, watch everyone else with wonder and envy (disguised as scorn), ‘off’ means eat anything that doesn't eat you first. Who do you know who has successfully won this war, anyway? Who has dieted and made lasting changes of more than six months, a year? Why play a game that is not winnable?

Geneen says that we should end the war with our bodies once and for all, and come back to ourselves, come back to love. We should stop trying to fix it - the body is not broken.  It has an innate, intelligent ebb and flow of hunger and satiety, if only we were to listen.

Now that I know this, I cannot unknow it. Obsession and awareness cannot co-exist. Here’s my bottom line:

Yes, I’m eating lunch. And it’s over when I say it’s over. 

Mindful and Intuitive Exercise

I am a former fitness competitor; I have walked the walk.  Years of running, stairclimbing, circuits, high intensity interval training, jump lunges, pop squats, Body Pump, 100's, drop sets, super sets, box jumps and step aerobics have landed me on the table of chiropractors, physiotherapists, massage therapists and surgeons. I have disc protrusions, sciatica, SI joint problems, pinched nerves and extreme tightness in my hip flexors and hamstrings, all of which cause me incredible amounts of pain, with still no end in sight after 5 years of therapy. I believe, at least for me, that sustainable, lifelong fitness will be centered around gentler movements, such as walking, yoga and playing with my children.

My Ninja Suit

I have a ninja suit for every occasion: work, home, parties, funerals, weddings, sleep. These ensembles are perfect – they are black, slimming, comfortable and allow me to slink around, not so much as to go unnoticed, but to make damn sure that no one could ever point out anything on me that doesn't belong, as in “Did you see her stomach hanging over those pants?” or “People that size should definitely not wear yellow.” or “Oooh, patterns like that only accentuate her {insert offending body part here}.”  

Geneen Roth refers to the aforementioned thoughts as “The Voice” and that you should give it a name, corner it in the kitchen, and tell it to fuck off.  

Baby steps to furthering my mindfulness practice

Anyone who knows me would tend to agree – I am the least mindful person around. Hence the six fender benders.  Also, at about 7 months pregnant, I was rushing my daughter to the car in the daycare parking lot and tripped over a curb, landing belly-first on the snow and ice. Two times I've stumbled over my son’s bouncy chair on the floor, sending him flying.  Don't buy me a mandolin for Christmas, or get me to light the candles on the birthday cake. Always in a hurry, rushing to the finish line - that’s me.

Mindfulness is a journey. I have begun with eating, but I’m now starting to apply it to the rest. Lately as I've been rocking my son to sleep, instead of buzzing in my head about my meal plan for the following day, how many Weight Watchers points I had consumed on this day, or even my general to-dos, I've been listening closely to the little snorting noises he makes, watching his tiny hands grasp the bottle, reading the sayings on his pajamas ("Imagine all the people"…so cute). Taking this time doesn't take away from anything else and doesn't get me to the finish line any slower. 

How I got here

My mother died on a Friday night. By the time I got to the hospital, she had passed. I had been there an hour before, all night, all week, all month. I had said goodbye a hundred times. Was it enough?

At first I couldn't look at her, let alone touch her. Then I was all over her, stroking her face, kissing her. I never wanted to leave that room.  That sweet, sweet woman. That’s what I told her. And that I would ask God to take his very best care of her until I could be with her again.

I had a two-year old baby, a three-month old marriage, a 33-year old fat body and a whirling mind. It seemed that I could never concentrate on anything for a reasonable amount of time. I could never get my thoughts together before they came spilling out of my mouth. I could never get enough sleep. Sometimes, many times, I couldn't get enough air.

It started a long, long time ago, but to take a point in time, I’ll begin with Sharlene. Sharlene was a 55-year old-waiting-to-retire systems analyst who was contracted to work with our team. I was placed in a suffocatingly small room with her for four months doing analysis work. No windows, no phone, no Internet, no personal space, and again no air. The woman looked me up and down every morning when I came to work, commented on the amount of bags I was carrying, wondering aloud if they all contained lunch provisions or was I going to the gym today and did I remember when I was working out three hours a day training for my show and boy, was I tiny then and did I think I’d ever get back there, and was I worried about losing the weight I needed to lose to fit into my wedding dress and how many calories was I eating these days anyway?

Holy shit. A normal person (I've always considered myself to be somewhat abnormal, a mutation of the general species) would have shut her down right away. But she was senior to me and sort of ugly, with nothing else to talk about and I felt sorry for her. Probably a part of me felt a kinship with her too, a sister in obsession.  So I bought into it. I was at the whiteboard one day, a month before the wedding, when she commented on my ever-present black pants and asked again how I was going to lose enough weight to feel good at my wedding. I said, “I don’t know Sharlene. It’s on my mind every minute.”

Stop. It’s on my mind every minute? I had a child to care for. The cancer had at this point made its way into my mother’s bones, all too quickly taking from me the person I identified as the other half that made me whole, my way home, the constant grounding force in my life. I was trying to have my wedding in time for her to be there. I was struggling to keep my job. Was I really preoccupying my time and thoughts with the size of my arms and belly? Yes. It was one more thing, but it seemed like everything. If only I could get that under control, I could deal with the rest.

For spending so much attention and effort on something, I was getting nowhere. And Sharlene - if I had a nickel for every time she told me that she only eats 1500 calories per day, I would not have to do analyst work. Where had all of her obsessing gotten her? She was easily 60 pounds overweight.

I was a girl with endless insecurities, who had a baby, a back problem, food issues and then her mother died. She was closed for so long, locked in a box with a spreadsheet, a Vegetarian’s Guide to Getting Your Life Back and a soupbowl of instant coffee. After trying everything, saying everything, reading everything, doing everything, writing everything, thinking everything to death, I needed to emerge - not necessarily expecting to be fully enlightened, but for the most part able to enjoy my life, my children, my husband, my job and friends, and see myself for the capable mother, wife and woman I am.

A Journey to Mindfulness

Only kindness makes sense. Anything else is excruciating. That’s what Geneen Roth says, and she’s referring to how we treat our bodies. Instead of judging, punishing, shaming and restricting – we should be inquiring, listening, giving and loving.  This does not mean accepting your ‘fat self’! I wouldn't be doing it if it wasn't about weight loss. But it’s also about sanity, and quieting the noise in my head.

This is not another Mommy blog, another rant about how hard motherhood is, the devastating effect it has had on my lifestyle, body and mind. With that I could fill a series of books.  A weekly talk show. Let’s say a daily talk show.

It’s just that particularly after you have endured the fallout from the fruits of your labor (pun intended) your self esteem, inevitably tied to your size, is one more thing that plagues you while you try to get sleep, feed babies, nurse fevers, find a babysitter and work a job. Did I mention get sleep? Another talk show.

Eckhart Tolle says that you are not your mind.  At first I thought, how on Earth could I not be my mind? But it’s true. You are not your mind. Your mind says crazy things, tells you all that you are not and will never be, all of the bad things you are and from which you will never break free. 

I am using mindfulness and intuitive eating to help my body regulate to its natural weight. Not the weight I was when I was a fitness competitor, not the weight my husband thinks I should be, not the weight of my neighbor who is 3 inches shorter than me.

Geneen Roth is a woman I’ve never met, and probably never will. But what she has given me and many women around the world is freedom. She has validated what I was already starting to suspect – that the more you obsess about your body and the food you put in it, the exercise you do to get rid of it, the more you let your mind control your body - the fatter and crazier you get.

For so many reasons, our minds tell us that we must diet, restrict, withhold, keep track, dissect into components and calories. But our body just wants to be fed when it needs to be, and not when it doesn't. 

What if I just love food?

If you really love something, you take your time with it. This was not the case as I sat in the Burger King parking lot, inhaling a deep fried chicken sandwich (extra mayo) and cheese-loaded fries.  Then there's the issue of disposing of the evidence, hoping no one I knew was watching me. Was this love?

Have you ever watched a kid eat an Oreo? They break it apart, lick the middle, the sides of it, then finally bite into it. Have you ever watched a woman who has been dieting eat an Oreo? It’s not even like a one-bite brownie. She can cram two of them at a time into her mouth as if  it were a contest.

The Guiding Principles

As per Geneen Roth (and as per the universe, I'm starting to believe), the following are the guiding principles to restoring balance in your mind and body and achieving your natural weight.

1.       Eat only when you feel hunger (about a 3 on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being ravenous, 10 being completely stuffed). This means that you do not have to eat just because it is lunchtime, because there is still half a sandwich on your plate, because you're worried you might be hungry later, because it has been three hours since your last meal and the latest issue of MuscleMag tells you that your metabolism  will screech to a grinding halt if you do not. Also not because you are tired, your back hurts or the kids won't sleep. Also not because you miss your mom, you have work to finish tonight or (heaven forbid) you're going on another diet tomorrow, so eat up! 

      I have embarked on every diet on the planet, including Weight Watchers, The Eat Clean Diet, South Beach (which I not-so-lovingly refer to as 'South Bitch', due to crankiness experienced while deprived of carbs), The Fast Diet, Paleo/Primal, vegetarianism, veganism, raw food diets and several juice cleanses. I have found that no matter what, I end up bingeing and starving.  Even though it’s not supposed to be a ‘diet’, it is inevitably something you are either ‘on’ or ‘off’. Only on the days when I truly allow myself to address my hunger, to listen to what my body (not a plan) is telling me, I eat a normal amount of food, feel nourished and have no guilt.

2.       Eat sitting down in a calm environment. This refers to the habit (mostly of women) to nibble while cooking, pick off of plates while cleaning up, snack on leftovers as we put them away in the fridge and eat in the car.

3.       Eat without distractions. No reading, music, television, and (hopefully) no crying babies.

4.       Eat what your body wants. Eat to nourish yourself and to provide yourself with energy. I believe that most people are smart enough to know that you should consume whole grains, lean proteins, healthy fats and tons of fruits and vegetables. It is the minute that we decide to cut down, only eat certain items from this list, or go on a ‘plan’ that we seem to get into trouble. 

5.       Eat until you are satisfied (not full). It has been said that ‘satisfied’ is much more subtle a feeling than ‘full’. You should take a breath, chew your food slowly, pause before reaching for more and try to determine if you truly are still hungry.

6.       Eat with the intention of being in full view of others. This addresses the habit (again, mostly of women) to sneak or hide food. 

7.       Eat with enjoyment, gusto and pleasure. Of course!

In her books, including Why Weight? and Women, Food and God, Geneen has taught me to feel your feet on the floor, your clothes on your skin, the yogourt on your tongue. To finish one mouthful before you pick up your fork to get the next one.  To look at the colour, explore the texture, feel the temperature of your food as you eat it. to be aware of how your body feels before, during and after a meal.  To eat when you are truly hungry, by checking in with your physical self, in the heart of your belly. To eat what your body wants, what nourishes it. And to stop when you are satisfied.

And that everything tastes better when you’re hungry.

It may seem obvious, but she also points out that you can never get enough of something you didn't need in the first place. I have learned to recognize that I eat when I'm tired, when I'm stressed and when I'm in pain. Geneen invites you to inquire when you have a feeling, seemingly a need to eat. Is the answer that you're truly hungry, or is it a desire to satisfy something else? She instructs you to find the physical location of your feelings in your body (for me, it's usually anxiety manifested as a fiery red ball in my stomach) and to do the hard work of embracing that feeling, scary as it might be.

Geneen has another book called When You Eat at the Refrigerator, Pull Up a Chair. I've been there - standing at the cupboard, slathering butter on a bread roll, just wanting something to make me feel better. But I only felt better for a split second, then much worse for having done it.