Eating My Cake

It is not uncommon for people with eating disorders to have perfectionistic tendencies. I remember being in the hospital, as an inpatient. I was 15, and surrounded by mostly anorexic teenage girls. There were a few bulimics, but for some reason, they tended to be older, in their early 20s. The girls who were there for anorexia, with the exception of my best friend, were classic overachievers. They were all involved in some sort of athletics. They often sang or played an instrument. They had perfect 4.0 GPAs. They compared notes on these things, and I sat back in awe. Remember, I was already in awe of them. In my ED twisted mind, they were heroes. They had willpower, the mysterious thing I lacked. They weren’t “lazy,” as I’d been repeatedly described on progress reports. I was capable of As. I just didn’t apply myself.

What I didn’t realize, what I couldn’t realize in that state of mind, was that the perfect grades and athletic accomplishments and the incessant need to add talents to their already impressive resumes was simply another symptom of their ED. Likewise, my grades and inability to concentrate was a symptom of my own problems. I won’t blame it entirely on my diagnosis of “non-purging bulimia,” because that’s not true. However, I do think when you added my insecurity, my completely unstable family situation and my constant moving to the ED, it was a cocktail for failure. I never stood much of a chance, and it’s, to be completely frank, remarkable that I was able to be strong enough for myself to get through any of it whole.

However, what I couldn’t see in myself at that age was that I also had this tendency to want to be “perfect.” It didn’t show in the same ways. I wasn’t able to achieve, even in the short term, the “perfect” body. I wasn’t able to apply myself to my studies to achieve those perfect 4.0 GPAs I envied. I eventually recognized that this was not because of laziness, but simply because of the conditions under which I lived. While in the hospital, I noticed that though most of the girls I admired had family problems like anyone, they also had families that were much more involved in their lives than mine. Whereas, the girls who were being treated for the purging form of bulimia had families more like mine. They were the “black sheep,” the “rebels.” They were misfits. The anorexic girls were their families’ “golden children,” the ones who could do no wrong. Their disease was one to be ashamed of because it suddenly meant they weren’t “perfect,” after all. In some ways, I wondered later, if that didn’t make it harder for them. I was never “perfect,” so having an eating disorder didn’t do much to lower my status in my family. I didn’t then have to battle the demon of perfection from another angle, too.

Yet, I did have that demon. It just took on a different form. For me, “perfection” became about keeping peace. I learned how to play at the games of my family members. I learned to be skillfully manipulative. I tried desperately to help my little brother, but, to his credit, he couldn’t play at the game. Ultimately, though, that would be his downfall. While playing the game wasn’t something I was proud of, or wanted to do, I knew to survive I had no choice. Sometimes in life we have to compromise in ways we never wish to, simply because the alternative is akin to defeat. It sounds convoluted, and twisted. It seems backwards, to compromise to survive… but it’s something I had to do, and I did it. I played their game well. I became a better manipulator than most of my family members. I could twist any situation around and make it better, easier.

Perfection for me became avoiding conflict. Finding ways to go along just enough to get away with almost everything I wanted to get away with. Perfection became about taking on the role of mother… for myself, my brother and my baby sister. Perfection became about pushing myself emotionally, about fighting for what I believed in, even if I had to do so in a silent, secretly rebellious manner.

When I began college in 1994, I rapidly descended into the deepest depression of my life. I was bereft, void of all feeling except sadness. I didn’t know how to cope with not having a roommate. On my all-girl, all-freshman floor it made me something of a pariah. It was a stigma I was used to, but had hoped desperately to escape in college. I made some friends, with girls on the other side who had attended the summer program I had. Still, I felt lonely and isolated. My mother had gone missing near the end of my senior year. Her heroin addiction had finally reached rock bottom. She’d been arrested (though she was never formally charged) and an aunt I didn’t know she had surfaced to take custody of my then 2 1/2 year-old sister. I had spent almost two years begging social services to remove her from the custody of our mother. I saw her as my beautiful angel child, the blue eyed, blonde who’d saved my life by being born and giving me purpose. I had to leave her, and it devastated me. I told myself that to give her a future, I needed first to make one for myself. When her aunt surfaced, I suddenly lost motivation. She was safe. It was already, I realized on some gut level, too late for my brother. He’d have to save himself.

A couple of weeks after Hope was placed in her aunt’s care, I graduated from high school. It was a day I was unbelievably proud of, a day many had not expected to come. I’d barely attended my freshman year, but thanks to the love and support of the alternative high school I’d demanded I be sent to, I graduate on time and with honors, near the top of my class - despite the weighted GPA that hurt my rank because I had almost no grades for an entire year.

My mother missed my high school graduation, too lost in her own shame and heroin high to give a shit about me.

I lost everything I’d had to be “perfect” for, and it destroyed me. I hadn’t been living for myself, which I suspect is the case for most of us who have battled an ED. I’d been living for my family, to be the peace keeper, to be my sister’s mother, to try to save my little brother from a path I knew was going to destroy his life. I wasn’t thinking about my future for myself, but for them. For the siblings I loved so deeply and needed to protect. They were what spurned my need for perfection. With my mother missing, I found myself wondering when the call would come. I didn’t know at the time that she snorted, rather than injected, her poison. I expected them to find her in a gutter somewhere, hypo in her arm, lips blue. I expected the call to come that I had to go ID her body. I know now that I wouldn’t have been the one to receive that call anyway. It would’ve been my grandparents or aunt who went. At the time, though, I thought it would be me, and I waited, and I waited for the phone to ring.

When the call finally came, it wasn’t the one I expected. She had gone - willingly - into treatment.

My life was falling to pieces, and suddenly, my mother had decided to pick hers up. It only added to my misery, to my certainty that I was an absolute failure at everything that mattered.

I didn’t want to forgive her, or give her a chance. I don’t think I ever did forgive. How do you forgive those things I lived through, the things I watched my siblings live through? But I decided, nevertheless, to try to trust again. I realized that I wouldn’t be hurting her by cutting her off. I’d be hurting myself. I’d waited my whole life to have a mother… if I didn’t take the chance, I felt, it would be unfair to me.

So, I took the chance. It took time, but slowly some semblance of a relationship emerged. Try buying Mother’s Day cards for the woman who missed your high school graduation because she was high, though. It’s not easy. Eventually, I realized she cleaned up too late for me, but I hoped desperately that it wasn’t too late for Hope.

It seemed, initially, that she’d be a better parent to Hope. It seemed that she’d be more affectionate, more open, more emotionally available. Then it began to slowly unravel. The little girl inside of me who’d so desperately longed for a mommy didn’t want to see it. It was selfish, but it was instinctive. It took a long time.

It took Hope being raped and our mother leaving her home alone the next day for me to see it. Our mother is no better at parenting sober than she was high - and at least when she was high, I could make excuses. “It’s the disease,” I would say, even though I never felt that was a good enough reason to emotionally (and often physically) abandon her children, the excuse was there.

Then, when she got sober, I made more excuses. Still the peace keeper. Still the one who wanted to fix everything for everyone. I wanted my sister to have a mother, but she realized long before I did that she doesn’t. She never truly has… I’ve been like a mother, but no matter how much the two of us wish I was her mother, I am not. She may be the daughter of my heart, and I may be the mother of hers, but the birth certificate tells a very different story.

We are sisters. We are motherless daughters. We are not mother and daughter, and no amount of wishing can change that.

I am worried for my sister. I don’t know where my strength came from, and though I credit wanting to save others for some of that strength, I was not without some will for myself. My willpower was far stronger than that required of a successful dieter. It still is.

In the midst of this current crisis, I am faced with an emotional ocean. I sit on the shore, as the waves crash around me. From time to time, the seas calm, and I am at peace. Mostly, the waves rage around me, and I struggle to keep from being drowned by the saltwater left on my cheeks.

I wrote my mother a letter, and today I got her response. It tells me that she is still incapable of change. One cannot change what one refuses to even see. Which means that my sister will have to do what I did. She will have to take the reins of her life from the open hands of our mother and gain control of the careening carriage carrying her along. She will have to be strong and powerful in ways she will not even appreciate until many years from now, when she looks back at her life and asks, “how did I possibly do that?”

If Hope wants to succeed, if Hope wants to be free, she will have to save herself now. I can offer assistance, as can my husband… but there is only so much we can do to help her.

I began reading Lucky by Alice Sebold, a memoir her life after a brutal rape. I wanted to better understand what my sister might be dealing with now. I didn’t expect the book to have such a profound impact on me. I have never been raped. I haven’t even finished the book. I’m only at the end of Chapter Four. Yet, already, I am grateful for this book, if only for this line: You save yourself or you remain unsaved.

I have never given myself credit for what I overcame. Not really, not in the way that I deserve it. It is, and I don’t say this to sound arrogant or pompous, truly remarkable that I emerged from my family’s dysfunction capable and ready to love. That I came out willing to find peace, to find answers. That I’ve never once given up on myself, when everyone around me repeatedly did so.

I am a remarkable woman.

And so we get to the permission to be imperfect, finally. As a graduate student with two courses under my belt, I have a perfect 4.0 GPA. I’ve finally done it. It’s the first time ever, and it tasted so sweet, so powerful… and then this drama with my family unfolded, and suddenly I realize that I cannot be “perfect” right now. I don’t have it in me to do so. I am working as hard and as diligently as I can. Sometimes I get to something a bit later than I am supposed to. Sometimes, I just don’t have the emotional energy to concentrate the way I need to.

I’m giving myself the okay to not be perfect. It’s frightening, when I finally had a taste of it, to let it go… but as my very wise friend Michelle asked me, is there really that much of a difference if I graduate with a 3.8 instead of a 4.0?

I may be remarkable. I am not perfect… and I’m learning that this is just fine.

xoxo,
Juliet

I have go stop a moment and recognize a young actress who has publicly broken the rules. This is something I am going to start doing whenever I see anyone breaking the unspoken rules of Hollywood.

Which rules? Well, in this case, Brittany has publicly admitted to an ED (anorexia) in her youth. She’s also admitted that it led to cutting, which we hardly ever hear anyone talk about. EDs and cutting often go hand-in-hand. While there are a handful of stars who do admit to having an ED, I think Brittany has taken it to the next level because she also admits to body dysmorphic disorder. Furthermore, she’s sworn off dieting and fired her trainer!

This is what Brittany told People magazine recently:

I’m done with the trainer. I canceled my trainer.

I refuse to do the whole diet, fitness, style thing anymore. I just kind of go and have fun. I know what I like, I know what makes me feel good, and that’s just what I do.

I go to the gym every day, I eat really well, I buy dresses by myself. I want to work and be with my friends. That’s all I really care about.

Now, while I question the wisdom of going to the gym “every day” if you’ve had a past problem with compulsively exercising, I think she sounds far more grounded and realistic than most celebs.

I mean Fergie (Black Eyed Peas Fergie, not Duchess Fergie) recently said this about dieting and fitness:

if they’re saying I’m pregnant, then that means I need to get back on that treadmill.

ARGH. No, Fergie. That means they are shallow idiots - and that very likely they took unflattering pics or found pics they manipulated to be unflattering. I expect better from her. She ought to be confident than to take that crap to heart. Just goes to show that the toughest falter, too.

But, let’s get back to my celeb honoree of the day. Go Brittany Snow!

It’s about being healthy, happy and loving yourself the way that you are. I’d say it sounds like Brittany Snow is well on her way to that, if not already there.

xoxo,
Juliet

I wrote this partially in response to a comment in my child development class. Basically, the comment was that while it is sad to see young children on diets, it’s more depressing to see so many “morbidly obese” teens. The student went on to say that it would be nice if it wasn’t neccesary for children to diet at all because they’d been taught proper nutrition from the get go.

I felt like I needed to respond, not only to that student, but to most of my classmates. I know my way of thinking is revolutionary these days. I’m beginning to see, quite clearly, just how revolutionary it is!

xoxo,
Juliet

(response follows)

I am fairly convinced that part of why so many children are “morbidly obese” is the insane rate of dieting amongst children starting at a very young age. I know from personal experience that diets will almost always fail. This cycle of restriction, followed by binging, is very bad for the self-esteem. Having family, friends and peers be critical - if not outright cruel - just makes it harder.

There is also increasing evidence to support that some people simply will never be able to successfully “diet” down to a “normal” weight, due to various physiological factors such as genetics or serotonin levels. I can speak from experience that dieting did nothing for me long term - except exacerbate an eating disorder and result in more weight gain. During the times I didn’t attempt to diet, I would essentially maintain my weight without effort, and I naturally tended to eat more balanced, healthier foods.

Many “diet” foods are packed with just as much “junk” as “junk” foods. They often are merely smaller portions (like all the 100 Calorie packs out there now - and now they have them for DOGS!) of the same “sugary junk.”

I no longer look at food as “good” or “bad.” No food is off limits. It’s very helpful, believe it or not, to know I can eat whatever I want whenever, and I haven’t binged since December.

What we need to work on with kids more than anything else, is acceptance. Children need to understand that people come in different shapes and sizes. Healthy living is not about the number on the scale or the size of your clothes. It’s about so much more than that.

There is an overwhelming amount of disgust and judgment towards overweight people in our culture. Hollywood, the media, doctors, etc have a tendency to look down on fat people - and with the media and doctors, they claim to do this because they want to “help,” however, I see little to help and a lot to hurt. Some doctors are especially cruel.

We have CHILDREN having drastic weight loss surgery. Surgery that is fraught with complications. Unnecessary surgery that can cause permanent damage. Children are STILL growing and developing, and WLS is a medically induced form of anorexia. The body is getting next-to-no nourishment, especially in the more extreme types of surgery. There are also very few studies done to support that WLS actually makes a difference in health long term.

If we really, truly are interesting in having a healthier society, STOP making it about a number on the scale or physical appearance. There is a movement known as Healthy At Every Size, that is geared towards body acceptance and overall health.

There are some wonderful bloggers, many with a medical/clinical background, that have posted a wealth of information on the subject. I’ve listed a few of those, for anyone interested in learning more from a less biased viewpoint than the one we generally get from the mainstream media.

http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/
http://everywomanhasaneatingdisorder.blogspot.com/
http://eatingmycake.com/ (shameless self-promotion of my own blog)
http://lovemeformexox.wordpress.com/ (the blog of a “fat” teenager, who is one of the most well adjusted teens ever)
http://harrietbrown.blogspot.com/
http://www.sizeate.blogspot.com/
http://bigfatblog.com/
http://www.obesitymyths.com/index.cfm (not a blog, per se, but an interesting site full of facts)

I just really strongly believe that we need to consider that being healthy is not about size. It’s about lifestyle.

First off, there are eating disorders that don’t as readily show as the ones that can cause obesity. They are often far more dangerous (anorexia has the highest rate of death of all mental health conditions [source: http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/features/anorexia-body-neglected]), but the tend to get far less attention because being thin - even painfully thin - is generally considered more acceptable. Which isn’t to say actress don’t get tortured in the media for being too thin (and even actors aren’t off limits, though they are usually accused of a drug habit, rather than anorexia - even anorexia is not gender specific), but the expression “you can never be too thin or too rich” comes from somewhere!

Until we stop torturing our bodies, trying to mold them into something they are designed to be - whether that’s a size “0″ who wants to be a size 6, or a size 16 who wants to be a size 2 - we can never get beyond the physical to truly address the health issues. Worse, we set ourselves up to create even more, worse health issues.

So, I believe that while yes, we need to guide children in ways that are healthy when it comes to nutrition, it may be even more critical that we help them to learn that it doesn’t matter what a person looks like. Otherwise, we have three year-olds afraid their winter coats make them look fat and ten year-olds talking about how many carbs are in a cupcake. Or kindergarteners who say they’d rather lose a limb than be fat. Or fifth graders intentionally vomiting up their lunches.

We’re raising a generation who will have self-esteem issues far worse than the ones our generation grew up with. I’m much, much more concerned about children loving themselves - flaws and all - than I am about what their BMI index might be.

Trust me - it’s harder to fix the self-esteem issues.

Anyway… stepping off my soapbox now.

I am taking a class in child development, and we were asked if “poor nutrition early in childhood can be mitigated later in life.” I knew - immediately - that this would turn to the “obesity epidemic” amongst children. I wrote my response very carefully, and while many have agreed with my positions, most are on the “kids can’t be trusted and we have to make all of their choices for them” bandwagon.

So I wrote this as a general sort of response to several people’s stated positions on school vending machines, fitness and nutritional education. I thought I’d share it here. Normally, I format my links, but today they’re just going up as they did in my class post.

Enjoy!

xoxo,
Juliet

I worry about schools “policing” nutrition too stringently. I also fear that more schools will try to do things like “fitness report cards,” which are already done in some areas, including NYC. Some schools now include a bunch of “fitness tests” in gym classes and/or they include BMI numbers on report cards!

I have multiple issues with this. First of all, being overweight is hard enough - but sometimes what is perceived as “overweight” isn’t truly so. At the start of 5th grade, I was 5′2″ and 95 pounds. According to the NHI BMI calculator, that gave me a BMI of 17.4 (http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/), which is considered “underweight.” However, 5′2″ is rather tall for a 5th grader. I was taller than all but one of the boys, and I outweighed everyone in my class except for that boy. Since he was a boy, and fairly well liked, no one mocked him or teased him. However, I was not “popular” and was tormented mercilessly for being “fat.” Since our stupid gym teachers allowed one of the most gossipy girls in the class to record our weights and heights, everyone knew I was the “fattest” in our class. Since my “diet” was heavily monitored at home, and I was often told I looked like my “fat” father, I believed myself to be fat. I have never once in my life felt thin, though I once was actually “underweight!”

To add insult to injury, we were required to do these mind bogglingly boring “Presidential fitness tests” at the beginning and end of every school year. These tests consisted of sit ups, push ups, pull ups, climbing a rope, running insane distances. I despised these tests with every fiber of my being. I was truly not an athlete and consistently performed miserably on these tests. All summer long, I would basically live in our swimming pool, I ran around with my friends doing cartwheels, handstands and round offs and I rode my bike when I wasn’t swimming. I was very active. I just didn’t fit the prescribed mold of what “fitness” should be.

So, I was thin - too thin - and active - but not athletic - and as a result I was ridiculed and picked on - and the gym teachers did nothing to stop it. What happened? I began to hate gym class. By 8th grade, I flat out refused to participate most of the time. By eighth grade, my eating disorder had me fully trapped in a vicious and endless cycle of starvation and binging, and I was 5′5″ and over 200 pounds.

The moral of the story is that if we take the fun out of fitness, children will not only hate it, they will often resent it. Not all gym teachers are as cruel as the many I had (we moved a lot, and I can tell you that every teacher I had allowed “fat” kids to be tormented), and I know that. However, what is considered “fat” by children (and heck, by most adults) often simply is not fat - even using the flawed and arbitrary BMI standards.

Also, there are major misrepresentations of information regarding the “obesity epidemic.” The CDC recently had to recant their assertion that obesity caused nearly 400,000 deaths per year in this country. A year later, they changed that number to less than 26,000. That is a HUGE difference (http://www.obesitymyths.com/myth2.1.htm). Diets are a business - and a very profitable one, raking in somewhere between $35 to $50 billion dollars annually (http://www.stanford.edu/group/bbeam/dieting.html). If they were designed with the consumer in mind, we ultimately wouldn’t need the diet anymore - and the industry would suffer.

Extremist positions are never a good thing. The truth is almost always in the middle. I don’t believe vending machines full of soda or “junk food” belong in schools… but I also don’t think schools should be reporting BMI numbers to parents. If adults rarely succeed, long term, at maintaining weight loss after dieting, is it fair to put that sort of pressure on children?

I think that children should be taught to explore new food choices and that fresh fruits, veggies and “whole” foods should be part of everyone’s diet. I also happen to think that “junk food” can play a role in a diet that is considered balanced and healthy, and they by trying to keep children away from it, or by putting them on “diets” or “weight loss programs,” risk creating disordered eating patterns that they then have to live with for the rest of their lives.

So, just after we find out it’s okay - and maybe even beneficial - for kids to drink fruit juice, the AMA has released a study that concludes that high fructose corn syrup isn’t any more likely to make us fat than any other form of sugar. While they are calling for further independent research on HFCS, to see if any of the many other evils associated to it hold up, for now anyone avoiding it out of fear it will make them fat should probably avoid any other form of sugar, too.

I find it interesting because I never believed that it was “addictive.” I don’t think any form of sugar is truly “addictive.” The body needs sugars. The body doesn’t need heroin, nicotine or alcohol, but it needs sugar. You can make an argument for the “natural” forms of sugar vs. the processed ones, and I would say that whenever you can eat something natural over something processed, that’s probably a good thing. That said, the point I am making is an IE one. Generally, I am more likely to “crave” foods with natural sugars, like berries, apples and dairy products (because lactose is a type of sugar). However, I still enjoy eating a piece of cake every now and then. I prefer cakes that are from bakeries, and hence far less likely to contain highly processed sugars like HFCS. In general, what I’ve learned since starting IE is that I prefer foods that are more “pure” or “whole” anyway!

The thing is, so many of the people who complain about sugar being addictive or fattening, are the same people who will buy Jenny Craig’s food or WW frozen dinners, breakfast products and desserts (fyi, I find it fascinating that WW doesn’t list Smart Ones’ ingredients online. I wonder if JC makes it hard to get that info prior to ordering foods.).

The link to a review of the meals you get on Jenny Craig is one of the reasons I find it almost laughable that Queen Latifah turned to Jenny Craig to “get healthier.” She’s trying to avoid heart disease and diabetes, not be thinner… she claims. But why turn to a diet program with prepackaged meals that are seriously high in sugar if you’re worried about being diabetic? I recognize that sugar consumption is not to blame for diabetes in and of itself… but maybe there was a healthier way for her to get to accomplish the same thing. Not to mention that a lot of the people who look up to her probably can’t afford Jenny Craig’s expensive food anyway (or expensive gym memberships, and apparently an hour a day work out at the gym was part of her success), so if she was trying to raise awareness in communities where there are often higher levels of poverty, maybe an expensive prepared diet plan wasn’t the best way to go. Just a thought and all. She’s apparently hit her goal, btw. Do you think she’ll keep it off? Or will Jenny drop her like Kirstie?

Once again, I want to drive home the importance of IE. If we learn to listen to our bodies, we can “trust” ourselves to eat anything. Food “addiction” is something I have never believed in, and never will. I know so many people who believe themselves addicted to certain types of food. They cut them out, sometimes for years, and then someday they break and binge on those foods. Hence, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Oh, I’m an addict, that’s why I binged. Problem is, if we take foods out of our diets, even if they are foods we hate, we’re eventually going to give into the urge to have what is verboten. We always want what we think we can’t have when it comes to food.

IE can free you from that endless cycle of deprive, binge, deprive. It did for me, and now I don’t eat a lot of the things I binged on because, as it turns out, those foods were things I didn’t even like!

It takes time, patience and a willingness to give up the lofty weight loss goals. It often means you will gain weight, and that’s perhaps, the hardest part for most doing IE. Whether you need to lose or gain weight to be at a natural weight for your body, no one doing IE really *wants* to gain weight, at least at first. I know I gained weight, I also know I’ve probably lost most of what I gained already. I can’t tell you what I gained or how much I’ve lost because I don’t get on the scale. I flatly refuse, and thankfully, I have a doctor who supports that decision for me (at least for now). She understands that I need to deal with the eating disorder aspect and that I might not lose weight for a while. I am not secretly “hoping” to lose weight via IE. I just tend to believe I eventually will. If so, great. If not, I’m happier to maintain my weight and feel healthy emotionally than I was to diet and beat myself up repeatedly. There’s also the fact that emerging evidence (which the fat hating media is loathe to report on) has raised concerns that yo-yo dieting, or weight cycling, may be even more unhealthy than maintaining a weight that’s consider out of the “acceptable” range. I certainly felt physically worse when yo-yo dieting. I felt deprived, hungry and had issues concentrating when dieting. Then I felt bloated, ashamed and physically and emotionally miserable when I binged.

At the end of the day, we have to choose our own paths in life. IE is the right choice for me now, but I wouldn’t have been ready for it two years ago. I had to come to the conclusion that diets don’t work before I was ready to give up on them. I just didn’t realize at that point that not dieting was an option.

I don’t think dieting is healthy for anyone. I think it creates disordered eating behavior than can easily escalate. That’s just my opinion, though there seems to be a lot of evidence to support my opinion. I write this blog because I want people to know there are other choices, starting with accepting your body as it is right now and loving life today instead of living in a fantasy future where you’ve got that body you dream of and life is perfect. That fantasy doesn’t exist. Trust me.

Live for today. Eat when you are hungry, and eat only foods that you like. Don’t tell me that your body only likes cookies or ice cream, because if that’s what you think, you’re not listening and you aren’t trusting yet. If you say you want to do IE, do it. Don’t pretend you’re doing it when really you see it as just another diet, and if you insist on trying to do IE with a diet plan, don’t blame it on IE when you “fail” again.

IE is not and never will be a diet. It’s not a weight loss program. Until you accept that, it will never be able to work for you.

xoxo,
Juliet

PS. My brain is in a weird place today. I know this post started off in one direction and went somewhere else. I apologize if I am the only one to whom it makes sense.

For a long time now, parents have become paranoid about giving their young children juice. There’s been so much hype in the media - largely because of the low carb fads, I think - about how “bad” juice is. There is, after all, so much SUGAR in that stuff! Even if it’s 100% unsweetened juice, it’s potentially deadly. It’s a diabetes inflicting, fat kid maker. Isn’t it?

Not so fast.

A new study that reviewed nine contradictory studies has shown there is little evidence to support this theory that drinking juice (again, I am talking about pure fruit juice here) will result in fat children.

Upon examination, many of those studies showed faulty methodology in coming to the conclusion that fruit juice could lead to obesity, the review said. Several studies used too small or too remote of a sampling pool to be considered scientifically significant. Another study looked only at the influence of apple juice, and another only at the effect of juice on children who were already overweight.

So, let’s get this straight. Parents have been panic-stricken over the thought of letting their kids have pure fruit juice based on crappy, biased research. It’s not a big shocker, considering how “out to get fat people” most of these sorts of studies seem to be, but it is disturbing when you consider the trend that has grown as a result of 100% juice being considered “bad.”

What trend is that, you ask? The increased popularity of sucralose in drinks that are popping up in the juice aisle. I just happen to hate sucralose. It’s not that I think it’s “bad” like some people do, though with how much artificial crap kids are already eating, I see no reason to add more via something that is better pure, like fruit juices. What’s next? We genetically design sucralose infused fruits? I mean, diets like Atkins will tell ya how bad fruit is on the sugar front.

I personally find the taste of sucralose gross. Also, the people at Splenda really pissed me off with their “made from sugar, so it tastes like sugar” ad campaign (which I believe they’ve since been ordered to pull). Why? Well, yes, it’s made from sugar… but it’s so processed that the chemical structure is altered to a point where the human body can’t even break it down, and it passes through the body virtually unchanged. Whereas, aspartame, while not derived from a “natural source,” is comprised of an amino acid the body already recognizes and breaks down just fine (and actually, this is why people who have the genetic disorder PKU can’t consume aspartame - it’s the same amino acid that causes problems for them). I just know people who’d never give their kids aspartame, and yet give them sucralose. It’s in all sorts of products marketed at children now, including frozen juice pops (which in the past have been 100% juice!).

Obviously, as the article I linked to points out, if you can get kids to eat fruit, that’s far more ideal. Eating is certainly more satisfying than drinking, which helps to allow kids to retain their natural ability to eat intuitively. I also recommend cutting juice with water for any child under 2, but that’s just because I’ve seen the diapers of children drinking pure fruit juice, and it often ain’t pretty. I worked with young children long enough to know that kids are better off if they wait until about 3 to have 100% juice, but I only recommend cutting it with water because of the potential for diarrhea (which then turns into a diaper rash risk). Not because I am afraid it will make your kid fat.

Seriously, though, with so many messages out there that aren’t accurate, how are our children ever to have a healthy relationship with food? If they grow up thinking pure fruit juice is “bad” for them, but that artificially sweetened products are “good,” that’s a pretty sad sign of how twisted we’ve become as a society.

xoxo,
Juliet

I found this blog through my Google Alerts, and I just *love* this post. The Fabulously Fat College Student sums it all up so nicely that I don’t have to write a post today… which is good, because this grad student really needs to do some reading!

xoxo,
Juliet

People often mistake IE for another type of diet in disguise (*cough* Weight Watchers). When they say IE is not a diet, they mean it. There are “Principles” to follow as guidelines, but there are no restrictions or requirements for eating. There is a chapter on healthy eating, but my therapist actually instructs her clients to not read that chapter. She feels that anyone who has spent years dieting *knows* what constitutes “healthy eating.” Obviously, in some cases, this isn’t entirely true, but for many of us, it is true. We know more about dietary guidelines, the latest health crazes (chocolate, blueberries, red wine, etc) and we know that someone somewhere decided eight glasses a day of water was optimal (though there zero scientific evidence to support that according to recent studies and my former nutritionist).

When people ask me what I can eat, and I answer “whatever I want,” they are understandably baffled by that. It’s such an alien concept, even to most people who’ve done Weight Watchers. True, on WW you can eat whatever you want (unless you’re following Core). However, most of the people on WW won’t eat whatever they want because you need to maximize your Points allowance, and especially if you only get 18 Points a day, what are the odds you’re going to have a slice of pizza (NY style) for somewhere around 8 or 9 Points (someday I might forget the Points values of foods)?

I figured that it might be helpful if I posted the foods that are in my fridge currently. I will do that with a bit of a caveat. I wish I was physically able to cook more. Right now, because of a back injury that is complicated by fibromyalgia pain, I’m doing more prepared stuff than I’d like. I enjoy exploring new foods and recipes, even if I’m no gourmet chef. I just physically can’t stand long enough to eat exactly the way I’d like to… so for now, I compromise. That said, I like everything I have in my fridge, or it wouldn’t be there.

So, without further ado… here’s the list of foods in my fridge, freezer & pantry.

• Sirloin steaks (for the grill, yum)
• Reduced fat Hebrew National hot dogs (because I notice no difference between them and the full fat)
• Cabot cheddar cheese (Seriously Sharp, Extra Sharp and Vintage - and yes, it’s the full fat kind)
• Light mayo (same as with the hot dogs)
• Light sour cream (I actually don’t like the full fat version, I learned!)
• Bakery chocolate chip cookies
• Pre-sliced frozen cheesecake
• Dill pickles
• Feta cheese
• Lamb chops
• Pork roast (with which I will make a white bean green chili using leftover cubed pork!)
• Pineapple-peach salsa
• Salsa verde
• Heinz ketchup (have to have ketchup!)
• Turkey pepperoni (which I like over the “real” stuff)
• Peach/raspberry pie
• Cherries (one of my favorite foods on earth!)
• Frozen single serve pizzas in various flavors
• Chicken salad
• Peaches (sadly, not fresh)
• Pre-cooked bacon
• Haagen Dazs Chocolate PB Swirl
• Frozen mixed veggies
• Kashi Mountain Medley granola
• Whole grain Melba toast
• Snyder’s Buffalo wing pretzel pieces
• Canned carrots
• Canned yams
• Canned corn
• Horizon Organic 2% milk
• Chunk light tuna (in those pouches)
• Pumpernickel rolls
• Bakery hot dog buns
• Chocolate Raspberry Milano cookies
• Prepared chili
• Rice pilaf
• Long grain & wild rice
• Potato salad
• Provolone cheese
• Frozen organic blueberries
• Dried cranberries
• Planters “Nut-trition” fiber mix
• 100% mixed berry juice
• Cerignola green olives (omg, so good - and often hard to find)

Anyway… there’s probably more, but you get the general idea, I think. I eat a wide variety of foods. Sadly, my stomach is not fond of fresh fruits and veggies much of the time. I love salads and berries and citrus fruits and apples… but it’s often difficult for me to eat them. For that reason, I tend to buy canned and frozen fruits and veggies, because otherwise, they often go to waste. In the summer, when produce is cheaper (and we’re getting there, yay) I will indulge and hope for the best, but especially when it’s more expensive in the winter, it’s not worth the risk. I probably have IBS (common amongst people with fibromyalgia) and stress (which I’ve had lots of recently) aggravates my stomach and makes it even harder for me to eat fruit and veggies raw.

While I’m sure someone reading is thinking, wow, there’s a lot of “junk food” on her list, I’d like to point out that I don’t eat it all at once. Some days I don’t eat it at all. The bakery cookies we bought will probably last two weeks, and sometimes we don’t finish them all before they’re stale. You have to understand, the point of IE is to eat what you like until you’re satisfied. Sometimes what my taste buds want isn’t what my body wants. Today is a great example. I wanted something sweet, but my body was telling me it needed protein. It takes time to “hear” the actual need over the “craving.” I’m getting there, slowly. Once I satisfy the need, if I’m still hungry, I might have some of the “craving,” but often, once the “need” has been met, the “craving” ceases to exist.

Cheese is a food I really enjoy, which is why we have so much in so many varieties. I find that cheese is often a fabulous snack for me. I break a hunk off, eat it with some nuts, olives or dried berries or pair it with juice. It is a very satisfying snack because it’s dairy, but has protein.

So, those are the things I eat. I explore new foods often, and if I don’t like them, I don’t finish them. It can be a bit wasteful, but it keeps me from being bored and helps me refine my intuitive eater’s palate.

I encourage everyone new to this to explore foods you think you like and foods you aren’t sure of. You might be surprised by what you actually enjoy eating!

xoxo,
Juliet

For those who don’t know, Fern Britton is a bit of a big deal in the UK. From what I gather she hosts a show similar to our US show Good Morning America or Today. Apparently, Ms. Britton had always boasted she was proud of her curvy, size 16 body (FYI a size 16 in the UK is a about a size 12 in the US). She’s been quoted as saying that life is too short to spend it dieting, even. However, at some point, she changed her mind and her viewers began to notice that she’d begun losing weight. She originally claimed she’d done so by changing her diet and cycling a lot… but then it came out that she had lap band surgery.

This poor woman. Initially, she was criticized by some for being “fat” and proud of her curves (btw, she has a husband who apparently is besotted with her and finds her gorgeous no matter what). Then, I’m sure, as she lost weight, people who applauded her message of body acceptance criticized her. Meanwhile, the diet junkies and cruel Brit press all but sainted her for losing some weight via dieting… and then she gets bashed when it comes how how she actually lost weight, though her co-workers swear she does cycle and eat healthy (she’d not have a ton of choice after surgery). Apparently, she even took some time off because it caused such an uproar.

From what I’ve read on various message boards, the woman never tried to be a diet guru and even her statement admitted the surgery said that it was a very personal choice, one she’d not use her influence as a media figure to promote for others. In fact, as the below YouTube video shows, she has a rather good sense of humor about the whole thing.

Still, I can’t help but feel a bit badly for the poor woman. She made a very personal choice and it became a big news story that she was losing weight, and ultimately her personal choice was about to be made public and she chose to address the issue head on. As you can see in the video, the woman has hardly wasted away. She looks quite healthy, actually… and seems to have a fairly balanced view of the whole thing. I hope she actually does eat cake, because of course, I am fully supportive of cake eating!

We live in such a twisted world. It’s like Star Jones and her weight loss. Now, granted, Star Jones is an obnoxious big mouth, and she’d turned herself into something of a caricature with her antics and bad behavior… but still. Why do we all obsess over everyone’s weight? Colin Farrell even faced this recently because he dropped a lot of weight to play a role that required it, and of course, since he’s a man, the talk is of drugs and not anorexia (even though men DO become anorexic and develop eating disorders). Though almost every report states that the word was he’d lost weight for his movie role, and despite the actor himself saying he lost weight under medical supervision, the speculation and judgment continues.

Of course, there is an undeniable concern that when you have actors losing or gaining weight for movie roles, it sends the wrong message. Remember how some insipid fashion magazine (was it Vanity Fair or Harpers?) refused to have Renee Zellweger on the cover while she was still “fat” after shooting Bridget Jones? While trying to find the magazine, I instead stumbled upon this NY Times editorial - an apology from the editor of said magazine for pulling the photo. It’s sad, when you read it, and wonder… did the woman pull it, in part, because she was trying to prove she belonged in the world of fashion when she herself was probably right around what Bridget Jones might weigh???

People can oversimplify the movement of bloggers in the Fatosphere or those of us involved in a more broad sense of body acceptance. They can say that we can’t possibly be happy fat…

To them I answer, how many of us are happy thin? How many women (and to a lesser extent, men) are truly happy with their bodies as they are today?

I’d rather be fat and happy, then desperately struggling in vain to be someone I’m not… to be someone that I still wouldn’t be happy being.

I’m all in favor of being healthy. I just don’t think you have to be a size 4 to achieve that, and furthermore, considering the drastic measures so many take to get there, I doubt most of the size 4s of this world ARE truly healthy.

I’ll say it again. Thin doesn’t equal healthy. Thin doesn’t equal happy. Thin doesn’t equal beauty.

Come on, people… wake up and realize that we’d all be a hell of a lot happier if we let go of these unrealistic expectations and ideals of beauty and health.

xoxo,
Juliet

So I am sitting in my hotel room, waiting for my sister and a new WW commercial comes on. The voiceover talks about how many women are on diets, and asks some version of the question “what will our children’s relationship with food be like?”

I almost spit out my Vitamin Water.

Seriously??? WW thinks it’s normal for a child to grow up with a woman or man (or both) who are constantly counting points? I knew women who wrote points values on everything. I even knew a woman who figured out how many points were in her daughter’s teething cookies because she liked to snack on them (I’ve tasted them and have to admit, they’re kind of tasty).

How on earth is this healthy for children? A woman in one of my many different WW meetings once talked about how proud she was of her husband, because he’d memorized the Points values of all of her favorite foods. We all ooh’d and ahh’d over how sweet that was. Then another woman said her little girl, who was 10, had also memorized Points of many foods, and then another woman said her eight year-old son asked how many Points were in his banana.

The scary part is how NONE OF THIS SEEMED ALARMING at the time. In fact, we all talked about how “great” it was that the children were developing this consciousness. Now I realize that this is just the beginning for those kids… WW doesn’t even allow members under 12. Eight year olds shouldn’t be thinking about Points.

WW is just getting ridiculous at this point. It’s frightening, really.

xoxo,
Juliet