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Unconditional permission to eat, Processing emotions
I practiced the habituation technique of savouring the food, smelling it, touching it, really tasting it, trying to be present with it. But then I thought, "oh, I can eat all these chocolates because I have unconditional permission to eat them." So I had a few more chocolates - trying to savour them and be present as I ate. But then I thought ok, these are really yummy, and I want more, I have permission to eat as many as I want. So I kept taking the chocolates and ate and ate. By the end of the evening, I started to feel very full, and that night I couldn't sleep very well.
So I'm confused and stuck. How can I process my emotions and also have permission to eat unconditionally. Shouldn't I do one or the other. If I sit with my emotions but just eat chocolate after chocolate because I have permission, where is that getting me? I'm so confused; I feel I'm going to fail all this because no food tastes as good as those chocolates. I have written the 10 principles of intuitive eating down and put them on my wall. If I ask myself, does this food (expensive chocolates) taste good? Yes, they do; nothing tastes as good as they do. What do I want to eat - chocolates. Do they taste good? Hell yes. Am I satisfied? Oh yes, they taste so good.
And since I bought the 3 boxes of chocolates, I decided to buy tubs of ice cream. And I decided I can eat all of this, and yes it tastes amazing. I'll stop now because I'm full. But actually, I'm not satisfied. I need more and more, but also I'm starting to feel ill. And now I don't sleep because I'm too full and have heartburn.
So as I have started Peaceful, my mind has not become peaceful. It has become panic-stricken. Help, I'm stuck.
ANSWER
Hello!
First thing, great work working through habituation. Rest assured, nothing has gone wrong… all that you described is normal, but yes, scary… Rest assured, nothing is wrong. All is good and expected. You have released the restriction, and the "pendulum is swinging." (See Peaceful Lesson 4).
When you stop restricting, you will eat more of the restricted food at first until your body can trust that it will never again be restricted. At that point, the pendulum will stop swinging and eating will regulate.
What seems incorrect is your expectation of the process of habituation.
Be reminded that this is a process and a journey… It sounds like you have done 1 habituation process, and you were expecting your body and yourself to get it "right" the first time. Were you expecting years (maybe decades) of diet mindset, restriction and body distrust to wash away with one session of habituation? If this was your expectation, my sister, I'm afraid to tell you that's "magical thinking."
Habituation takes many repetitions, compassion, grace and patience.
Habituation is about rebuilding trust and respect with your body. It's about teaching your body that never again you will restrict the food, that ongoing, when your body demands to eat the food, it will be made available, that there will never again need to feast on it because it will never be deprived (famine). The longer the restriction was applied to the food, the longer the habituation process will be needed.
You walked into the habituation process with false expectation (magical thinking), and after 1 attempt, your brain is "confused" and "stuck"… you need to do some self-coaching here. Your brain is creating confusion and being stuck as a way of keeping you into your current dieting way of life. Go back and listen to Private Podcast #2 -I'm confused & #6 I'm stuck.
You have a lot of unintentional thoughts about C: Habituation
C: Habituation
TD:
I'm confused
I'm stuck
I'm going to fail
no food tastes as good as those chocolates
Work these thoughts in models and see what they create.
Also, we highly recommend working through habituation with one food at a time. You mention ice cream and chocolate. Pick one and stick with it until you have appeased the "pendulum swing."
The other part is about processing emotions that's a whole separate process that has nothing to do with habituation. Processing emotions happens all day long, every day. You don't want to use your desire to process emotions as permission to restrict food… that's called mental restriction.
Curious about Eating When Not Hungry-Part 2
Here is my unintentional model around snacking at work in the afternoons:
C: PM snacking
TD:
I am not hungry, so why am I eating this?
I am eating out of habit, and it's a habit I need to break.
I don't feel good eating this food, during or after.
I had a great lunch, and I am "ruining" it with this snacking.
It's totally unnecessary.
I don't want to be constantly reaching for food in the afternoons.
I should be able to resist eating snacks at work in the afternoons or at least just have a small one.
I am doing something wrong here.
T: I should be able to resist eating snacks at work in the afternoons, or at least just have a small one.
F: Frustrated
A: Continue to eat, criticize myself, distract myself
R: I continue snacking in the afternoons at work and feel bad about it. Sometimes, I will continue eating when I get home. I am no closer to understanding why I engage in this behavior.
ANSWER
Hello!
Same coach here from Part 1... Let's do this!
First off, good work, sister! I'm glad the first coaching was helpful. I'll coach on your model first, then give you the next step.
When I look at your unintentional model, I can see why you are feeling like you are "struggling" with snacking. The thoughts you have about snacking are assigning a status of "snacking is bad and snacking should be controlled". This is what we call Diet Mentality thoughts. Unravelling these thoughts and belief is principle #1 of intuitive eating: All eating patterns are neutral. All food are neutral.
Thoughts like:
It's totally unnecessary. (at a deeper level, you don't trust your hunger cues; therefore, you don't trust your body).
I am doing something wrong here. (at a deeper level, you are holding the belief that snacking is wrong; hence you think you are doing something wrong.)
I should be able to resist eating snacks (at a deeper level, this means that you are assigning moral virtue to your ability to "control" your eating).
All of these thoughts and deeper beliefs are why your body is rebelling and leading you to swing your pendulum of eating. As long as you continue to assign moral value to eating or food types, you will continue to have rebellious eating behaviours.
The process of intuitive eating is like shedding years of socialization and internalization to eating and food beliefs.
So my assignment for you is to do another round of self-coaching on C: PM snacking, but this time, get deeper.
What's interesting is the part 1 coaching on this question was not completely acted upon. You probably unconsciously left out the most significant part of the coaching. I want to emphasize unconsciously because your brain is trying to protect you from seeing the "real issue" as a way of keeping you in your current reality. I'm going to paste it again here:
"The first place I want you to focus is understanding WHY you want to stop snacking in the afternoon. Why is snacking in the afternoon a problem to be solved or fixed? What will happen when you "fix" this problem, or what are you trying to avoid by "fixing" this "issue"?
For most women we have coached, the desire to stop eating (even snacking) is the fear of gaining weight and or not losing weight. When that's the motivating factor, it will always trigger more eating. That's what we call psychological restricting driving by internalized fatphobia."
So let's do another round of model with the next layer of deeper thoughts.
I'll wait to see your model and coach you again!
Curious about Eating When Not Hungry
Where does habitual eating fit into emotional eating... if at all? Does it even matter that I attempt to distinguish between these things?
I am trying to find a way to explore this idea in more depth and need some coaching, please!
ANSWER
Hello…
The first place I want you to focus is understanding WHY you want to stop snacking in the afternoon. Why is snacking in the afternoon a problem to be solved or fixed? What will happen when you “fix” this problem, or what are you trying to avoid by “fixing” this “issue”?
For most women, we have coached the desire to stop eating (even snacking) is the fear of gaining weight and or not losing weight. When that’s the motivating factor, it will always trigger more eating. That’s what we call psychological restricting driving by internalized fatphobia.
The bottom line is this: Snacking in the afternoon is normal and neutral. What makes it “something to be fixed” are your thoughts about it. I’d love to see a self-coaching about this and coach you.
C: Snacking in the pm
The other element I want to work on is compassion. I notice that you are still inside PEACEFUL, which means you literally just started the process of intuitive eating. I see perfectionism showing in the question: Why is it that I haven’t regulated my eating already? The pendulum swing that we teach you in PEACEFUL will last weeks and sometimes months before you stabilize in the middle to an intuitive eater. Be compassionate with yourself… you are trying to revert decades of restriction, dieting and deprivation. Make sure to practice the self-compassion audio from CONFIDENT frequently… especially when you’re trying to “fix” your eating habits.
We will wait for your self-coaching model.
Mind drama about stopping when I’m full
No problem is for the hungry part. I let myself eat when I want and connect to the satisfaction of eating everything without restricting myself.
I'm experiencing resistance trying to practice feeling my fullness. I'm trying to stop in the middle of the meal to check my fullness level but often notice that I don't even want to stop because I am afraid that I will notice I'm full and will have to stop eating.
My brain is like: I do what I want. We said no rule, so you do what you want.
C: take a break during meals
T: I'm full, but I don't want to follow another rule that tells me what to do.
F: rebel, resistance
A: continue eating. Keep thinking I'll do better next time.
R: stuck
C: eating passed fullness
T: I need to learn how to do that. It is not good for my body to overeat. I will keep gaining weight.
F: sad, defeated
A: more emotional eating
R: still stuck
I also tried to make smaller steps like: I will only take a break to check my fullness level. I can continue eating if I want to. I'm just practicing connecting to my body. It helped because I can now see when I'm full but it brings guilt to continue eating when my brain knows I am full.
Not sure how to go to the next baby step for me.
Thanks
ANSWER
Hello sister! Ok, this is a really good question… Let's do this. I'm going to coach you first on the fullness question and then give you pointers on self-coaching.
I see that you are in Confident, yet you know about intuitive eating. So this tells me you've learned intuitive eating before coming to us. Know that we address what you struggle with in more depth in PEACEFUL.
Is it possible that your past teacher led you to believe that intuitive eating is a guideline of Eat when hungry, Stop when full? Based on your models, it seems like you have a rule that one must stop when full. This is not intuitive eating. Although intuitive eating teaches you to reconnect with your fullness signals, it cannot be turned into a rule. When you do so, rebellious behaviour will ensue guaranteed. Looks like that's what's happening to you.
So this is what you have to work on …. 1- figuring out why you made this into a rule and then letting go of the rule "One must stop eating when full."
Let me guide you using self-coaching.
What you are experiencing-struggle with fullness is very common and easily explains using self-coaching. I actually can see why you are struggling with it when I look at your second model. The T's you have about fullness mainly "I will keep gaining weight" is what is causing the rebellious behaviour of "I do what I want. We said no rule, so you do what you want."
Until you change your belief around what it means for you to feel full, you'll create rebellious behaviours (pendulum swinging).
So the next baby step is not to focus more on fullness but instead to clean up your mind from all the thoughts that are creating the rebellious behaviours.
The fear of weight gain and what weight gain means are the top reasons people struggle with fullness. I suggest you explore what does gaining weight means for you. A source of inspiration might be our latest public podcast #276 and also on your private podcast feed for Conquer and Thrive podcast #12, where Stephanie answered a question on weight gain and podcast #18 I can't stop eating.
C: Weight gain
Now, let's give you some coaching on self-coaching so you can maximize the tool.
Both of your C are great. Short to the point and neutral.
The thought download is present, but given the nature of this topic for you, I believe you need to dig deeper and create a broader TD. You may need to pause after your first draft and come back to it the next day and pull more T out from your mind to really see what's holding you back.
Next, the F line: You have two emotions… it's really important to work each T into its own model so you can identify which T create which F. This will also be essential to see all of your A's. Right now both models need more depth in the A line… I would suggest you use the pointers inside the Confident Lesson 2 Worksheet. These short questions to ask yourself as you do your model really help the depth of your models.
The R line of your model isn't accurate as you have more than 1 T in your T line. The R you created reflects the T you think… Here's what your models couldn't look like (I use my experience with weight gain to fill in the blank)
C: eating passed fullness
T: I will keep gaining weight.
F: ________, fear
A: _____, I overthink if I ate too much, I question my fullness cue, I ruminate on my last weight gain experience, I avoid being in the reality by eating more, I numb the anxiety by watching Netflix instead of doing my self-coaching, I overthink how eating past fullness will make me gain weight.
R: I create the reality that I could be gaining more weight.
Hope this helps and we will be happy to help you when you create your models. Submit, and we will be here for you.
Where does Nutrition fit in?
I'm also struggling because I'm wondering if my yrs of time and money learning about nutrition will ever be of any use to me. One minute I believe everything about holistic nutrition and therapeutic diets, and the next minute I'm devouring a bag of potato chips.
I need help, please! I don't know how to let go of everything I've worked hard for (certifications, costs, beliefs). I feel like I've wasted so much time and energy, and I don't know if or how to move forward.
ANSWER
Hello! This is so good... and I have a lot to say.
First, to answer your question: "Where does nutrition fit in intuitive eating?" It does fit in but at the end of the process. Gentle Nutrition is the last of the 10 principles of Intuitive eating.
If a healthy relationship with food is not in place, it's difficult to truly pursue "healthy eating". If you've been a chronic dieter or, in your case, "restrictor for "health "reason," the best nutrition guidelines can still be embraced like a diet if you haven't first heal how you engage with food. This is why we avoid any conversation about health or Nutrition from principles 1-9.
The process of becoming an intuitive eater will allow you to engage with Nutrition as an ally for your health instead of a dieting weapon. It takes time to get there. In a therapeutic setting, we usually avoid the topic for 6-12 months.
Inside Conquer and Thrive, we have a specific course on Gentle Nutrition and Family Nutrition in Month 6.
Regarding your Pendulum swinging… you will continue to swing until your release food rules and, in your case, food labelling. You clearly admit to maintaining "good and bad" food beliefs (diet mindset), and those are feeling your restriction and response in rebellious eating behaviours.
I'd like you to explore why you are holding to these beliefs. Here are two questions to ask yourself: What am I gaining from upholding this belief system of "good and bad" food? What are you afraid will happen when you let go of these beliefs? Likely there's a big fear leading you to hold on to your belief system that served you all these years of studying Nutrition.
Once you journal all of your thoughts… organize them into a self-coaching model.
C: "Good and Bad food."
Explore how your current thoughts create the swinging of your pendulum. Then you can create an intentional model to change the belief of good and bad food.
The other angle specific to health professionals is what you described in the last part of your question: the anger and resentment towards the industry. It's totally normal you feel this way… it's essential that you feel the anger and be with it. Process it. When you feel ready, you can decide what you will create out of it. What we know is that on the other side, there's a brilliant non-diet practitioner waiting to bloom. Stephanie likes to say, "Everything happens for a reason," which is true for this situation.
Although we do not address the professional aspect in Conquer and Thrive, perhaps listen to podcast #219 and learn the stage of grieving (Stephanie speaks to it in the context of body image ). Still, it's the same stage for grieving anything.
Hope this helps. If not, submit a follow-up question!
Unintentional model-Being out of shape
C: Walking on the trail with the dogs
TD: This should be easier for me to do... I am really out of shape.
I should be able to handle this hill without being so out of breath or having to stop.
I am focused on how my body is out of shape on this walk.
I wonder if I will ever be able to find this to be an easy trail.
I don't know how I will be able to handle longer and more difficult hikes.
T: This should be easier for me to do... I am really out of shape.
F: Ashamed, Angry, Exasperated, Frustrated
A: I stick to the easy trails. I don't push myself. I cut my walks short
R: I miss opportunities to hike, and I continue to be out of shape.
ANSWER
Hello!
Great job showing up for coaching, sister! Let's do this!
So first off, for a first model, this is very well done! I'll give a few pointers:
1- C is very good. Neutral, short and factual.
2-TD: Very good… many thoughts. Complete thoughts. No questions. Great.
3- The model:
The T line: you have two distinct thoughts blended as one, which leads you to have more than 1 emotion in your F line. The use of punctuation typically is a sign of multiple T's.
First T: This should be easier for me to do...
Second: I am really out of shape.
4- Your F line should contain only 1 emotion. One T to one F. All the emotions listed currently in your F are probably attached to the other T in your TD.
If you can't figure out how to identify the F to the T: Close your eyes and repeat the T in your mind and do a quick body scan. You'll be able to connect each T to 1 F this way.
5- A line is good. To expend, check in with each one of your bodies when looking for Action: When it goes on in your mind? In your emotional body? etc.…
6-The R line is the most challenging one. The R line proves the T line right. So from there, start with the statement: I create _____ and see how you're creating your T to become a reality.
Overall, awesome comprehension for a beginner! You will rock at this!
Obesity leads to heart disease
I am no doctor, but I've watched my mom emotionally eat for decades, becoming obese (and I am 70 lbs heavier than she was at her heaviest) and going for a stress test, landing 2 days later in the O.R. for a quadruple bypass... Do thin people have heart diseases, too?... of course. But obesity is an accelerating factor in clogging arteries, HBP, Diabetes etc... and my mind runs with it.
How do I reconcile?
ANSWER
Hello!
This is a great question and will require a few angles for us to work thru this. #1 the actual facts of health (science stuff) and #2 Your brain behaviour (mindset and thoughts).
Let's start with #2.
I will assume you have completed CONFIDENT. If not, you should stop all of this thinking and go thru CONFIDENT first.
The first place is to get back in control of your mind. In your words, your "mind runs with it." Who's in charge here? You or your brain (remember to name your brain so you can separate from it)?
I want you to focus on looking at all your thoughts around this topic and see the reality these thoughts are creating for you. It looks like you have an unmanaged mind on this topic, and you are believing all the thoughts that your brain (remember to name your brain so you can separate from it) is giving you.
So let's organize this:
C: Heart Disease
TD:
My mom's emotional eating caused her heart condition (This is not a fact… you didn't receive a document proving this, did you?)
My mom's emotional eating caused her to be obese (again, just a thought… Is there hard evidence to this or just your assumption?)
Obesity is an aceleratated factor in HBP
Obesity causes diabetes
Obesity causes
T: My mom's emotional eating caused her heart condition
F: anxious
A: Overthink about all the reasons why obesity is bad, ruminate about my mom's life, ruminate about my own choices, search for evidence to prove my thoughts right so I can question all my choices right now, search for evidence proving my thoughts right so I stay in this old way of thinking, etc…
R: I convince myself that emotional eating is terrible and caused my mom death.
I'm not going to do all the models for you, but you need to.
It sounds like your brain wants you to stay stuck where you were before you came here. If you believe all these thoughts to be true, then it sounds like the only option is to control your eating once more and go back on a diet. In a way, you are trying to justify yourself your old ways. Is that what you want?
At the end of the day, you have to decide what you want to do with your body. Your body your choice. Have you made a decision yet or are you leaving it to others to decide for you what you will do with your body?
#2. Health and weight.
The first place to start is to do PEACEFUL Lesson 5, where Stephanie breaks down the health, Health at Every Size and a Weight-neutral approach to health. The worksheet that goes along will give you over 50 +ways to take care of your health without needing to lose weight.
PEACEFUL lesson 6 also has many videos addressing various topics you are concerned about within your questions. I would suggest you go and watch Stephanie answering these questions: Here the few that I suggest:
I'm diabetic. How does this impact my journey?
Health conditions and Intuitive eating… now what?
but science says this food is bad?
Understand that we live in a fatphobic society. Weight stigma is very present in medical care, and science has it in any other segment of our society. "Fat is bad" is an assumption in most medical studies, meaning it's not even studied as a non-confounding factor; it's assumed from the start to be problematic. This is why "obesity" is a correlating factor in nearly all research outcomes.
Correlation (association or risk factor) and Causation are vastly different. An example to illustrate this is the sale of sunglasses in the summer. There's a correlation between Ice cream sales and sunglasses sold. As the sales of ice creams is increasing so do the sales of sunglasses. But the increase in sales of ice cream doesn't cause the increase in sales of sunglasses.
It's the same with weight and heart disease. There's a correlation meaning it's present, but there is zero evidence that it's causing it. This is why as many normal-weight folks have heart condition as higher-weight folks (note here the language I use: higher weight versus obesity. This is how one can speak about weight without engaging in fatphobic language).
We have a class coming up in March, Normalizing Weight Gain. Stephanie will be teaching an in-depth segment on weight and health that will help you.
In the meantime, I would suggest you read Stephanie's article on this topic that includes a lot of research. And also the book "Health At Every Size" by Dr. Lindo Bacon. It's a bit sciencey but will help you convince your brain to change its tune. lol!
Hope this helps!
Ladder
My first try at a ladder. Just looking for some feedback if I set it up correctly.
5-My belly is sexy
4-my belly is strong
3-my belly is not flat and that is OK!
2-my belly has some jiggle
1-my belly is big
ANSWER
Hi,
Hello… I will try to help you but given that I do not have your unintentional and intentional model, it will be hard for me. I do not know which emotion you are aiming for or actions. I’ll assume you have built your intentional model on your own:
C: My belly
Intentional thought:
How do I want to feel: - Start here…
What actions will I take when I feel this way:
The result of these actions will be:
At first glance, I would say this needs work. The thought on each ladder is completely different.
The concept of a thought ladder is to take 1 thought (the one you came up with when you did your intentional model) and slowly and gradually train your brain to believe this one thought. Right now you have 6 different thoughts.
5-My belly is sexy
4-my belly is strong
3-my belly is not flat and that is OK!
2-my belly has some jiggle
1-my belly is big
In Confident Lesson 7, we walked you thru step by step how to build your ladder using your 1 intentional thought. We give you an opening phrase to help you.
So let’s imagine that your thought current thought is: My belly is ugly…
Intentional thought: I have a human belly
L5: I’m becoming a confident woman with my human belly
L4: I’m learning to be confident with my human belly
L3: I’m open to believing that I can feel confident with my current human belly
L2: There are other women who have bellies like me and are confident (if confident is the emotion in your intentional model)
L1: It’s possible that my brain is lying to me when it’s telling me that my belly is ugly
Current thought: My belly is ugly
Go and review lesson 7, it will help you!
Self coaching with Intentional model – 2
C: Thighs touching
TD: legs are fat, I have thunder thighs, I've gained weights
T: I've gained weight
F: anxious, scared, unworthy, depressed
A: hide from the mirror, inner critic starts speaking, push away feelings, numb thoughts so the body is numb
R: hyper-aware of thighs (and body) all day, push feelings down all day, restrict food, overexercise
Intentional model
C: thighs touching
T: my thighs are strong and healthy
F: peaceful, content
A: look in the mirror and feel joy, speak nice things to myself, deep breathing to embrace my feelings
R: connected to feelings all day, eat intuitively, exercise in a joyful way
Feedback, please. Thanks!!!
ANSWER
Hello!
The C is much better… your thighs touching is the actual trigger of the thoughts not looking in the mirror. Great work there!
The A line is also much better much broader so you can see how this unintentional thought impacts your whole life. As you can see a lot of old patterns of actions are being activated with these unintentional thoughts. Great work investigating!
The intentional model is great. The only feedback I would have is the R line.
R: connected to feelings all day, eat intuitively, exercise in a joyful way
These are not results but rather Actions. These connected to feelings all day, eat intuitively, exercise in a joyful way have to move in your A line.
The result is the reality you create by thinking the thought in the T line. The R line is proving the T, right… So the R is not too far from the T.
So an easy way to find the R is by using this sentence:
When I think ___________ (my thighs are strong and healthy) I create the reality _________
You create that you respect your thighs for their strength and health (by moving them, nourishing them, ensuring they are relaxed and not tense, etc…)
This is a great model to begin your body neutrality journey. In the future, you’ll need to bring your fear of fatness to the forefront. Month 3 of Conquer and Thrive - Liberated - The Body Neutrality will help you with this.
Just like every woman, you were raised to believe that women were their body… That a woman’s value was in her beauty and ability to be thin. You see yourself as your body. Your self-worth is “tangled” with your weight… that the core issue and why you get tripped up with your thighs touching.
Hope this helps!
Self-coaching with Intentional model
C: getting showered and dressed in the morning
TD: my belly is big, my body is bigger than it used to be, my arms are big, I need to get dressed ASAP to hide my flab
T: My Belly is big
F: shame, unattractive
A: get dressed quickly, avoid the mirror while naked
R: wear clothes that "hug in" the belly, wear clothes that hide the belly
intentional:
T: this strong belly gave me my two boys
F: Proud
A: wear whatever I like regardless of how belly looks
R: inner monologue quiets or even becomes kind
another intentional on the same model
T: this strong belly keeps me healthy
F: grateful
A: don't feel an urgent need to get dressed to hide my body, look in the mirror at my naked body R: relaxing day, able to focus on important things in my life such as my family
ANSWER
Hello…
You are doing well with your self-coaching. Both intentional models are done well, and the structure is good.
A few advanced coaching for you:
In the C really “getting showered and dressed in the am” ? The circumstance is the trigger of the thoughts you are experiencing. Is the problem taking a shower or your belly?
When I read your thoughts, it’s all about your body image, not showering. So to me, the C: My belly exists.
Another point I want you to dig further is the A line… You are posting A’s that have to do with the specific moment of the shower, but I’d like to see you go beyond this. How are your thoughts about your belly affecting you beyond the morning time? What about the rest of the day? Dig deep…
I think once you change your C from being about the shower to C: My Belly exists, you’ll be able to see the full range impact of your body image challenges.
Try this and let us know how you do!