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!
Hating what my face looks like from an early age has had severe impact on my confidence for decades
Over the years, I have spent hours and hours despising my appearance. I spend a lot of time looking in the mirror, using my fingers to chop off my large cheeks. When I was a child, people always remarked how fat my face was. From then till even now, my face disgusts me, and I imagine men are also disgusted by my face, and just my face is enough for them to ignore or insult me .
Yesterday, I was making a "how-to" video for my clients, and when I was editing, I was repulsed by my face and considered not showing my face on my next video.
It's a 50-year-old thought, feeling, action, result cycle. I know it is stopping me from carrying out confident actions. I want to liberate myself, I need to do an intentional model, but when I approach it, I feel tearful and want to sleep so I can hide.
ANSWER
Hello! Congratulations for showing up for coaching on this very emotional circumstance in your life. Good work, sister!
The first thing I want to say is that it’s normal that you feel paralyzed in the face of this situation. It’s been with you for 50 years, so feeling disgusted by your face is your comfort zone. Your brain knows that changing the thought, “I hate my face,” means moving out of your comfort zone and evolving. All of this is normal and a clue that you actually are doing something powerful!
So let’s do this: The circumstance here for this is: my face.
C: My face
Next, you’ll need to do a complete thought download. Grab a piece of paper, and over a few days, take all the thoughts you have about your face (or words you heard other people say) and put it on paper.
C: My face
TD:
Look at these thoughts and remind yourself that these are thoughts, not facts.
Next, you can model out the 3 main thoughts. Let’s do one so you can see the flow.
C: My face
T: I hate my face
F: disgust
A’s: Overthink all the reasons why my face is ugly / Ruminate on childhood memories when an adult told me my face was fat / Overthink about old childhood memories and use them as evidence to prove how ugly my face is / spend time in front of a mirror picking at each part of my face I hate / Avoid showing my face on video / Disrupt my service to my client by not showing fully / Impact my business by not showing up fully / I avoid dealing with this issue for 50 years
R: I find plenty of evidence of how ugly my face is and continue to create evidence for myself of how problematic my face is.
Now…The intentional model. We recommend starting by emotion or action line. This is a case of emotion first!
The way we teach body image is by first aiming for neutrality, not love. So pick an emotion that reflects being neutral. We'll go with calm for now.
C: My face
T: ____________
F: Calm
A’s: __________, ________________, ____________
R: ________
Next, ask yourself how you would act if you felt calm when seeing your face in the mirror? Fill in A line.
C: My face
T: ____________
F: Calm
A’s: Film video for client with face on / look at myself in mirror without emphasizing part i do not like / ……
R: ________
What do you need to think about your face to feel calm? Know that you are not going to feel calm now… but in the future, you will after rewiring your brain to this new thought.
The concept of body neutrality teaches us that the reason why we have a body is not for appearance and beauty but rather for function. Our face function is to eat / breathe / and communicate our emotions to others. Period. Your face is not an ornament.
A basic thought could be: I have a human face.
This is what your intentional model could look like.
C: My face
T: I have a human face
F: Calm
A’s: Film video for a client with face on / look at myself in the mirror without emphasizing the part I do not like /...
R: I interact with my face as with any other part of my body for its function.
Next, I would suggest a thought ladder to help modulate your brain into believing and feeling calm this new thought. I’d suggest you review Confident Lesson 7.
Goal thought: I have a human face.
Ladder: I have a human face to be used for function, not beauty.
Ladder 2: I’m becoming a woman who engages with her face neutrally.
Ladder 3: It’s possible for me to be neutral about my face in the future.
Ladder 2: It’s possible that my brain is lying to me when it’s telling me my face is ugly as a fact.
Ladder 1: There are other humans with fat face that are neutral about their face.
Current thought: I hate my face.
That’s it. Simple! Keep us posted on how your practice goes!
Cravings and self-coaching
I'm getting more and more accustomed to depersonalizing my thoughts and feelings. I remember questioning my thoughts and remind myself that "I am not my emotions, I only feel my emotions." But I don't know how to apply this to cravings. When it comes to cravings, I become a slave of them because I don't even remember to stop and think where they are coming from and make a conscious decision about acting on them (eating) or not. It's as if my mind and body are hijacked when it comes to cravings - unlike other thoughts I have.
How to approach this? Is it possible to put cravings somewhere on the self-coaching model and work through them?
Thank you!
ANSWER
This is a great question that is easily answered.
First, know that all the answers are or will be taught to you as your learn Intuitive eating.
The first place to start is the language you use. When I read your question, I see DIET MINDSET peaking its ugly head. The word “craving,” the word “slave” are strong clues. The word “highjacked” is another clue… Lots of diet culture language.
I will use the word urges instead of cravings moving forward as this is a neutral word.
Here’s where I’d suggest you start:
Do you trust your body?
Why is it that you doubt the validity of your body urges?
Why do you desire to control your cravings?
As with any desire to control lies a fear below: What are you afraid will happen if you don’t control your food urges?
Perhaps your lack of awareness of your food urges because you believe they shouldn’t be there in the first place. Why would you want to pay attention to something you believe to be wrong? Faulty?
To unpack food urges using the self-coaching model, you simply put food urges on the C line. Food urges are neutral; what makes them something to avoid, control or “bad” is your thoughts.
C: Food urges
Investigate your thoughts about food urges. See how they create feelings and actions in your life. You will likely find that the thought you have about urges actually creates more urges.
Hope this helps you, sister!
Self-Coaching Models
I am on the Confident section and putting together my self-coaching models. I'd like feedback on whether I am doing them correctly.
C: New clothes delivered to the house
TD: Will they fit, will I like them on my body, will I be making a trip to the store to return them, will I have to get a larger size
T: Will they fit
E: Anxiety
A: Procrastinate trying on till I'm "in the mood," psych myself up to try them on
R: Try on clothes in a stressed and critical state
Is this correct?
Here is another:
C: Ate a lot of food again
TD: I'm weak, I'll get fat, I'm a bad person, I'm going to gain weight
T: I'm weak
A: Next day only eating "healthy" foods and no snacking
R: Restricting again!
Is this OK?
One other question: is there a place you have the definitions of each component of the Self Coaching model? For example, Stephanie refers to Action as "do or do not do." What is the short definition of each component of the model?
Thanks!!!
ANSWER
Hello!
Overall, my sister, you are doing great work! Very well done!
I'll coach you on the specifics so you can get your self-coaching game to the next level.
The structure is perfect! Where you need to push to the next level is to individualize each thought so you can see the full impact of thinking this way… Also, don't be shy on the A line: take the time to explore all the behaviours you have. I like to write it as A's instead of A to remind myself to be explorative.
Example:
C: New clothes delivered to the house
TD: Will they fit, will I like them on my body, will I be making a trip to the store to return them, will I have to get a larger size
T: Will they fit
E: Anxiety
A: Procrastinate trying on till I'm "in the mood", psych myself up to try them on
R: Try on clothes in a stressed and critical state
T: Will I like them on my body
E:
A's:
R:
T: Will I be making a trip to the store to return them,
E:
A's:
R:
T: Will I have to get a larger size
E:
A's
R:
The same pattern for your other model…
And on your question: We did showcase the model in Lesson 2 video but perhaps not as much as we should. So based on your feedback, we are going to go ahead and update the worksheet for Lesson 2 to add a section to recap the model. Give us a couple of days to do this.
In the meantime, here's what we will add to the worksheet for lesson 2, so you don't have to wait:
The self-coaching model is an easy way to see how our thoughts play out in our lives and create the reality we experience. The framework of the self-coaching model allows you to trace the causal relationship from your thoughts to your result (reality your experience in your current life).
The Model:
C: Circumstance: Neutral facts of the situation that are outside of your current, immediate control
TD: Thought Download: All the thoughts you have about the circumstance
T: Thought: A story your mind tells, which lead to a feeling in your body
F: Feeling: Physical sensations in your body, which lead to actions (and inaction)
A's: Action: How you behave when you think the thought and feel the feeling in the F line (may not reflect what you actually did or would do, but rather what you would do if you acted ONLY from the feeling in the F line.
R: Result: The outcome of your thought, feeling and actions / inactions, as they pertain to you, for this specific situation (circumstance).
Tired: C, T, F or R?
I usually say, "I feel tired/exhausted", but according to the self-coaching model, I'm not sure if it is a feeling. Sometimes I think it's a circumstance that I need to be neutral about, sometimes I wonder whether it's just a thought, and sometimes I wonder whether it's a result of my actions. Many times I feel tired, and I wonder how I can tackle this using self-coaching...
Thank you!
ANSWER
Hello! Great question, sister.
I feel tired is a thought.
I feel exhausted is also a thought.
It's not a C because a C is neutral. So the C might be energy level, and then the thought is: I feel exhausted.
Fatigued is the physical component, and tired is the emotional component.
As a feeling, tired has a quality of feeling sorry for oneself. Is it possible that this is what happens to you when you have the T: I feel tired?
So it's optional to think I'm exhausted or I'm tired. It's an option that you have.
What if you weren't tired? What if you weren't exhausted? If what you felt then was instead normal? Then what?
How to investigate this?
Get specific on the C:
C: Work exist
T: I feel exhausted
E: Self-pity
A's: Don't do anything / lay on the couch / avoid work / ruminate why I'm so tired / overthink why I'm so tired.
R: I confirm to myself I'm exhausted.