You Are Allowed. - POSTED ON: Dec 20, 2017
Below is advice on how to mentally handle the holidays from someone that I consider to be one of the more reasonable online “Health Coaches”. Isabel Foxen Duke comes from the position of: Stop Dieting. Peace of mind will come when you entirely stop trying to control your weight, and when you accept Your Own Body Size and Set Point, whether it is fat or thin. Although I, personally, don’t choose to follow her position, I understand and agree with a great deal of what she says. Perhaps her presentations resonate with me more because I, too, have a BA in Sociology, and so we share that specific undergraduate educational background. I respect, and agree with, her references to “intuitive eating” as the “Hunger & Fullness Diet”. She says: “While intuitive eating itself is not “the answer” to your food problem, the basics are helpful to know if you’re struggling to get off traditional dieting.”
You Are Allowed. by Isabel Foxen Duke, BA in Sociology and online “Health Coach”. at “How To Not Eat Cake … really fast, standing up, when nobody’s looking.”
You are allowed to disagree with food and body shamers this year, you are allowed to have a different opinion, you are allowed to request that someone withhold body or food shaming comments around you, you are allowed to leave the table if your request is not respected. You are also allowed to sit quietly and disagree with them in your own mind, with the understanding that their beliefs don’t have to be your own; you do not need to convert others to validate your own experience, and their approval is not needed for you to be yourself. You are allowed to not diet, when other people are dieting. and you can feel compassionately for dieters, who are likely struggling just like you have, and who are also victims of an unfortunately weight-discriminating world. Recognize that you cannot control other people, you cannot educate someone without their permission, and also recognize, that doesn’t make them right, nor does it make food or body shaming okay.
Set Point - POSTED ON: Sep 30, 2017
We do not understand how the body resists weight change and why, after weight loss, so many people regain it. The concept of a set point for weight is widely accepted. The set point is like the thermostat in our central heating system. It is switched on when the temperature falls below a critical (set point) temperature and is switched off when that is exceeded.
Using the word “rachet” might help one conceptualize the set point concept. To rachet is to cause to increase or decrease by increments. A rachet is a mechanical device consisting of a toothed wheel or rack engaged with a pawl that permits it to move in only one direction.
A person has an existing set point. That person gains weight, and then gains and sustains even more weight gain. This causes the set point to be racheted up, and once it passes each rachet, there is no going back. The rachet is the biological set point and it can be easily driven upwards, but is very difficult to drive back down.
Using the fat cell theory is helpful to further explain how this works.
For an example, let’s assume an average fat cell contains 0.4 micrograms of fat each. A person gaining weight might see that fat cell load expand to 0.6 micrograms. This is an acceptable load increase, and when the person loses weight, the fat cell level drops back to 0.4 micrograms.
This seesaw can go on forever, but when the weight gain loads the fat cell up to 0.8 micrograms, a tipping point is reached, and the fat cell divides. Now we have two fat cells, each containing 0.4 micrograms. Click! That was the ratchet turning irreversibly.
When we want to return to the previous weight, we must lose half the fat we gained. The problem with this is that each fat cell now has the standard fat load of 0.4 micrograms each, and to halve this to just 0.2 micrograms per cell requires us to get the cells to live a life they do not like. If we let our mind tell us what to eat, we can overcome the disgruntled fat cells which are below their fat quota. But all the time the basic animal biology of our body will be waiting to return to 0.4 micrograms per cell.
Then, along comes an event like a vacation, a holiday, or other eating occasion, and we take our eye off the ball .. lose our mental concentration, but the fat cells in our body didn’t rest, and we’ve regained our w...
Dieting: The Alternative - POSTED ON: Sep 21, 2016
There is an Alternative to Dieting. Essentially, It is: Stop Dieting. Stop trying to lose weight. Start understanding that dieting is NOT a solution in that it’s very unlikely to make you thin for longer than 2-5 years at the very most - and actually, it’s much more likely you’ll end up heavier than where you started. .. and begin relying on your Internal Wisdom. There’s plenty of Marketing for this Alternative, and a hefty hourly fee… will get you help in the form of individual online contact, from one of a multitude of “dubiously licensed online counselors” who charge about the same hourly rates as the professional Therapists and Psychologists who are licensed through State, Federal, or National medically-recognized agencies. Will this Alternative result in getting you Thin or to a “Normal” BMI weight? Perhaps…. If your body is already in the “normal” or “overweight” range and has always been there. However, if your body has ever been well inside the “Obesity” BMI weight range for more than one or two years, it is Extremely unlikely. For almost everyone, what happens is that a “successful” implementation of this alternative process will result in your body weight returning to, and settling at, its highest individual Set Point. For more information on that future probability read these articles: Set Point, and Running Down the Up Escalator.
Here's the Bottom line.
Below is an article in support of the Alternative to Dieting.
Why You Think About Food Day and Night & What to Do About It. by Vania Phitidis of Peaceful Eating. co.uk "Do you think about food first thing in the morning and last thing at night (and about a million times in between)? Do you wake up worrying if you’ll be able to control your intake, go to bed at night evaluating you...
No S Diet vs. Intuitive Eating - Diet Review - POSTED ON: May 05, 2016
If I am "building castles in the air" I am dreaming grandiose dreams without any foundation.
Building castles in the air is NOT however to be confused with dreaming big dreams and then planning through the steps necessary to make those dreams a reality.
A member of a forum I frequent, recently asked:
“Just curious. What about No S vs. Intuitive Eating?”
Here is my take on these two concepts. No S accepts that it is a diet, and gives specific and objective (although flexible) rules...such as: "No snacks, no sweets, no seconds except ..sometimes..on days beginning with S". Intuitive Eating is one of those diets that refuses to admit it is a diet, and gives vague and subjective rules...such as: "Eat only when hungry, eat what you want, stop when you're full". No S relies on the principle that: when a person who is interested in moderation, sees and actually realizes the amount of food they are eating, they will choose to reduce that amount,and through that behavior, they will achieve and maintain a more normal bodyweight. Intutive Eating relies on the principle that: when a person gets rid of outside rules,....except for the Intuitive Eating rules about eating when hungry etc....and relies on their BODY to tell them what and how much to eat, that their own body signals will cause them to reduce the amounts they eat and eventually acheive and maintain a normal bodyweight. (Note: "Intutive Eating" is a diet (labeled non-diet) used by many "eating disorder experts", although it has absolutely zero scientific basis, as well a dismal success rate.)
No S is objective and primarily based on common sense. Intutitive Eating is subjective and primarily based on magic.
Those of you who are unfamiliar with the No S Diet, and/or the diet-that-says-it-isn’t-a-diet concept known as “Intitutive Eating” can learn more about these from reading some of my past articles which are contained here in the ARCHIVES of DietHobby. Some specific links are:
Stop When You're Full? - Intutive Eating 3 - Diet Review - POSTED ON: May 05, 2016
Lets not throw the baby out with the bathwater ....which means... Be careful not to discard something of value with something that is of no value.
I see and share various thoughts and ideas here at DietHobby that come from many different sources. If an idea or article is posted here, I’ve found some of its concepts interesting, enjoyable or valuable to me in some way. It does NOT mean that I agree with all of that author’s basic food beliefs or way-of-eating philosophies.
Here is the third of three articles about the basic Intutive Eating Concepts by UK addiction counselor, Gillain Riley, who appears to share my point of view about the general ineffectiveness of this Diet. Ms. Riley states her professional knowledge about these concepts in a thoughtful and precise manner, and I am sharing this series here at DietHobby.
Advocates of Intutitive Eating insist that this diet / manner-of-eating / way-of-eating / lifestyle is "not a diet". My belief is that EVERY diet works for someone, and this includes Intutive Eating.
The other two of the three articles can be found at: "Does Our Body Tell Us WHAT to eat - Intutive Eating 1" “Eat When You’re Hungry? – Intutive Eating 2”
HOW TO END A MEAL by Gillian Riley, Author of Ditching Diets (Revised edition of Eating Less) A great many people do most (if not all) of their overeating at meals, especially their evening meal. You may be one of those who consistently buys, prepares and serves what you know is way too much food but finds it impossible to contemplate cutting back. Or maybe your meals aren't too huge to start with but you find it tough to stop, taking second helpings, finishing off what others have left, picking on things in the kitchen while you're clearing up and then finding things to snack on for much of the evening. The third principle of Intuitive Eating, suggesting that you 'stop eating when you're full', attempts to address this problem. As with the two other principles we've looked at over the past two newsletters (eat whatever your body tells you it needs and eat when you're hungry), it ASSUMES a reliable, innate wisdom in our bodies. Those who promote Intuitive Eating argue that it's your ignorance of this wisdom that makes you overeat. If you simply pay attention to it, your body will let you know when you've had enough. Of the 5,000 or so medical academic journals that are published every month, a good number of them, as you might expect, are dedicate...
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