Sam Malone in a Bar with a Beer: On Eating Disorders and Eating Well

 

Only Ted Danson could have great on-screen chemistry with a lemon rind. 

  One of my favorite television shows is Cheers, a 1980s sitcom centered around Sam Malone, a recovered alcoholic who owns a bar. (When I was pregnant I watched all eleven seasons in the space of about three months because I was/am very prone to binging on good things, as we will soon learn.)  In a lot of ways, being a person who's had or has an eating disorder is like being Sam Malone--constantly surrounded by a thing that has the power to destroy you. The big difference is that, unlike Sam Malone who can abstain from beer, we ex-anorexics, ex-bulimics and ex-binge eaters have to eat every day multiple times a day. Depending on where you are in your recovery or how you're feeling that day, breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks can feel like battles or emotional triggers or a million other unpleasant things. I
       I've been very vocal both on this blog and other mediums about my past history with eating disorders, particularly my anorexia diagnosis in high school. For a long time, I told "my eating disorder story" as a kind of neat little narrative of down fall, utter despair and miraculous recovery complete with an epiphany about the meaning of my life and a new appreciation for my body. In reality, that journey has been a lot messier and treacherous and drawn out than I think I wanted to admit to myself.
      After seeing a therapist recently for some other life issues, it's become clear that I jumped into a pattern of binge eating pretty quickly after announcing myself "recovered" from anorexia and leaving my outpatient treatment program.  For the most part, I maintain a diet that's as free as animal products as possible (no meat, fish, dairy, eggs, gelatin) because of ethical reasons. I'm also fortunate in that I crave pretty healthy food--most of the time. Some days it's salads and veggie stews and fruit smoothies. Other days it's chocolate chip cookies and tater tots--and I can't just eat six tater tots, I have to eat half a bag of the gross processed frozen kind that make me want to tear my stomach out. To be honest, most of the time I feel totally okay about that. I understand that the occasional overindulgence isn't going to make me gain hundreds of pounds and doesn't mean I'm a failure of a human being. What I am starting to realize though, is that these junk food binges are becoming a regular part of my life in a way they haven't been for a couple of years. They're not healthy and, if possible, I'd like to take care of what ever issue is causing them.
    I'm a big proponent of mindful eating--eating the food I want, whenever I want them as long as I'm both actually hungry and actually craving them. Believe it or not, I actually lost a lot of weight once I embraced that approach. Sometimes, however, I forget about the mindful part and start letting myself eat just whatever because "Body acceptance! Diet free lifestyle!" This past summer, I've fallen back into some old habits which include skipping meals and then compulsively eating vegan candy and/or fried potato products out of loneliness or sadness or some other depressing reason. It's definitely not at an out of control point (been there, done that) but I'd like to get back on track with healthier eating before my dance season starts, particularly since it looks like I'll be donning the pink tights and a tutu for Nutcracker this year and sugarplum fairies with low blood sugar are no fun. Plus, as a fitness professional, I think it's important to model healthy life choices for my clients. To me that includes demonstrating that you should enjoy your favorite dessert every now and then with no guilt and that you should fuel your body with nutrient-dense foods on a daily basis.
   For people with eating disorders or a history of emotional eating, just living normal life is kind of like being an ex-alcoholic in a bar.  There's food everywhere. We have to eat every day. We have to choose every day to do the right thing for our bodies and our minds. It's really hard sometimes and I don't know if I'll ever get it right.

Podcast: Dancers and Eating Disorders

   I recently had the pleasure of being a guest on the Eating Disorder Pro podcast with Dr. J. Renae Norton to discuss eating disorders and body image in the dance community.

I talk a little about my own experiences and how I approach the issue of body image in my own dance classroom. You'll also hear me talk about my new book project. (Blog post with more details coming soon!) I don't claim to be an expert on eating disorders or nutrition, but I was very glad to share my own perspective on the show.

Click here to listen to the episode. 

Intuitive Eating, Normal Eating

     One of the best things I did, back when I was beginning the recovery process for my eating disorder was to see a registered dietitian. At the time I thought it was pointless. Like a lot of people with disordered eating habits, I knew about nutrition. I knew what foods were healthy and which were full of empty calories. I knew the difference between so-called "simple" carbs and complex carbs and which vegetables had the highest amounts of which vitamins. I could have told you the exact calorie count of every thing on your plate and the saturated fat contents of every box of crackers on the shelf at the grocery story.

     It turned out that the benefits of seeing a dietitian, for me, had less to do with learning to eat healthfully than learning to eat normally. Some eating disorder treatment plans call this the "re-feeding process." I prefer to think of it as a re-learning process: re-learning how to eat like you did as a child, before fears of cellulite and white leotards and what people might say if you go ahead and eat that extra serving of mashed potatoes.

    On one of our first meetings, she asked me what I thought normal eating was. I can't remember what I said--most likely, I just stared at my feet defiantly as I was prone to do in early treatment--but I remember that she pulled out some piece of paper and read the following piece (which I learned later was written by Ellyn Sater: 

"Normal eating is going to the table hungry and eating until you are satisfied. It is being able to choose food you like and eat it and truly get enough of it—not just stop eating because you think you should. Normal eating is being able to give some thought to your food selection so you get nutritious food, but not being so wary and restrictive that you miss out on enjoyable food. Normal eating is giving yourself permission to eat sometimes because you are happy, sad or bored, or just because it feels good. Normal eating is eating mostly three meals a day, or four or five, or it can be choosing to munch along the way. It is leaving some cookies on the plate because you know you can have some again tomorrow, or it is eating more now because they taste so wonderful. Normal eating is overeating at times, feeling stuffed and uncomfortable. And it can be undereating at times and wishing you had more. Normal eating is trusting your body to make up for your mistakes in eating. Normal eating takes up some of your time and attention, but keeps its place as only one important area of your life. In short, normal eating is flexible. It varies in response to your hunger, your schedule, your proximity to food and your feelings." 

     I've carried this with me over the years, particularly, for whatever reason, the part about the cookies. Probably because I really like cookies. 

     What I like about this idea is that it allows room for all the different reasons we eat. In dance, we're often taught to think of food as fuel and nothing else. God forbid you enjoy food or choose what you eat based on taste or mood once in a while.  The whole approach in the dance and exercise world always seemed to me like, like, "it's really annoying, I know, but you need calories to get through this variation, so eat these chia seeds and raw nuts and drink an organic cold-pressed juice and you're good." (For the record: I like all of those thing but as we've discussed, I also like cookies.) 

     A few years later--after I'd moved to NYC perfectly "recovered" only to start a long cycle of bingeing and restricting--I attended a talk by Susan Berry of Evolved Eating. She talked about the concept of intuitive eating. My world changed. 

    Intuitive eating can be different things to different people. For me, fundamentally, is just means paying attention. Eating just what I want when I'm hungry (what I really want and not just what I think I should want) and stopping when I'm full or don't want it anymore. Some days this might mean I eat pretty much just fruits and vegetables, because that's what I feel like, then the next day eating lots of grains. Sometimes I take two bites of my sandwich before I'm full and other times I clean my plate. Sometimes I over eat--like holidays or special dinners or when I make something that's just really, really delicious--and I've learned that that's okay sometimes. It doesn't mean I have to restrict at the next meal or run five miles or cry or purge. It's just food. If I notice eating a certain food before I dance makes me feel sluggish or gives me a stomach ache, chances are I won't feel like eating it again the next time. Intuitive eating is a process of learning to be tuned in to your body, to trust yourself, to be still and listen.
   For various physiological and psychological reasons, this approach may not work for everyone, but for the most part I think intuitive eating is a wonderful, unfortunately radical approach in our diet obsessed world. Sometimes I still have bad days: days when I don't want to eat or I want to do nothing but eat. If I don't want to eat, I try to pay attention and ask myself why. If it's because I'm not hungry, I respect that and wait until I do. If it's because I'm stressed or tired or feeling fat or worried of eating in front of people, I work through that and try to feed myself. I'm not perfect and I don't have all the answers, but I'm trying. One day at a time.

  [P.S. How does vegan eating fit in with all of this? Pretty simple for me. I tell myself that if I really want something non-vegan I can have it. But because of my convictions and tastes, I rarely do.]

    

A Thousand Things Before "Thin"

As I work toward group exercise certification, I'm discouraged by how much rhetoric in the fitness industry and even study manuals is concerned with fat and thinness and weight loss. I love helping people improve their lives through exercise and better health. Sometimes, yes, this means weight loss, but I've never believed that a lower weight is automatically equivalent to better health. When I think about "fitness", endurance, strength, energy, and overall mental and physical well being matter so much more to me than a number on the scale. After a treacherous struggle with weight preoccupation, this is a good place to be.

I'm planning to write a little bit more on my no-diet diet philosophy later this month. In the mean time, this quote from my heroine J.K. Rowling sums up my thoughts on the matter:

     "'Fat’ is usually the first insult a girl throws at another girl when she wants to hurt her. I mean, is ‘fat’ really the worst thing a human being can be? Is ‘fat’ worse than ‘vindictive’, ‘jealous’, ‘shallow’, ‘vain’, ‘boring’ or ‘cruel’? 

     "I’ve got two daughters who will have to make their way in this skinny-obsessed world, and it worries me, because I don’t want them to be empty-headed, self-obsessed, emaciated clones; I’d rather they were independent, interesting, idealistic, kind, opinionated, original, funny – a thousand things, before ‘thin’. And frankly, I’d rather they didn’t give a gust of stinking chihuahua flatulence whether the woman standing next to them has fleshier knees than they do. Let my girls be Hermiones, rather than Pansy Parkinsons.”