My daughter and I love to eat together. She’s not even able to tell time just yet, but she always knows when it’s time to eat – the same time every day.

For us, eating is a big thing. We set the table, she helps me pick out the veggies, she sits down, I serve us both, and we eat together. I always finish before she does, so I stay at the table with her until the end. If she finishes before me, I make us a little dessert to enjoy together. She cleans off the table (by, unfortunately, dropping my darn dishes in the sink), and we go off to do whatever we were doing before we sat down together. I enjoy these times together because the memories are powerful.

I remember when she was too small to sit at the table, and I sat her in a high chair next to me at the table. I remember sitting her on my lap and feeding her from my plate. I remember when she’d sit at the table in anticipation, and her little forehead was the only thing peeking out above the table. She had to raise her eyebrows and strain her neck pretty high up to even see above the table.

I remember teaching her how to use a fork. I remember when she couldn’t fit her mouth around the spoon. I even remember when every time she picked up a glass to drink, she’d drop it – she hadn’t realized she’d need both hands to hold a glass, and I hadn’t yet realized to only give her an ounce at a time… to help minimize the amount of mess she’d make. We both learned alot from one another at the dinner table. I remember the days when she couldn’t converse during dinner (secretly, I sometimes miss those… ’cause now, I can’t get her to hush.)

For me, a lot of my favorite memories of my little one come from our moments together dining. That’s where many of our memories are made each day. I look forward to sitting with her and watching her dive, nose first, into an ear of corn… because she does it just like her Mommy. I get pleasure and satisfaction from these moments with her. No interruptions via phone, no company, no TV… just us two. I leave the table feeling satiated through the food, and fulfilled through the company of my family.

I can’t say “Oh, good grief, I’m so stressed out… let me hurry up and make dinner so I can feel better” because this isn’t an experience that you speed through just to get the “satisfaction” at the end. The satisfaction isn’t at the end – it’s throughout the meal… and rushing through it causes you to miss it. There is no bingeing on this experience. You have to take your time to truly experience the benefit.

Compare this to emotional eating – a mindless experience that reverts us back to our most prehistoric desires. As I wrote before:

Once upon a time, in a land not very far from your home… lived mankind. No fast cars, no shiny structures, no skyscrapers, nothing. Just man.. rock… and animals.

See, this worked for man because his only task was to hunt wildlife, and gather his kill for his family. That was his responsibility. His purpose was to bring the salt and fat from the animal to the family. Not work, not bills… just hunt. Because life was much simpler then, this was man’s sole source of stress.

One day, man could not hunt. Every time he threw his spear, he’d miss his prey. He just couldn’t catch SQUAT! His family was to go hungry and he just… he couldn’t take it. The stress started to build up inside of him.

Because stress about the inability to eat is the only source of stress for man, his body became used to the eventual chain of events. His body knows: Lots of stress = lack of food coming in. How did his body react? His body decided to hold on to what it had – by way of diminishing the amount of energy his body could exert all at one time, by way of making sure his body took a very long time to lose weight, by way of making sure it held onto every pound and fat cell it could. This bodily reaction would only further compel man to step up his hunting skills… why? Because he didn’t want to feel that way! He didn’t want his family to feel that way! He had to get his caveman hustle on! When man was finally able to tackle that antelope or whatever-what-have-you, the fats and salts in the meat were sooooo satisfying that they would cure man of the bodily reaction to stress.

Compare this to emotional eating. The body’s reaction doesn’t change no matter what variables you swap out. Regardless if the stress comes from traffic, bad work day, or family problems… the body’s reaction to stress has not evolved as fast as society has. Now, we can get food within ten minutes if we drive or own a microwave. So presuming our body believes that stress is caused by a “famine on the way,” then it’s going to trigger feelings to make you go hunt! Our bodies just don’t know how easy it is to get food in the 21st century. It hasn’t caught up.

This is why emotional eating “works.” Emotional eating is not enjoying food, it is enjoying the feeling derived from food. The fats, salts and sugars that are so prominent in the processed foods we buy regularly are, essentially, a method of self-medication. No, really: if fat and salt from the animal curbed the hunger – thereby curbing the stress – and sugar only temporarily curbed the hunger (because man needed fat and salt)… then the way we use those three in food today to “cure” stress is a form of using a legal substance for the unintended purpose of making us feel better emotionally.

Enjoying eating is about the experience you derive from the meal. It includes your company – even if you are by yourself, you are in excellent company – and your conversation. Eating emotionally is about hiding from a very prominent problem in your food. Something – whatever it is – that causes you stress or trauma all day… causes you to go hide in an entire pint of ice cream (which, if I’m not mistaken, is usually four servings.) Add to that the fact that you very well might scarf the entire thing down? That’s 800 calories. If you’re calorie counting, that can be anywhere from a half to a third of your day’s intake just off of emotional eating alone.

Emotional eating is a problem.. because it causes a cycle of self-hate. If we DO scarf down the entire pint, then we hate ourselves for not having any self-control, thereby not only adding more pressure to ourselves… but demeaning our own self-worth because it’s one more thing we don’t have and can’t do. In reality, emotional eating doesn’t even foster a healthy enjoyment of food – not only do you “hate yourself” after a binge session, but you start to hate that which “did this to you”… the food.

Learning how to enjoy a dining experience overpowers what emotional eating can do for you. It gives you a lifetime of good feelings to look back on and smile. Emotional eating gives you maybe 20 minutes to willfully avoid addressing a problem, only to revert back to anger or sadness once the “high” comes down. Recognize which one you truly want and need, and start moving in the direction to obtain it.

Are you an emotional eater? Do you know which situations trigger bouts of binging for you? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

PS: Show a little love by voting for me in the Black Weblog Awards for Best Health or Wellness Blog category! That’s right – BGG2WL is a finalist thanks to you! Let’s do what we can to bring it home!

The Difference Between Enjoying Eating and Emotional Eating is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. What, Exactly, Is Emotional Eating?
2. Telling A Tale of Stress and Emotional Eating
3. Q&A Wednesday: Dealing With Emotional Eating

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

Get BGG2WL delivered wirelessly to your Kindle! Click here for more info!

© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 14 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: coping skills, emotional eating, enjoying eating, fat, salt, stress, sugar

I’m with Mark Bittman on the awesomeness of oatmeal, and especially with him on the notion of not overloading it with sugar, and, consequently, not ordering it from McDonald’s. But I wonder about this:

Others will argue that the McDonald’s version is more “convenient.” This is nonsense; in the time it takes to go into a McDonald’s, stand in line, order, wait, pay and leave, you could make oatmeal for four while taking your vitamins, brushing your teeth and half-unloading the dishwasher. (If you’re too busy to eat it before you leave the house, you could throw it in a container and microwave it at work. If you prefer so-called instant, flavored oatmeal, see this link, which will describe how to make your own).

If you don’t want to bother with the stove at all, you could put some rolled oats (instant not necessary) in a glass or bowl, along with a teeny pinch of salt, sugar or maple syrup or honey, maybe some dried fruit. Add milk and let stand for a minute (or 10). Eat. Eat while you’re walking around getting dressed. And then talk to me about convenience.

I often hear this complaint from people who cook directed at people who don’t. The notion basically holds that cooking isn’t as inconvenient as people make it out to be. I don’t know. I make my oatmeal in a pot at home–there’s something blasphemous about microwaving it–but I don’t own a dishwasher, and cleaning up actually is work. Moreover, I’m assuming people standing in that McDonald’s line can, text, tweet, e-mail or whatever while they wait.

The bigger thing here is understanding why people go to McDonald’s in the first place. I strongly suspect that the entire experience is comforting. In a day of constant work, pushes and pulls, you have this one clean place, which is the same everywhere, dispensing joyful shots of sugar and salt. That’s just me thinking about how I’ve eaten the past–and also how I eat when my brain is crowded with everything besides what I’m eating.

I think what Bittman urges in his writing is is consciousness. He wants people to think hard about what they’re eating. I strongly suspect that people go to McDonald’s for the exact opposite reason–to get unconscious. Understanding why that it is, goes beyond our food. It’s about how we live.

One of the reasons why I find the dialogue here, at BGG2WL, to be so valuable is because its an open and honest place for us to discuss our feelings about our own health, wellness and how our habits either contribute to or harm both. We are a collective of individuals actively concerned with our health, and we stand together to try to help one another by way of enlightenment. Take what you can use, leave aside what you cannot. We do that pretty well, here.

That being said… a very important element of emotional eating is brought up here, and that’s the issue of “someone else taking care of you.” That’s what he’s referring to, right? The idea that, in the middle of a long day, you can unwind and not worry about this one thing for this allotted time while these [trusted] people give you what you want exactly when you want it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with acknowledging and admitting to that.

Yet and still, you have to consider what you sacrifice when you make these kinds of decisions: you’re ultimately entrusting your health and well-being (and, ultimately, your weight) to someone else who does not care more about you than they do their profit margins.

I can vaguely remember reading a book and hearing about this kind of feeling – the feeling of liking someone catering to you – as a draw that restaurant companies use to their advantage. In fact, it was in reference to a… let’s just refer to it as a massive coffee (and pastry… and oatmeal?) chain that’s almost as prevalent as the golden arches. When asked why the chain was so successful, the response was “It’s about warm milk and a bottle; if I could put a nipple on it, I’d be a billionaire.”

I understand the feeling. It’s nice to “not have to do [something],” for once. It also serves the problem of leaving yourself open to having to deal with someone else’s standards in regards to what is acceptable to feed you when you ask for it. McDonalds’ fruit and maple oatmeal – which was actually sued in Vermont because there’s no maple in it – isn’t just fruit, cream and oats. It’s all kinds of stuff that isn’t, for our purposes here, clean:

Oatmeal
Whole grain rolled oats, brown sugar, food starch-modified, salt, natural flavor (plant source), barley malt extract, caramel color.

Diced Apples
Apples, calcium ascorbate (a blend of calcium and vitamin C to maintain freshness and color).

Cranberry Raisin Blend
Dried sweetened cranberries (sugar, cranberries), California raisins, golden raisins, sunflower oil, sulfur dioxide (preservative).

Light Cream
Milk, cream, sodium phosphate, datem, sodium stearoyl lactylate, sodium citrate, carrageenan. [source]

And looking at the details, the oatmeal in and of itself has almost as much sugar as the fruit blend, which should be the natural source of sugar in the list, anyway. At 32g of sugar total… 14g of it existing for very little reason… I question whether or not its worth it to take steps backwards from my goal just to “be taken care of for once.”

Food, no matter how much we try to emotionalize it – “it” being the preparation and intake of food – and no matter how much we try to simplify it, serves one primary purpose in our lives: nourishment. We can never forget that, because it goes right back to the last paragraph in that quote:

I think what Bittman urges in his writing is is consciousness. He wants people to think hard about what they’re eating. I strongly suspect that people go to McDonald’s for the exact opposite reason–to get unconscious. Understanding why that it is, goes beyond our food. It’s about how we live.

The bottom line, without question, is consciousness. Awareness is what grants you the ability to spot opportunities to correct your behavior. Awareness is what enlightens us to make better choices. Really, awareness is how you develop the ability to learn new behaviors and identify how the changes you’re making in your lifestyle are benefitting you. You become aware of the problem, you correct, you notice how your corrections change your life and you develop a new system that comes complete with the reward of a changed life and, ultimately, a changed body.

So yes, you do have to understand why that is – why you eat emotionally and desire to be taken care of in this way – and what you can do to fix that… but in the meantime, that oatmeal ain’t gon’ cut it.

The Comforting Side Of Food is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. The Side-Effects of Obesity: “Overweight Is The New Norm”
2. Building A Home Workout Routine: The Side Bend
3. No Myths Here: Food Stamps, Food Deserts and Food Scarcity

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

Get BGG2WL delivered wirelessly to your Kindle! Click here for more info!

© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 14 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: clean eating, emotional eating, Fast Food, fast food restaurants, mark bittman, mcdonalds, mcdonalds oatmeal, oatmeal, the atlantic

And now, onto the serious business:

Q: How did you deal with your emotional issues on your journey? I struggle w/emotional eating.

At first, I didn’t realize what was happening.

Let me explain.

Once I realized that eating healthier – leaning more toward fruits and veggies – was the path to weight loss for me, it didn’t matter what was going on in my life because I had finally figured out my achilles heel. So I bought up all the veggies that I knew I liked, first and foremost, and just ate those (or those in some big dish) to satisfy myself.

What ended up happening, for me, was that I couldn’t emotionally eat because I didn’t have access to the foods I used to emotionally eat anymore. It wasn’t until after I had started researching emotional eating that I realized what had happened. In fact, I remember the moment my then-boyfriend and I broke up – my daughter and I were baking muffins, and once everything was said and done, I took the muffins out of the oven, stared at them for a very long time… handed my daughter a muffin (what can I say? The baby likes her muffins.) and put the rest in the fridge, where they remained for a week. Untouched. They eventually went in the trash.

For me, emotional eating was a result of my inability to cope with my surroundings. I retreated into food because it allowed me to do so, free of judgment, free of fear, free of obligation… it felt like a free fall. It was like being able to close my eyes, take a bite and feel like whatever problem I was facing would fade away. It was my own self-induced cloud nine. The problem with this, as I’m sure you can see, is that food doesn’t – in real life – make problems go away. When the sugary haze is faded and you’re left with reality to contend with, your problems are still staring you in the face. And since you still didn’t cope with them, you’re still left with the choice to either deal with the problem or retreat into the ice cream again.

I remember being 21 and pregnant with Mini-me, and being so afraid. It wasn’t like I knew that I was an emotional eater – I don’t think many people are aware that they are, but I’ll come back to this – I just knew that emotionally, I was stunted. Like, something was holding me back. I spoke with my sorority sister then, who was a psychiatrist. She just told me flat out – you just need to start dealing and learning how to cope. I was like “How do I do that?” I mean, I barely knew what she was talking about, so she was gonna have to give me more than that.

Nah, I got no love. “Google. Amazon. Something. Do some research.”

I know that seems cold, but people around me know I love a reason to go do some research. Besides, information that I find on my own just seems to feel more valuable to me. So… off I went. Searching for information on developing better coping skills, and how to develop a routine that works best for me. How to learn how to protect myself and my emotions, because if I let anyone or anything linger for too long… I’m going to be bruised to that point where I’ll emotionally eat, and be perpetually angry. Two things I really don’t want in my life.

From there, I developed a plan that allows me to deal with issues head on, relieve my stresses and maintain positive energy that resonates in who I am and everything I do. It’s made me a more blunt person, yes, but it makes me effective. It makes me quick-witted. It keeps me on my feet. It also forces me to address issues as they arise, and quickly squash them. I do mean… quickly.

I’ve been forced to develop a stress management plan. When I have an issue, I write down the immediate problem, and I backtrack – in ink – to the cause of the problem, then I address that first. (I no longer have to write it down, but the plan is still the same.) If it is something I can address immediately, I do. If I have to wait, I accept that and I move on to the next pressing matter. The serenity to accept what I cannot change, the courage to change what I can, the wisdom to know the difference. Say it, but live it, too.

The stress issue is also an important part of weight loss in and of itself because stress plays a direct part in your body’s ability to function properly:

Once upon a time, in a land not very far from your home… lived mankind. No fast cars, no shiny structures, no skyscrapers, nothing. Just man.. rock… and animals.

See, this worked for man because his only task was to hunt wildlife, and gather his kill for his family. That was his responsibility. His purpose was to bring the salt and fat from the animal to the family. Not work, not bills… just hunt. Because life was much simpler then, this was man’s sole source of stress.

One day, man could not hunt. Every time he threw his spear, he’d miss his prey. He just couldn’t catch SQUAT! His family was to go hungry and he just… he couldn’t take it. The stress started to build up inside of him.

Because stress about the inability to eat is the only source of stress for man, his body became used to the eventual chain of events. His body knows: Lots of stress = lack of food coming in. How did his body react? His body decided to hold on to what it had – by way of diminishing the amount of energy his body could exert all at one time, by way of making sure his body took a very long time to lose weight, by way of making sure it held onto every pound and fat cell it could. This bodily reaction would only further compel man to step up his hunting skills… why? Because he didn’t want to feel that way! He didn’t want his family to feel that way! He had to get his caveman hustle on! When man was finally able to tackle that antelope or whatever-what-have-you, the fats and salts in the meat were sooooo satisfying that they would cure man of the bodily reaction to stress.

Compare this to emotional eating.

It really is a dangerous cycle.. and it multiplies if you embrace and accept additional stresses because of your weight. In other words, if you are feeling intense outside pressure to lose weight, it compels you even further into emotional eating. This is why shaming doesn’t work. This is also why I don’t listen to society’s pleas about what my body should look like. It’s my body. I do what I want with it.

This is also why 95% of all weight loss success stories eventually turn into failures, because we over-simplify and minimize the psychological aspects of weight loss and wellness altogether – you have to be conscious and aware in order to successfully slay the dragon. It’s not just “lose the weight and it’s gone.” It’s “lose the weight, ditch the habits that brought it in the first place, get your head together and devote time to yourself to ensure that you keep it off.” If that involves getting therapy, then by all means. Do it. Not like having a therapist is anyone’s business but your own, anyway.

That being said, I don’t think emotional eating is something you can ever be “done with” if you’ve ever been in the throes of it. I do believe it operates like an addiction and, when faced with a situation that formerly would incite an episode of emotional eating, I may encounter the decision to “emotionally eat” or “deal with it.” The only difference between then and now is that I know the benefits of “dealing with it” far outweigh any benefits of “emotional eating,” and I know that “dealing with it” allows me to win. Every time.

Q&A Wednesday: Dealing With Emotional Eating is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. The Difference Between Enjoying Eating and Emotional Eating
2. What, Exactly, Is Emotional Eating?
3. Telling A Tale of Stress and Emotional Eating

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

Get BGG2WL delivered wirelessly to your Kindle! Click here for more info!

© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: emotional eating

Um, I took that as a sign. “Put the damn cigarette down.”

However, as my teen years faded, so did the swoop bang… and I picked up my boyfriend’s nasty habit. It wasn’t even regular cigarettes. It was cloves, for crying out loud. Easily, the most expensive habit an early 20-something could develop. I’d eventually leave that boyfriend behind, but his nasty habit remained.

The cloves, at about $9 per pack, were a struggle. The smell, the taste…. the way I could inhale smoke and exhale stress… it was seriously my habit. I’d smoke 5 a day – breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner… and sometimes a last one for a snack before bed. It was how I dealt with life. Work stress? Grab a smoke. Home stress? Grab a smoke. Not because the answer to my stress was somehow laced within my cigarette… but because I felt like I couldn’t access the answer unless it was through a cloud of clove smoke.

Obviously, considering the dire straits I was in at that time regarding my weight, the smoking wasn’t doing anything for my weight… or was it? I was still as overweight as I’d always been, clove or no clove. It didn’t protect me from myself, yet I do wonder… would I have weighed even more if I didn’t smoke? I mean, if the “logic,” so to speak, said that I was using smoking the same way I used food… then if the smokes weren’t there, would I have binged?

Then, there’s the issue of this, which appeared on NPR earlier last week:

Scientists say they have finally figured out how smoking helps people keep off extra pounds.

It turns out that nicotine activates a pathway in the brain that suppresses appetite, according to a study in the journal Science. This discovery should lead to better diet drugs, the researchers say.

The finding comes after decades of research showing that smokers tend to be a bit thinner than nonsmokers, and that smokers who quit tend to put on weight.

Researchers made the discovery after stumbling onto a major clue recently, says Marina Picciotto, a professor of psychiatry at Yale and one of the study’s authors.

The clue turned up during experiments looking for chemicals to treat depression, Picciotto says. A scientist at Yale named Yann Mineur was giving mice a chemical that’s a lot like nicotine, she says.

“He was watching these mice and he said, ‘You know what, they don’t eat as much as the mice that didn’t get this medication,’ ” she says. “And so he decided to follow that up. It was a window into how nicotine might be decreasing appetite.”

The scientists knew that nicotine must be triggering a response in certain brain cells. So they started looking at cells in the hypothalamus, a part of the brain known to regulate appetite. And they focused on a type of nerve cell, called POMC cells, known to be involved in eating behavior.

Sure enough, nicotine made these POMC cells more active. But the researchers still needed to figure out how nicotine was communicating with these cells.

To find out, the team took a closer look at the different types of receptors on the surface of the cells, Picciotto says.

“And we actually thought that maybe the same nicotine receptors that make you want to smoke, that make you rewarded when you smoke, would be the ones that also control appetite,” she says. “But we were wrong.”

So the team looked at another type of receptor. These receptors don’t make you feel good — they’re involved in the so-called fight-or-flight response that occurs when animals or people encounter a threat.

It turned out these fight-or-flight receptors responded to nicotine in a way that reduced hunger. That would make sense from an evolutionary perspective, Picciotto says.

“The fight-or-flight response is one where you actually want to preserve your energy to do something very important,” she says. “So maybe you don’t want to be out there eating while you’re supposed to be running away from a tiger.”

Strangely enough, when I gave up smoking, it was the same time that I gave up processed foods.. and that was two years ago on this very day, June 13th. It was the day that I decided to stop using outside resources to relieve stress in my life, be it sugary and salty foods or cigarettes. When this article refers to “fight-or-flight” response and energy preservation, to me that’s talking about stress reduction – an overstressed person releases a lot of energy being anxious, and we all should “preserve our energy to do something very important.”

What’s interesting, to me, is that this information is going to be used to “create better diet drugs.” What I’d really like this information to be used for, is for us to realize that smoking – much like food – alleviates stress in the same way that adequate coping skills would, as well… and that the answer to this is, quite frankly, to develop those coping skills. It makes the smoking and the food seem that much more useless.

As I’ve said before, developing stronger coping mechanisms has made me a much more capable person. I don’t need to rely on an outside chemical or resource to stabilize my emotions or regain my ability to be a problem solver anymore. I allow myself the space and time to assess whatever is causing my emotional reaction, and I trust my instincts in regards to creating my solution. I no longer need a breakfast, lunch and dinner smoke.

The rest of the NPR article above mentions using “the patch” as an adequate means of helping one quit smoking, as well as nicotine gum. I know that there’s also prescription medication – my Mother used it when she quit a few years back – that works very well but I, true to form, went very cold turkey. What can I say? I’m young, cheap, with limited resources and didn’t want to be a clove addict for the rest of my life. Besides, the state of Florida was adding almost $2 worth of taxes to my habit, bringing each pack to an astonishing $11. No thanks. In the interest of cheapness, it had to go.

When I quit, I kept myself busy to the point where I wouldn’t need to smoke. I had at-home workouts. I had jogging to do. I had yoga. I had bellydancing. I was in hyperdrive and loving it. When problems arose, I was quick to solve them simply because I wanted to get back to the other fun stuff I had to do. For anyone embarking on that struggle, might I suggest assessing the situations that compel you to feel as though you need to smoke, and doing what you can to alleviate that stress… and experience your “reward” from being a problem solver, not a chemical reaction in the brain? Arm yourself with stress relievers – anything from nightly boxing classes to jogging to meditation (!) to stressballs – and give yourself time to think, and the space to be vulnerable so that you can acknowledge your stressors. No matter how strong we may think we are, we are not impervious to stress. Not now, not ever.

How do you deal with stress? Do you struggle with quitting smoking? Did you struggle? How’d you get beyond the habit?

My Struggle With Quitting Smoking And Weight Gain is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Skipping Breakfast: A Surefire Way To Gain Weight
2. Q&A Wednesday: A Black Girl’s Guide To Weight GAIN?
3. Vanity Sizing: Accidentally Masking Weight Gain?

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

Get BGG2WL delivered wirelessly to your Kindle! Click here for more info!

© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 14 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: emotional eating, stress, stress reduction, stress relief, stressors, vulnerability

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of someone sending me this blog post regarding sexual harassment (or catcalling, as it is so lovingly called) on the street. It uses some extremely adult (and, in some cases, offensive) language, but I don’t believe that this means her point is any less valid. Go read it.

No, really. I’ll wait.

I want to highlight one passage from the post in particular:

Often times, the response is simply ‘oh, well’, the woman shouldn’t be walking down the street ‘like that’. Or she should expect to be harassed based on the way her body is built. Or that a woman should ‘appreciate’ the attention, as if a blatant sexual comment from a stranger is something to be desired. There are the occasional few who are capable of empathy and do go on to recognize how their behavior may be undesirable. Some simply say they are mocking what they see other men do. I ask do the women respond favorably and I know they don’t. So I wonder what makes Black men think this behavior should be perpetuated.

I’m tired of it. I’m tired of being considered community property just because some men think my skin color makes me a member of a secret harem and I owe them the time of day and some pussy and a blow job.

I want to be invisible. My daughter now dresses in boy clothes. Her sexuality has been a topic people feel they have the right to speak on ever since she was 5 years old and learned to dress herself.

No one asks why my daughter dresses to hide her gender; why she wears layers upon layers of clothes; why she wants to be invisible. She’s had to see me be harassed in the street her entire life. Why would she want to be seen?

Since we’re all coming out of hiding and keeping it real… I’ll go ahead and do the same. I am a victim of sexual harassment.

As a young girl in Cleveland, our childhood environment was full of kids going out of their way to be little adults. I can’t tell you the number of kids joining gangs, carrying knives and guns, cursing, making their dolls have sex, playing hide-and-go-get-it (please, don’t ask), and goodness knows what else I knew. There were some girls who loved that kind of attention (those girls also, by and large, became Mothers at an early age), but it made me uncomfortable. Extremely uncomfortable, simply because it was always taken too far… and it’s not a far leap from harassment to assault in a heightened situation. Gaining weight felt like solace to me… the more weight I gained, the less attractive I would be, the less likely I’d be to be harassed on the street.

It was strange because, by a stroke of luck, my parents decided to pack up and move us to Indiana. Actually, the best high school in the state… devoid of diversity yet full of girls who were thin, blonde and nothing like me. I didn’t feel like I was in competition with them for boy attention, not because none of them liked Black girls – that wasn’t true – but because I was too busy trying to be invisible to the attention I expected to get. They were competing with one another for the same group of boys.. meanwhile I was on my own just trying to hide.

Once I left for college, I was in a much more diverse environment. I wasn’t really ready for dating, didn’t know much about men, so I experienced my fair share of “college dating woes.” However, I had developed this unhealthy ability to hide who I was within what I ate. I had already learned how to not pay attention to my body or what I was doing to it. I had already gotten used to not being paid attention to – it was what I wanted. I learned a cycle of dysfunction that centered around not wanting attention… and had become so used to it that I couldn’t see what was wrong with it.

Obviously, since I have a child, I was able to (hopefully) date and procreate with someone, right? Of course, I eventually found a man who “loved me for who I was, not my outside appearance.” Keep that in mind. The relationship lasted a few years, but has since dissolved. I dated once more after that, but that was it. Right before that ended, I began to focus on my mental and physical health… and while I get that together, I’ve made the decision to remain celibate.

Now, as a single parent tasked with teaching my child all the things I was unable to learn about myself and my health and my body , I’m left with questions and assumptions that may not be easy to discuss… but I can assure you that they’re not easy to write.

First, I cannot help but wonder if this explains the disconnect between Black women and our bodies – the fact that a large number of us went out of our way to stop paying attention to our bodies because we were too busy trying to make ourselves less appealing to harassers. Furthermore, I notice that there’s a lot of discouragement during the ages where young girls are supposed to be learning about and understanding their bodies… to do exactly that. I wonder if we are, in a roundabout way, encouraging harmful behavior in our daughters because we are trying to discourage male attention… and beyond that, sexual harassment and assault?

I’ve been raped and assaulted; because I refused to acknowledge and accept a Black man’s advances. There are women who have been gunned down in the street because they refused to play along with a Black man’s attempt at flirting.

I’ve been called every combination of whores, bitches, cunts and skank.

I’ve been accused of, asked and requested to do any of a number of things with my body.

I’ve been threatened with sexual assault repeatedly by people I don’t know and who may or may not have been capable or willing to go through with their threat.

I’ve been spat on.

I’ve been hit.

I’ve been groped.

All after declining the verbal advances of a random Black man on a corner/block/street/ in a town that doesn’t much matter.

Think about that. How well can you relate to that? How prevalent do you think this is? How prevalent do you think this is where the majority of our young girls are being raised?

Secondly, if we spend so much time trying to discourage male attention, when are we teaching our daughters how to handle any male attention? I mean, I’m in the business of raising healthy young women. I want her to know how to, in one hand, appreciate a compliment while, in the other hand, being able to acknowledge unwanted attention. I want her to know that one has absolutely nothing to do with her, while the other has everything to do with someone acknowledging the beautiful person she is.

Really, I want to get into some good ol’ feminist theory and ask why it is easier for us as women to put ourselves through this than it is to correct the behavior of the men… or perhaps ask why no one sees this as another devaluation of Black girls and women (saying that it’s easier for a Black woman to just not “look that way” – you know, the way that we are genetically inclined to look -  than it is to just raise our boys better)… or maybe even ask how it became a mainstream principle that women were objectified and their respect came secondary to a man’s gratification… but I recognize that this post didn’t set out with that in mind.

I also want to know why we seek out men who will “love us for who we are,” as if we, in a way, are afraid of a man actually appreciating how we look. Or are we unable to understand that a man can healthily appreciate a woman’s appearance without objectifying her? Orrrrr do we simply not want to be held accountable for our appearance, so we want a man who won’t hold us accountable for it? I mean, let’s keep it real – any person who stays with us stays with the desire to love us for who we are… that’s a default. Why don’t we want more than that? Why is it so wrong to ask for more? Ingrained devaluation?

Can I also see if anyone else sees this as blaming the “victim?” If we’re allowing ourselves to “hide” the beautiful people we are because we’re afraid of something we shouldn’t have to endure in the first place? We’re blaming ourselves for the crap happening in the first place… instead of placing the blame on the perpetrators of the harassment. And if we’re trying to keep our daughter from “being fass,” then aren’t we blaming them in advance? Don’t we, really, just perpetuate this idea that women control everything… and men should be held responsible for nothing? Ladies, I know it’s flattering to think that your cupcakes and your ho-ho are that “powerful,” but as you can see… it’s not.

Someday, we’ll have to learn that sexual harassment, much like sexual assault and rape, are about the perpetrator trying to flex their power on the victim. It isn’t about how you look… it’s about the perpetrator going out of their way to reinforce the idea that they have some kind of power over you. What power, you ask? The power that society bestows men by default… but again, that’s feminist theory for you. Again, I know we like to think that we are the center of everything, but really.. this is one of those times where we need to let that go. Taking blame for a man’s bad behavior to the point where we harm ourselves to “avoid it?” As if fat women are never victims of sexual harassment or assault or, dare I say… rape?

Don’t worry – in this post, I am largely speaking of myself. And in my heart of hearts, I believe that I was able to move beyond this mentality because I was forced to – my health was on the line. I had a child to raise alone, and feared not being around to do it. But now that so many of us are succumbing to the disease chain of poor health… will we finally do what we need to do?

Sexual Assault, Sexual Harassment, & Weight Gain: Facing Facts is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. A Follow Up To Sexual Harassment, Sexual Assault & Weight Gain: Facing Insensitivity
2. A Follow Up To Sexual Harassment, Sexual Assault & Weight Gain: Outside Perspective
3. My Struggle With Quitting Smoking And Weight Gain

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

Get BGG2WL delivered wirelessly to your Kindle! Click here for more info!

© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 67 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: assault, emotional eating, harassment, sex, sexual assault, sexual harassment

Firstly, I see all white women, almost all brunettes.

I also see emotional eating.

You know why I see emotional eating? Look at what they’re “indulging” in. They’re indulging in cupcakes. Cakes. Pies. Comfort food. Things that are good for making you feel. You can’t eat emotionally on broccoli (unless your Mom loved you with broccoli… and that’s a tad bit rare.) It doesn’t have the tools – read: sugar and fat and salt – to give you what you’re looking for.

I see women eating in silence. In hiding. I mean, because you’re overindulging so much that surely, you can’t eat this way in front of another human being, right?

I see women who were never raised to understand that there’s no shame in enjoying the pleasures of food. I see women who were never given the tools to destress and detach themselves from their day.

There was a movie I saw once, where the girl was an active cutter. She used cutting herself as a way of relaxing and decoupling from the stresses in her day to day life. I bring this up because she was painfully meticulous about it. She’d carry her cutting kit with her everywhere she went. She had a little routine to her set up, too – she’d retrieve her kit, open it, lay out her tools (first aid, blade, sharpener), sharpen her cutting tool, exhale… and go to work.

This reminds me of that.

I see addiction. From the DSM IV:

• Preoccupation with use of the chemical between periods of use.
• Using more of the chemical than had been anticipated.
• The development of tolerance to the chemical in question.
• A characteristic withdrawal syndrome from the chemical.
• Use of the chemical to avoid or control withdrawal symptoms.
• Repeated efforts to cut back or stop the drug use.
• Intoxication at inappropriate times (such as at work), or when withdrawal interferes with daily functioning (such as when hangover makes person too sick to go to work).
• A reduction in social, occupational or recreational activities in favor of further substance use.
• Continued substance use in spite of the individual having suffered social, emotional, or physical problems related to drug use.

I see a few of those embodied in this picture.

Can you imagine seeking pleasure from something that, when you finally bite into it, doesn’t even compel you to crack a smile? I mean, I wrote a while back a post about being afraid of food… and this is what I see, here. Women who are afraid of food in a sense that compels them to deal with the duality of “knowing better” but being addicted to the feeling they get from the food… and having no one to talk to about food addiction do things like this. (the people around them may even say things like “you’re supposed to be addicted to food! duh!” or “food isn’t an addiction. you just have no self control.”)

I know lots of people normalize this kind of behavior – “There’s nothing wrong with this… I do this all the time, and I’m just fine…” but it worries me. The woman sitting in the bathroom near the toilet? Terribly troubling. The woman hugging the pie in the bathroom? Cringeworthy. Food shouldn’t “love you” like that.

The Society Pages opens their post on these paintings as follows:

Growing up in America, we learn that sweets and junk food are “guilty pleasures.” Women, especially, are supposed to refrain from such indulgences.  And, if they cannot — if they, for example, desire more than that modest slice of cake served to each birthday guest — then they should feel not only guilt, but shame.  For overindulging is grotesque and it, accordingly, should be hidden and kept secret.

This is the cultural background to Lee Price‘s realist paintings of women (mostly her) eating sweets and junk food.  She draws two contrasts.  First, she makes very public something we are supposed to do only in private.  Not only do the paintings literally display the transgression, the birds eye view and frequent nudity exaggerates the sheer display of the indulgence.  And, second, she takes something that is supposedly disgusting and shameful and presents it in a medium associated with (high) art, challenging the association of indulgence with poor character and a lack of refinement.  Fascinating. [source]

I must admit, though, that the fact that they don’t bring up the fact that these images embody the characteristics of addiction or the visuals of emotional eating is troublesome.. but it just lets me know that there’s a lot of work to do in regards to getting out the message.

What do you see, here? Do you see yourself in any of these images? I know I did.

Portraits of Addiction: What Do Your See? is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. What Is Sugar Addiction?
2. Take The Quiz: Do You Have An Unhealthy Food Addiction?
3. On Whitney: Addiction, Grieving and Coping

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

Get BGG2WL delivered wirelessly to your Kindle! Click here for more info!

© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 24 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: addiction, art, binging, disordered eating, eating disorder, eating disorders, emotional eating, food guilt, food shaming, guilt, habits, lee price, shame, society, women

Though there are a lot of women who are well aware of what emotional eating truly is and how it affects our ability to conquer weight loss as well as improve our health… there are a lot of us who kind of gloss over the topic – either intentionally or subconsciously – because we either don’t know the realities of it, or we simply fear the realities of it.

Hopefully, I can provide an easy and clear understanding.

A while back, I remember hearing this quote: “If hunger is not the problem, food is not the answer.” It didn’t dawn on me what that meant, because I was so thick in the throes of finally overcoming my weight hurdles that nothing could make me so upset that I’d emotionally eat. It didn’t dawn on me until much later on that that quote addresses emotional eating head on.

What is emotional eating? It’s eating for any purpose other than nourishing the body. If you’re not running the super-extend-race-of-a-lifetime, there’s no reason to gorge out on pasta. If you’re not genuinely in need of nourishment, you’re not genuinely in need of food.

How do you spot emotional eating?

From WebMD:

1. Emotional hunger comes on suddenly; physical hunger occurs gradually.

2. When you are eating to fill a void that isn’t related to an empty stomach, you crave a specific food, such as pizza or ice cream, and only that food will meet your need. When you eat because you are actually hungry, you’re open to options.

3. Emotional hunger feels like it needs to be satisfied instantly with the food you crave; physical hunger can wait.

4. Even when you are full, if you’re eating to satisfy an emotional need, you’re more likely to keep eating. When you’re eating because you’re hungry, you’re more likely to stop when you’re full.

5. Emotional eating can leave behind feelings of guilt; eating when you are physically hungry does not.

I really like this list because we all know situations where this list applies – the girl who just broke up with her boyfriend and now needs a pint of cookies-n-cream, the woman who just got chewed out by her boss and must find the nearest bakery – and we all may be able to recall a time where we’ve eaten beyond our “full” feeling because we were eating for that “ahhhh” feeling. There’s also this point about guilt – if I’m genuinely starving (which shouldn’t happen), I don’t feel bad about eating to fix that. If I’m eating emotionally, I’m giving up my ability to control how much food I take in because I’m not eating for nourishment, which has a finite point (that full feeling.) I’m eating to achieve an emotional feeling which, as we’ve seen lately, can very well take me beyond the point of fullness… and beyond the amount of calories I should be consuming for the meal, or even for the day.

There’s also the issue of what one chooses to use as a tool in emotional eating. It’s never “Oh, I’ve gotta have some broccoli right now.” It’s never “If I don’t get some carrots… right now.. I’m gonna cry!” It’s “Where’s the number to Papa John’s?” This is where the term “comfort food” comes into play.

How and why does emotional eating work?

How is it that emotional eating can cause and trigger such a response in the brain?

Once upon a time, in a land not very far from your home… lived mankind. No fast cars, no shiny structures, no skyscrapers, nothing. Just man.. rock… and animals.

See, this worked for man because his only task was to hunt wildlife, and gather his kill for his family. That was his responsibility. His purpose was to bring the salt and fat from the animal to the family. Not work, not bills… just hunt. Because life was much simpler then, this was man’s sole source of stress.

One day, man could not hunt. Every time he threw his spear, he’d miss his prey. He just couldn’t catch SQUAT! His family was to go hungry and he just… he couldn’t take it. The stress started to build up inside of him.

Because stress about the inability to eat is the only source of stress for man, his body became used to the eventual chain of events. His body knows: Lots of stress = lack of food coming in. How did his body react? His body decided to hold on to what it had – by way of diminishing the amount of energy his body could exert all at one time, by way of making sure his body took a very long time to lose weight, by way of making sure it held onto every pound and fat cell it could. This bodily reaction would only further compel man to step up his hunting skills… why? Because he didn’t want to feel that way! He didn’t want his family to feel that way! He had to get his caveman hustle on! When man was finally able to tackle that antelope or whatever-what-have-you, the fats and salts in the meat were sooooo satisfying that they would cure man of the bodily reaction to stress.

Compare this to emotional eating. The body’s reaction doesn’t change no matter what variables you swap out. Regardless if the stress comes from traffic, bad work day, or family problems… the body’s reaction to stress has not evolved as fast as society has. Now, we can get food within ten minutes if we drive or own a microwave. So presuming our body believes that stress is caused by a “famine on the way,” then it’s going to trigger feelings to make you go hunt! Our bodies just don’t know how easy it is to get food just yet. It hasn’t caught up.

This is what compels us to believe that emotional eating is the answer.

Emotional eating is defined as eating for a purpose other than curing hunger. If you’re eating for that gooey “Mmmmm” feeling, then yes – chances are, you might be emotionally eating. Approximately 75% of all overeating is attributed to emotional eating.

Because our bodies always provide this same reaction to food in a time of stress, our body’s reward system tells us that it makes sense to eat when stressed. It’s the fastest way to rid ourselves of this negative emotion, right? Stressed out about money and bills? You’re probably going to find the cheapest and quickest way to stick something in your mouth to give you that warm and fuzzy feeling. For some of us, that means we’ll be Dollar Menunaires for an hour. For some of us, that means we’ll be hittin’ up the Edy’s or Blue Bell. For others, we’ll be needing peanut butter and jelly, mac and cheese, or chocolate chip cookies.

Excerpted from Telling A Tale of Stress and Emotional Eating | A Black Girl’s Guide To Weight Loss

What is a comfort food? It’s a food eaten to provide comfort, usually laden with sugar, fat, salt or a wild combination of such. Macaroni and cheese, the ultimate comfort food, is a prime example: the overabundance of fat and salt can quickly put you in a food coma.

It’s easy to see how emotional eating can hinder one’s efforts to lose weight and gain control of our eating habits… but how do you stop?

How do you stop emotional eating?

Remember – if you are using emotional eating as a crutch to bring that kind of “peace” and “satisfaction” to your life, you are using emotional eating as a coping mechanism. You’re basically using it to make you happy. Think long and hard about that – is there happiness missing in other places in your life? Is there no other way you can bring yourself satisfaction? Are you avoiding stressful situations? The best way to deal with stress is to face the source of the stress head up. Developing a hobby – knitting, beading, kickboxing, jogging, yoga – or finding an outlet for your frustration so that you have something to do will make a difference. It’s much better than sitting idly by inhaling ice cream because we feel lonely.

The very same WebMD article offers these answers:

• Recognize emotional eating and learn what triggers this behavior in you.
• Make a list of things to do when you get the urge to eat and you’re not hungry, and carry it with you, according to the Tufts Nutrition web site. When you feel overwhelmed, you can put off that desire by doing another enjoyable activity.
• Try taking a walk, calling a friend, playing cards, cleaning your room, doing laundry, or something productive to take your mind off the craving — even taking a nap, according to the Tufts Nutrition web site.
• When you do get the urge to eat when you’re not hungry, find a comfort food that’s healthy instead of junk food. “Comfort foods don’t need to be unhealthy,” says Wansink.
• For some, leaving comfort foods behind when they’re dieting can be emotionally difficult. Wansink tells WebMD, “The key is moderation, not elimination.” He suggests dividing comfort foods into smaller portions. For instance, if you have a large bag of chips, divide it into smaller containers or baggies and the temptation to eat more than one serving can be avoided.
• When it comes to comfort foods that aren’t always healthy, like fattening desserts, Wansink also offers this piece of information: “Your memory of a food peaks after about four bites, so if you only have those bites, a week later you’ll recall it as just a good experience than if you polished off the whole thing.” So have a few bites of cheesecake, then call it quits, and you’ll get equal the pleasure with lower cost.

I believe that once you know the “benefit” of emotional eating, it takes a very long time to recognize exactly how unsustainable it is as a habit in clean eating. I believe it also takes a lot of time learning how to be conscious of your surroundings and triggers to beat it. It is absolutely possible, though, with the right amount of awareness and self-care… but with those two things, anything’s possible.

How do you identify your emotional eating habits? How are you learning to overcome? How have you overcame thus far?

What, Exactly, Is Emotional Eating? is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. The Difference Between Enjoying Eating and Emotional Eating
2. Q&A Wednesday: Dealing With Emotional Eating
3. Telling A Tale of Stress and Emotional Eating

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

Get BGG2WL delivered wirelessly to your Kindle! Click here for more info!

© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 18 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: emotional eating

Definitely not my kitchen.. my kitchen usually has spices everywhere.. and random crayon markings. Sigh.

I think, because we always see these amazing chefs on our TV screens, that we think we know what “great cooking” looks like.  Aside from the fact that not everyone thinks TV chefs are, in all actuality, great chefs… we shortchange ourselves idolizing these people.

I mean, I’ll keep it real – Sandra Lee cooks everything from a box or a can. It might look “great” (again, questionable) in the end, but her style of “cooking” doesn’t serve our purposes, here at BGG2WL. Rachael Ray, while she’s all over the place with magazines and books lauding her cooking, is the comfort food queen. Comfort food, if you’ll recall, is the stuff we use to emotionally eat.

I think that idolizing these TV chefs only serves to further separate us from our goals of becoming the person who can create an amazing dish with limited resources and in a short amount of time. I know that when I’m in my kitchen tossing stuff around trying to figure out what, on Earth, to cook… I don’t rock an outfit perfectly matching my kitchen, with perfect makeup, and every perfect piece of equipment in my kitchen. Sometimes, I get gritty. Sometimes, I even sweat (not in the food, though.) And sometimes, I even – gasp – screw up. Having said that, there are five things that I think we should remember when it comes to making ourselves better kitchen dynamos.

1) You don’t need to spend an arm and a leg on high-tech equipment to be an amazing chef. Can it help? Yes, much like wearing high heels can make you sexier. Sure, they help you accomplish your goal, but a creative person certainly can accomplish their goal without it.

At least half of my kitchen was stocked thanks to the dollar store. Yes, the dollar store. Spatulas, ladles, cutting boards, graters, kitchen scissors, measuring cups, measuring spoons, pot holders, colanders and knives. All things that you can stand to purchase for a dollar.

News flash: Products on clearance aren’t always “less than” their full price counterparts… especially when that product was full price a week ago. Approximately 99% of my kitchen appliances were purchased on clearance. Have a little patience, save your money for a clearance… then go in for the kill. I own an awesome 15-piece stainless steel cookware set… superclearance for $40. It’s lasted me 3 years thus far.. no trouble.

Beyond all that… there are cultures that make amazing food with little more than a mortar, a pestle, and a bonfire. Amazing food. I’m almost certain they would cringe at the thought of using our fancy equipment. Just another way to show that the equipment doesn’t make the chef.

2) Your screw-ups will taste disgusting, be hilarious, and always teach you something. I remember the first time I realized the difference between chili powder and curry powder. It was a bad day for mankind. I also remember the day I learned just how much ginger I could use in a dish before I sent my daughter crying from the table in a fit of dispair. Again, a bad day for mankind. How about the day I learned how to really cook brown rice? That day, I had to give my little one a hug because she suffered through all those traumatic servings of crunchy brown rice. But now that I know how to make an awesome brown rice? I’m unstoppable. Now that I understand ginger better? My stir-fry is awesomeness in a wok. Now that I know the difference between chili powder and curry powder, well… my daughter actually eats her food. Trial and error is fun in my house.

3) There is no such thing as “that’s not a meal.” I’m generally opposed to big giant monument sized dinners – particularly because small portions of a gigantic meal are the same as gigantic portions of a meal with small offerings – but I’m also opposed to the idea that says something traditionally used for one purpose cannot serve another purpose. You might not eat a slice of bread from the grocery for breakfast… but if you bake a loaf of banana bread and give yourself a slice for breakfast? That is a meal. It is hearty, has fruit, fiber, will wake you up.. and save yourself a few calories in place of cereal and milk. Don’t be afraid to make an amazing dish out of a small amount of ingredients. It allows you to enjoy the flavors you’re combining that much more!

4) Just because you don’t like a fruit or vegetable by itself… doesn’t mean you can’t find a good use for it. There are a lot of things I cannot stand by themselves – cranberries, for instance – that go wonderfully in other dishes – for instance, apple pie. If I counted them out completely, I’d never be able to take advantage of that super sweetness they have naturally, allowing me to use less sugar in my apple pie recipe. I cringe – cringe – at the thought of eating eggplant alone, but I do enjoy it chopped up in a salad with sun-dried tomatoes and a little olive oil. Zucchini and I don’t get along at all, but I learned that they are amazing on pizza. Yes. Pizza.

5) There is something actually fulfilling about cooking… and it’s okay to seek out that fulfillment. I don’t know what it is… but there is a feeling I get from mixing up all the ingredients from scratch, watching it cook to my liking, feeding it to my little one, and watching her fall totally in love with it. Biting into my own work, and feeling as if I’ve accomplished a masterpiece? That’s an ego boost… much like when I braid my daughter’s hair into a replica of The Eiffel Tower (I’m kidding… sorta) or if I finish a project early for work. Just makes me feel like I know what I’m doing… and that never hurts.

What do you have to share with newbie chefs? Are you a newbie chef with questions? Have a good kitchen screw-up to share? (Aw, c’mon, I love those!) Let’s hear it!

5 Things You Should Know About Becoming A Great Cook is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Great Hair or Great Body? Straight Hair and Working Out
2. Now That I’m Clean Eating, What Can I Cook?
3. Three Great Ways To Exercise At Home

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

Get BGG2WL delivered wirelessly to your Kindle! Click here for more info!

© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 27 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: cooking, emotional eating, food network, fruits, kwanzaa cake, rachael ray, sandra lee, vegetables

What also makes sense is that when it comes time to change as a person, if our friends can’t accept that change or downplay/inhibit that change in some fashion, they should fall to the wayside… right?

So what happens when our friends are standing in the way of our growth as healthy individuals? Think about it. Do we get together over a jog, or over a giant Three-For-All (pictured above)? Do we get together and drink a six pack together, or do we go someplace…. where food isn’t involved? If I suggest that we get together over an activity, not a meal… is someone wondering, “Yeah, and can we stop at Chili’s? I’m starving!”

I think it’s a difficult realization to face – that the people we love might be enabling bad habits that are hazardous to our health. I remember my best friend – who actually models – and I always would get together for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and/or the bar. She started working out at a local gym, and I… went for 7 days. That was it for us and the gym thing. And eventually, the more in-tune she got with her health, the more time it resulted in her spending away from me. Phone time? I’ve got you covered. Otherwise, it wasn’t happening.

I can admit it now – her “healthiness” made me uncomfortable! It was a constant reminder of how unhealthy I was, and instead of telling myself “Yeah, she might lap me on the track but I’m good if I keep going,” I said “I’m not going to embarrass myself like this!” She would also tell you, that my friendship was bad for her health. We talked all the time, but we couldn’t hang – because I always needed food to be involved, for some reason. That’s just the way it was. We can joke about it now, but it’s an underlying issue in many friendships, I’d presume.

Enter this lovely article that I came across via Yahoo! discussing how our friendships impact our health. Taken from the article:

In the study, 130 kids ages 9 to 15 were allowed to snack as much as they wanted while hanging out with a friend or with a peer they did not know. All the kids ate more when they were with a friend than with a stranger. But the overweight children ate the most when paired with an overweight friend – an average of 300 more calories than when they spent time with leaner friends. The research also found that friendship itself makes the appetite grow stronger: when overweight kids ate with similar-weight kids who were already their pals, they threw back an extra 250 calories than when they ate with chubby kids they had just met.

If that wasn’t enough to make you raise an eyebrow, here’s a little more:

Socializing with overweight people can change what we perceive as the norm; it raises our tolerance for obesity both in others and in ourselves. It’s also about letting your hair down. Past research has shown that adults tend to eat more around friends and family than they do with strangers. They shed their inhibitions about how it looks when they go back for thirds or order the alfredo sauce instead of the marinara.

I’ve got one more that goes in line with what I mentioned earlier:

Finally, there’s the idea that we like to hang with people who are like ourselves. Cornell food sociologist Jeffrey Sobal explains that “especially among two overweight people, there’s a sort of permission-giving going on. We’re encouraging each other to eat more.”

So knowing this, what do we do? Do we start dumping our friends who are less healthy than ourselves? Do we begin to grow offended by the friends who might’ve faded out of our lives? Do we simply chalk it up to natural progression and look forward to experiencing our own?

I can honestly tell you, I don’t know. Almost ALL of my friends were in single-digit sizes. They all tried to help me, but I had to come to this conclusion about my self and my health.. on my own. With the logic in this article, I should’ve fallen by the wayside a long time ago.

However, their lack of desire to talk to me about health and fitness wasn’t helping me, either. It was almost as if it made them uncomfortable, or they were afraid to hurt my feelings. No lie, it probably would’ve hurt my feelings for sure. It enabled my bad behavior (not like they should be responsible for it in any capacity, anyhow.) It took my making friends who were as fitness focused as I eventually became to help me integrate my healthy habits into my life.

It took me seeing that people “really live this way” (and yes, I put that in quotation marks because that’s the exact quote I said to myself!) for me to accept that this was an option for me. It took me learning that people “really think about these things” when they order food. And sure enough, when I started to blindly and openly talk about these things with my friends, all of a sudden we started to have new conversations! About calories, cooking, health, fitness, exercise, yoga, junk food, everything! It was like they were keeping a part of themselves away from me because they didn’t want to hurt me. Sure enough, our friendships grew much better beyond that because we were able to bond over one more important part of our lives. I learned a lot of the things that I share in this blog from those relationships.

So, I say all of that to say this: If your friends are hindering your progress, don’t just fall back – if they’re in the same boat as you, talk to them and see if you all have the same concerns and are just afraid to bring them up. If they’re “not concerned” or “just trying to enjoy today,” then find more friends to share your fitness goals and experiences with… and serve as a role model for your friends who are in the same boat as you. You never know who you may inspire, or who may bond with you after they become inspired by your progress!

What About Your Friends: Are They Helping Or Hindering Your Progress? is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Motivation and Measuring Weight Loss Progress: The Progress Dress
2. Q&A Wednesday: Unsupportive Friends Tell Me “Live A Little!”
3. A Year Of Progress In Photos

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

Get BGG2WL delivered wirelessly to your Kindle! Click here for more info!

© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: emotional eating, relationships, social eating

In my opinion, if you’re an emotional eater, then your emotional eating and sugar addiction go hand in hand. Sugar addiction exists because of the feeling that ingesting sugar gives you, and the amount that you ingest will increase each time you eat and don’t get the same kind of feeling you were hoping for. The chase of that high comes coupled with a slew of calories, which is why it can become a weight issue, as well. An emotional eater can also be an extremely active person and, therefore, not have any weight issues.

It wasn’t until I failed – several times – that I realized that I simply cannot eat processed foods. Call it – or me – whatever you will, I know my limitations… and they include products created by companies who have millions of dollars invested in creating formulas (because they aren’t recipes) that the public cannot resist. The best thing I could’ve done for myself, in this instance, was making myself aware of my limitations. This is one of them. They simply trigger a part of me that I have no desire to test to determine whether or not I’m truly beyond it.

That being said, when I saw that SparkPeople has an article about beating and defeating a sugar addiction, I was overjoyed. A lot of this outlines what I endured and how I overcame my own addiction, and I think I may even add to this later on in the future. It’s really a dope start.

From SparkPeople:

Week 1: Identify Sugar and Where It’s Hiding
The first step in conquering your sugar habit is to rid your pantry and refrigerator of added sugar. Some things (think ice cream, cookies and candy) are obvious, but most of us need to look closer at where the sugar in our diets is coming from. This will require a bit of label reading in the beginning, but after a while, it will become easier.

In order to cut back on hidden or added sugar, scan the ingredients list of a food label. If you see any of the following terms listed, then sugar has been added to the product in one form or another and it is best left on the shelf at the store—especially if that sugar shows up within the first five ingredients of any food product.

This first week is about awareness. Reading labels before you buy—or bite. How many of your favorite foods contain hidden sugars in the top of their ingredients lists?

Once you have identified the sources of sugar in your diet, clean out your kitchen. Throw out or donate all of the products that contain hidden or added sugars, including any juice, soda, candy, sweets and seemingly healthy snacks like granola bars, fruit and grain bars, instant oatmeal and sports drinks. This may sound drastic, but stay with me!

Remember, you don’t have to throw away everything that is sweet! Natural sugar, like the kind you find in whole fruit, contains vitamins, minerals and fiber, which are lost in the processing of juice. Milk contains naturally occurring sugars, but also provides calcium, vitamin D and protein. So unlike soda, fruit juices and other processed foods, whole fruit and dairy products provide us with essential vitamins and minerals that our bodies need. Be wary of certain fruit- or milk-based products that contain added sugars though: flavored milk, many yogurts, fruits canned or jellied in added sugar or syrups, and the like. Opt for unflavored skim or 1% milk, plain yogurt or Greek yogurt, and whole pieces of fruit. Remember, we are trying to cut out the 151 pounds a year of added sugar, not the naturally occurring sugar found in whole foods.

Week 2: Stock Your Sugar-Free Kitchen
In one week, you’ve probably found lots of sugar in your diet. Some of it may have been obvious, like those frozen waffles or lattes from the local coffee joint. But others might not have been so clear, as sugar tends to lurk in many “diet” foods and lower-fat foods, added by manufacturers to make their low-cal offerings taste better.

Now that you know what to look for (and avoid), it’s time to replace the products you tossed with sugar-free counterparts. For example, replace high-sugar cereals with a whole grain cereal that contains little to no added sugars. Sweeten it naturally with fresh berries or half of a diced banana. Instead of snacking on candy or cookies, reach for a handful of nuts or some raw veggies and hummus. Replace sweetened yogurt with Greek yogurt or plain yogurt. Look back at week one and the foods you used to eat that contained sugar. Can you find no-sugar oatmeal? A healthier snack than a sugar-sweetened smoothie (how about a whole piece of fruit)? A more filling afternoon treat than that sugary “protein bar” (such as peanut butter on whole-grain crackers)?

When choosing a refreshing beverage to quench your thirst, keep in mind that you want to eat your calories, not drink them. Choose ice cold water flavored with a squeeze of fresh lemon or an orange slice. Or flavor unsweetened iced tea with fresh mint, crushed raspberries, or a squeeze of citrus.

One tip to help you avoid added sugar at the supermarket is to shop the perimeter of the grocery store as much as possible. Think about the general layout of a grocery store: The outside is home to fresh fruits and vegetables, lean meats, dairy products, and whole grain breads and the inside aisles are stocked with cookies, chips, soda, fruit juice, cake mixes, and other processed foods. Spend most of your time on the outside and only go down the inner aisles for specific products, like whole-grain pasta.

Never shop on an empty stomach and always shop with a list. Shopping while hungry can lead you to adding all kinds of snacks and impulse buys to your cart. Meal planning can be a tricky task at first, but following a meal plan is an important part of breaking the sugar addiction. It will help to keep you on track and help prevent stopping for fast food when you don’t have a game plan for dinner. Spend a little time on Sunday afternoons jotting down some meal ideas for throughout the week. Make a list of the food items you will need to make the meals you wrote down and stick to it!

Week 3: Stop the Cravings
Now you really start to put your plan into action. You’ve identified the sources of added sugar in your diet and replaced those foods with healthier and more wholesome alternatives. Your kitchen is now set up for success!

This week’s focus should be on making a conscious effort to avoid sugary foods. When a craving strikes, try going for a walk or simply drinking a glass of water. Take a hot bath or get lost in a good book. Typically any craving will pass if you wait it out long enough. But it’s important to begin understanding the difference between true hunger and food cravings. If you are truly hungry, a handful of nuts or some raw veggies dipped in hummus will sound appetizing, so go ahead and eat one of your healthy snacks. But if you’re craving something sweet or a specific sugary food, use a distraction technique.

The first week of saying no to sugar will be the hardest, but the more diligently you stick to your plan, the better you’ll fare in the end. Even a tiny taste of sugar during this time period can lead to setbacks.

After a couple sugar-free weeks, your sugar threshold will start to decrease and you will find that you no longer crave sugar or sweets as you once did. As with any lifestyle change, the first couple of weeks are the hardest. Eventually, it will become habit to reach for a mint tea or piece of fruit instead of juice and candy.

Week 4: Game Plan for Life
Now that you have yanked that sweet tooth, it’s time to devise a plan to prevent a sugar relapse. Although sugar isn’t necessary for health and it’s perfectly fine if you want to continue avoiding it, it probably isn’t realistic for most people to avoid all forms of sugar forever.

So if you want to allow a little sweetness back into your life, that’s OK. Moderation is key. Don’t let sugar and sweets become a daily habit. Instead, consider them to be special occasion treats only. With your lowered threshold for sweetness, that shouldn’t be too hard. But if you begin to indulge too often or overindulge over a short period of time (such as a weeklong vacation), you could find yourself back in trouble with sugar all over again.

If you slip up, don’t beat yourself up over it. Accept your action and decide to make a better decision next time and move on. Continue to experiment with your new, healthy foods and recipes. You’d be surprised at how many ways you can make treats healthier and use far less sugar than a recipe suggests.

And remember: It generally takes about 3-4 weeks for a new behavior to become habit, the most important thing is to stick with it.

While there are a few parts of this that I don’t agree with – “moderation” being one of them, ignoring what makes people turn to sugar in the first place being another – there are large chunks of this that I believe parallel what I’ve experienced in my own journey. And while I, also, don’t think it’s only a “four week” affair, I think that taking a long, hard look at the steps it takes to defeat a sugar addiction can give many people the leg-up they require to be successful.

Thoughts?

The Four-Week Plan For Curbing Your Sugar Addiction is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. What Is Sugar Addiction?
2. Q&A Wednesday: Sugar, Food Addiction and Backsliding
3. Take The Quiz: Do You Have An Unhealthy Food Addiction?

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

Get BGG2WL delivered wirelessly to your Kindle! Click here for more info!

© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 21 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: clean eating, cravings, emotional eating, meal planning, processed foods, sugar addiction, sugar cravings

Do you treat yourself as well as you treat your friends and family?

That simple question is the basis for a burgeoning new area of psychological research called self-compassion — how kindly people view themselves. People who find it easy to be supportive and understanding to others, it turns out, often score surprisingly low on self-compassion tests, berating themselves for perceived failures like being overweight or not exercising.

The research suggests that giving ourselves a break and accepting our imperfections may be the first step toward better health. People who score high on tests of self-compassion have less depression and anxiety, and tend to be happier and more optimistic. Preliminary data suggest that self-compassion can even influence how much we eat and may help some people lose weight.

This idea does seem at odds with the advice dispensed by many doctors and self-help books, which suggest that willpower and self-discipline are the keys to better health. But Kristin Neff, a pioneer in the field, says self-compassion is not to be confused with self-indulgence or lower standards.

“I found in my research that the biggest reason people aren’t more self-compassionate is that they are afraid they’ll become self-indulgent,” said Dr. Neff, an associate professor of human development at the University of Texas at Austin. “They believe self-criticism is what keeps them in line. Most people have gotten it wrong because our culture says being hard on yourself is the way to be.”

Imagine your reaction to a child struggling in school or eating too much junk food. Many parents would offer support, like tutoring or making an effort to find healthful foods the child will enjoy. But when adults find themselves in a similar situation — struggling at work, or overeating and gaining weight — many fall into a cycle of self-criticism and negativity. That leaves them feeling even less motivated to change.

“Self-compassion is really conducive to motivation,” Dr. Neff said. “The reason you don’t let your children eat five big tubs of ice cream is because you care about them. With self-compassion, if you care about yourself, you do what’s healthy for you rather than what’s harmful to you.”

I cannot express enough how important this concept of self-compassion truly is. It’s why I say “I don’t diet.” It’s why my plan for developing a strong sense of body image includes thinking of how I’d treat my four year old daughter if I caught her saying the same things about her body that I used to say about mine. It’s why I don’t believe in “cheat meals.”

When it comes to weight loss, self-compassion – instead of negative talk and chastising oneself for lacking “will power” – is the key because self-compassion allows for us to make mistakes and, thereafter, learn lessons from those mistakes. Even in the days when I was eating 7-layer dip for breakfast, I knew I was wrong but I allowed myself to make the mistake and accept what consequences would come from it… and I never ate it again. Not “I never ate it for breakfast again,” but “I never ate it again. Period.”

Self-discipline might be the way to weight loss, but the missing factor in everyone’s understanding of self-discipline is that people who have never had self-discipline have to learn it somehow. It’s not simply “the frontal part of the brain region that fat people have never tapped into.” It is a learned trait… and that learning has to start somewhere that doesn’t include “going cold turkey.”

The article goes on from here:

A 2007 study by researchers at Wake Forest University suggested that even a minor self-compassion intervention could influence eating habits. As part of the study, 84 female college students were asked to take part in what they thought was a food-tasting experiment. At the beginning of the study, the women were asked to eat doughnuts.One group, however, was given a lesson in self-compassion with the food. “I hope you won’t be hard on yourself,” the instructor said. “Everyone in the study eats this stuff, so I don’t think there’s any reason to feel real bad about it.”

Later the women were asked to taste-test candies from large bowls. The researchers found that women who were regular dieters or had guilt feelings about forbidden foods ate less after hearing the instructor’s reassurance. Those not given that message ate more.

The hypothesis is that the women who felt bad about the doughnuts ended up engaging in “emotional” eating. The women who gave themselves permission to enjoy the sweets didn’t overeat. [source]

This is why I don’t believe in “cheating.” If I’m changing my lifestyle, what “good” does it do to create a lifestyle for myself where I have to “cheat” myself (because that’s the only person being cheated, here) in order to be successful? That’s a fail. Period.

I will admit, though, that I think there’s something missing from this entire conversation: people feel an inability to exercise restraint with food because, more often than not, they’re dealing with processed foods that alter their ability to “eat just one.” The fact that I couldn’t control myself when it came to certain foods was something that’d cause me to beat myself up a little bit, too. I can admit that.

See? That’s an example of self-compassion. My admitting that I wouldn’t have been able to control myself or lose my weight if I were still around processed foods? That’s me being compassionate to myself, being sympathetic to my shortcomings… instead of acting like my shortcomings don’t have to be acknowledged because some mystical mental power should exist to save me (and then calling myself an idiot, a loser and a failure for not being able to tap into it.)

I really want to read up on this and come back to it, but I’m especially interested in what everyone has to say about this study. How compassionate are you to yourself? Do you beat yourself up over food woes or missing your workout? Let’s talk!

Self-Compassion: A Key Factor In Weight Loss is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. “Weight Loss Is For People With Low Self-Esteem”
2. A Very Big Piece of My Weight Loss Story
3. Making Foolproof Weight Loss Resolutions For The New Year

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

Get BGG2WL delivered wirelessly to your Kindle! Click here for more info!

© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2011. | Permalink | 11 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: dieting, emotional eating, lifestyle change, mentality, self-compassion, weight loss

I don’t drink juice. Orange juice, apple juice, rooty rooty fresh and fruity juice, whatever. I don’t drink it.

I have my reasons, though.

A while back, I wrote this:

To be honest, I don’t know whether there’s much purpose to a “reasons to forgo food with added sugar” rant, simply because it breaks down to an understanding of “natural sugar” against “processed sugar.”

Okay, here goes.

In nature, the primary place you find sugar is in fruit (there’s also honey, but we’ll save that for another day.) The sugar in fruit is… fructose.

Sidebar: This, I presume, is why people always ask if they should “stop eating fruit,” mixing the anti-high fructose corn syrup message up with the understanding that fructose is a “natural sugar found in fruit.” There’s a big difference between the two.

Whenever you find fruit in nature, it is paired with two things: nutrients and fiber. Emphasis on the fiber. The fiber within the fruit blunts the impact of the sugar on your system and helps cleanse your insides out at the same time.

Excerpted from: Q&A Wednesday: High Fructose Corn Syrup vs. Table Sugar | A Black Girl’s Guide To Weight Loss

The further we take sugar out of its natural context – meaning, the further we take sugar from its origins… granulated sugar and sucanat from sugar cane, beet sugar, etc – the more problematic it becomes. Why? Because there’s no fiber. There’s very little in pure sugar that can fill us up, and since our body is always sifting through the food we’ve ingested and looking for nutrients, you’d be eating a sugary snack for quite a while before you became full. Not like there’s anything nourishing in it to fill you up.

This, I believe, is why the soft drink industry is always talking about how “soft drinks are no different from fruit juice.” They’re both sugary drinks taken out of the context in which they’re originally found. They’re both sugary substances with no fiber and limited nutrients. By applying that logic, both should be avoided.

Don’t get me wrong – on a scale of “bad” to “OMG HORRIBLE DEATH LIQUID,” a juice that comes directly from squeezed fruit isn’t on the “death liquid” side. Soda pop, however…. I’m sayin. It can clean the rust off a penny. Juices with artificial flavoring AND artificial coloring? It’s a chemistry experiment with salt (check that out next time you drink it… they almost all have salt.) Juices from concentrate… a little better, but not quite as nutritious as their non-concentrated counterparts.

(What does “from concentrate mean?” It means a fruit juice was taken, had the water extracted from it (?!), and stored away so that it could have the water added back at a later date. Sometimes you can purchase the “concentrate” in the freezer aisle of your grocery store. Sometimes, you can buy a “fruit juice” that says “from concentrate” on the label. Juices from concentrate are often cheaper, though not by much.)

For me, it was also about a lot more than just nutrition and keeping a flat tummy. I was using juices to further my addiction to sugar. Taking in a substance that had “everything meant to fill me up” removed from it, especially when that substance is full of sugar, only allowed me to gorge myself on the sweet stuff. And let’s face it – when you have a full on sugar addiction, anything sweet will suffice.

Like I wrote before:

Having said all of that, I cringe a little on the inside when people talk about how they “can’t give up” or “can’t live without” or justify use of a certain food… because that is addiction talk. I know… it’s not cocaine, it’s not alcohol, it’s not heroin. I get it. But I’m not certain that it’s that different. In fact, science has long said that the reaction that sugar causes in the brain is equal to that of heroin or cocaine, and causes us to crave it for the high… crash when it’s low. Wash, rinse, repeat. It’s a vicious cycle… and every time I give in it, it makes it that much more difficult to say “no” the next time I encounter the opportunity to give in.

It’s even more strange when people acknowledge that they go through “withdrawals” when they don’t get their “daily fix,” but don’t acknowledge that cycle as an addiction. That is particularly strange. Perhaps that’s because so much of society is addicted to sugar and exhibits the same behaviors, that it seems so common. That’s the only reason I can guess.

That’s a big part of why emotional eating exists – because sugar (in proper conjunction with fat and/or salt) provides a high that is comparable to that of any other narcotic. And because we become used to the high, it causes us to eventually crave more and more… and more… and before we’ve even noticed it we’re gaining weight and suffering from illnesses we’ve never dealt with before.

Excerpted from: What Is Sugar Addiction? | A Black Girl’s Guide To Weight Loss

And, because of all that, I say no to juices. I used to give myself an allowance for whenever I was sick. That was my green light to drink all the OJ I needed… but would it lean me back toward my sugar addiction once the “sick” was gone? I no longer wish to risk it. Besides, I’m not interested in drinking my calories. If I become sick (which, I have to admit, is a rarity lately), I’ll eat my oranges.

I believe, in my heart of hearts, that this was the most important part of my success. Being able to get away from my sugar addiction meant not only that I could regain control of my emotions (I wasn’t high off sugar, and then miserable and moody once the high came down), but that I could regain my ability to say no.I can say no, not because I’m “watching my figure,” but because I’m protecting myself from falling back down the rabbit hole.

I’ll keep it funky, though – I do want to watch my figure, too. All my hard work doesn’t need to go down the toilet because the fruit punch tastes yummy. And by hard work, I mean both building my body and kicking my unhealthy mental attachments to food. It’s not worth setting myself back physically or mentally.

I say all that to say… I had to spend a lot of time considering what I was drinking. I drank a lot of calories, a lot of sugar and a lot of money (because properly made juices are not cheap) unnecessarily. I wasn’t getting any fiber. It was a lot to waste on something that wasn’t even filling me up. I made the decision to let go of the juice and simply eat the fruit (and if the juice doesn’t come from an identifiable fruit, well…) and I’ve been happier for it.

Am I the only one?

The Case Against… Juice? is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Dr. Oz, Apple Juice, Arsenic and “Fear-Mongering”
2. The Case Against Soft Drinks
3. The Case Against Agave Nectar

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

Get BGG2WL delivered wirelessly to your Kindle! Click here for more info!

© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2011. | Permalink | 44 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: emotional eating, fiber, fruit, juice, juices from concentrate, punch, sugar addiction

Don't do it, girl...

You know, sabotage is a funny thing.

A lot of us tend to live in the moment, right? I mean, we tend to “wing it.” We “fly by the seat of our pants.” In other words, most of our decisions are made based upon the here and now as opposed to where they’ll get us in the future or whether or not they’ll bring us closer to our goals. (And that’s the real problem, right?) The downfall of this kind of philosophy, however, is that this lack of consciousness leaves us ripe for sabotage to take over… because an “unconscious” person won’t really ever notice that the sabotage is taking place. They’ll only recognize the repercussions of that sabotage after the fact, be it weight gain, fatigue, declining health… whatever.

Sabotage is defined as “an act or process intending to hamper or hurt; a deliberate subversion.” In this context, sabotage is basically an effort someone puts forth to distance you from your goal – whether that goal is improved health, weight loss, an increase in ability… whatever. It’s an intended effort to get in your way.

It’s obvious to see how a lack of awareness can allow for sabotage to get in the way. Your “work friend” offering you a donut even though she knows you’ve lost 23lbs thus far and want to keep the momentum going. Your friends inviting you out to eat, and picking on you about how you need to “live a little” and “enjoy yourself” (because, you know, food is the only way you can enjoy yourself nowadays.) If you weren’t thinking, you might respond to claims of “Aw, come on.. you need to live a little!” with “I know, I know… besides, I have been good lately… why not?” and before you know it, you’re “I know, I know”ing yourself into a plateau or right back into your bad habits. Before you know it, the work donut becomes a part of your daily routine… and you’re suffering hunger and fatigue because you’re eating that instead of something of nutritional value. Bonus points if it’s from one of those gigantic donut chains that fry donuts that aren’t made of, well… food.

Those acts of sabotage, I find, are much easier to solve. You have to think about each word said to you before you respond, and think about each bite of food you put into your mouth. Resolve, to yourself, that it’s okay to take the unpopular stance in regards to food, and like I’ve said before: considering how almost 70% of American society is overweight… it’s not very sane (or smart) to listen to random suggestions from people, especially when they contradict what you’d normally do.

The most complicated acts of sabotage, however, are the ones that come from ourselves. Sneaking unhealthy snacks, eating a cupcake “every other day instead of every day,” buying things in the grocery store that you know aren’t clean, justifying your unnecessary use of sugar because your food “doesn’t taste good without sugar (then why are you eating it?)” or even skipping your workouts – day after day – because you “look good anyway.” I “looked good” at 300lbs… “looking good” isn’t why I work out. I won’t even get on the “hiding food” phenomenon. Yet.

We are, sometimes, our own worst enemy. We can manipulate ourselves. Easily. If I know that I want an excuse to indulge in unplanned cheesecake… guess what? I know exactly what to say to myself to justify why I should eat that cheesecake. I know how that cheesecake might make me feel after indulging… and that’s all the reason in the world to manipulate myself into diving right in… tongue first. It’s basic addict behavior, and that’s why sabotage is such a serious issue. It’s a means of enabling ourselves into continuing bad behavior.

How can we work to stop self-sabotage? I humbly offer up a few suggestions for how I deal with self-sabotage (because really, it is a life-long practice. People never stop wanting to see you gorge yourself and possibly… slowly… work yourself back up to your former weight.)

1. Accountability – see yourself as if you are your own boss. You wouldn’t intentionally sabotage a project that your boss assigned to you… well, unless you wanted to be fired. You may not be able to fire yourself, but you need to see “poor health” as an equally damaging consequence of your actions.
2. Consciousness – you cannot identify a situation that needs accountability without being aware. No sleeping at the wheel – every time you eat, it has to be a deliberate effort… not just lazily or thoughtlessly snacking and thinking “I can afford it.” What you can afford today… adds up tomorrow.
3. Diversion – find something else to do! Divert your attention elsewhere. Go for a walk. Go read a book. Go engage someone or something that doesn’t have anything else to do with food.
4. Challenge yourself – the behavior that causes sabotage comes from a line of thinking that must be altered. The thinking that implies that it’s “okay” to do something you’ve already identified as wrong… it needs to go. Spend some time questioning why you believe it’s “okay” to do what you know you shouldn’t, and spend some time with the next step…
5. Reframing – it is important to reframe your perception of not only the act of sabotage, but yourself. It is horrible to sneak in unplanned food. It’s not just wrong, but it is horrible – it is literally a flat tire when you’re looking gorgeous and on the road ready to hit the town. It is unacceptable. It is ridiculous to avoid devoting ten minutes of time to yourself to relax, to workout, to cook dinner. Even more.. it is horrible to keep myself from the pleasure I’d feel in achieving my goal.

Sabotaging ourselves, or allowing thers to sabotage us, is a problem that is much easier to solve than it is to identify.. but if we make it a point to always be focused and aware, we can stop it before it gets out of hand. A little awareness goes a long way!

Do you deal with sabotage? Do you have peers who sabotage you? How do you avoid sabotage? Let’s hear it!

5 Ways to Identify and Reject Sabotage is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Self-Sabotage, Internal Dialogue, Motivation And Focusing On Your Goals
2. Friday 5: Five Examples Of Sabotage, From The BGG2WL Readers
3. Q&A Wednesday: Sabotage From A Significant Other?

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

Get BGG2WL delivered wirelessly to your Kindle! Click here for more info!

© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2011. | Permalink | 35 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: clean eating, emotional eating, sabotage, social eating, society

Once upon a time, in a land not very far from your home… lived mankind. No fast cars, no shiny structures, no skyscrapers, nothing. Just man.. rock… and animals.

See, this worked for man because his only task was to hunt wildlife, and gather his kill for his family. That was his responsibility. His purpose was to bring the salt and fat from the animal to the family. Not work, not bills… just hunt. Because life was much simpler then, this was man’s sole source of stress.

One day, man could not hunt. Every time he threw his spear, he’d miss his prey. He just couldn’t catch SQUAT! His family was to go hungry and he just… he couldn’t take it. The stress started to build up inside of him.

Because stress about the inability to eat is the only source of stress for man, his body became used to the eventual chain of events. His body knows: Lots of stress = lack of food coming in. How did his body react? His body decided to hold on to what it had – by way of diminishing the amount of energy his body could exert all at one time, by way of making sure his body took a very long time to lose weight, by way of making sure it held onto every pound and fat cell it could. This bodily reaction would only further compel man to step up his hunting skills… why? Because he didn’t want to feel that way! He didn’t want his family to feel that way! He had to get his caveman hustle on! When man was finally able to tackle that antelope or whatever-what-have-you, the fats and salts in the meat were sooooo satisfying that they would cure man of the bodily reaction to stress.

Compare this to emotional eating. The body’s reaction doesn’t change no matter what variables you swap out. Regardless if the stress comes from traffic, bad work day, or family problems… the body’s reaction to stress has not evolved as fast as society has. Now, we can get food within ten minutes if we drive or own a microwave. So presuming our body believes that stress is caused by a “famine on the way,” then it’s going to trigger feelings to make you go hunt! Our bodies just don’t know how easy it is to get food just yet. It hasn’t caught up.

This is what compels us to believe that emotional eating is the answer.

Emotional eating is defined as eating for a purpose other than curing hunger. If you’re eating for that gooey “Mmmmm” feeling, then yes – chances are, you might be emotionally eating. Approximately 75% of all overeating is attributed to emotional eating.

Because our bodies always provide this same reaction to food in a time of stress, our body’s reward system tells us that it makes sense to eat when stressed. It’s the fastest way to rid ourselves of this negative emotion, right? Stressed out about money and bills? You’re probably going to find the cheapest and quickest way to stick something in your mouth to give you that warm and fuzzy feeling. For some of us, that means we’ll be Dollar Menunaires for an hour. For some of us, that means we’ll be hittin’ up the Edy’s or Blue Bell. For others, we’ll be needing peanut butter and jelly, mac and cheese, or chocolate chip cookies.

I remember being told yearrrrrs ago by my sorority sister who was a psych professional that I really needed to focus on developing better coping skills. That I needed to find proper outlets for relieving my stress as opposed to relying on external things to relieve internal stresses. She told me that finding a way to better cope would help me feel liberated from this narrow path I had set myself on with how to make myself feel better. Using food as my only means of making myself feel better – inside AND outside of my pregnancy – is a big reason behind why I gained so much to begin with.

So, what can we do to win the struggle with our body’s natural response to stress?

• We can make conscious efforts to take better care of ourselves. Try to avoid allowing stressors to pile up on you. Do you often run into the same types of problems? Start paying attention to yourself! No more auto pilot. Notice when the same things pop up and cause you stress, and start figuring out better ways to manage that. Decreasing the stress in your life decreases the opportunity to emotionally eat.
• Make emotional eating more difficult. I stopped carrying cash… then I stopped carrying my wallet. Is that extreme? Very. I also had an extreme case of emotional eating. I ate to feel fulfilled. I wasn’t fulfilled. I was just… full. If traffic stresses you out so you grab some McDonalds on the ride (thus making traffic worse – I see you eating your Big Mac instead of paying attention to the stoplight), then find a stress-free route. One that doesn’t have a fast food joint on the way that’ll compel you to indulge.
• Give yourself a break. Give yourself a reward that is more lasting than the temporary satisfaction of a chocolate chip cookie. Try to budget a liiiiiittle time for relaxation. I give myself time for yoga every single day. The way I push my body to the limits allows me to relieve stress, and I come out of it feeling light as a feather with a new perspective on how to tackle whatever was originally stressing me.
• Awareness is key – if being at your mother-in-law’s house is a stressor that makes you feel like you have to eat in order to cope… be aware of how that triggers you. Prepare yourself with healthier comforting foods. Luckily for me, I went from Verona cookies to goldfish crackers to tea. Yes. Tea. As much as I love my mother, I fear that she might send me back to the Verona cookies, though. Ha! (I only say that because I know she reads the site. )
• Go shoot something. I’m only mildly joking, here. I say this on twitter all the time… I get stressed out? I grab Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and do a few missions.
• If you know you’re stressed, make food your last resort. Turn on a good tear-jerker movie. Hit the sidewalk and take a stroll (or a jog.) Take up kickboxing. Take a hot shower.
• Try a nap instead. If you’re prone to wanting something warm before bed, get into a nice soothing tea. I have boxessssss of tea in the cabinet. No shame in my game.
• Seek help. Remember, even though she was my friend, I had to have a psychiatric professional shine a little light for me to help guide me on my path. I’m a big believer in support systems and if it takes adding a little help to the team to get you on the path to better help, then that’s what’s best.

How does the story end? Welllll… more on that later. (Something’s gotta keep you on the edge of your seat until next time, right? Right?!)

What are your thoughts? How does emotional eating affect you? Did you win the battle against emotional eating? How do you shift your focus away from food? Let’s talk!

Telling A Tale of Stress and Emotional Eating is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. The Difference Between Enjoying Eating and Emotional Eating
2. What, Exactly, Is Emotional Eating?
3. Q&A Wednesday: Dealing With Emotional Eating

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

Get BGG2WL delivered wirelessly to your Kindle! Click here for more info!

© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2011. | Permalink | 17 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: bliss point, emotional eating, overeating

Meet Drew, a personal trainer with a rather insane idea: hes going to make himself obese so he can learn what its like to come down from it all. As someone who has been there, Id be lying if I didnt admit that what hes doing is terrifying to me. I know what it takes for an individual to get 70lbs overweight – as Drew currently is now, see photo above – and considering what hes risking physically as well as mentally and emotionally, I worry for him. The link is an interview of Drew, sharing a bit of his thoughts on his journey beyond obesity. Its worth the click.

There are some incredible points here that I think make for interesting note:

Hes going from having a relatively fit lifestyle to the standard American diet (ironically, referred to as SAD), and in turn his blood pressure went up. A big part of this is those unhealthy foods he mentioned as being a part of his diet: sugary cereals, granola bars, juices, white breads, white pastas, sodas, crackers, chips, frozen dinners, processed mac-n-cheese. All high-refined-carb foods loaded with salt.

His quote: [After I eat those foods,] I feel like crap later on and I get hungry again and crave those same foods. Sounds familiar.

His quote: I definitely feel addicted to these foods. In the beginning, I didnt like soda but now I cant go a day without, otherwise Ill get [withdrawals.] Ill be extremely interested in how he gets beyond this issue, because for a lot of BGG2WL readers, the withdrawals from what their bodies are used to is often the most difficult part of converting to clean eating.

Drew’s story will be blogged at Fit 2 Fat 2 Fit.

Your thoughts? I know Ill be paying close attention to this.

Personal Trainer Chooses To Gain 70+ Pounds And Go From Fit To Fat To Fit is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Biggest Loser Trainer Sued For Pushing Supplements?
2. 400 Pounds Lost? No Surgery? Stop Lying!
3. Restaurant Patron Leaves Tip: You Could Stand To Lose A Few Pounds

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

Get BGG2WL delivered wirelessly to your Kindle! Click here for more info!

© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2011. | Permalink | 18 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: emotional eating, fit 2 fat 2 fit, obesity, personal trainers, transformations

Q: Erika, how do you fight cravings during that time of the month? I’m miserable, can’t hit the treadmill, & my appetite is always huge around this time….#ugh!

First, I’d have to ask – why can’t you hit the treadmill? Even for a walk… you can do something.

The answer to this question – as far as the technical stuff behind it – can get a little long and tricky, but you have to remember a few things when it comes to cravings.

First, if you’re not legitimately hungry… you need to seriously question why you’re craving anything.

Secondly, you need to work toward developing an understanding of why you crave certain foods. The reality is… a lot of it is emotional eating:

Once upon a time, in a land not very far from your home… lived mankind. No fast cars, no shiny structures, no skyscrapers, nothing. Just man.. rock… and animals.

See, this worked for man because his only task was to hunt wildlife, and gather his kill for his family. That was his responsibility. His purpose was to bring the salt and fat from the animal to the family. Not work, not bills… just hunt. Because life was much simpler then, this was man’s sole source of stress.

One day, man could not hunt. Every time he threw his spear, he’d miss his prey. He just couldn’t catch SQUAT! His family was to go hungry and he just… he couldn’t take it. The stress started to build up inside of him.

Because stress about the inability to eat is the only source of stress for man, his body became used to the eventual chain of events. His body knows: Lots of stress = lack of food coming in. How did his body react? His body decided to hold on to what it had – by way of diminishing the amount of energy his body could exert all at one time, by way of making sure his body took a very long time to lose weight, by way of making sure it held onto every pound and fat cell it could. This bodily reaction would only further compel man to step up his hunting skills… why? Because he didn’t want to feel that way! He didn’t want his family to feel that way! He had to get his caveman hustle on! When man was finally able to tackle that antelope or whatever-what-have-you, the fats and salts in the meat were sooooo satisfying that they would cure man of the bodily reaction to stress.

Compare this to emotional eating. The body’s reaction doesn’t change no matter what variables you swap out. Regardless if the stress comes from traffic, bad work day, or family problems… the body’s reaction to stress has not evolved as fast as society has. Now, we can get food within ten minutes if we drive or own a microwave. So presuming our body believes that stress is caused by a “famine on the way,” then it’s going to trigger feelings to make you go hunt! Our bodies just don’t know how easy it is to get food just yet. It hasn’t caught up.

This is what compels us to believe that emotional eating is the answer.

Emotional eating is defined as eating for a purpose other than curing hunger. If you’re eating for that gooey “Mmmmm” feeling, then yes – chances are, you might be emotionally eating. Approximately 75% of all overeating is attributed to emotional eating.

Because our bodies always provide this same reaction to food in a time of stress, our body’s reward system tells us that it makes sense to eat when stressed. It’s the fastest way to rid ourselves of this negative emotion, right? Stressed out about money and bills? You’re probably going to find the cheapest and quickest way to stick something in your mouth to give you that warm and fuzzy feeling. For some of us, that means we’ll be Dollar Menunaires for an hour. For some of us, that means we’ll be hittin’ up the Edy’s or Blue Bell. For others, we’ll be needing peanut butter and jelly, mac and cheese, or chocolate chip cookies.

Excerpted from Telling A Tale of Stress and Emotional Eating | A Black Girl’s Guide To Weight Loss

How can you overcome this?

Idle hands are the emotional eater’s playground. Go shower! Go play with the kids! Go for a walk – shoot, go running! Get yourself a giant glass of water and guzzle it. Occupy your time. Stay busy!

Sound too easy? Trust me – it’s not. It takes practice… but its a challenge worth undertaking!

How do you curb your cravings?

Q&A Thursday: Aunt Flo’ And The Cravings is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Q&A Wednesday: Menstrual Cravings & Defeating The Sugar Demon
2. Joy Bauer: Eat To Beat Your Food Cravings
3. Q&A Thursday: Getting and Staying Motivated

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

Get BGG2WL delivered wirelessly to your Kindle! Click here for more info!

© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2011. | Permalink | 17 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: cravings, cycle, emotional eating

Death to her. We can host her funeral right here. I’ll chip in for some orchids.

Don’t get me wrong, either. This isn’t some attempt to demean The Black Woman and make Her appear weak, useless, whatever, however people want to describe this. If anything, this is an attempt to enrich The Black Woman (or any individual who feels forced to be eternally strong to the point where they’re literally blocked from self-development) with the most important tool required in the fight against emotional eating and the path toward better understanding self-care… or one’s ability to care for self.

See… I look at it a lot like this.

I think back to when I used to emotionally eat. It was the only way I had that would allow me to feel some relief – some semblance of peace – from everything around me that wouldn’t allow me to acknowledge or tend to my feelings. I didn’t really have any mechanisms to help me cope with anything… no remedies to help me calm down, nothing to give me the opportunity to help me re-focus my thoughts, no opportunity to just… sit. To just.. be. (And as I write that, I’m almost certain that there’s a woman somewhere who thinks that’s the strangest idea, ever. “Just sit and be? Girl what?” Yes, girl. Just sit and… be.)

I didn’t understand it then, but I understand it now.

Y’know how there’s a line from a book that reads something along the lines of the Black woman being the mule of the world? I don’t find that to be too far from the truth. Mules don’t think. Mules don’t feel. And if they do, who gives a damn? We don’t understand them, anyway. They’re mules. They’re merely there to carry out my will. I have a task. I need it done. I make the mule handle what they can, and then maybe I’ll handle what’s left.

Maybe. That is… if I can’t squeeze that last little bit of time out of my favorite little mule and have her do it.

Okay, but little mule, let me ask you: if you’re carrying out the will of everyone else – afraid to assert yourself and demand that someone else finally accommodate you in the same way they expect you to accommodate them – when, on Earth, do you have time for you? If all you do, all day, is care for everyone else – being everyone else’s mule, everyone else’s work horse – what the hell do you do for yourself? And think about that, as you remember that this is the very reason why you skipped the gym or opted to get the fast food and eat on the way to another errand for someone else instead of setting some things aside to care for, cook for and nurture yourself.

I feel like a lot of us have allowed our lives to become structured in a fashion that removes time for self from our lives. You’re a strong Black woman, right? You can handle everything that comes to you, right? What do you need time for yourself, for?

It’s bull.

If you want to believe there’s some semblance of strength to be obtained through shouldering everyone else’s burdens, fine. If you want to allow yourself to be duped into thinking there’s power in doing everyone else’s work, fine. If you are so arrogant as to think the world couldn’t continue to function if you delegated some of your responsibility to someone else, fine. Paint that picture however you choose…

…but one thing will eternally remain. The lack of care that we give to ourselves. Sacrificing not only our time but our bodies – our physical and mental health – for others is a kind of martyrdom that I do not wish on any woman.

You might think that denying a Black woman her “strong”ness (because it certainly isn’t strength) is attacking The Black Woman, but I disagree. If anything, I’m attempting to re-humanize the idea of the Black woman. This mentality that assumes we’re just these wondrous automatons… these robots that can make anything and everything happen… we do everything but care for ourselves. And somewhere along the line, we’ve created a culture that says outright that even the slightest implication that a Black woman needs to take time out to care for herself mentally – thereby delegating a responsibility to someone else (be it a significant other, family member or otherwise) – or physically is selfish and wrong.

…and then we question why women are sneaking and coping with stress by eating their emotions. We question why so many women cling so closely to their “hair appointments.” Trust me, that’s not all about the hair. It’s about the fact that it’s the only socially acceptable opportunity for a Black woman to give her kids to “someone else” and let someone else pamper her. It’s the fact that she can sit in that chair and think about nothing but herself – how good she’s gonna look, how good she’s gonna feel, how happy she is to “get taken care of,” for once. The hair is almost always secondary to that.

Turning us into robots not only denies us our right to have feelings, but it denies us the opportunity to acknowledge our own feelings. Take anxiety as a prime example:

Fear and anxiety are part of life. You may feel anxious before you take a test or walk down a dark street. This kind of anxiety is useful – it can make you more alert or careful. It usually ends soon after you are out of the situation that caused it. But for millions of people in the United States, the anxiety does not go away, and gets worse over time. [source]

If I don’t get the opportunity to acknowledge when a situation is giving me anxiety – because the assumption is that I shouldn’t be developing anxiety in the first place – then I never get to talk myself down off the ledge. I never get the opportunity to “come down.” If I never learn how to cope with my anxiety, then I never learn how to care for this issue that is causing me to stress out. If I never learn how to deal with the stress, my body translates that into… well… this pretty much explains it:

Once upon a time, in a land not very far from your home… lived mankind. No fast cars, no shiny structures, no skyscrapers, nothing. Just man.. rock… and animals.

See, this worked for man because his only task was to hunt wildlife, and gather his kill for his family. That was his responsibility. His purpose was to bring the salt and fat from the animal to the family. Not work, not bills… just hunt. Because life was much simpler then, this was man’s sole source of stress.

One day, man could not hunt. Every time he threw his spear, he’d miss his prey. He just couldn’t catch SQUAT! His family was to go hungry and he just… he couldn’t take it. The stress started to build up inside of him.

Because stress about the inability to eat is the only source of stress for man, his body became used to the eventual chain of events. His body knows: Lots of stress = lack of food coming in. How did his body react? His body decided to hold on to what it had – by way of diminishing the amount of energy his body could exert all at one time, by way of making sure his body took a very long time to lose weight, by way of making sure it held onto every pound and fat cell it could. This bodily reaction would only further compel man to step up his hunting skills… why? Because he didn’t want to feel that way! He didn’t want his family to feel that way! He had to get his caveman hustle on! When man was finally able to tackle that antelope or whatever-what-have-you, the fats and salts in the meat were sooooo satisfying that they would cure man of the bodily reaction to stress.

Compare this to emotional eating. The body’s reaction doesn’t change no matter what variables you swap out. Regardless if the stress comes from traffic, bad work day, or family problems… the body’s reaction to stress has not evolved as fast as society has. Now, we can get food within ten minutes if we drive or own a microwave. So presuming our body believes that stress is caused by a “famine on the way,” then it’s going to trigger feelings to make you go hunt! Our bodies just don’t know how easy it is to get food just yet. It hasn’t caught up.

Excerpted from Telling A Tale of Stress and Emotional Eating | A Black Girl’s Guide To Weight Loss

No matter what the source of the stress may be… our bodies perceive it all to be the same thing: a reason to hold onto weight. And if the weight gain that takes place also causes us anxiety? It becomes a cycle that is secondary to the original problem, which is not being allowed the time and space to care for ourselves.

Let’s not even get on the fact that failure to acknowledge an emotional shortcoming does not erase that shortcoming… it’s still there. Still affecting you. Still causing you to eat emotionally. Failure to address it as a means of maintaining your “strength” only results in it weakening you in the end..leaving you far less “strong.” Funny how that works.

Now, I could talk a lot about how our culture doesn’t allow Black women the space and places to be emotionally vulnerable – how many times do you hear “Therapy is for white people?” – and I could talk about how Black women are always on guard and fearing being taken advantage of – who needs to look after and protect a mule? they’re mules, for crying out loud – but I wont.

I take it back.

We allow ourselves to be ruled by an outdated ideology that says “you shouldn’t be using therapy,” but the reality is… if you never learned how to cope (or you are suffering the effects of depression brought on by an influx of sugar in the brain) and you were never taught how to cope (or you never learned how to deal with… well, you get the picture) with stress, what do you do? You lash out, you overstress, you sneak to the junk food, you get your fix… and you go on about your day. We shun the thought of therapy. We turn our noses up at it and call it “white girl sh-t,” as if to imply that therapy is for “those weak white b-tches.”

I hope you realize how ludicrous that sounds.

The reality is that all people – men, women, Black, white and otherwise – suffer from sacrificing themselves for any and everyone else. We all know that we need to do better in caring for ourselves. We all fall short on the concept of self-care. Learning how to curb emotional eating is something that is not reserved for Black women…

…but when we embrace a catch phrase that makes the entire thing acceptable? When we co-sign this ideology that turns us into mules, not human beings with feelings that must be addressed – even if it’s just to tell ourselves that we’re being silly? When we raise our daughters to embrace a catch phrase that not only denies them the ability to ever learn how to deal with their emotions but denies them the opportunity to ever learn about their emotions at all? When we misunderstand the concept of strength and proclaim ourselves as strong even though failing to address our weakness only leaves us weaker in the end? That’s a special kind of problem that we must fix.

It takes a strong woman to face her weaknesses head on with a desire to change them. Why? Because she has to face it without feeling like it makes her less of a woman. She has to acknowledge that patching the hole in the roof makes the house more reliable and sturdy – she can’t ignore the hole and act like she doesn’t feel its presence when it rains. She has to exhale, take time to recharge and pass on that understanding to her daughters.

…and maybe, juuust maybe, we’ll be able to get beyond this silly “Strong Black Woman” meme.

Death to “The Strong Black Woman” is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. The Importance Of A Strong Support System
2. “Don’t Lose Any Weight.. I Love A Big Fine Woman!”
3. Weekend WTF: Woman Assaults Grandson Over Bacon

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

Get BGG2WL delivered wirelessly to your Kindle! Click here for more info!

© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2011. | Permalink | 26 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: black culture, black women, blackness, emotional eating, race, strong black woman, therapy

Q: Erika do you find anything wrong if on occassion you just want that scoop of ice cream or to try a small piece of cake…or would you suggest just to try not to introduce those things back in your lifestyle change any longer?

A: My answer, at first, was simple. “It depends. Are you a sugar addict? If you were someone who abused alcohol, would it make sense for you to take ‘one scoop?’ Do you think you could stop at ‘one scoop?’”

I mean, the realities of dealing with sugar, as a recovering sugar addict, are different from dealing with alcohol as a recovering alcoholic because you’ll still have to deal with sugar in some form or fashion in ways you wouldn’t have to deal with alcohol… but if you’re only a year or so into dealing with emotional eating, chances are you might not be far enough beyond your habituation to not do it.

Let me see if I can explain it this way.

I know that there are some foods that, because I spent so many years of my life eating them a certain way, I may very well never be able to eat them again. And that’s not to say anything of my ability to recover from being an emotional eater, but that is to speak of the fact that it’s, unfortunately, very easy to maintain a habit just off sheer muscle memory regardless of whether or not the emotional connection to the act still exists.

It’s a lot like driving in a car on a path you’ve always taken.. and all of a sudden, you decide to start veering off and taking another path. You’re not entirely sure where you’re going on your new path, but all it takes is for you to wind up on a familiar intersection that leads you back on the path you used to take… and before you know it, your old habits lead you to overindulging in ways that used to be comfortable… and unhealthy.

For me, I know that certain things set me off. I know certain kinds of things set me off. I know what candies and “snacks” and “treats” used to set me off, and none of those things are allowed in my house. I’m pretty damned adamant about that, too. I’ll never know if, by now, I’m beyond the habituation that compelled me to overeat in such a fashion… because I won’t be testing it out.

While those things aren’t allowed in my house, I’m also at the point in my own journey where I can turn them down when I encounter them in other places. I don’t get the cakes. I don’t get the cookies. I can turn down the offerings at parties, now – not because I’m addicted to party food but often because it’s, simply, bad food – and I’m happier because of it. Not because I can successfully “deprive” myself, but because I can protect myself from my former bad habits.

That being said, if the question is “do you ever indulge?” then the answer is “hell yes.” My indulgences are different now, and are much more meaningful. I’ve written about the vegan dark chocolate truffles that I’d fallen in love with. Every now and again, we hit the gelato shop around the corner and grab a small – and still, somehow, hellapricey – serving of gelato. Quality ingredients, homemade and hand made, enjoyable, delicious flavor, no overabundance of sugar or salt meant to overcompensate for the lack of flavor… it’s what indulgence is meant to be, for me.

Because I’m not an emotional eater, I don’t need to indulge often. It’s not a daily thing for me. It’s barely a weekly thing for me. I have an appreciation for good cooking and good food – and, by default, good desserts as well – that doesn’t affect how I think or feel in a harmful way…. which means it doesn’t affect my body in a way that interferes with my goals.

So, to put it simply, I think one’s decision to indulge depends on a lot of factors, and it takes a lot of self-assessment to help one determine how it fits in for them. It takes a lot of honesty to understand and admit where I fall short, but once I know my weaknesses, it can only help to strngthen my resolve. Best steps I’ve ever taken.

Q&A Wednesday: Do You EVER Indulge? is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. How To Indulge Like A Grown Up: What Chocolate Taught Me
2. Q&A Wednesday: How Do I Say No?
3. Q&A Wednesday: I Used To Be Fat?

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

Get BGG2WL delivered wirelessly to your Kindle! Click here for more info!

© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2011. | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: emotional eating, indulgence, overeating

I know that’s pessimistic, but I’d much rather have the good times and skip the whole “Battle of Thanksgiving” between my will power and the candied yams, you feel me? Besides, since I don’t eat pork, and everything is cooked in pork or beef (I’m reminded of the Boondocks clip where Huey and Granddad argue about the “Pork Flavored Broccoli”), I’m often left eating lettuce and water while the person next to me enjoys their bacon flavored cornbread. Sigh.

Having said that, I think it’s time I shared a few tips that I plan on using to make sure that I don’t leave Thanksgiving with about 5lbs of food stuck ON me, and 5lbs of booty that I didn’t plan for. ‘Cause seriously — while booty is nice, I’m going to flip out if I leave with more than I came with. Just being honest.

1. Keep a glass of water on you at all times. Why? Firstly, water actually helps you fill up. Drinking water while you eat slows you down, and gives your body time to process the fact that food is being put into it. Since it takes your mind approximately 20 minutes to realize that your body is full, taking time to slow down and drink water (a vital part in weight loss, anyhow) will give your body time to realize what’s being put inside of it, and how much.
2. Portions, portions, portions! I know that Aunt Pookie (hey, I love my Aunt Pookie) has the world’s best scalloped potatoes, and I know that you love ‘em and all, but commit yourself to portion sizes no larger than the palm of your hand.
3. Put the satellite dish-sized plate down. I’m serious. You know y’all have those Thanksgiving-specific plates that are large enough to double as someone’s rims. Don’t do it to yourself. Stick to a regular sized plate, palm-sized portions, and allow yourself to try a bunch of different things… not simply overdoing it on the few things you love.
4. Leave the obviously-store-bought-stuff… alone. I jokingly asked this question on twitter, but I’m serious. Those store-bought pies, those boxed mashed potato flakes, the scalloped potatoes that come from the Betty Crocker magic elixir? Leave it alone. Why? Foods that are processed are, well, processed – genetically engineered to be easier to chew, not leave food in your teeth, or “fill you up.” Unfortunately, it only turns back into the same powder it originated from, with all the calories and none of the “full” feeling… leaving you not only still hungry after all those calories, but on a carb high, at that. That wonderful “melt in your mouth” feeling that M&Ms has convinced us is a good thing? It might be wonderful for chocolate… really not ideal when it comes to actual food.
5. Remember what the holiday is for. I know that’s a little pious, but just humor for me for a moment. If this is the one time that you get to see your younger nieces and nephews who are living out of state, and they’re forced to wait to be the last ones to eat (since they’re the youngest – you know how that goes), then stick behind and talk to them (while sipping your water) for a few moments. Play with the kids you don’t see as often as you like. Talk to your show-off cousin about his new car that he just bought, yet suspiciously has the “Avis” rental brochure still in the windshield. More talking, less eating. Entertain yourself!
6. Lastly, and this is a big one: Don’t listen to anyone telling you what you do or don’t need to do for you. If someone at the table tells you, “So… you got all kinds of booty, now!” or “Why is your plate so light? Let me fix you another plate, girl, you’re too skinny!” or even (as happened to me a few years back) “Gosh, I remember when you were younger… and skinny!” be polite. Keep your composure. I’m telling you it’ll happen and you’re reading this going “Mmhmm, I can hear it now.” Don’t let it derail your holiday, piss you off, and send you running in there to those magic elixir mashed potatoes. Get your joy from the people who know how to act, don’t be afraid to be mocked for trying to focus on your health during the holidays, and for crying out loud… don’t stress out to the point where it makes you emotionally eat. If there’s ONE thing you don’t need this time of year, it’s to emotionally eat. Kid in a candy store syndrome, and whatnot.

If you should happen to let it slip that you’re watching your figure, don’t let anyone tell you “Come on, live a little” as a response. Don’t accept that. You’re surrounded by family you don’t see as often as you like. Use this time to “live” by enjoying their company, sharing stories of strength and love, and amaze yourself with how the kids have grown since last time. The last thing you should be “living” through and for on Thanksgiving… is food. To be a little corny (or a lot), the food is mainly a side dish. The family should be the main course.

Be happy, be healthy!

My Personal Guide To Getting Through The Holidays is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Making It Through Labor Day: My Personal Holiday Guide
2. Beyoncé’s Personal Fitness Mantra: Do You Have One?
3. Personal Trainer Chooses To Gain 70+ Pounds And Go From Fit To Fat To Fit

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

Get BGG2WL delivered wirelessly to your Kindle! Click here for more info!

© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2011. | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: emotional eating, holidays, social eating

So bad, that I tried a “modified” version of that “grazing” business that everyone was talking about. By “modified,” I mean it was literally eighth-hand information.. and I tried it. It was like diet advice passed down through a game of telephone. By the time it got to me, I was thinking it was acceptable to cook a giant container of macaroni salad and eat it all day whenever I felt like it.

Clearly, this did not work. I’d forget to eat, eat the wrong things or I’d eat too much while eating. Either way, this was all bad news for me.

Grazing is the idea of eating outside of those three square meals each day. I’m not sure where the idea to restrict ourselves to three meals a day came from anyway, but its highly impractical for someone who’s converting from foods that used to give us that “stuuuuuuuuffed” feeling. Sure, a properly-built veggie dish can and will fill you up, but what if your veggie dish isn’t “properly built?” You will be hungry, and you will be hungry much sooner than you would be if you were eating your old foods. And since hunger sometimes forces us to make decisions we wouldn’t make otherwise, it’s highly likely that you’d wind up reverting back to old foods… and old habits.

Yesterday, I wrote:

Once [a processed food] meets your saliva and enters your body, it breaks right back down to the goo… with no fiber inside to help push it out. It essentially deflates inside of your system, making it easier to consume more calories because you’re “not full yet.” Couple all of this with the fact that it takes approximately 20 minutes for your brain to get the signal from your digestive system that you’re “full,” and you start to see why a food that breaks down this quickly is a recipe for disaster – a breaded chicken breast on wheat bread breaks down much more slowly than a chicken patty sandwich on white bread, takes longer to chew (buying you time until that 20 minute mark… see what that 30 bites was important?), takes longer to digest (thus leaving you feeling fulfilled longer), and keeps you from overindulging.

This is why portion sizes have doubled and tripled over the past few years… the more processed our foods have become, the more we have to eat in order to remain full and the more our bodies compel us to eat because the foods lack the nutrients our bodies are looking for. That’s important. A processed food diet relies heavily on that “full feeling” to identify when we are “satisfied,” as opposed to the naturally-occurring chemical and neurological processes of the body that tell us to stop eating. So, in being ruled by both of those instead of just the natural processes of the body, our compulsion to overeat multiplies. All bad.

When I eat on a 6-meal schedule instead of a “three meal a day” ideal (which, if you ask me, isn’t ideal at all), I avoid that “hungry” feeling. We all know the “hungry” feeling. It’s that feeling you get when you think you might eat your desk,or you start wondering what your arm might taste like with a little A1 on it. The “hungry” feeling compels us to overeat because we’re simply shoveling food in our faces until it goes away.

So, it goes something like this. We start feeling like we’re “starving.” We get a plate of over-processed food. We start shoveling it in our faces hoping to curb that hunger. That food breaks down faster than it should. The chemicals in that food interfere with our ability to recognize that we’re eating and getting full. We eventually wind up eating too much and taking in too many calories. We become overstuffed (and wind up stretching out our stomachs, thus expanding how much food we need in order to achieve that “full” feeling we desire) and, well, overweight.

My black bean quesadilla,with pepers, onion, cheese, black beans, and a little chili pepper. Yum.

This is why I’m an advocate of grazing. In fact, if you’re doing it right, you should never feel hunger pangs again. If you do encounter a hungry feeling, you’re definitely doing it wrong.

Now… I have to admit. I hate the term grazing, even though it’s appropriate in this case in a nostalgic kind of way. Grazing usually applies to herbivores (like cows) who kind of just eat as they go along. You don’t see them going for extended periods of time eating, and then out of nowhere scarfing down an entire lawn’s worth of grass. It’s not necessary because they don’t do it. Their eating is not controlled by hunger.. it’s controlled by the fact that they need food to fuel their bodies. And while I don’t subscribe to the strict “food is fuel” mantra – I think food can be healthily enjoyed because I think all parts of life should be enjoyed – I do think it’s an important mantra to keep on hand.

If food is to be used as fuel – a proper energy source for your body – then why only fuel up three times a day? Kick it up a notch and go for more!

When I first began to successfully change my eating habits, I ate six meals a day. I ate a 7AM meal, a 9:30AM snack, a noon meal, 3PM snack, 6PM dinner, and a 9PM snack. It was truly what I was looking for. At 7AM, I’d have an omelette with peppers and onions. 9:30? Maybe a bowl of raw broccoli with french dressing. Around noon, I’d make a CLT on wheat (chicken, lettuce and tomato… #teamANTIbacon over here.) At 3, I’d give myself a spinach wrap with tomato and ranch dressing. Dinner was usually whatever I felt like having, and my 9PM snack was mainly a fruit. Completely unprocessed, well within my calorie budget. It worked out wonderfully for me.

As I said earlier, I went so long without feeling “hungry” that the rare days that I couldn’t abide by my schedule, my hunger pangs didn’t control me. I wasn’t compelled to overeat like before. I wasn’t drawn to crave processed food. I knew what a respectable portion size looked like, and I knew when it was quitting time at the table. I knew about the 20 minute time frame it takesmy body to recognize that it’s full, and I did what I could to take my time and appreciate my food. Life just became easier. I had more control. I’m never giving that up again.

Show a little love by voting for me in the Black Weblog Awards for Best Health or Wellness Blog category! That’s right – BGG2WL is a finalist thanks to you! Let’s do what we can to bring it home!

Do you eat on a schedule? What kind of eats do you enjoy? Let’s hear it!

Avoiding That Starving Feeling is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Body Image: Feeling Like You’re Never Enough
2. Q&A Wednesday: Avoiding Workout Burnout

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

Get BGG2WL delivered wirelessly to your Kindle! Click here for more info!

© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2011. | Permalink | 15 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: calorie counting, clean eating, emotional eating, ghrelin, Healthy Eating, hunger pangs, leptin, overeating, processed food, processed foods, processedfood