Let Go of the Guilt

Guilt can weigh you down. And most of us feel guilt over things that do not warrant it like taking time for ourselves, eating a food we've previously labeled as "bad", forgetting to call someone back, leaving the dishes in the sink, purchasing new clothes, you name it! The list goes on and on. But if we harp on these things, we are spending too much energy on undeserved guilt and not enough focus on the great things life has to offer. Once you put down the guilt, the weight of the world seems a little lighter, and you open yourself up to opportunities that will bring you happiness.

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It's much easier said than done, because we have been conditioning ourselves for a lifetime to feel guilty over things that bring us joy and health like eating, sleeping, sex, shopping, working...the list is exhausting! Can you imagine the amount of time you would have if you stopped wasting it worrying about things? Everyone deals with these feelings, including myself. So join me and take it step by step and really give some thought to how you might build your own path toward enjoying life and appreciating yourself for who you are.  

Let us know what you're thinking and how you plan to achieve your goals for less guilt. Better yet, send a guest post to iamguiltless@gmail.com. We love hearing from you.

Abusive Relationship

It seems like every day a new client comes into my office in a very abusive relationship. One that I'm always shocked to find that none of her friends, parents or coworkers have ever mentioned anything about. One that has been going on for far too long. One that eats her up inside, but that she can't seem to shake. A very abusive relationship with food. "Yesterday was a good day." "I stayed awake for awhile before bed just thinking about the bad choices I made. Feeling guilty about that ____(piece of cheese, doughnut, cake, meat, you name it!)" "I cut all my meals in half-but my body still won't lose weight." Letting their lives be controlled by food-letting it dictate where they go out to eat, who they see, and what they order. If someone was having that much remorse or joy pulled from their life from an intimate relationship I would hope someone would have intervened to stop it.

And I guess that's my job. To step in and help take the power away from food. Because when we dig ourselves into these abusive relationships with food-where our mood and our self-worth hinge on what we eat, we are giving food an awful lot of power. Food is Food. An inanimate object that is fuel for life. Eating it doesn't make you any better of a person than abstaining. It is just fuel. Not that it can't be delicious, gross, phenomenal, or so-so depending on who cooked it.

It doesn't happen over night. And it takes a lot of work. Especially when you've been dieting on and off for more of your life. Taught that food was the end all be all. That food, and eating less, and getting smaller would make you a better and happier person. Sorry to crush dreams, but that's not where dieting will get you. But maybe it will get you to seek real help. Help to get back in tune with your body and learn again to listen to your hunger, while respecting your fullness. Help to learn about what can really fuel YOUR body-since every body is unique and just not made out for a cookie-cutter diet.

One more note-if you have 2 minutes today I'd love for you to read these true stories of women who quit dieting. I found them so inspiring!

Here's to an empowering and amazing week!

Don't Let Overanalyzing Bring You Down

Do you run through past events over and over in your head, thinking about what went right or wrong, and how you could have made it better? While a little self-reflection is fine, overanalyzing each and every situation at work, in your relationship, or over your exercise or diet routine can sabotage you. The more you ruminate over past events, that are unchangeable, the more you look at present and future events through a negative lens. Let's start 2012 on a Guiltless track and stop overanalyzing right.now.

• Take action If possible come up with a solid solution for the problem. You can’t change history but if you shift your focus on things that can be addressed, you can start to move on. For example, if you're dwelling on the number on the scale, don't beat your self up. Instead get moving, try a new sport, start to think about your relationship towards food. take positive steps in the right direction instead of wallowing in your past.
  
• Take attention off the issue But not just by watching mindless television or going on a shopping spree. Instead do an activity that will keep you mind engaged and involves social interaction if possible. Great ways to set your mind free are sports like tennis, board games with your family or a nature walk with a friend.
• Be mindful Your thoughts do not have to control you. Pause. Be Mindful. Focus on the present moment without any judgment. Notice your thoughts, but let them go without judgment like branches being swept away in a stream.
• Patience Don’t beat yourself up because overanalyzing is tough to beat. While these steps will help you to break down the negative track in your mind, they do take time and practice to be effective.
  

Just like diet and lifestyle changes, breaking away from negative self-talk is a journey.While avoiding overanalyzing it’s important that you don’t overgeneralize (My date last night was awful-i'll never find love) or disqualify the positive (I feel great sticking to my exercise plan this week, but I drank a little too much last night) or thinking in all black and white terms (I can never eat my mother’s cookies ever again). Stick to these ways to break the overanalyzing track, and you’ll start to see your present and future in a much brighter light. Stay Guiltless!

Pizza Love Affair

This clip says it all.


Enjoy your bodies. Live your life. And eat some really super delicious pizza (hold the guilt)!

I've been bad

Have you been "bad"?

How often do we hear that word tossed around in circles of (usually) girls, women, ladies?

"I was so bad this weekend. I ate 20billion hotdogs 40 thousand donuts, and countless Long Island Ice teas"

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Well if you did eat that much, you would be in a pretty bad place-probably in a hospital.
but were you really BAD? Did you rob a bank? How many people did you kill?

Bad is something we inflict on ourselves Bad=guilt=binge=bad=guilt=binge you get the cycle

You are forgiven, for you have not sinned

All foods can fit into a lifestyle. I am never here to be the food police and tell you who's under arrest. Eat what makes you feel alive, well and whole. Don't deny, just make decisions that make you feel good. Because that's never bad.

via Cora:

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves. -Mary Oliver

what will you do this week that is good?

Help for Eating Disorders: Interview with Nina

I recently had the honor of speaking with Nina-an eating disorder survivor who wanted to share her story. She truly believes that complete recovery IS possible: "When you are in the middle of an eating disorder, you don’t often hear this. Whether it’s the disorder that blocks you from hearing it, or a lack of understanding in the medical community and a lack of sharing of recovery stories, the fact is that full and complete recovery is possible. I have been there, in the depths of eating disorder hell, and I am now on the other side. That is my only qualification but it is the message of hope that I wish to spread to all those suffering with this disease." Read on for Nina's thoughts on Guilt, dieting, and eating disorders!

Tell us a little bit about yourself Nina!

I am a 30 year old woman living in New York and I love this city, yoga, writing, spirituality and meditation. I come from a background of journalism and marketing and I love learning new things and being able to help others.

My website Help for Eating Disorder came about after a long history of struggling with various eating disorders and never being able to find a permanent and lasting solution. I would go on and off diets, meal plans and I had tried various types of therapies but nothing really ever stuck. I reached a real rock bottom place but I still had a glimmer of hope that I could COMPLETELY recover from all eating disorders. By complete recovery I mean freedom from the entire obsession with food and weight and being able to eat like a “normal” or “intuitive” eater.

I promised myself that if I ever did achieve this sort of recovery, and it lasted, that I would do all that I could to help as many others who are suffering to achieve the same sort of full recovery that I now have. So I posted my story online and ended up receiving hundreds of emails from people asking about how I recovered, tips, advice and just generally wanting to open up about their own eating issues. After spending a lot of time responding to these emails, I thought it would be a great idea to set up my own site where I could post about specific questions that people were asking and offer all of the advice and assistance that I could.

What inspired you to start Help for Eating Disorders?

My main inspiration for starting Help for Eating Disorders was the miracle that I had experienced in my own life. After so many years of hell, hospitalizations, job losses and isolation, I was finally free. I knew this was a gift and one that I could keep by giving it away to others. I waited for a few years to make sure that it was REAL and FULL recovery before I started offering information and advice.

What does recovery from eating disorders look like? Is it the same for everyone?

I think that the most important thing that I have learned is that eating disorder recovery is completely different for everybody and it is an individual and personal path. What works for some people may not work for others. Readers who are attracted to my site are probably attracted to the path that I have taken. There are no accidents – what ever you are searching for is also searching for you.

However, I don’t think that my way is the ONLY way and just like the Buddhists say, there are 84.000 paths to enlightenment. I believe it is the same with eating disorder recovery. There are a multitude of paths to recovery; the challenge is finding what works for you and having the determination and courage to make mistakes, get back up and never give up.

The way that my eating disorder recovery looks like is this:

I eat exactly what I want when I want
I know what hunger feels like and I know what I am hungry for
I have not had an urge to binge, purge, starve or diet for over 4 years
I eat out with friends and am more interested in the social aspect than what I am eating
I never feel guilty about what I have eaten
I have no obsession with food or my weigh
My weight has been normal and stable for several years and does not fluctuate

The most important thing that I think many disordered eaters are searching for is the FREEDOM. Above all else, it is the mental torture of an eating disorder that is the worst manifestation. I want to share with everyone that I live with complete freedom with any type of obsession, mental preoccupation, guilt or concern about food or my weight.

How big of a problem are eating disorders/disordered eating in this country? Why do you think it is such a problem?

Estimates show that up to 10 million females and 1 million males in the United States have an eating disorder, such as anorexia or bulimia, according to the National Eating Disorders Association. Millions more have binge eating disorder Also, sadly, only 1 in 10 people with eating disorders receive treatment. What is more concerning is that 35% of "normal dieters" progress to pathological dieting. Of those, 20-25% progress to partial or full-syndrome eating disorders. (Shisslak & Crago, 1995) 25% of Americans men and 45% of American women are on a diet on any given day (Smolak, 1996).

What is even more alarming in my opinion is the 35% of “dieters” end up developing an eating disorder. I believe that this is where the root of the problem is. We are so obsessed with dieting, calorie counting, restricting and eating “healthy” food that we have become out of sync with what our bodies really want and need.

Add that to the fact that diets have 98% failure rate and you end up with millions of people who are using diets as a way to control their weight, when the inevitable result is that they will fail. The failure causes more starving, deprivation, overeating and eating disorders. The guilt, sense of failure and depression that result from the diet failure drive people to unhealthy disordered eating behaviors such as purging, over exercising, complete obsession with food and weight loss and binge eating to cope with the stress of this problem that has become so unmanageable.

What is one thing everyone can do to help start to put an end to disordered eating?

The main thing that everyone can do to start to put an end to the disordered eating is:

Reject the diet mentality
Learn to eat intuitively
Let go of rules and rigid planning
Understand and identify your triggers (weight loss sites, scales, etc)
Eliminate the triggers

And most importantly, have a desire to recover above all else.

What does guilt have to do with eating disorders

The guilt that comes with eating disorders is a cumulative effect from years of classifying food as good and bad, and thereby yourself as good or bad depending on what you ate that day. It is embedded into our psyche and is a loud, negative and self defeating voice that will always lead to more hopelessness, further guilt and no recovery. It is crucial to develop ways to fight off the guilt when entering recovery as it is one of the main driving forces of the disorder and prevents full and complete recovery.

What is your top tip for letting go of guilt, and freeing yourself from disordered eating?

In order to let go of the guilt I had to have a complete mental shift regarding diets, weight loss, my eating behavior and a recognition of my triggers. I came to a point where I knew deep in my heart that the dieting mentality was fueling my disordered eating and that I would never be able to beat the eating disorder beast. The only way to win was to let go. I started practicing “normal” or intuitive eating almost 5 years ago when my body and mind were completely done with the whole diet-binge-restrict cycle. I had to be at this place of total defeat.

I started to legalize all food – slowly at first, but I was persistent and I was getting results which made me even more determined. I stopped isolating so that I could either eat my special “diet” food or binge. I ate out with people, I tried food that I actually liked and I gave myself the permission to eat the way that I did as a child.

I strongly believe that rejecting the diet mentality and getting in tune with your own body’s hunger and satiety signals is the key. Any externally imposed eating plan will always fail in my experience and will trigger off the guilt and obsession.

I had to dedicate myself to challenging every single guilt thought, realizing that is was not true, that it was the eating disorder talking and trying to get me back in its death grip.

I followed the example of other normal eaters that I knew and slowly the guilt subsided, I reached a normal weight and had the obsession removed. It is the results that speak for themselves. I knew that I wanted COMPLETE recovery, not just a way to “manage” the eating disorder through eating plans and rigid rules. I wanted to be completely in tune with my own body and that is the way that I live today.

Thank you Nina for your wise words of advice! Nina writes a blog at Help for Eating Disorder and has recently published an EBook about Recovery From Eating Disorders. You can also follow her on Twitter @helpfored and "Like" the blog on Facebook!

Guilt as a Motivator?

There's a new gym in my neck of the woods. Huge billboards and ads adorn the windows proclaiming that YOU need to "earn your mac n cheese tonight"
Their gimmick to get you inside their doors, clamoring for a membership is to guilt you into working out.

Because the only reason we work out is to burn calories right? Not because it protects our hearts, guards against hypertension, increases endorphins, makes you better in bed, boosts self-confidence and makes us stronger? Nope-the only reason you'll ever see me in the gym is because I just ate, and goddamn it-I feel guilty.

A study that has been getting a lot of press lately claims that guilt is a great motivator for diet change and exercise. But let me ask you-does the end justify the means? Yes guilt may get you to the gym, but it also starts you down a path of self-hatred and distance from your intuition.

Steph & I started Guiltless because we say those around us sabotaging their own health with guilt. Yes, we love healthy food and work out regularly, but we also know the dangers of swearing of dessert forever, classifying foods as good or bad, obsessive exercising and extreme dieting. Compensating for what you eat by working out is a disordered behavior. And not one any one or any gym should be promoting.

So go to the gym. But don't go because you feel guilty about what you just ate. Go because it makes you feel alive, healthy, strong and beautiful! Eliminate all guilt from your diet and fitness regime.

I'd love to hear your thoughts about guilt as a motivator! Leave them in the comment section below!

Mind, Body, Spirit...and Money

"Enough is not an amount. It's a relationship to what you already have." -Geneen Roth

By: Stephanie Horton

One of my favorite female voices, Geneen Roth, visited Boston yesterday for a public reading of her new book Lost and Found at the Boston Public Library. During her captivating reading, Roth discussed one the least talked about subjects among women: Money.

I read Roth's book Women Food, and God a few months back, and it definitely influenced my perception of my relationship with food. As someone who loves cooking and eating and all things food, I consider my relationship with food to be a decent one, however, definitely not lacking its ups and downs. For a long time, certain foods were "bad" in my mind while others were "reward worthy." But after some soul searching, which included reading Women Food and God, I soon believed that all food is good, all food is nourishment for the body, and the food I choose to eat is nourishment for my soul.

Food is love

In Roth's Women Food, and God, she beautifully discusses our relationships with food, our bodies, our lives, our happiness, and how they are all intricately intertwined. One of my favorite lines from Women Food and God: "When you begin to inhabit your body from the inside, any other option except taking care of it is unthinkable." This line is consistent with how I've been thinking (and counseling) lately. If you love your body, you'll respect your body, and the decisions you make about your body will automatically be good for it. This is the idea behind self-love. Roth's inspiring novel encouraged me to stay body-positive, and to appreciate my body and the food I put into it like I had never done before. Roth is, without question, a guiltless icon. And now she's embarking on an even more difficult subject (certainly a difficult one for me): Women's relationships with money.

Geneen Roth

It seems the lovely author is at it again with her new book Lost and Found. Our relationships with food can be a lot like our relationships with money, and this is a concept that is seldom understood or discussed. In her new book, Roth explores this relationship by discussing her own personal catastrophes and journeys with her own relationship with money. After her financial manager deceived her for so many years, Roth and her husband Matt lost 30 years of life savings to a ponzie scheme. By reaching deep into her thoughts and emotions on this event, Roth inspires her readers to think more about their own relationships with finances. Roth describes her purpose in writing Lost and Found:



"I hardly have the words to tell you what it was like to see the exact same patterns with money as I'd once had with food. I splurged the way I once binged, and budgeted the way I once dieted. I lied about the money I had in the same way that I once lied about how much I ate. I rationalized buying sweaters on sale in the same way that I once rationalized eating broken cookies (because when the cookies break the calories break)."

Gosh, this sounds scarily familiar.

She continues to explain:

"I wrote LOST AND FOUND because..I wanted you to be able to have the knowledge and the tools to not only come out of the darkness with money, no matter how much you have or don't have, but to turn the light on inside your own mind, your own heart. Money, like food, is something you touch, think about, and deal with every single day, and so its effect on your well-being is profound. And because of its presence in our lives, it, like food, is both an expression of our beliefs about worth, joy and enough and a doorway to the heart of your heart—and what you are truly worth."

Our relationships with money are incredibly important to our futures, just as our relationships with food are. We have the love we need inside. It's just a matter of locating it and actually feeling it, and allowing it to settle into our daily lives and behaviors. The goal is for the love to become the foundation from which we thrive (and in this particular case, eat and spend). It's books like these that will accompany us on our journey.

See Geneen Roth speak about Lost and Found in a location near you: Geneen Roth's Book Tour Schedule.

How does your relationship with money influence your self perception? Does it? Should it?

Do you see a connection in your own life between your relationship with eating and your relationship with spending?

Thank you. Be well. And enjoy the day.

The Path to Health Does Not Begin with Guilt

"Health, if purchased by perpetual anxiety about diet, isn't much better than tedious disease"~George Prentice

I couldn't agree more with George. While I have spent the last four years of my life in school studying nutrition, learning the pros of fiber, and the cons of transfat, I have learned in the real world that obsessing over calories, and the food you eat, ultimately is the cause of more poor health than eating 1g of transfat every 3 months. For health is more than just your resting heart rate, and cholesterol levels. Although those are important, the relationship you have with food and the world also plays a HUGE role in determining the state of your overall health. Your blood lipid panel could be near perfect, but if you stare at the fridge, riveted by fear of its contents, you will not be living life to it's fullest. Harrowed by the fear of what ingredients are contained in your food, and how it is going to make you feel, you will ultimately miss out on all the pleasures that food can bring. Good health means nothing if you can not enjoy your life. Physical health is not the end all be all-we also need to remember our mental health and how we are treating ourselves. Let us not be anxiety ridden to the point of harming ourselves. Food is a place where our physical hunger meets our psychological assumptions. There is no such thing as a good or bad food. There are simply choices. No food is bad if consumed in moderation, with thought, and mindfulness. If you are still stuck in this black and white thinking, let this be the week that you let go of that anxiety! Be guiltless about your choices and decisions!

Is there a particular food or ingredient that makes you anxious? Have you ever been consumed by black and white thinking about food?

Be Good to your Temple

"Our body is a vehicle for awakening. Treat it with care.” - Buddha

by: Stephanie Horton

Body Image is powerful thought processes that can either bring you joy or present you with struggle. Negative body image has the potential to result in life-threatening conditions such as eating disorders, and today, millions of Americans are unhappy with their bodies. In fact, 80% of American women are dissatisfied with their appearance, and even scarier, 80% of children who are ten years old are afraid of being fat. 80%!!!! That is an incredibly large and disheartening number. We are living in a time when poor body image is eating us alive as it causes many to live without eating.

It’s time we start a body image revolution.

As many as 10 million females and 1 million males are fighting a life or death battle with an eating disorder such as anorexia nervosa or bulimia. Even though eating disorders are the leading killers among the mental illnesses, they receive the least amount of funding compared to other psychological diseases such as Alzheimer's and Schizophrenia. If you'd like to get involved and help in the fight against eating disorders, visit The National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) website for more information.

The path to self-love is no well-traveled road with signs and lane dividers. It can be dark at times, bright at others, but it’s always easy to get lost. We all encounter obstacles during the ride, but the destination remains the same: The point at which we treat ourselves with respect and gratitude.
Here are a few tips for celebrating yourself and your body:

1. Be committed to yourself - Everything starts at home, so work on loving yourself first.
2. View popular media with a critical eye, and remember that media is a story - not reality.
3. Write a letter to a company you think is doing a great job with advertising by providing inspiring messages that encourage the natural diversity of human beings. One of my favorites is Dove!
   
4. List 5 things about yourself that make you smile.
5. Look in the mirror and say, “I love my -fill in the blank-.”

Bakery Guilt

Yes I am a recent Boston University Nutrition Graduate, and yes I have worked in a bakery for a year and a half. Not just any bakery, but the sweetest traditional French artisan bakery, where it sells of chocolate and butter 24/7, where everyone always has a smile on their face, and everything produced tastes like heaven. It's a place where you go to feel warm and fuzzy inside, and allow yourself a special treat.

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The things customers says to us at bakery ranged from rude, to flirty, to sweet to unbelievable. It's an endless source of amusement and can be very enlightening on peoples' relationshop with the world, food, and themselves.

The day before I took my vacation I had a small family come in mid-afternoon-mom, dad and junior. Their first time to the bakery they took some time to take all the sights and smells in. The husband was a loud type and I patiently answered all his questions. After some time, he turned to his wife and said 'what do you want to get, fatty"

While I'm sure it was done in jest (the entire family was overweight) and that he really loves his wife, blah blah blah. I was dumbfounded-and simply stared at him for a bit. How could you say something like that to someone you loved?

In case you didn't realize it (I think you'd have to be living in a cave not too) America has a weight problem. With over two-thirds of the population overweight or obease, we have a little bit too much junk in the trunk.

But calling your wife a fatty is not going to fix this problem. In fact, it will probably only further exasperate the problem. Perhaps she finds love, comfort and solace in her food, and with a low self-esteem she's much more likely to turn to that.

Not that I'm advocating that you all run to your nearest bakery, but I'm sure you've heard of the French Paradox- how can the French eat so much "bad" food, and be thinner and happier than fad-diet obsessed Americans? Yes, their diet may consist of more refined carbs, sugar and saturated fat, but their RELATIONSHIP with food is leaps and bounds better than ours. They listen to their hunger cues, stop eating when they are full, and savor their meals.

By building a relationship with food that does not involve guilt, we are on our way to a healthier, happier life. Where you don't feel shame when eating a crossaint. And perhaps you should examine your relationship with those in your life as well, and request that they not sabotage your plan by calling you "fatty." Build a support network of people that believe in you and uplift you to a higher level. And enjoy your pain aux chocolat.

How can you start to heal your relationship with food?