"Normal" Eating by Karen R. Koenig

Growth or Safety

American psychologist Abraham Maslow is attributed with having said, “You will either step forward into growth, or you will step backward into safety.” He wasn’t talking in physical terms, of course, but in emotional ones. His quote draws a dramatic line in the sand—we either take risks and charge ahead or hide and remain who we are rather than who we could become. This observation is highly relevant for  moving on from disregulated eating, particularly at the dawning of a new year. 

Holiday Review

Okay, you made it through the big holiday meal. Now it’s time to use your curiosity and compassion to review how you did. Because this essential dual mindset is one which disregulated eaters sorely lack, engaging in it will help you grow healthier emotionally even if you’re unhappy with how you ate. No matter what happened between you and food on Christmas day, being objective and kind to yourself will teach you new lessons.

ABC-TV Interview on Holiday Eating

I was interviewed by Heidi Godman on Healhsmart, ABC-TV7/Sarasota on 12/21/09 discussing the Do's and Don'ts of holiday eating. Here's the linK: ABC-TV7/Sarasota Holiday Eating Interview. If you can't access the link, go to ABC-TV7/Sarasota, click on Healthsmart, then scroll down to the interview. 

Best,

Karen R. Koenig 

Holiday Check List

Just as Santa checks his list once and then again, you‘ll need to go over some things to make sure you’re ready for Christmas day eating (whether you celebrate the holiday or simply enjoy an occasion getting together with friends and family) because preparation for challenges is one-third of a successful process. Another third is follow through and the final third is a post-eating assessment which we’ll get to next week. For now, your job is to focus on how you want to think and act around food on Christmas.

Exercise and Weight Gain Prevention

I don’t focus much on weight in therapy sessions because I believe that learning how to eat “normally” is more crucial than any number on the scale. In fact, I shy away from weight discussions with clients except when the subject comes up naturally, and hesitate to write much on weight because zeroing in on it, per se, doesn’t generally pay off but does get people anxious and upset. However, recognizing that folks who don’t want to put back the pounds need insights, information, and incentives, I (sigh) write this blog.

Worries and Weight

No surprise to me that there’s a high correlation between stress and weight gain. Slim folks get anxious and overwhelmed too—but don’t feel like eating. Unfortunately, stress and worry more often cause overeating, feeding into and off one another (pun intended), so that my work is to teach overweight worry warts how to scale back their agita to improve their relationship with food.

Food and Mood

In addition to what you eat affecting your brain chemistry, mood, alertness, energy level, and performance, we’re now learning that how much and when you eat also has an impact. You may know this intuitively from the post-Thanksgiving dinner crash you experience, but not think about how food affects you every day of the year. 

Book Review: A Trio of Titles

A trio of books by Barbara Small, MA on subjects near and dear to the hearts of disregulated eaters—assertiveness, effective communication and self-talk—belong up there on your bookshelf. Small, a reformed overeater and “nice girl,” counselor, and life coach from Victoria, BC, has lots of insightful and instructive things to say about how to get your head on straight, get out of behavioral ruts, and speak your needs.

Overeating versus Loss of Control Eating

A while back, I read about a research project studying loss of control (LOC) eating and got to thinking about the study’s need to distinguish it from garden variety overeating. The subject can be confusing. For example, the concept of loss of control eating may be helpful for overeaters, but it is problematic for highly restrictive eaters who are too in control when they eat and need to cut themselves some slack around food. So for strict undereaters LOC eating might actually be a good thing. To be clear then, today’s blog is for overeaters who lose control around food to their detriment.

This Is Not My Life

I was having dinner with a colleague and friend one night and we got to talking about our previous lives and struggles, identifying what helped us progress and how we might use that knowledge to help our clients. With very different histories, both of us had made full recoveries. The more we talked about our transformations, the clearer it became that we did have one very significant thing in common.