"Normal" Eating by Karen R. Koenig

The Concept of Having a Relationship with Food

I probably use the words “our relationship with food” at least once a day working with clients, posting on my message board, or in my writings, but I never stopped to think about the meaning of the phrase until a Food and Feelings message board member shared her thoughts on their usage. What exactly do we mean when we say we have a relationship with food?

APPetite User Guidelines

I hope that you have tried out my new, free, private app for Facebook only, APPetite on Facebook. If you're having difficulty accessing it, here's a link to the APPetite User Guidelines. Remember that any and all non-public information for APPetite is stored on a secure server off-site from Facebook so that your use of the app is completely confidential.

Best,

Karen R. Koenig

Book Review: MOVE--HOW WOMEN CAN ACHIEVE ATHLETIC GOALS AT ANY AGE

Although I don’t generally set explicit goals for myself yet do okay, that’s not the case for everyone. Disregulated eaters especially often have difficulty setting and achieving goals especially related to food and fitness. If you have difficulty achieving success, here’s a book that is definitely for you—MOVE! HOW WOMEN CAN ACHIEVE ATHLETIC GOALS AT ANY AGE by Catharine Utzschneider, Ed.D. who happens to be a colleague of mine from (when I lived in) Massachusetts.

Resentment Barriers to Recovery

Not only is resentment an unpleasant feeling, but it’s often a sure-fire barrier to recovery from eating problems. How full of resentments are you? Can you see how being stuck in this emotion prevents you from making progress in healing your relationship with food? Here’s my take on how you’ll benefit from chucking your resentments.

Seeing Parents Realistically

I read a novel about three generations of women a while back which moved from granddaughter to mother to grandmother. At first, observing how the granddaughter was mistreated by her mother and grandmother, I was appalled. I felt the same way about how the mother was alternately abused and neglected by the grandmother. Then, finally, when I learned about the grandmother’s hard life, I had compassion for them all.

Why We Think and Act Irrationally

I hear this question at least once a week, sometimes as often as once a day: I really want to become a “normal” eater, so why do I keep doing things which are not remotely in my long-term best interest around food? While reading an article in AARP magazine (1/12) on spending practices, I found some enlightening, helpful explanations that answer this question.

Satiation and Your Brain

There are times when I read new, scientific theories about the brain and food that I struggle about whether to blog about them or not. Quite frankly, more and more of the research these days indicates that eating and weight are biologically based. So, I think to myself, is it better to have the latest scientific observations even though they prove that our biology strongly underlies eating difficulties, or might it generate feelings of stuckness and hopelessness in readers. Fair warning, this is one of those blogs.

Personality and Eating

I wrote THE FOOD AND FEELINGS WORKBOOK due to the realiazation that clients had a very difficult time following their appetite according to THE RULES OF “NORMAL” EATING because their feelings—or more precisely their lack of attunement to and understanding of their feelings—kept getting in the way. In short, the fact that disregulated eaters need to better manage emotions is one of the things that’s been keeping them stuck in unhealthy eating and self-nurturing patterns.

Focus on Fit, Not Fat

Most of my clients who carry more weight than they’d like believe that they cannot be healthy or fit because they are fat. They hyper-focus on weight, shape, body discomfort, and how others view them, and feel helpless and despairing over their size. They believe that fat equals unfit. Research tell us this is not the case, so listen up.

Slow Down Your Eating to Eat Less

One of the most effective changes you can make to stop overeating, is to s-l-o-w down. Compared to slow eaters, fast eaters recall less about what they’ve eaten, want to eat again sooner, and are more prone to weight gain. In fact, there’s evidence for a correlation between the pace at which we eat and the quantity of food eaten.