"Normal" Eating by Karen R. Koenig

Thanks From Your Wild Child

I’ve blogged often about the wild child in you that’s been getting its way around food—the part that’s entitled, defiant, demanding, uncaring about consequence, and who lives only in the moment. But there’s another part of the wild child that knows she’s out of her league around food and desperately, more than anything in the world, wants the loving, nurturing, compassionate, caring part of you to reign her in and be in charge.

Life, Not Drama

I was having lunch with a friend who is also a therapist a while back. We shared professional chit chat, but mostly we talked about how are our private lives were going—the latest developments in some ongoing family situations and how we were bearing up. She really got my attention when she said quite casually, “I wish clients saw the ups and downs of life as just that, rather than as exceptional high drama.” How true, I thought, how could our lives be any other way.

Trying, Learning, and Succeeding

I have clients who’re making real progress in their lives—they used to do “A” around food or people and are now doing “B”—yet still tell me they’re “trying” and “learning,” while I’d call what they’re doing succeeding. Do you understand the difference? When do you stop saying you’re trying or learning and start saying you’re succeeding? Not that there’s anything wrong with “trying” or “learning,” but the goal is success.

The Day After

The day following a holiday feast or any major food event deserves a blog promoting reflection. Print this one out and save it to read after every occasion when you’re eating outside your routine. It will help you reflect on your progress with “normal” eating skills. Better yet, it will remind you of the nonjudgmental mindset needed to continue recovery.

Disregulated Eaters and Sensitivity

Reading an article about the Highly Sensitive Person (HSP)—someone who’s unusually reactive to most everything—I recognized the temperament of many disregulated eaters. Interestingly, an equal number would seem to fall at the other end of the sensitivity spectrum, feeling pleasure or gratification only through unusual intensity.

Trouble Accepting Compliments

There’s a curious paradox that often crops up in the personalities of some disregulated eaters (and plenty of “normal” eaters as well) that’s worth taking a look at: Even though you absolutely crave positive strokes, you also have difficulty accepting compliments and praise. A curious dilemma which needs straightening out for good mental health.

Closed- or Open-Looped People

We’ve all been in the situation of explaining repeatedly to someone how we’d like them to alter their behavior, with the result of absolutely zero change occurring whatsoever. This can leave you feeling frustrated, helpless, angry—and wanting to eat. The fact is, because of how their personalities are constructed, not everyone is open to change.

Why Are You So Private?

Clients and message board members sometimes mention that they’re “private” people, meaning that they tend not to share much about themselves with others. The problem with the word is that it sounds so above it all and benign, when the roots of “privacy” are often anything but. What if being private isn’t beneficial to recovering from eating problems? What if, in fact, it exacerbates and perpetuates them?

Eyes on Your Own Plate!

Remember how teachers cautioned you to keep your eyes on your own paper during a test? They did so because they wanted you to develop skills and knowledge on your own. If you don’t do so already, it’s time to apply the same approach to eating.

Sufficiency

Eating problems stem, in part, from not knowing what’s enough food to satisfy or what’s enough to weigh. Culture tells us one thing and medical advice tells us another. Then there are the dictums from childhood and pressures from our peer group. The core issue here is recognizing sufficiency, that is, knowing when enough is enough.