Below is advice on how to mentally handle the holidays from someone that I consider to be one of the more reasonable online “Health Coaches”.  Isabel Foxen Duke comes from the position of: Stop Dieting.  Peace of mind will come when you entirely stop trying to control your weight, and when you accept Your Own Body Size and Set Point, whether it is fat or thin. 

Although I, personally, don’t choose to follow her position, I understand and agree with a great deal of what she says.  Perhaps her presentations resonate with me more because I, too, have a BA in Sociology, and so we share that specific undergraduate educational background.

I respect, and agree with, her references to “intuitive eating” as the “Hunger & Fullness Diet”.  She says: “While intuitive eating itself is not “the answer” to your food problem, the basics are helpful to know if you’re struggling to get off traditional dieting.”

You Are Allowed.
by Isabel Foxen Duke,
BA in Sociology and online “Health Coach”.
at “How To Not Eat Cake … really fast,
standing up, when nobody’s looking.”

You are allowed to disagree with food and body shamers this year,
you are allowed to have a different opinion,
you are allowed to request that someone withhold body or food shaming comments around you,
you are allowed to leave the table if your request is not respected.

You are also allowed to sit quietly and disagree with them in your own mind,
with the understanding that their beliefs don’t have to be your own;
you do not need to convert others to validate your own experience,
and their approval is not needed for you to be yourself.

You are allowed to not diet, when other people are dieting.
and you can feel compassionately for dieters,
who are likely struggling just like you have,
and who are also victims of an unfortunately weight-discriminating world.

Recognize that you cannot control other people,
you cannot educate someone without their permission,
and also recognize, that doesn’t make them right,
nor does it make food or body shaming okay.

We do not understand how the body resists weight change and why, after weight loss, so many people regain it. The concept of a set point for weight is widely accepted.

The set point is like the thermostat in our central heating system. It is switched on when the temperature falls below a critical (set point) temperature and is switched off when that is exceeded.

Using the word “rachet” might help one conceptualize the set point concept.

To rachet is to cause to increase or decrease by increments. A rachet is a mechanical device consisting of a toothed wheel or rack engaged with a pawl that permits it to move in only one direction.

A person has an existing set point. That person gains weight, and then gains and sustains even more weight gain. This causes the set point to be racheted up, and once it passes each rachet, there is no going back. The rachet is the biological set point and it can be easily driven upwards, but is very difficult to drive back down.

Using the fat cell theory is helpful to further explain how this works.

For an example, let’s assume an average fat cell contains 0.4 micrograms of fat each. A person gaining weight might see that fat cell load expand to 0.6 micrograms. This is an acceptable load increase, and when the person loses weight, the fat cell level drops back to 0.4 micrograms.

 This seesaw can go on forever, but when the weight gain loads the fat cell up to 0.8 micrograms, a tipping point is reached, and the fat cell divides. Now we have two fat cells, each containing 0.4 micrograms. Click! That was the ratchet turning irreversibly.

When we want to return to the previous weight, we must lose half the fat we gained. The problem with this is that each fat cell now has the standard fat load of 0.4 micrograms each, and to halve this to just 0.2 micrograms per cell requires us to get the cells to live a life they do not like. If we let our mind tell us what to eat, we can overcome the disgruntled fat cells which are below their fat quota. But all the time the basic animal biology of our body will be waiting to return to 0.4 micrograms per cell.

Then, along comes an event like a vacation, a holiday, or other eating occasion, and we take our eye off the ball .. lose our mental concentration, but the fat cells in our body didn’t rest, and we’ve regained our weight. The body is now back to the new set point it made when we went past the older set point and hit a new rachet.

   In a 2007 research study, a team of Swedish researchers examined fat biopsies from about 680 lean and obese Swedish people. They found obese people can have as much as twice the number of fat cells as do lean people. The researchers also followed 20 gastric bypass patients who lost weight after their operations. Over the course of two years, their fat cells shrunk in size, but the total number stayed constant.

Fat cells can shrink, but once created, they never disappear. The body’s job is to work hard to get all of its cells (including fat cells) to survive and even to thrive. It is easy to continually rachet the biological set point up, but it is almost impossible to rachet it down.

A fat cell is not merely a passive container that stores fat. Leptin is one of the hormones produced by fat cells. Among other things, leptin tells the brain how much fat is in the body, and provides a direct communication link between the brain and fat cells.

Fat cells are the hub of a complex communication system that regulates many metabolic functions, continuously telling the brain how much energy the body has left, signaling muscles when they can burn fat, instructing the liver and other organs when to replenish fat stores, and controlling the flow of energy in and out of cells.

Because fat is so vital to survival, nature has created a complex system of overlapping feedback loops that make it very difficult to override the body's imperative to store energy. People with extra fat cells tend to regain lost weight rapidly.

 This biological truth is the basic problem that exists with all of those “Non-Diet”, “Intuitive Eating” theories. A reduced obese person cannot rely on one’s BODY to make or to keep him/her lean. In fact… it is just the OPPOSITE. A reduced obese person’s BODY has the specific biological imperative of refilling EACH fat cell to its basic quota, which will return that person back to his/her former obesity set point.

The DietHobby ARCHIVES contain many other articles which also discuss this issue.

NOTE: This article was bumped up for new viewers.  Originally posted on 12/9/2012.

                    
There is an Alternative to Dieting.

Essentially, It is:  Stop Dieting. Stop trying to lose weight.  Start understanding that dieting is NOT a solution in that it’s very unlikely to make you thin for longer than 2-5 years at the very most - and actually, it’s much more likely you’ll end up heavier than where you started.  .. and begin relying on your Internal Wisdom. 

There’s plenty of Marketing for this Alternative, and a hefty hourly fee… will get you help in the form of individual online contact, from one of a multitude of “dubiously licensed online counselors”  who charge about the same hourly rates as the professional Therapists and Psychologists who are licensed through State, Federal, or National medically-recognized agencies. 

Will this Alternative result in getting you Thin or to a “Normal” BMI weight?
Perhaps…. If your body is already in the “normal” or “overweight” range and has always been there. However, if your body has ever been well inside the “Obesity” BMI weight range for more than one or two years, it is Extremely unlikely.

For almost everyone, what happens is that a “successful” implementation of this alternative process will result in your body weight returning to, and settling at, its highest individual Set Point. For more information on that future probability read these articles: 
Set Point, and Running Down the Up Escalator.

Here's the Bottom line.

Below is an article in support of the Alternative to Dieting.

Why You Think About Food Day and Night & What to Do About It.
                      by Vania Phitidis of Peaceful Eating. co.uk

"Do you think about food first thing in the morning and last thing at night (and about a million times in between)?

Do you wake up worrying if you’ll be able to control your intake,  go to bed at night evaluating your day and judging yourself based on how you managed your eating – and then making promises about how you’ll eat tomorrow?

Do you perpetually feel guilty for eating?

Why??????? 

The one reason you’re crazy around food is because you want your body to look different than it does.

That’s it. Simple.

And… you have bought into these beliefs:

•  controlling how much or what you eat – or both of these – will give you the body you desire, make you a better person, or likely both.
  
  
•  your size defines your acceptability, your health, or both
  
  
•  you can control your biology and influence your genetic make-up.
  

Almost every woman I’ve worked with has realized that if she’d never gone on her first diet (to try to change her body size) she would never have developed a dysfunctional relationship with food. Ever thought to yourself you wish you were the size you were before you started dieting?

 Why you want to change your body in the first place.

The primary reason you want to change your body is because you fear not being accepted.

Acceptance/ belonging is a primary driver for human behavior. Without acceptance, we are outcasts. Alone. Unable to find a mate to procreate, or a community to help us when we need it; to provide comfort, solace, connection and play.

Bottom line: we are social creatures and we need acceptance to survive.

Everyone I’ve ever worked with received this message at some point in her life. It appeared in different voices and with variations in language (verbal and non-verbal):

If you’re fat/big, you’re unacceptable (which translates into unlovable).

In westernized culture – and indeed increasingly in others, there is a rare body shape that is particularly coveted. A small percentage of people naturally have this body shape – which is slender, slim hipped (though the latest requirement is with some curves, but only in the ‘right’ places) and long limbed. It’s rare because these people don’t have ‘thrifty genes’ which store fat easily. In past millennia, few of them would have survived.

People want what’s rare. We desire what is scarce. Marketing strategies feed on this! If you can achieve, accomplish or acquire what is scarce, your status increases and hence your acceptability. Think of Ferraris.

Insert this into the very real, growing culture of weight stigma and its associated interwoven social issues: Fatphobia, Thin Privilege and Diet Culture.

And let’s not forget the role of our economic system: capitalism works on selling stuff! The way to sell stuff that doesn’t meet our basic requirements, is to create a perceived need by preying on our basic human need for acceptance and belonging. The global market for weight loss was estimated to reach $586.3 billion in 2014!

Doesn’t the dieting industry employ a brilliant business model? Look at all the repeat customers who think they are the failures (because they can’t get or stay thin), rather than the product! Imagine buying any other product, say a kettle that didn’t work… would you keep going back to buy it again and again?

  It comes to this.

Because you have wanted to change your shape to gain a greater sense of belonging, you’ve engaged in trying to manipulate your weight. And you’ve done that through restricting.

The trouble is that if your body is put through unsubtle and sustained caloric deficit, you will crave food. The longer this goes on, the more your brain will fixate on food and eating – which makes complete sense – because if our brains didn’t do this, our species wouldn’t survive.

The truth is – you can’t control your biology.

Any ‘successful’ attempt at weight loss has undoubtedly failed eventually, or you wouldn’t be here reading this. Our survival instinct is very strong – and our bodies work incredibly hard to maintain homeostasis – also known as your set point. Our bodies have a range they like to stay within – based on our genetic make up (though influenced by our history of dieting). Dieting slows your metabolism, making your body become more efficient at storing anything you ingest. It also raises cortisol (stress) levels which slows digestion, and signals the body to store fat.

But it’s not only the physical deprivation that creates this fixation.

It’s also the perceived deprivation which is created by the thoughts you have about food and eating that may not have anything at all to do with what you’re actually consuming.

Any judgments you have about food and eating, any demands you make about how you ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t’ be eating, and any guilt or shame you feel associated with your eating or your body, will create a deprivation mindset – even if you’re not physically restricting those foods!

If you’re familiar with the story of Adam and Eve, you’ll know about the ‘forbidden fruit.’ Eve was not going hungry: she wasn’t physically deprived of food, but couldn’t resist the apple simply because it was forbidden. She fell from grace – and took Adam along with her.



The way out of this madness.

It’s simple, though that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

Stop trying to change your body. Leave. It. Alone.

The truth is that trying to manipulate your weight has failed in the past and will fail in the future. This is true for 95% of people who do it. If you were boarding an airplane and were told there was a 95% chance it would crash, would you embark? One of the most consistent predictors for weight gain is ever having dieted!

Stop physically restricting calories or types of food.

If you keep doing this, you will stay fixated on food, and you will have urges to binge.

Drop all judgments about food.

That means nothing is good or bad (including you).

Drop all rules about food.

Give yourself permission to eat any food, without guilt, preferably when you’re hungry.

Drop all your judgments about bodies.

This means all bodies are good bodies, whatever their shape and size. All bodies are valuable and worthy and deserving of respect and care.

Disengage from diet talk and extreme fitness & exercise regimes.

Stop following the diet gurus! Throw out your scale and every dieting book or magazine you own. Move your body in ways that make you feel good. Disengage from diet talk at the office, with your friends and in your home.

Remove the words ‘should’ and ‘have to’ from the way you speak about your eating or exercise (and anything else!).

So you want to lose weight for health reasons?

Unfortunately there is a lot of myth in the public realm about the connection between health and weight.

I saw a funny though sad cartoon the other day of a big-bodied man at the doctor’s with a stake through his chest. The man shouts ‘Doctor! I’ve been impaled!’ The doctor looks non-nonchalantly over at him and says ‘Well, maybe you’ll feel better if you lose some weight.’

There is undoubtedly weight stigma within the medical profession – and that’s truly awful for people in large bodies.

That said – here’s what I know:

•  Not everyone who is so-called ‘overweight’ is unhealthy.
  
  
•  Not everyone who is of so-called ‘normal weight’ is healthy.
  
  
•  Weight loss will not improve every health condition, and it’s certainly not the cause of all health problems!
  
  
•  Attempting to lose weight through dieting for any reason – health or not – is likely to fail!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The reasons for wanting to lose weight do not change the fact that dieting increases your chances of gaining weight!
  
  
•  You can improve most health markers without dieting or losing weight – by moving your body in ways that feel good; and by eating according to your hunger, fullness and what makes your body feel energized and balanced – as well as for pleasure.
  

If you have health problems and you’ve been told you should lose weight to solve them, please educate yourself about weight and health.

  But will I lose weight?

I have no idea. You might, and you might not. It depends on your genetic make up, how long you’ve been dieting, how committed you are to not restricting – and a bunch of unknowns about bio-chemistry and the mind-body connection.  I know people who have. I know people who have not.

But what I can promise you is you’ll feel free and relaxed around food, your sanity will be restored and your quality of life improved – not just around food! You will stop waiting for a number to be reached before you start to live your life and do the things you want to do.

Plus – you will become an advocate for the solution, instead of contributing to truly terrifying statistics – like the fact that 81% of American 10 year olds fear becoming fat, and 71% of 7 year olds are dieting. You will become an advocate for people of all shapes and sizes to be treated with equal respect.

Each time you engage in trying to alter your body, and judging any body (as good or bad), you’re contributing to these growing social problems. I’m not saying this to guilt trip you. I’m saying it because it’s true. Otherwise it’s like saying ‘I stand for the abolition of slavery!!!! But I want to keep mine…’

Although it’s simple – it isn’t easy. Accepting ourselves, and belonging to ourselves first and foremost is not easy to do in a culture that is obsessed with the thin ideal, in an economy that cynically undermines our unquestionable enoughness for profit. It’s hard to do when every which way you turn there’s a new diet, a friend who’s lost weight (and getting approval from others because of it), advertising that bombards us with messages that our health and happiness are tied to a number on the scale, or a doctor telling you everything will be better if you drop a few pounds.

It’s impossible to do without knowledge, a radical paradigm shift, support and community. Even with these you’re swimming against the stream."

The article above is an Excellent depiction of support for the Alternative-to-Dieting choice.

                       
Whether our Choice is Dieting or the Alternative-to-Dieting, everyone wants our money. Not only do numerous Marketing interests .... (which includes the medical profession) .... want to sell us "Help" to get our bodies Thin, they want to sell us  "Help"  to emotionally adjust to staying Fat.

The author of the article above, Vania Phitidas, is one of the multitude of online “Life Counselors” specializing in “Intuitive Eating”, and “Body Acceptance”.  She Blogs at "Peaceful Eating".

She appears to be a normal-weight female in her mid 40s, a former bulimic, with no personal history of obesity.

Like most of the current "online life counselors", she has no actual credentials or licensing except for the fact that she is registered somewhere as an “Intuitive Eating Counselor”, a “Mindfulness-Based Eating Awareness Training teacher”, and “Self-Esteem teacher”, who is involved in a “More to Life” program.

A resident of the United Kingdom, she appears to be college educated with an undergraduate degree in Psychology and a Masters in Education for Sustainability.  Apparently she charges about $120 per session, which appears to be the usual rate for the majority of similar "life counselors".

Each of has has the freedom to choose any form of  "HARD" that seems personally right for us as individuals, and I see ALL of the choices available as equally valid ones. 

My own personal choice has been to choose to Embrace Dieting and make it into a Hobby that is enjoyable much of the time. However, part of that very Dieting Hobby is to become aware and to consider Alternatives to Dieting.   It is not a one-size-fits-all world, and what is the right choice for ME, may be the wrong choice for YOU.  Also, what is the right choice for TODAY, may not be the right choice for TOMORROW.  Those who want to know more about me, and my dieting and weight history can read the article ABOUT ME here at DietHobby.

If I am "building castles in the air"
I am dreaming grandiose dreams without any foundation.

Building castles in the air is NOT however to be confused with dreaming big dreams and then planning through the steps necessary to make those dreams a reality.

A member of a forum I frequent, recently asked:

“Just curious. What about No S vs. Intuitive Eating?”

Here is my take on these two concepts.

No S accepts that it is a diet, and gives specific and objective (although flexible) rules...such as:  "No snacks, no sweets, no seconds except ..sometimes..on days beginning with S".

Intuitive Eating is one of those diets that refuses to admit it is a diet, and gives vague and subjective rules...such as:  "Eat only when hungry, eat what you want, stop when you're full".

No S relies on the principle that: when a person who is interested in moderation, sees and actually realizes the amount of food they are eating, they will choose to reduce that amount,and through that behavior, they will achieve and maintain a more normal bodyweight.

Intutive Eating relies on the principle that: when a person gets rid of outside rules,....except for the Intuitive Eating rules about eating when hungry etc....and relies on their BODY to tell them what and how much to eat, that their own body signals will cause them to reduce the amounts they eat  and eventually acheive and maintain a normal bodyweight.

 (Note: "Intutive Eating"  is a diet (labeled non-diet) used by many "eating disorder experts", although it has absolutely zero scientific basis, as well a dismal success rate.)

No S is objective and primarily based on common sense.
Intutitive Eating is subjective and primarily based on magic.

Those of you who are unfamiliar with the No S Diet, and/or the diet-that-says-it-isn’t-a-diet concept known as “Intitutive Eating” can learn more about these from reading some of my past articles which are contained here in the ARCHIVES of DietHobby.

Some specific links are:

"The No S Diet” (2008), by Reinhard Engels is a book and diet plan that I’ve discussed and reviewed previously. Click here to see my review and viewer comments.

Here is one of my past articles about the Concepts of Intitutive Eating.

The two concepts together, were the basis of a previous article posted in December 2011. See:  Intuitive Eating and the No S Diet.

NOTE: Originally posted on 11/1/12. Reposted for new viewers.

Lets not throw the baby out with the bathwater
....which means... 
Be careful not to discard something of value
with something that is of no value.

I see and share various thoughts and ideas here at DietHobby that come from many different sources.  If an idea or article is posted here, I’ve found some of its concepts interesting, enjoyable or valuable to me in some way.
 It does NOT mean that I agree with all of that author’s basic food beliefs or way-of-eating philosophies.

Here is the third of three articles about the basic Intutive Eating Concepts by UK addiction counselor, Gillain Riley, who appears to share my point of view about the general ineffectiveness of this Diet. Ms. Riley states her professional knowledge about these concepts in a thoughtful and precise manner, and I am sharing this series here at DietHobby.

Advocates of Intutitive Eating insist that this diet / manner-of-eating / way-of-eating / lifestyle is "not a diet". My belief is that EVERY diet works for someone, and this includes Intutive Eating.

The other two of the three articles can be found at:
"Does Our Body Tell Us WHAT to eat - Intutive Eating 1"
“Eat When You’re Hungry? – Intutive Eating 2”

HOW TO END A MEAL
         by Gillian Riley, Author of Ditching Diets (Revised edition of Eating Less)

A great many people do most (if not all) of their overeating at meals, especially their evening meal. You may be one of those who consistently buys, prepares and serves what you know is way too much food but finds it impossible to contemplate cutting back. Or maybe your meals aren't too huge to start with but you find it tough to stop, taking second helpings, finishing off what others have left, picking on things in the kitchen while you're clearing up and then finding things to snack on for much of the evening.

The third principle of Intuitive Eating, suggesting that you 'stop eating when you're full', attempts to address this problem. As with the two other principles we've looked at over the past two newsletters (eat whatever your body tells you it needs and eat when you're hungry), it ASSUMES a reliable, innate wisdom in our bodies. Those who promote Intuitive Eating argue that it's your ignorance of this wisdom that makes you overeat. If you simply pay attention to it, your body will let you know when you've had enough.

Of the 5,000 or so medical academic journals that are published every month, a good number of them, as you might expect, are dedicated to issues concerning food, obesity and appetite. Over the past ten years I've made it my business to spend time in the (absolutely fabulous) British Library in London, hunting down the latest research. I've not found anything to convince me about the theory of Intuitive Eating, and in fact have found quite a bit of research that very much calls it into question.

One paper I've come across that seeks to promote Intuitive Eating reports that in surveys, 'normal eaters' (those who describe themselves as not having a problem with eating and weight) state that they stop eating when they feel full. It's then suggested that this is ideal; the goal overeaters should aim for. (1)

First of all, I suggest that 'fullness' is vague and entirely subjective;. It's a personal evaluation, specific to each individual. Whatever physical sensations are interpreted as 'fullness' by one person will feel like 'just getting started' to another. Research has shown that how 'full' people report feeling before eating doesn't show much relationship to how much they actually consume. (2)

I suspect that many of those who overeat also think they stop eating when they're full. Isn't that what you do? Don't you think that if you tried to eat less at meals, you wouldn't feel full, and that is precisely the problem? Saying that 'normal eaters' stop when they're full doesn't say anything at all about the process of change, about how an overeater becomes a 'normal eater'.

YUMMY FAT
In terms of this process of change, there are both physical and psychological elements that need to be taken into consideration. As for the physical side of things, the kind of food eaten has an effect on the feelings of fullness, in particular the amount of fat contained in the food.

It has been well established in research that higher fat content inevitably leads to greater consumption of calories. This is thought to be because fat contains more than twice the amount of calories than protein or carbohydrate, gram for gram. (3)

But fat, more than anything else, is what makes food so delicious. Fat is the dressing on the salad, the gravy on the roast and the butter in the cookie. We often think of sugar addiction, but few people compulsively eat sugar directly out of the packet. Add fat to that sugar, though, and you've got something entirely moorish. It's no fun at all to completely eliminate fat, so our challenge is to eat enough to make our food enjoyable but not so much as to make us unwell.

HOW FULL IS 'FULL'?
In a rare example of solid research confirming urban myth, feelings of fullness are delayed, developing around 20 minutes after eating. There are two ways to use this information: to do whatever you can to slow down how fast you eat and, most importantly, to accept that it's best not to feel full when you finish your meal. The way to deal with that is to consider waiting to see how you're feeling in a few minutes, and if you still feel hungry you can have some more. This will work best if you've already got that second helping included in your Plan (see Eating Less, Chapter 6).

The notion of being 'full' seems to make sense because we know, for example, that when we fill a cup there's a point at which it will not accept any more filling. It becomes undeniably full and will begin to spill over. Even something elastic, such as a balloon, at some point gets so full that it bursts. But our stomachs don't work quite that way - which may be a good thing or a bad thing! That nauseous, bloated, sleepy, overstuffed feeling of fullness is WAY BEYOND the appropriate stopping point.

As you probably know, our stomachs expand over time to accommodate larger amounts of food. This is why one kind of weight-loss surgery simply reduces the size of the stomach so that larger amounts of food cannot easily fit into it.

Your stomach is supposed to be the size of your fist, but for many people it's become larger due to years of overconsumption. To correct this and to overcome overeating, your goal would be to decrease the size of your stomach, preferably without the use of surgery. Surely, if you consistently eat until you feel full, you will not be working towards that goal. The aim, I would think, is very much not to feel full at the end of your meals.

This, however, presents the problem that few people are talking about, especially of course those who advise Intuitive Eating. How can you finish your meals when you don't feel full - and continue to do that for long enough to make any real difference? To a great many people this seems impossible and unrealistic, which is why it's so often ignored as a viable solution.

This is what's different about the work I'm doing. It addresses this very question and leads you towards a workable resolution of this difficulty. This is one aspect of what I refer to as managing your addictive appetite, the aspect here being the excess appetite, the feeling of not being full at the end of meals.

The truth is that hunger and fullness are very difficult to define and usually only experienced at their extremes. When you give up thinking that you should rely on your body's signals, then you can see that there is an entirely different solution, and one that is both powerful and empowering.

NOTES
1. "Development and psychometric evaluation of a measure of Intuitive Eating." Tylka TL Journal of Counselling Psychology (2006) 53 (2), 226-240
2. "Reproducibility, power and validity of visual analogue scores in assessment of appetite sensations in single test meal studies." Flint A, Raben A, Blundell JE International Journal of Obesity (2000) 24 (1): 38-48
2. "The role of energy density in the overconsumption of fat." Rolls, BJ The Journal of Nutrition (2000) 130: 268S-271S
See Chapter 6 in EATING LESS: "What to do about Wanting More
 

Here's a link to my book review of Ditching Diets (2013) by Gillian Riley.

Ms. Riley is a Counselor on Addiction, not a medical professional or Nutritionist. Her own personal way-of-eating appears to Paleo based.  Here’s a link to my previous book review of the Perfect Health Diet (2010) by Paul Jaminet, which is on her short recommended reading list.

NOTE: Originally posted on 3/17/13. Reposted for new viewers.