Eating Disorders: Valentine’s day love

Facing a bad relationship or the lack of a relationship on Valentine’s Day naturally instigates self-criticism, and eating disorders thrive on self-hate. Eating disorders have touched many of the women and some of the men[1] in my life; my heart goes out to each of you.


The woman on this magazine cover symbolizes perfection, society’s ideal body type, and a call to action: “Shape Up”.  This insinuates that the reader is not perfect, unlike the model, of course. Other titles on the cover also play into our stereotypes, and suggest that events like “A Foodie Gets Fit” or “A Model Fights Her Eating Issues” are newsworthy. Yet the magazine’s main article that month was “Fashion to Flatter Every Figure.” Thank you Vogue for addressing eating disorders, but no thank you for ingraining these stereotypes even further into our minds in the process!

Here a chart depicting how someone with an eating disorder thinks:


This looks confusing because it is. Having an eating disorder means you’ve been misled into a cycle of self-ideology, self-criticism and self-disappointment – you constantly realize that you are not perfect (because nobody is) and yet you compare yourself to the model society presents: You look at that model on the magazine cover, see that idealistically airbrushed image, and then pick apart every way in which you are different.

People easily forget that they are unique and beautiful. We forget that there are many others out there who have gone through similar struggles, who would be willing to help support them and begin a healing process.[2] [3] [4] [5]

Planning a reasonable, healthy diet can support healing because eating disorders are about the loss of control and short-term emotional thinking, whereas being healthy requires full control toward achieving a long-term goal. Determining to follow a healthy diet that you’ve researched can help to prevent, moderate or even realize that you have a disorder. Eating regularly helps, as does avoiding foods that shock your system, like sugar, or foods that slow down your system, like highly processed foods (most packaged foods are processed). Planning balanced meals and preparing food helps you not only eat healthy but to take the time to appreciate the work that goes into it. This strategy can help you regain nutritional balance and boost self-control.

Have goals and stick to them as best you can, but don’t beat yourself up if you stray. Disappointment, especially self-disappointment, fuels eating disorders – don’t go there! If you mess up simply acknowledge it ws a mistake and go back to your plan as if you had never left it. In fact, a recent study on the psychology behind eating disorders concludes that “facing modern temptations [tasty foods abound], it is impressive how many people remain in normal weight range today.” [7] Nobody is perfect.


Post-Workout Protein






Never Go Hungry!


I ate healthy food for two years and remained slightly overweight, even though I was watching what I was eating. I would eat enough but irregularly, which meant that my body would store excess into fat and then eat away at my muscles until the next meal. I regularly put my body into starvation mode and prevented it from working properly. Now I know I should never go hungry!

I didn’t have the proportions right, which I discussed last week, and I certainly did not eat appropriate portion sizes.

Being healthy is not just about watching what you eat, but how much you eat and how often. This may seem obvious, but I didn’t realize that under eating, even by a little bit each day, can have even more destructive effects on your body in the long term than overeating.

Your body eats away at muscle before fat stores because muscle is easier to break down for fuel than fat. [1][2] The only way to burn fat is to focus your body on building muscle by providing it with plenty of nutrients and exercising. While I was eating relatively healthy food and working out, I still did not support my body properly: certainly not enough to be happy with my results. This was frustrating and discouraging, but figuring out the solution has been a rewarding process.

There is no universal solution to portion sizes. Every body burns energy differently.  But everybody experiences the same cues when they are satiated. The problem is that the cues most will notice often happen with a ten or fifteen minute delay. The key is to figure out how much food you need to feel content, without triggering your body to store away the food for later. This also means that you must exercise regularly so that after a meal your body is focused on forming muscles, as opposed to fat stores.

Another way to prevent your body from going into starvation mode is eating at a snack whenever you are hungry. Things that can satiate your hunger in small portions are generally relatively high in fat or protein. They include nuts, avocados, berries and cheese, and I always keep such snacks on hand. They’re in my desk at work, in my pantry at home, in my purse and even in the car.  If I undereat at the previous meal, or I’m running late, I always make sure that my body has something to continue fueling it until that next meal. I also make sure to snack a bit before going into a work meeting that could run long. No excuses!

Basic Food Component Ratios

Guess which indulgence I picked for this graph. Hint: they sell these in the coffee shop where I am people watching and writing from.  (Answer at bottom)

Until recently, I fed into the food pyramid or food plate approach that we are taught in school. Unfortunately, this didn’t work as well as a scientific method that I learned to use when measuring out portion sizes in p90x. That program and many other weight-management programs use the three basic components of foods to measure your daily intake, as opposed to the food groups of the FDA. Each food is made up of carbohydrates, proteins and fats.

A healthy individual that is trying to maintain weight will ration about 40% carbohydrates, 40% proteins and 20% fats each day. The basic food component ratio depends on your goals: if you want to gain weight you generally eat more carbohydrates and fats, whereas if you want to lose weight you generally choose a more protein-rich diet.  It’s is important to realize, however, that each food item generally will contain all three of these nutritional building blocks.

Apart from the nutrition label that you can deduce an approximate ratio from pretty easily, sites like can help you determine what these proportions are for each food – eventually you’ll catch on by grouping foods together, like beans and chickpeas. The first two weeks of figuring out the basics of doing this tested my patience, but it was definitely worth the work to re-balance my diet and develop sensible food awareness for the rest of my life.

Answer to the caption above:  Dark-chocolate coated coffee beans.

My First Change: A commitment to water

How Soft Drinks Impact Your Health

How Soft Drinks Impact Your Health
How Soft Drinks Impact Your Health





As a side note:
