When You Can’t Get What You Really Want, You Eat

When dysregulated eaters think they can’t get what they really want in life, they too often turn to food. They’re not hungry (not a smidge!), but end up on a mission to find something edible to satisfy them. And heaven help anyone who gets in their way. I know just what this process is like […]

Making Decisions via Pride and Shame

I thought I’d written on this topic before because it’s something I talk about all the time with clients, but I couldn’t find a blog about making decisions by the pride-and-shame method. This is a very simple way to make choices. It totally bypasses internal conflicts and focuses only on how the decision will make […]

Responding to Fat Shaming

The subject of being bullied, teased or shamed in childhood for being fat comes up often on my Food and Feelings message board and in talking with clients. If you have let these experiences from long ago shape how you feel about your body and self today, it’s time for a new take on the […]

4 Tips to Feeding Your Inner Self with Self Care

In order to survive and create balance, start connecting with your true self. In a world of external focus where a scale determines your worth and your salary defines your success, you need to turn inward to find wellness and well-being. In order to survive and create balance, start connecting with your inner core — […]

Positive Self-Talk with a Twist

Who doesn’t know that it’s better to speak positively than negatively to yourself as a foundation for transformation? Hopefully all of you. Now here’s a new twist: when speaking to yourself, replacing the “I” word with “you” or your own name. Studying “the pronouns people use when they talk to themselves silently, inside their minds,” […]

What’s Your Normal?

If you’re being emotionally, verbally, physically or sexually abused by your partner, you’ll likely have difficulty becoming a “normal” eater because of what you accept as “normal” in your domestic life. Several points about such misperceived normalcy were made in Time magazine (9/22/14) after the release of the video of NFL player Ray Rice beating […]

Don’t Tell Yourself You Don’t Care Around Food

Do you know the three words you never want to say to yourself when you’re faced with eating decisions? “I don’t care.” Say them and you know what food- and body-abusing road you’re heading down. The fact is, you do care. You care, you care, you care! Not long ago, I was privy to observing […]

Why is an eating disorder so powerful?

You want to stop acting out your eating disorder, but your good intentions fall by the wayside and you find yourself bingeing or purging or restricting again. What is the power that governs your eating disorder behavior?  mystery. pix*

Neutralizing Your Response to Your Body

     There are thousands of messages in the world that tell us that we are not perfect enough, not pretty enough, not thin enough. Most of these messages originate with the media. The media has been shaping our cultural norms for decades. The media preys on our humanness, our desire to fit in, our desire […]