Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat

Overeating Trigger #2: Boredom

Michelle May MD — Fri, 10 May 2013 08:21:16 -0700

In my Facebook poll about your most common triggers for overeating, not surprisingly, stress and boredom were tied for first place. What's interesting is that stress and boredom are opposites - too much and not enough. In case you missed it, I covered stress in the last several posts. Now let's address boredom eating.

Eating Cures Boredom

The problem is when you stop eating, you're bored again. So you have to eat again! (That is why I call it an Overeating Cycle.) Eating is only one of a thousand things you can do when you're bored. When you're not hungry, you can choose to redirect your attention by making a conscious decision to focus on an activity other than eating (or thinking about eating).

Better Ways to Cure Boredom

Finding something to do besides eat isn't about deprivation and willpower. It's about expanding your options beyond food to build a bigger life.

Here are some specific strategies to help you deal with boredom eating (from chapter 3 of Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat):

Take out a piece of paper and make a list of activities that appeal to you using the following suggestions.
Brainstorm a variety of ideas to ensure that you’ll come up with something that will fit depending on your mood or situation.
Write down both simple and more-complex ideas and both quick and time-consuming activities.
Be sure to include a few ideas that don’t require any preparation or equipment.
Have different ideas for home, work, and other settings.
Use your imagination. One of my workshop participants, an engineer, kept Legos on her desk to play with when she felt like eating.
Choose activities that are enjoyable—or at least not unpleasant. If you’re going to make a choice not to eat, the alternative must be at least somewhat appealing.
Have plenty of eating-incompatible activities. This is any activity that requires your hands or full attention. For example, it’s difficult to eat while you're playing the piano, building something, or sewing.
Choose a few ideas from your list and have everything you’ll need ready to go. For instance, if you plan to play a game of solitaire, keep the cards nearby. If you’re going to try meditation, do a little reading about it ahead of time so you know what to do.
Keep a Redirection Kit or drawer in your home or office stocked with things to do—stationery, a favorite book, puzzles, tools, crafts, or anything else that appeals to you.
Establish a “Food Free Zone” at home and at work. Create a pleasant, comfortable space that you don’t associate with eating. Promise yourself you’ll never eat in that place, though drinking water, tea, or coffee there is fine. Keep your Redirection kit there so you can retreat to your Food Free Zone until the urge to eat passes.
Promise yourself you’ll try a distraction activity for at least a little while. Although it’s easier to eat, you stay trapped in your Overeating Cycle when you do.
Try to redirect your attention away from eating even if it is for only a few minutes at first. For example, say to yourself, “I’ll work on this puzzle for ten minutes, then see how I feel.” You’ll quickly learn that you can postpone eating with no adverse consequences and that will encourage you to try it again next time too.

Remember, you're redirecting your attention away from food because you're just bored, not because you’re depriving yourself. Remind yourself that you’ll eat when you’re hungry.

What do you like to do when you feel bored? What will you put in your "Redirection Kit"?

Stress Management 102

Michelle May MD — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 08:14:07 -0700

In my last post in this series on triggers for overeating, I talked about the first three steps of FEAST for dealing with stress. Frankly, they are the most important steps:

Focus: Instead of trying to escape what you're experiencing, pause and take a few deep breaths. Do a slow Body-Mind-Heart Scan.

Explore: Some situations are universally stressful—the loss of a loved one or the risk of bodily harm—whereas others are uniquely stressful to the individual.

Physical - Fatigue, poor nutrition, sleep deprivation, and lack of physical activity are stressful on your body and can leave you more susceptible to stress from other sources.
Thoughts - The experience of stress often results from your perception and interpretation of life’s events. Most of these thoughts are about the past or the future - but the only thing you can control is what you focus on right now.
Emotional - Emotions provide information so practice noticing what you're feeling without judging it.

Accept: Respect your personal strengths and limitations and use self-compassion when you're experiencing stress. When you accept the situation (and yourself) as it is in this moment and just allow it to be, you won't compound the stress response by resisting it or overreacting to it.

When you view something as manageable or even tolerable, your body will remain alert but not alarmed. So with practice, the first three steps of FEAST - Focus, Explore, and Accept - will take the dis-stress out of most situations. When needed, you can add the last two steps of FEAST: Strategize and Take action.

Strategize

Put things in perspective: When you're feeling overwhelmed, stop and ask yourself two questions:

“What difference will this make one week or even one year from now?”
“Is this really important to me?”

If the situation will have no long-term consequences and does not hold true importance in your life, it deserves less of your energy. If you are in an “over-reactive mode,” go back to the Focus step.

Take charge - if possible: If you notice that you're feeling out of control (a common source of stress), ask yourself, “Can I change this? If so, how?” If you can take some action to correct, improve, or remove yourself from a situation, your stress will be reduced considerably. However, when a situation is beyond your control, acknowledge that and go back to the "Accept" step.

Change your thoughts: As you explore the source of your stress, you'll often discover that a thought was at the root. For example, the thought, "Nobody ever helps me around here," can lead to feelings of frustration, self-pity, overwhelm, and stress.

Changing the original thought to something positive - or even neutral - can lead to different feelings: "I will schedule a family meeting to discuss chores. In the meantime, I'm going to do the ones that I am responsible for." You are more likely to feel calm when you are taking charge of the things that are within your control and letting go of the rest.

Acknowledge your power to choose: Recognize that you have choices about many of the circumstances in your life. For example, you can choose to change jobs, discontinue your involvement with certain people, or limit your activities. You also have choices about how you perceive and react to the circumstances, events, and people in your life. Empower yourself by acknowledging your ability to choose - even if your choice is to do nothing.

Take Action

Take a baby step, even a micromovement, in the direction you want to go!

Stress Management 101

Michelle May MD — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 15:59:36 -0700

Author's note: I had intended to post this last week but I ran into a little problem which led to a little stress so I had to take my own advice! I hope you'll enjoy reading that post to help you see how to put the strategy below into action.

Managing Stress

Now that you know what stress is, let's use our FEAST strategy to help you deal with it.

Focus

When you’re experiencing stress, your impulse might be to power through, freak out, or stick your head in the sand (procrastinating, eating, drinking—you get the idea). As we've all noticed, behaviors such as busyness, overworking, smoking, overeating, drinking alcohol to excess, isolation, and taking our frustration out on others, perpetuate the stress reaction.

Instead of trying to escape what you are experiencing, pause and take a few deep breaths. Do a slow head to toe scan (see Body-Mind-Heart Scan in chapter 2 of Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat). Become aware of what you’re thinking, feeling, how your body is reacting, and what you’re doing as a result without judging it. Just observe what is there.

Explore

There are physical, mental, and emotional sources of stress. Some of these are universally stressful—such as the loss of a loved one or the risk of bodily harm—whereas others are uniquely stressful to the individual.

Physical - Sources of physical stress include fatigue, poor nutrition, sleep deprivation, lack of physical activity, illness, pain, and others. Not only are these stressful on your body, they can leave you more susceptible to stress from other sources.

Thoughts - Remember the Thought-Feeling-Action-Result cycle (TFAR)? (Chapters 4 and 18 of Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat.) The experience of stress is often triggered by a thought. In other words, stress frequently results from your perception and interpretation of life’s events.

Therefore, whether an event is stressful is often dependent on the individual. For instance, to one person, just the thought of speaking in public will cause a pounding heart, dry throat, and inability to utter a word, while to another person (me!), it is an exciting opportunity to get one’s views across. In other words, one (wo)man's stress is another (wo)man's pleasure!

However, until you pause to become aware of your thoughts, you may not be aware of that they are the source of your stress. Are any of these familiar?

“I’ll be late!”"
"I feel like everything is out of control!"
“I have to get this perfect.”
"Why did I say (or do) that?"
"How could that happen?"
“I want everyone to like me.”
“I have too much to do!”
“I shouldn’t eat this.”
"Why did I eat that?"
“What will they think?”
“I am not good enough.”
"It's not fair!"
“I have to be right.”
“I can do it all, have it all, and be it all!”

Note that most of these thoughts are about the past or the future, not about the present moment. That's important because you have absolutely no control over the past or the future. But you can control what you think about right now.

Emotional - As you explore your feelings, you may notice boredom, loneliness, anger, frustration, happiness, and myriad other emotions. Emotions provide information so practice noticing what you're feeling without judging it.

Accept

Let's face it: our society places a lot of demands on our energy and time. This often creates unrealistic expectations and a sense of urgency, leading to stress.

It's important to respect your own personal strengths and limitations and use self-compassion when you are experiencing stress: "I'm feeling overwhelmed and tense. I can't do everything on my to do list; no one could, but I'm doing my best—and that will have to be good enough for now."

When you accept the situation (and yourself) as it is in this moment, and just allow it to be, you won't compound the stress response by overreacting to it. It's like imagining yourself at the center of the tornado; you are calm and centered while everything whirls around you.

Next Post: Stress Management 102 - Strategize and Take Action

Taking My Own Advice

Michelle May MD — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 20:50:35 -0700

Arghhhh! Oh no!

I was sitting at Sky Harbor airport waiting to board my 3½ hour flight to Chicago. For once, I had plenty of time and felt relaxed and ready to get some work done. I’d even spent a couple of hours before going to bed late last night wrapping up a few projects and loading the rest on a thumb drive to finish during my uninterrupted travel time.

Ahhhh. Life is good.

I thought about all the stressed-out passengers complaining about the hassles of travel as they tried to check overweight bags and get a 16 ounce bottle of mouthwash through security in their carry on (really). I was amused by my silent observation that apparently they hadn’t been on a plane since 2000. On the other hand, I felt grateful for the opportunity to safely cross the country in just a few hours, even if I had to do the sock-hop at security. As a professional speaker, I travel quite a bit, so not only have I learned to make the best of it, I kind of look forward to this catch-up time. Like I explained in my last post, stress is in the mind of the beholder!

I started groping around in my computer bag looking for the thumb drive with my file called “Road Work.” As my fingers dove into all the nooks and crannies, my heart and mind began to race. It gradually dawned on me that I would not find it since I’d left it plugged into my desktop in my office.

From Ahhhh to Arghhhh in 3 seconds flat!

The irony was not lost on me that one of the documents back at my office was the blog post, Stress Management 101, just waiting for a few finishing touches.

Arghhhh! Why did I let myself get distracted? What if I had check one last time to make sure I had everything? How was I going to make up for the 7 lost hours of productive airplane time? How could I have been so careless?

Oh yeah. Stress management 101. Time to practice what I preach and use the techniques that I had planned to share with you for dealing with stress (but will have to wait until I get back…arghhhh!):

Focus: Stop. Breathe. Get present.

Explore: What is happening right now, in this present moment? What am I thinking? I paid attention on purpose to the dialog in my head – see above. What am I feeling? Anger. Frustration. Stupidity. Powerlessness. What am I doing? Whipping myself into a frenzy with all the whys and what ifs. Is it helping? Not a bit. Is there anything I can do about this right now? Not much.

Accept/Allow: I can choose to either resist this or allow this. Resisting this is futile. I choose to allow myself to feel frustrated but will stop beating myself up. I choose to be compassionate toward myself instead: I had a lot to do; traveling can be stressful but at least I made it to my flight on time.

Strategize: Maybe I could have my assistant email me a couple of the documents to look at on my phone. I could write a new article. I could follow a personal pre-flight check list in the future. And oh! I had remembered to bring a book I’d been wanting to read but hadn’t had time for: The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are by Brené Brown. (No. this irony wasn’t lost on me either.)

Take Action: I’ll write an article and call it Taking My Own Advice. Then I’m going to do a little reading and see if I can find out what those gifts are…

P.S. After I wrote the post above on my flight, I got on the train into Chicago. I noticed a man sitting glumly across the aisle. He was holding a FedEx envelope, and forgive me, but I noticed that the page in the window read, "If you take action now, you may still be able to save your home." My heart opened to him. Not surprisingly, according to Brené, one of the gifts of imperfection is compassion. Yes, it is.

Overeating Trigger #1: Stress - What is Stress Anyway?

Michelle May MD — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 16:27:30 -0700

Whether I'm speaking, facilitating a retreat, or having a conversation on Facebook, stress is always mentioned as one of the top two triggers for overeating. (Boredom is the other one.) Clearly, learning to recognize, manage, and prevent excessive stress is critical.

Stress is not necessarily a bad thing. For example, stress can:

Protect you from harm.
Help you react quickly in threatening situations.
Signal you to respond to changing circumstances.
Motivate you to perform to the limits of your ability.
Add excitement to your life (think roller coasters!)

However, when you experience excessive or chronic stress, or lack adequate skills to cope with stress, it takes a toll both physically and emotionally. Since a stress-free life is not possible or even desirable, it's important to learn to manage it, before it manages you.

What is Stress?

Stress is your body’s response to an event or situation that is threatening, overwhelming, or harmful—whether real or perceived. That is a critical point because much of the stress people experience results from their perception of a situation. That's good news because that means that you can change your perception and change your level of stress. More on that later...

Stress results from your body’s natural instinct to protect itself: the “fight or flight” response. Such reactions were useful when your ancestors frequently faced life and death situations. In today’s society, few situations are life and death, yet your body still reacts as if they were.

When you’re faced with a challenge, whether it is true physical danger, a deadline, or a traffic jam, the hypothalamus sends impulses through the endocrine (hormone) and autonomic nervous systems. These signals produce a surge of energy by making various organs dump stress chemicals, specifically cortisol and adrenaline, into the bloodstream. This will boost your heart rate and blood pressure, dilate your blood vessels, and release glucose (sugar) into your blood stream. It also causes hyperventilation, muscle tension, perspiration, dilated pupils, and relaxation of the rectum and bladder, and will stop your digestion as blood is shifted from the gastrointestinal tract to the skin and muscles.

This response is intended to mobilize you for quick action. However, when the response is out of proportion to the actual threat, or when mobilization isn't possible or helpful, you will experience dis-stress. For example, when you over-react to small hassles or you allow little frustrations to pile up, you're less able to handle situations effectively.

This type of stress can wear down your body, exhausting you, and weakening your defense against disease (dis-ease). As a result, you may experience gastrointestinal problems, depression, anxiety, headaches, insomnia, high blood pressure, and heart disease. It can also lead to distress habits like overeating, smoking, drinking, or drug use.

Action Plan: Notice the real and perceived sources of stress in your life. Pay attention to the effects of stress on your mind and body. Read about one of my recent stressful experiences: Taking My Own Advice

Next post: Stress Management 101

You are NOT powerless over food!

Michelle May MD — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 17:03:18 -0700

Your habits depend on your mindlessness.

This simple but profound statement explains why mindful eating is such a powerful approach for addressing your triggers for overeating. (See my last post for a list of common triggers identified by my readers. Can you relate to these?)

Chances are, if you have one trigger, you have dozens! So before we talk about specific strategies for dealing with specific triggers, we need to have an overarching strategy that will help you handle just about anything that comes up.

FEAST Instead of Eat!

Let's use the strategy FEAST (Focus, Explore, Accept, Strategize, Take Action) from our Am I Hungry? Mindful Eating Workshops and Chapter 3 of Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat:

Focus: If your habits depend on your mindlessness, then the corollary is that your awareness is the first step to making a change. So pause, breathe, and notice what is happening in the present moment. This pause allows you to respond instead of reacting (re-acting out the past) mindlessly.

Explore: Get curious! What is the trigger? Why is this situation, person, place, or feeling a trigger for eating?

Accept: It is what it is, and what you resist persists! Denying your feelings, avoiding difficult situations, pushing things away, or stuffing them down with food works like a spring: it takes a lot of energy to hold it down and it will pop back up, often when you least expect it. Instead, accept things as they are without judgment. Admittedly, this is not always easy but it is very effective.

Strategize: Choose how you'll respond, knowing that eating anyway is always an option. For now, consider what else could you do until you're hungry. What could you do to meet this need more effectively than eating? What could you do to prevent this particular trigger in the future?

Take Action: Take a small step--even a micromovement--in the direction you want to go.

You are only powerless over food if you choose to remain mindless. Every time you choose to become mindful, you weaken your habits. With practice, it will become more natural to choose your response instead of continuing to react mindlessly.

Next Post: Trigger #1: Stress

What Are the Most Common Triggers for Overeating?

Michelle May MD — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 20:54:57 -0700

So far, over 30 people have responded to my recent question on Facebook:

What are your top three triggers for overeating?

We got a couple of funny ones; my favorite was "Forks, Spoons, and Knives." Not surprisingly, there was quite a bit of overlap in the responses! Here's a quick tally of the most common triggers based on this informal poll:

Stress, boredom, fatigue, appetizing food, and "emotions" came out on top. I asked a follow-up question and got a resounding YES!:

Would you like some short blog posts on dealing with some of the most common triggers?

So as promised, I am going to do a series of posts addressing these common triggers for overeating. The first post will give you an overarching strategy for dealing with any trigger; otherwise, you'll deal with one trigger and a new one will appear! After all, when a craving doesn't come from hunger, eating will never satisfy it!

Next post: You are NOT powerless over food!

Gluten Free and Mindful Eating

Michelle May MD — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 09:48:06 -0800

Michelle May, M.D. answers a question about mindful eating:

Question:

I am in the middle of an 8-week Am I Hungry? Mindful Eating Workshop and I am realizing that I can finally be free of dieting - but something has thrown me for a loop.

Long story short, I've had chronic illness (details omited) for over twenty years now. With mindful eating, I've become more tuned in to my body and realized that the symptoms seem to be related to eating gluten. This pointed me in the direction of food allergies, food intolerances, sensitivities, or even Celiac disease. I'm undergoing some tests to find out, but in the meantime, I managed to avoid gluten completely for 4 days in a row - and doggone if I didn't have even ONE of my episodes! Then I ate one bowl of cereal and my symptoms returned.

This is throwing a curve ball at me. On one hand, my absolute favorite foods are breads, pastas, etc.! I don't know how on earth I could give those up forever... but on the other hand, I feel almost excited that by "just giving up these foods" I might literally get the rest of my LIFE back!

But how do I do this without triggering diet mode, restrictive eating, rebellion, and all that? Has anyone else dealt with food allergy or food sensitivity issues and successfully managed to continue with the Am I Hungry? method without freaking out?! Thanks so much for any help!

Michelle May MD replies:

As you are learning in your Am I Hungry? Mindful Eating Workshops and from reading the book Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat, freedom from chronic yoyo dieting is about learning to eat what you love fearlessly, and learning to love what you eat mindfully.

In fact, your discovery is one of the many benefits of mindful eating! We often have people in our workshops who suddenly make the connection between what (or how much) they were eating and how they feel.

As you probably know, I have also written books and workbooks for people with diabetes and for people who have had bariatric surgery. Just as it may be the case for you, these individuals do much better when they limit or eliminate certain foods. But the key to making long term sustainable changes is to apply the strategies you are learning through Am I Hungry? without turning those limitations into a restrictive diet.

Hint: It's all in the way you think! Here are some specific suggestionsfor making changes to your diet (for any reason) without falling back into a restrictive eating cycle:

1. Mindful eating is eating with intention and attention. Assuming that your intention is to feel great, think of your dietary changes as choices that you are making in order to feel your best (rather than some externally applied diet). Reread Healthy vs. Restrictive Eating on page 163 of Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat to help you embrace this mindset.

2. When asking "What do I eat?" you've learned to ask three questions: What do I want? What do I need? and What do I have? The question "What do I need?" is all about acknowledging your personal health needs. In your case, it appears that you don't need gluten if you want to feel good!

3. Make changes to your eating that don't leave you feeling deprived. Your meals may need to become more creative and emphasize non-gluten containing foods. You may also want to experiment with substitute products--and there are plenty available now.

So rather than thinking of your new discovery as a diet you'll have to be on for the rest of your life, you have a wonderful opportunity to use mindful eating to help guide you to balance enjoyment and nourishment so you can focus on living your life vibrantly!

Q&A with Dr. May

If you have a question about mindful eating that you'd like Dr. May to answer, post it in the comments below, on our Facebook page, or send an email to training @ amihungry.com (eliminate the spaces on both sides of the @!)

A Love Letter to Myself

Michelle May MD — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 20:33:15 -0800

I know that title sounds corny. I hesitated to write it but I did it anyway because I had subjected myself to 25 years of dieting fueled by distrust and rejection of my Self. I felt I owed myself a love letter, so Valentine's Day was the perfect time since I could get away with being a little corny!

As you may have noticed, distrust and rejection of yourself only breeds deprivation, restriction, obsession, and guilt. The belief that certain foods were "bad" and that I was "bad" for eating them kept me trapped in a vicious cycle. Focusing on calories, points, and pounds only distracted me from living my life fully.

The worst part is that many of us have been convinced that this is the only way and that we somehow deserve a life focused on what we eat instead of living our lives.

I am so over that.

Along my personal journey, I learned that self-acceptance breeds self-care. On my professional journey, I teach people how to trust, listen, and love themselves again. That is the only path to freedom!

I had decided to write a Love Letter to Myself for Valentine's Day but when I started it with "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways..." it turned out to be a "how to love myself" letter based on the many lessons I've learned and now teach. I am sharing it with you with the sincere hope that you will read it, print it, share it, and reread it as a reminder to love your Self gently, compassionately, mindfully, and persistently.

Michelle May, M.D.

Not Exercising? How to Overcome Exercise Resistance

Michelle May MD — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 16:00:27 -0800

Shaking, vomiting, muscle pain, collapsing... No, I'm not talking about the flu season, I'm talking about the season opener of The Biggest Loser.

As a person who has grown to love hiking and yoga for all of the positive benefits they provide, it's difficult to watch these aggressive regimens push contestants to -- and often over -- their edge. But mostly I worry about the effect it has on viewers who have been trying to talk themselves into starting an exercise program.

I guess the advice that's usually given to beginning exercisers to "start slow and gradually work your way up" wouldn't make for very interesting TV. Still, it's difficult for me to imagine how these punishing two-hour first-time workouts would inspire you to start exercising -- especially without someone to shame and scream at you on national television.

Besides, you're not in this for $250,000; you're in this for life.

Current physical activity guidelines for Americans recommend at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity (e.g., brisk walking) every week. While this goal is comparatively modest, even that may be discouraging if you aren't physically active at all. My advice if you're having difficulty exercising? Lower the bar.

Watch this one minute video:

Overcoming Exercise Resistance

If you want to start an exercise program but feel discouraged, ask yourself: "What is the least amount of exercise I can do... most days of the week, joyfully and consistently?"

Do the least amount of exercise?? Yes. Joyfully and consistently. Start where you are because when the discomfort and difficulty of making a change is too great, you won't. Instead of focusing on the gap between where you are and where you "should" be, lower the bar so low that the temptation to step right over it is irresistible!

What might that lower bar like for you?

Walking for five minutes a day?
Dancing to one song each evening in your living room?
Taking one flight of stairs at work (then taking the elevator up the other three floors)?
Doing floor exercises (or standing up) during the commercials of one 30 minute television show?
Walking one lap around the soccer field during your child's practice?
Something else?

Your negative self-talk might say, "That's not enough! It won't make any difference." But if it helps you take that first step toward a more active lifestyle, you will be well on your way!