The Fear of Food Must be Broken To Beat Obesity
May 26, 2009 by Carlene Jones
Filed under Weight Loss
Many of my new clients panic when I suggest that they eat whole healthy foods for fast weight loss. I can sympathize with them. As a child I would feel guilty if I ate a second apple in one day or if I wanted a second glass of milk. I had a bigger appetite than my thin siblings, but knew that to eat more than them proved to the world I deserved the extra weight I carried, even if that food was a couple of cucumbers for a snack in the summer. By the time I met my naturopath I weighed 256 pounds and was in a deep depression. I had gone armed with information and demanded blood work to see if my problem was liver/nutrient based. I made some great discoveries and was able to shed the depression and start a raw foods diet that let me lose 136 pounds in 9 months. When I returned to see the naturopath for my final blood work, she showed me the notes she took the first day we met. They said: “Patient views food as poison.”
We both laughed at that, but it was not far from the truth. Not just for me, but as I have learned from helping so many other obese women it is a common theme among the obese. None of us feel that we can trust food because we cannot trust ourselves with it. It has been the cause of all our weight problems, not actual food, but our unhealthy relationship with it. For this reason we come to fear it.
One of the biggest concerns for the obese in our relationship with food is that we have no idea how to eat “normal.” We are great on diets, but outside that structure, all we seem to know is how to overeat. It is that overeating that makes us obese and ill, so in our minds even though we love food and go to it for comfort and joy we know that it is killing us.
When I ask my new obese clients how they would eat if they were a normal person they either tell me that normal people can eat anything they want, which of course we all know is not true, and then they shrug. They have no idea how to eat in moderation or even wat to eat. My program requires obese clients to start off with a diet of 1800 calories. Without fail, they each tell me that is way too many calories and that they will gain weight. It takes me the two weeks of discovery that I require to convince them otherwise.
That first week almost everyone of my clients feel lost. They try to eat, but when I go over their food lists with them it is obvious they are living on typical diet foods and quantities, and most don’t get even close to the 1800 calories. I always say, obese men and women are experts in starving. Where we have no experience is in eating to maintain our weight. By the second week I have them eating better whole foods, but still with apprehension. It isn’t until the third or even fourth week before they start to trust the process and open their minds to how great it can be to eat foods that taste good and satisfy their daily appetites as well.
I don’t believe there is anyone diet that works for everyone. We all have different likes and dislikes and our bodies react to certain foods in both positive and negative ways. Some of us do better with low fat, some thrive on higher fats. Some of us are insulin resistant with some foods spiking our blood sugar while others can eat what they want. We also have different appetites that dictate if we are grazers or three meal a day type of eaters. There is no one right or wrong way to eat. Yet most obese men and women feel they have to conform to dieting standards which have always been about deprivation and obsession.
We are so distrustful of food and our own ability to manage it that it is actually harder to get the obese to eat then it is to them to starve. If I said, okay here is this liquid diet, you won’t eat for six months, they would sign on in a minute, but when I say I am going to make them eat, they back off not believing they could succeed.
My new obese clients are always tentative eaters. They tend to eat foods from their dieting backgrounds and always in small amounts. When I ask them what appealed to them in these foods, they squirm and even try to convince me they actually like all that diet food. When I stand firm that diet food is not on our program they are lost to figure out what they should eat. Some even swear they cannot live without their liquid diet foods and insist on including them in their new programs. I just shake my head. Drinking calories and calling it nutrition was a bad idea, people need to eat, and they need to learn to eat healthy satisfying foods in quantities their body and psyche can handle.
It takes time and effort to move into a healthy diet, one that is satisfying and can last a lifetime, but it is worth it. Anyone can be successful if they open their mind and fight the fear and guilt associated with eating. Once I convince them that they can eat real food to maintain their weight with real food, shedding the pounds is easy.
For so many years the obese have fought their inability to control their weight and take responsibility for their relationship with food. That loss of control makes food the enemy for some, and an abusive lover for others. But food is only as powerful as e make it. The obese must open their eyes to the true value of food. It is nutrition for the body. Like gasoline for a car. There is no need to fear it, there is only a need to build a solid relationship with it where we are the ones in charge.
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