Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom (153 page)

Breakfast.
Breakfast is the most important meal of your day because it sets the stage for your blood sugar for the rest of the day. If a person hasn’t eaten a blood-sugar-stabilizing breakfast, she will feel the effects of this at what I call “arsenic hour” (about 4:00 to 5:00 p.m., when stress hormone levels are at their peak and when all the stresses of the day seem to accumulate at once). If you haven’t eaten a decent breakfast, you will tip right over into wanting to eat the wallpaper off the wall at this point.

Your breakfast must contain some protein, healthy fat, and low-glycemicindex carbohydrates. If you don’t have time to cook, many shakes and bars on the market make this easy. If you do, then a couple of omega-3-rich eggs, some berries, and a cup of tea make a good breakfast. Another of my favorites is slow-cooked oatmeal with a scoop of soy protein powder in it. (Note: All “instant” foods have a much higher glycemic index. Instant oatmeal is no exception.)

Lunch.
Lean protein in the form of fish, chicken, meat, or vegetarian alternatives such as tofu. Include lots of low-glycemic-index vegetables such as bok choy, kale, salad greens, etc. Note: Vegetables like carrots have a relatively high-glycemic index, but their glycemic load (the total amount of sugar in them) is low. They are fine! Other alternatives in clude bean or lentil soup and a salad, etc.

Dinner.
Same as lunch.

Snacks.
Choose fruits and cheese, various low-GI nutritional bars, or a small handful of nuts.

A Note About Timing

Far too many women make the mistake of “saving up” their calories for dinner by starving themselves during the day. This pattern in evitably leads to erratic blood sugar and is a setup for weight problems, too. It has been scientifically demonstrated that people who ate 2,000 calories’ worth of food in the morning lost about two pounds of weight per week, while those who consumed this amount of calories after 6:00 p.m. gained weight.
¹⁷
It’s ideal to wait for three hours after eating before going to bed, though this will not work for everyone.

Controlling Blood Sugar Is Not a “Diet,” It’s a Sustainable
Way of Life

Learning to control your blood sugar and cravings is a lifelong job for the 75 percent of the population (like me) who are prone to excess consumption of refined carbohydrates. There are times that you will slip off the bandwagon. But then you get right back on. Don’t expect carbs to stop “singing” to you. They won’t. For example, on a trip to New York City for a holiday weekend with my daughters, we went to a French restaurant for breakfast, where I felt compelled to order the basket of croissant and rolls because they looked so good. After enjoying these refined carbohydrates thoroughly, I later paid the price: I got so tired from rebound low blood sugar that resulted from eating all that bread that I felt like lying down on the sidewalk to take a nap! (And this was in November, so it was cold.) It took me a total of twenty-four hours to fully recover from the metabolic effect of eating two rolls and two croissants—even though I also had a protein-rich omelet, which should theoretically have helped prevent the blood sugar swings. (Protein eaten at the same meal as refined carbs helps blood sugar remain stable.) Once you really feel the effect of excess high-glycemic-index food on your blood sugar, you can never go back to mindless eating again!

Craving high-glycemic-index carbs is not a character flaw and it’s not because of lack of willpower. We were designed to crave foods that put on weight quickly—which are invariably foods with a high glycemic index. The simple truth is that for the vast majority of human history, it was a survival advantage to be able to gain weight quickly during times of plenty in order to make it through lean times. It’s interesting to note that those with the most recent hunter-gatherer ancestors (e.g., Native Americans, Inuits) have the most trouble with high-glycemic-index foods and also grains. (Note: About 25 percent of people, usually but not always Caucasians, are what I call genetic celebrities, who appear to be able to eat anything they want and never gain a pound. Interestingly, however, these individuals really don’t crave refined carbohydrates like the rest of us. Many don’t even like chocolate! Imagine.)

Step Four: Be Completely Honest About
the Food/Emotion Connection

Guilt is one of the worst foods for the intestines.

—Bill Tims, former macrobiotic counselor

The inescapable reality is that food creates chemical changes that
affect our emotions, and our emotions create chemical changes
that affect our food cravings—creating a cycle that can be amazingly
enlivening or devastatingly incapacitating for body, mind,
and spirit.

—Deborah Kern, Ph.D., authority on the
connection between food and pleasure

Many women gain weight when they are upset and lose weight easily when they are happy or newly in love. The tendency to eat when emotionally upset can cause you first to retain fluids and then to add body fat, partly because of the action of the hormone cortisol, which is secreted in greater amounts when you are under what you perceive as inescapable stress. Cortisol is a steroid, and if you’ve ever taken steroids or seen some one balloon up on prednisone, you know what I’m talking about. Scientific studies have shown that unexpressed and unresolved emotional stress results in changes in metabolism that inhibit fat breakdown—comparable to what happens on prednisone. Eating fat-laden, refined-carbohydrate foods while under stress not only results in excess fat storage but also sets the stage for many other illnesses in your body.
¹⁸
I once gave a party for my daughter after her first formal dance. This required staying up until 3:00 a.m. following a hectic day of preparation. Though I ate my usual amount of food, I gained two and a half pounds, which took four days to go away. The same thing happened to one of my friends who was helping me out at the time. I’ve experienced this pattern repeat edly. On the other hand, I’ve also gone on vacations where I’ve eaten more than usual and have actually lost weight because there was no stress. Many women have this same experience in France and Italy, where eating well is a stress-free, pleasurable ritual.

Excess fat and fluid can also be our body’s armor against feeling what we don’t want to feel. I have seen women release emotions held for a long time and literally lose five or more pounds overnight from a good crying (or laughing) session. Many of you have also experienced the fact that when you are in love you don’t need to eat much because you feel so full of life energy. This life energy is always available to us whenever we are doing work we love—even when we’re not “in love” with another person. This is yet another reason to follow your heart as a way to create health in your life.

Look honestly at how you use food and how much of it you really eat. Include when, why, and how. If you really want to make peace with food, for two weeks or more write down everything you eat, where you ate it, and how you were feeling at the time. This exercise breaks through denial and will help you come to terms with your real relationship with food. My clinical experience has taught me that those women who write down what they eat in order to get clear with themselves have a much better chance of successfully changing their health.

If you eat primarily for emotional comfort and haven’t developed the skills necessary to stay present with your pain body and “feel it to heal it,” then you’re not apt to give up what most of us call comfort foods (usually foods that raise blood sugar quickly and are addictive). That’s okay. You may just have to wait for the right time and circumstances. One of my former patients who was obese until the age of twenty-one told me that she always knew she would lose weight once she moved away from home and stopped caring for her mentally ill mother and younger siblings. Though her parents took her to doctor after doctor and put her on a series of diets, she knew that she required food to keep from feeling the pain of her circumstances. Once these changed, she lost weight.

We cannot apply
any
information about improving our relationship with food until we’ve looked squarely at our nourishment issues and have committed to making peace with them. For that reason, please go through the steps to healing in chapter 15 before or at the same time as you decide to improve your nutrition.

If your compulsive overeating is out of control, I highly recommend that you fol low a structured eating plan such as that of Overeaters Anonymous. Geneen Roth’s eating guidelines, which have been widely adopted by other programs, are also excellent (see next page). These plans work as an external control system as you learn what your internal triggers to overeating are. Many women have not yet established the link between their emotional pain and how they are using food to control it. Others may have so much stress in their lives that their immune and metabolic systems are adversely affected. For these women, even small amounts of sugary sweets, yeasty foods, or salty or fatty foods set off binge eating. Most women will fall into one of two broad categories: those who binge on fat-laden sweets such as ice cream and those who binge on salty, fat-laden foods such as potato chips. For these women, sugary or salty fat-laden food is like alcohol to an alcoholic. Sugar-addicted women have told me that once they start, they become light-headed, feel drunk and disoriented, and develop an insatiable desire to eat more and more sugary foods. The same thing can apply to fatty and salty binge food. When women avoid these “trigger foods,” their eating returns to normal. Food cravings also lessen considerably when you eat a diet without food additives (especially factory-created glutamates) that is adequate in protein and fat and low in refined carbohydrates. Monosodium glutamate (MSG) is a very common additive associated with weight gain (see box below, and also see Step Nine: Rehabilitate Your Metabolism, page 707).
¹⁹

Once a woman has dealt with the emotional causes of overeating and has also improved her diet to reduce cravings, she will often no longer require a food plan as an “external authority.” She will know what to eat and when.

B
EWARE OF
F
REE
G
LUTAMATES

Factory-created glutamates, such as MSG, are found in many processed foods. They’re associated with obesity and a variety of other side effects. Below is a list of other names for glutamates.
²⁰
Read labels and avoid these products when possible.

Monopotassium glutamate

Glutamate

Autolyzed plant protein

Sodium caseinate

Vegetable protein extract

Glutamic acid

Yeast extract

Autolyzed yeast

Calcium caseinate

Textured protein

G
ENEEN
R
OTH’S
E
ATING
G
UIDELINES

Geneen Roth has been teaching these deceptively simple but very powerful guidelines in her books and workshops for more than 30 years (see
www.geneenroth.com
). The guidelines are a type of spiritual practice and can completely transform your relationship with food. One of my friends has noted that turning off the television during dinner has greatly enhanced her relationship with her husband. She now has the quality time with him that she had been craving— all from the simple act of being present with the food and with each other. (For years they watched the news during dinner, thinking they were multitasking by getting two things done at once—eating and staying informed. Now they nourish not only their bodies with food, but also each other with their presence.) Follow these guidelines for at least two meals a day for one week. They’re life-changing. Trust me on this.

1.
Eat when you are hungry (truly hungry, body hungry—not mind hungry).

2.
Eat sitting down in a calm environment. This does not include the car.

3.
Eat without distractions. Distractions include radio, television, newspaper, books, intense or anxiety-producing conversation and music.

4.
Eat only what your body wants. (This is different from what your mind thinks it wants. Eventually you will feel the difference.)

5.
Eat until you are satisfied. (This is different from full.)

6.
Eat (with the intention of being) in full view of others.

7.
Eat with enjoyment, gusto and pleasure.

From
Women, Food and God
by Geneen Roth.

Eat in Good Company

Just about everyone who has ever improved her lifestyle knows one thing: When you begin to adopt healthier habits, you’re bound to have friends and family members who will try to sabotage your efforts. This is because your desire for better health (or anything else) will hold up a mirror to them and make them question their own behavior, which they may not want to change. So you’re perceived as a threat. Expect this. Resistance to change is normal. On the other hand, however, very encouraging research has documented what each of us has already experienced: Good health habits are also contagious and affect everyone around us. In fact, in a landmark study of smoking cessation, researchers found that when one person stops smoking, that decision affects the smoking behavior of entire groups connected to that person, both directly and indirectly at up to three degrees of separation.
²¹