Analogy, Metaphor & Stories for Healing
Articles
- Adele Hite: “The Real Paleo Challenge Redux”
- Amanda Salis: “The Science of ‘Hangry,’ or Why Some People Get Grumpy When They’re Hungry” and “Why Diets Fail”
- Beauty Redefined: “Body Shame on You” and “Really Want to Feel Better about Your Body? Here’s Your 5-Step Game Plan”
- BuzzFeed: “This Is What the Ideal Body Has Looked Like Over the Last 100 Years”
- Carrie Gotlieb: “Disordered Eating or Eating Disorder: What’s the Difference?” in Psychology Today
- Emily Troscianko: “A Hunger Artist: Learning to Let Go of Disordered Eating”
- Eve Ensler: “The Body after Cancer” interview from On Being
- Institute for the Psychology of Eating: “Post Traumatic Stress and Digestion: What’s the Connection?”
- Jane Ellen Stevens: “The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study – the largest and most important public health study you never heard of – began in an obesity clinic”
- Jody Allard: “When Healthy Isn’t an Option: How I Learned to Love My Chronically Ill Body”
- Jordyn Dalton: “Health Consequences of an Eating Disorder”
- Karen Barber: “Anosognosia (Blind Starvation): The First Eating Disorder Word to Understand”
- Lauren Fowler: “Why Self-Trust is the Key to Listening to Your Body”
- Linda Bacon: “Message for People Who Have Diseases Blamed on Their Weight”
- Linda Bacon & Judy Matz: “Intuitive Eating: Enjoy Your Food, Respect Your Body” in Diabetes Self-Management
- Linda Bacon & Lucy Aphramor: “Weight Science: Evaluating the Evidence for a Paradigm Shift” in Nutritional Journal
- Melanie Klein: “My Body Image, My Self: Weighty Stories of Self-Acceptance” in Yoga Journal
- Pamela Brill: “Intuitive Eating Part 1” and “Intuitive Eating Part 2” from Huffington Post
- Roberto Ferdman: “Why the Most Popular Rule of Weight Loss Is Completely Wrong” in The Washington Post
- Sophia Kercher: “When Cancer Triggers (or Hides) an Eating Disorder” in The New York Times
- Tara Parker-Pope: “The Fat Trap” in The New York Times Magazine
- Your Eatopia: “Extreme Hunger: What Is It?”
- “Starvation Study Shows that Recovery from Anorexia is Possible Only by Regaining Weight” from Psychology Today
- “The Weight-Inclusive versus Weight-Normative Approach to Health: Evaluating the Evidence for Prioritizing Well-Being over Weight Loss” from the Journal of Obesity
Podcasts
- All Fired Up
- Bad Fat Broads
- Body Kindness
- BodyLove Project
- Body Poscast
- Dietitians Unplugged
- Do No Harm
- Escape Diet Prison
- Every Body
- Fearless Rebelle Radio
- Flaunt Performance
- Food Psych
- Friend of Marilyn
- F*ck It Diet
- Let It Out
- Life Unrestricted
- Love Curvy Yoga
- Love Food
- Mind Body Musings
- Nutrition Matters
- Reclaiming You
- She’s All Fat
Videos & Visual Aids
- Amy Poehler: “Bodies”
- Association for Size Diversity and Health: “Poodle Science”
- Be Nourished: “Imagine”
- Cameron Russell: “Looks Aren’t Everything”
- Caroline Rothstein: “Fat is Not a Feeling”
- Daysha Edewi: “What If I Knew I Was Beautiful?”
- “Dieting vs Mindful Eating” graphic
- Dove: “One Beautiful Thought” and “Real Beauty Sketches”
- Isabel Foxen Duke: “Stop Fighting Food”
- Lily Myers: “Shrinking Women”
- Nadine Burke Harris: “How Childhood Trauma Affects Health across a Lifetime”
- Peter Attia: “Is the Obesity Crisis Hiding a Larger Problem?”
- Sharon Horesh Bergquist: “How Stress Affects Your Body”
- “Strange Like Me” graphic
- “How the Body Responds to Stress“
- “How Stress Affects Your Body and Mind“
- “This is Your Body on Anxiety” Infograph
- “This is Your Body without Sleep” Infograph
- “This is Your Brain on Exercise” Infograph
- Yoni Freedhoff: “Rebranding Exercise: Why Exercise Is the World’s Best Drug, Just Not a Weight Loss Drug”
OTHER PROFESSIONALS AROUND TOWN:
Chiropractors- Alessandra Novak (Certified Athletic Trainer)
- Begin Pilates (Kacie Dart)
- Body Home Fat Dance
- Bold & Badass Fitness (Emily Corso)
- Cathartic Kinesis (Adriana)
- Curvy Yoga
- Daya Foundation (Sarahjoy Marsh)
- Fawn Williams
- Flexible Fitness (Lily-Righ Glen)
- Gem Studio (Susanne)
- Mindfully Active (Gillian)
- Molly Boeder Harris
- People’s Yoga
- Reinvent
- Revocycle (Lacy Davis)
- Super Fit Hero (body positive fitness finder)
- Sweet Momentum
- The Art of Balance (Rebecca Macy)
- Unfold Studios
- Watsu Aquatics (Mary Seamster)
- Yoga for Bigger Bodies (Julie Westlin-Naigus)
- Kwan-Yin Healing Arts Center (Electra Allenton, ND)
- Life Joy Natural Medicine
- Ren Clinic (Sara Hopkins, ND)
The 5 Core Principles from the Association for Size Diversity and Health (ASDAH):
1. Weight Inclusivity
“Accept and respect the inherent diversity of body shapes and sizes and reject the idealizing or pathologizing of specific weights” (ASDAH). Just like the color of our skin, the texture of our hair, or the size of our feet, our body size and type are, to a large extent, genetically determined. “Uniformity is not nature’s way; diversity is nature’s way” ~ Vandana Shiva.
2. Health Enhancement
“Support health policies that improve and equalize access to information and services, and personal practices that improve human well-being, including attention to individual physical, economic, social, spiritual, emotional, and other needs” (ASDAH). Social determinants of health are the primary cause of health inequities. Examples include:
- safe and affordable access to healthcare
- legislative policies that indirectly affect health (ex: minimum wage, reproductive rights, civil liberties, the environment, etc.)
- socioeconomic status that allows time enough to attend to the daily tasks related to health such as time and money for doctor visits, exercising, grocery shopping, cooking, and relaxing
- the education and literacy level of the communities we live in
- social justice frameworks, including attention to diversity and intersectionality
3. Respectful Care
“Acknowledge our biases, and work to end weight discrimination, weight stigma, and weight bias. Provide information and services from an understanding that socio-economic status, race, gender, sexual orientation, age, and other identities impact weight stigma, and support environments that address these inequities” (ASDAH). It benefits all of us, across the weight spectrum, to advocate for an end to size discrimination.
4. Eating for Well-being
“Promote flexible, individualized eating based on hunger, satiety, nutritional needs, and pleasure, rather than any externally regulated eating plan focused on weight control” (ASDAH). The 10 Intuitive Eating principles (Tribole & Resch; I recommend the 4th edition printed in 2020) can help with this:
- Reject the Diet Mentality. “Throw out the diet books and magazine articles that offer you false hope of losing weight quickly, easily, and permanently. Get angry at the lies that have led you to feel as if you were a failure every time a new diet stopped working and you gained back all of the weight” (Tribole & Resch, 2017, pg. 13).
- Honor Your Hunger. “Keep your body biologically fed with adequate energy and carbohydrates. Otherwise you can trigger a primal drive to overeat. Once you reach the moment of excessive hunger, all intentions of moderate, conscious eating are fleeting and irrelevant” (Tribole & Resch, 2017, p. 33).
- Make Peace with Food. “If you tell yourself that you can’t or shouldn’t have a particular food, it can lead to intense feelings of deprivation that build into uncontrollable cravings and, often, bingeing” (Tribole & Resch, 2017, p. 61).
- Challenge the Food Police. “The Food Police monitor the unreasonable rules that dieting has created. The police station is housed deep in your psyche, and its loudspeaker shouts negative barbs, hopeless phrases, and guilt-provoking indictments” (Tribole & Resch, 2017, p. 81).
- Feel Your Fullness. “Listen for the body signals that tell you that you are no longer hungry. Observe the signs that show that you’re comfortably full. Pause in the middle of eating and ask yourself how the food tastes, and what your current fullness level is” (Tribole & Resch, 2017, p. 110).
- Discover the Satisfaction Factor. “When you eat what you really want, in an environment that is inviting and conducive, the pleasure you derive will be a powerful force in helping you feel satisfied and content” (Tribole & Resch, 2017, p. 131).
- Cope with Your Feelings without Using Food. Learn to work with your emotions as allies rather than enemies.
- Respect Your Body. “Accept your genetic blueprint” (Tribole & Resch, 2017, p. 179).
- Exercise: Feel the Difference. “Shift your focus to how it feels to move your body, rather than the calorie burning effect of exercise” (Tribole & Resch, 2017, p. 199).
- Honor Your Health: Gentle Nutrition. “Make food choices that honor your health and taste buds while making you feel well” (Tribole & Resch, 2017, p. 225).
5. Life-Enhancing Movement
“Support physical activities that allow people of all sizes, abilities, and interests to engage in enjoyable movement, to the degree that they choose” (ASDAH). Research shows that those who exercise regularly are able to do so by shifting focus from extrinsic to intrinsic motivation.
Extrinsic motivation
- Motivation comes from external rewards
- Rewards are rarely immediate
- Weight loss
- Increased muscle tone
- Money / gifts
Intrinsic motivation
- Motivation comes from internal rewards
- Rewards are often experienced right away
- Mood enhancement
- Decreased stress
- Enjoyment
- Sleep better
Books to Check Out:
for Clinicians:
– “Biting the Hand that Starves You” by Ali Borden, David Epston, and Richard Linn Maisel
– “Beyond a Shadow of a Diet” by Judith Matz and Ellen Frankel
for Clients:
– “The Diet Survivor’s Handbook” by Judith Matz and Ellen Frankel
– “Life without ED” by Jenni Shaeffer- “Intuitive Eating” (4th edition) by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch
– “Body Respect” by Linda Bacon
– “Anti-Diet” by Christy Harrison (who also has a podcast called Food Psych)
– “The Body is Not an Apology” by Sonya Renee Taylor
– “Sick Enough” by Jennifer Gaudiani
– “Decoding Anorexia” by Carrie Arnold
– “Eating in the Light of the Moon” by Anita Johnson
– “Sensing the Self: Women’s Recovery from Bulimia” by Sheila Reindl
– “Beautiful You” by Rosie Molinary
– “Yoga and Eating Disorders” edited by Carolyin Costin and Joe Kelly
– “Yoga and Body Image” edited by Melodie Klein
– “Talking to Eating Disorders” (for loved ones of someone who has one) by Jeanne Heaton