Office Fire

Hi Everyone,

Our office building caught on fire Monday and is considered a total loss. We will be postponing new blogs until our new office is all set up. Please follow the updates on Facebook and Twitter as we will be keeping everyone posted on our next steps.

Have a Happy New Year!
Sincerely,
Brandi & Kimberly
Creating Peace with Food

The Touchy Subject of Handling Your Child's Weight

IDEAS OF ACCEPTABLE WEIGHT FORM EARLY (UPI Health News Article)

This article is only one of many illustrating the research being done on the prevention of obesity. And to me, these articles represent a double edged sword.

As a dietitian working with pediatrics and eating disorders, parts of me cringe at how well-meaning parents may interpret this information and impart fearful and damaging messages to their very young children. And also as a dietitian with 2 advanced certifications and many years of experience working with individuals to realize their weight management goals, I feel proud of how far the research has come emphasizing proper nutrition and physical activity for health and well-being.

So often I work with wonderful and intelligent adults, who received messages from their parents/role models at fragile ages telling them that they were too fat or were put on a diet. The literature has spoken on several occasions noting 3 year olds, 6 year olds, 8 year olds, complaining they were too fat and can't eat certain foods because of that. I can't imagine my little girl, who is 3, telling me she thinks she's fat!

Any adult who has children in their lives on some level (nieces, god-children, working in the church nursery, neighbors) are automatically a role-model for those kids. In this role, we hold a responsibility to model appropriate boundaries in regards to how we treat each other and ourselves regarding health, food, body image, manners, etc.

Here are my Top 10 Ways to Role Model Healthy Behaviors to the Kids in Our Lives:

1.      Set daily meal and snack times for yourself, not just your family

2.      Eat with your kid, not just feed them

3.      Acknowledge your own food preferences and attitudes and how that influences your family’s meals

4.      Stop talking about how much was or was not eaten at meals-including your own

5.      Do not comment about weight (yours, theirs, or anyone else, even if joking or you think your kids aren’t listening)

6.      Reward yourself with NON-FOOD rewards like “you time” or a spa treatment instead of food

7.      Share what passions you do have about cooking and healthful eating with your family

8.      When no longer hungry, stop eating. (This is a shift in focus. We are used to asking ourselves if we are full versus asking ourselves if we are no longer hungry. This will lead to a big difference in calorie intake at the end of the day.)

9.      Set boundaries at the table: what you prepared is the meal, do not make special food or become a short order cook when food is refused.

10.     Forgive yourself for not being perfect and be okay with trying again and again. Practice makes perfect!

Holiday Challenges- Opportunities to Address Emotional Eating

This is a great time of the year to revisit developing strength over emotional eating (EE).

Food is personal. It is what we are given in infancy when we cry, what many are bribed with to “be good” as children, and what many turn to for comfort as teenagers and adults. The holidays are especially a time where turning to food for comfort is a primary source of coping for many.

Developing a healthy relationship with food beyond EE is something many of us hope for. And in all our hope, we seem to still rely on our old "friend" of food in times of need-over and over again.  You CAN get to a place where you do not go to food. It is hard work and it is well worth it if you are looking to overcome EE.

The most powerful places to develop change in EE are actually our heated moments when we usually turn to food in search of comfort. In our heated moments, when rational thoughts are overtaken by ritual and vulnerability, we hold the most power. Power to alter our behavior, change our thoughts, and have different outcomes.  The biggest challenge is letting ourselves truly experience these heated moments and working to change ourselves before, after, between, and during.

To get started, begin a log of your EE. Write down the what, when, where, and why’s in your log to help you gain more insight into your personal food and emotion relationship. (Even if you think you already know!)

Example:

• What Happened   
• When Did I EE   
•  Where Was I    
• Why (What did I tell myself)

For your next steps to conquer emotional eating, follow our blog posts:

• Plan Your Different Outcome
• Reminder Systems and Alternative Coping Strategies

• The Only Way Around is Through

Handling the Eggnog & the In-Laws

Happy Holidays Everyone! Tis the season for parties, family get-togethers, gift giving and all the food and emotions that tag along. Here are a few pointers for keeping yourself sane this month.

1. Remember the PLATE MODEL: this tool will keep you focused no matter where on earth you are enjoying that meal. Plate Model Handout 

  

2. Check In With Yourself EACH day: Feeling more intense emotions is common around this time of year.  Ask yourself these questions periodically to keep yourself in balance: How am I feeling? What do I need? Am I eating because I'm emotionally hungry or because my body needs fuel right now?

3. Give Yourself a Pep Talk: Negative self talk that includes lots of should statements or comparing yourself with others can damage your confidence and self esteem. Consider a quote, scripture verse, or your own mantra that you can tell yourself when you notice that you are putting yourself down and trying hard to be "perfect."

4. Plan for the Unexpected: When doing your meal planning for the week, consider adding in 1 or 2 emergency meal and snack ideas to keep in the freezer and cupboard for those nights that you won't feel up for cooking or in case your holiday shopping takes longer than expected.

5.   Move Your Body in Healthy & Supportive Ways: Feeling more stress during this time will take a toll on on anybody. De-stress by adding gentle stretches and deep breaths into your day either when you wake up or right before bed. Honor your body by acknowledging when it calls you to move more and when it tells you to slow down. If over-exercising is a concern, ask your medical team for guidelines and support to find the right balance.

80/20: Holidays, Food, Perspective

As we celebrate with family and friends this Thanksgiving, let us give thanks for our lives, our loved ones, and everything we have been given.

In having just kicked off the holiday season with Thanksgiving, we want to share something called the 80/20 rule to help you keep perspective especially during the holiday season. Eighty stands for 80% of the time that we eat balanced (plate model) and strive to optimally nourish ourselves. Twenty stands for 20% of the time that we nourish ourselves in other ways and let our relationship with food relax a little. We might eat a little more this 20% of the time, or shift our balance at the plate to bring in some more of one type of food we really enjoy for example.

Does the 20% mean cheating? One could call it that, but why? Is it really? We don't think so. Eating perfect is not the goal of Creating Peace with Food. Eating in balance, being mindful during meals, and truly enjoying the meal experience (food and our surroundings) is what Peace with Food is all about.

At the end of the day, the 20% is not going to make you gain weight, it is not going to throw off your goals, and it is certainly not going to hurt anyone. Instead, the concept of 80/20 explains how Creating Peace with Food includes nourishing ourselves well while at the same time letting ourselves be human and enjoy the process.

As we give thanks this season, let us utilize the 80/20 rule to nourish ourselves, enjoy our food, enjoy our surroundings, and focus on what is really important like the loved ones we are with. 

Food Desert Week 3

For the past few weeks we have been talking about Food Deserts- areas (primarily low income neighborhoods) where it is difficult to access nutritious and healthful food items. An innovative approach to solving the Food Desert issue in the Seattle area is Stockbox. Their concept uses reclaimed shipping containers as grocery store fronts for food access in Desert areas.

We were hoping to visit the first Stockbox location set up in Delridge, South Seattle.  We found though, that this was an 8 week pilot program for Stockbox and it just ended. Fortunately, the concept was very successful and Stockbox is looking forward to opening a permanent Stockbox grocery location in the Seattle area in spring of 2012.

As the program came to an end, the Delridge Stockbox was working to sell their remaining inventory. Although we were not able to visit the location, this advertised sale gave us a peak into some of their impressive offerings: 7th Generation, Method, Newman’s Own, Campbell’s, Hunts, Annie’s, and Western Family.  Stock up on beans, tomato sauce, soup, cereal, spices, baking supplies, condiments, and other staples.

We are looking forward  visiting the future permanent Stockbox location. We will post a blog update when this does happen and keep you posted on other innovative efforts seeking to solve the issue of Food Deserts. 

Food Desert Week 2

After last week’s findings about food deserts in Chicago, we thought we’d investigate our own backyard and see if Seattle has anything up its sleeve…and we’ve discovered some incredible information! 

Meet Stockbox: a miniature grocer tucked inside a reclaimed shipping container!  Just outside of South Seattle, Stockbox Grocers  - a new startup funded by Kickstarter - is bringing fresh and healthy food options to the Delridge neighborhood where the nearest grocery is over 45 minutes away. 

Stockbox just started in early September; their goal is to expand with two permanent sites by early 2012, and at least two more later in the year.  They offer a spectrum of fresh food, meat and dairy for communities that would otherwise likely go without these nutritional necessities.   

Seattleite, Carrie Ferrence, Stockbox’s cofounder, noted their goal is to “bring food back into community, and that is something that resonates in all kinds of places.” 

In visiting many of our clients' struggles with food and the fact that most of us readily have access to fresh options, it’s a sobering reality to imagine a place where access is utterly limited.    

An idea is to practice gratitude for the fresh food you have in your home; the fresh food you’re going to buy from your local grocer; or the fresh food which you will consume from a restaurant or café today.  Not everyone is so fortunate, but with the ingenious ideas like Stockbox, the path to fresh food access for all is being paved.  No matter what struggle we’re going through food related or not, access to food, is one thing many of us have on our side! 

In the coming weeks, we hope to visit Stockbox and get an inside look at what they’re offering to the community.  For more information about Stockbox or if you’d like to help promote their cause please see their website. If you know of other efforts to help solve food desert dilemmas in Seattle, post us a comment!

Life Problem? Got a Great Pathway for you.

This picture is courtesy of my friend Kristen Reaves Bell. Just something fun to ponder.

Food Deserts

Have you ever heard of this term before, "food desert?"  A food desert is an area (primarily low income neigborhoods) where it is difficult to access nutritious and healthful food items. These areas are usually littered with fast food restaurants and convenient stores yet very little to no actual grocery stores.

Food deserts are truly a disservice to it's communities as the people living there are just like the rest of us, over worked, underpaid and busy with regular life and school activities. And when it's meal time and the closest grocery store is a 20-45 minutes drive away compared to a fast food joint on every corner, which option would you choose? Now consider that you did not meal plan, nor go make it to the grocery store the previous weekend and only have $10 to feed your entire family. That is an even bigger motivator to drive through.

In Chicago, they are FINALLY addressing this issue. Now, to just get Seattle on the bandwagon.

Emanuel steps up battle against city's 'food deserts'

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-emanuel-food-desert-20111025,0,555386.story

Media DOES Influence- how does media influence YOU?

Last week we examined the confusion that media headlines and stories can create. Specifically, we referred to headlines regarding a recent study published in the Lancet at the end of August: Quantification of the effect of energy imbalance on bodyweight.

This week, we want you to take a personal look into how media influences you and your path of behavior change. Why are we doing this? We are all inundated with information. Whether it is true or false material, it surrounds us daily. What we desire, is for you to recognize how to be amidst all the input around you without it negatively impacting your progress of cultivating lasting behavior change.

What do we mean by negative impact? Let’s revisit from last week some of the story headlines about the study above:

“Why Even Resolute Dieters Often Fail”

“How Much Weight Will You Really Lose?‎

“Why To Exercise Today: The Math Of Weight Loss Is Unfair‎”

Wow! Fail? How much will you really lose? This is unfair? We don’t know about you, but while we’re trying to make lasting change, these are the last headlines we want to be influenced by. Here are some of the thoughts we see infiltrate people’s minds from headlines like these:

-          “It’s unfair. I just got the short end of the stick... Oh well, there is nothing I can do about it...”

-          “I feel like I am failing at this; I fail at everything.”

-          “I am never going to lose this weight!”

-          “Is this really worth all the effort?”

-          “If I haven’t seen the scale budge now, it never will.”

Hmmm…all these thoughts have a common thread: fear, lies, more fear, and feeling defeated. The interesting part is- what changed? We can go from enjoying the progress we have made to suddenly feeling fear and defeat from seeing one headline! There you have it: nothing has changed except our feelings (which are completely valid but do not need to fuel thoughts and actions). No action has been taken and yet all the sudden we are on the verge of giving up, retracting our progress, and not believing in ourselves?! This is a prime example of how our underlying thoughts can be so powerful and we don’t even realize it!

In becoming more aware of how media influences you, be discerning of hoopla headlines, seek credible guidance from dietitians who are the nutrition experts, and continue on your current path of progress.

We hope you find our next few blogs helpful as we continue sifting through the content of this current study. At the same time, keep the big picture in focus; remember, your foundations are paving the way to your future and creating peace with food.

Is that really true? Media Influence and Mis-Information

An exciting new study came out at the end of August this year in the Lancet Journal. It was the 3^rd part in a series on Obesity. What makes this particular study intriguing is how the media has shaped some of its results into “sexy” headlines and is a wonderful illustration of how we, as consumers, can get ROYALLY confused by that type of stuff.  

We will be spending the next few weeks sharing different highlights on this topic as there are so many great things to discuss on this article and the media influence from it.

The title of the actual study is: Quantification of the effect of energy imbalance on bodyweight. It was written by Hall et al. (et al. means that he wrote it with a bunch of other people and I don’t have the space to write it all down) and was published in the Lancet Journal on August 27^th, 2011.  As you can tell, the title is quite catchy all on its own, right? No, not really, I’m being sarcastic. And this is true for most research articles. The titles are over the layperson’s head and the journalists charged with reporting on these studies are forced to get “creative” all on their own.  Here is where the misinterpretations begin.

To illustrate my point I will dissect the New York Times' (NYT) take on this study with its interpretive title: Why Even Resolute Dieters Often Fail.

The writer starts off great with, “If you’ve been trying for years to lose unwanted pounds and keep them off, unrealistic goals may be the reason you’ve failed.” I full-heartedly agree. Unrealistic expectations are usually the culprit behind many intense negative emotional reactions such as feelings of failure & disappointment.

Then the bomb hits, “It turns out that a long-used rule of weight loss — reduce 3,500 calories (or burn an extra 3,500) to lose one pound of body fat — is incorrect and can ultimately doom determined dieters.”  This has also been seen in other headlines such as, “When 3,500 calories do not equal a pound: new study.”

Here is the scoop on this: Many medical professionals have known this for YEARS. It is NOT a secret.  Technically, yes, 3500 calories does equal 1 pound.  Does this fact tell us everything about how to calculate out weight loss calories? No. Human metabolism is very complex and several factors play on how our body functions.  This is why there has been more research focused on how hormones, sleep and stress influence hunger levels.

Unfortunately, this particular study did not assess those important factors and therefore, did not include them into the development of their simulation model that they tout will predict a more accurate view of weight loss and gain over time. We will talk more about that later though.

Now think back to the New York Times article titled: Why Even Resolute Dieters Often Fail, and consider how many people (even teenagers and kids) may have read this title or one similar. How do you think they will interpret this study based on that title alone?

Do you think they will infer that this is an article written for everyone or only overweight or obese individuals (which was the only population of people whom the researchers collected data on)? Nope, probably not.  I personally hope that they get a sense that dieting is not a “cool” thing to do and it is not a healthy mind-frame.

When you see these types of articles, BE SKEPTICAL of what you are reading. Discernment is okay. Ask your dietitian about the validity of the articles you read, especially the ones that really speak to you. Sometimes the message hits close to home ONLY because the journalist knows how to attract his/her target audience, NOT because he or she is representing the information correctly.

The NYT article over dramatized much of the actual study and stated a couple of things that were never mentioned. For example the author writes, “Their work, spelled out in a new study published in The Lancet, explains how body weight can slowly rise even when people have not changed their eating and exercise habits.”

The study actually states (from the study itself), “In other words, weight loss continues for many months at the same time that the average energy intake is slowly increasing. The dieter might then incorrectly infer that adherence is not essential for continuing weight loss when, in fact, impending weight regain has already been set in motion. The slow timescale for weight change is responsible for the gradual weight regain over many years despite the fact that the original lifestyle was resumed within the first year.”

What are your first impressions? Feeling a little dooped by the mis-information? The journalist tells us that this reputable study in a really prestigious journal says that no matter what we do, we will gain weight. I’d feel hopeless and kind of depressed.

Emotionally and logically speaking here, I feel like the journalist did an injustice and falsely represented the study and this valuable message to its readership.  And guess what, THIS HAPPENS ALL THE TIME!!!!!!!!!!!

And not just in online newspaper articles but also on television, books, the radio, and from our friends and family.

When it comes to weight management seek out the help of a Registered Dietitian, not just your medical doctor or naturopathic doctor or personal trainer.

If you needed a heart transplant, would you go see a Gastroenterologist? Probably not.  RD’s are trained specifically to use all the multi-faceted parts of your lifestyle to help you realize those weight and health goals. We have the skills, the know-how, and the TIME, to invest in you and your well-being.  

Registered Dietitians work with your doctors and other health care providers to consolidate the information you receive and help you to interpret and apply that information to your real life situation.