Leveraging Little Changes

I’d like to share with you an insight I had in the past couple of weeks. I think it connects well to the journey of Creating Peace with Food.

While I was brushing my teeth one morning, I looked down at my counter. It was nice and tidy, clean of dried water droplets from face-washing splashes, contact case residue, or my toothbrush lying on the counter. I had only a few things next to my sink and it made me feel crisp, clutter free, and clean. I realized I had this sense of joy and part of me questioned why. I moved about my morning and later the counter caught my eye again. Really? Why do I feel such a sense of happiness seeing that clean counter? How silly.  

I realized later I was happy because this was a change that I wanted, made, and maintained. Does it really matter why I was happy? Not for the point I am trying to make: feeling good regardless of the reason and the fact that it seemed silly to me, started my whole day off on a positive note.

From this simple excerpt of a morning, I have two points to make.

First, allowing ourselves to find success in little things can help us leverage small change because it points us in a positive direction. Does discarding little things as just that- small stuff, nothing meaningful, something you should have done all along, and minute compared to everything you need to change- shift your thinking in the same positive direction? 

Another way to imagine this is with dominos in mind. Often, allowing ourselves to feel success in small things can result in a domino effect in a positive direction. And on the other hand, disregarding little successes may not help us change anything and may potentially tip the dominos in a negative direction. Which would you choose?

Second, although my example had nothing to do with nutrition or activity, I think we can make direct and indirect connections between the two. Do you see how they can relate?

Directly, we can apply this small-success mentality to our health goals. For example, say you ate a balanced meal once this week when you usually never eat balanced meals. You could think of this as no big feat or allow yourself to enjoy this as a mini success. Would one way of thinking help you more?  

Indirectly, small changes in one area of life can impact a different and “unrelated” area of our lives. Have you had this experience before? A way to visualize this is to think about life as a giant puzzle in zero gravity where all the puzzle pieces are connected by strings. The pieces tend to spread apart because of the lack of gravity. If all the pieces are connected and our goal is to join them at the center, small tugs to the center (no matter how small) pull the rest too. Another way to think about this calls to mind a commercial from Nutri-Grain I saw- although it is food related you can see the “domino effect”.  (I am not advertising anything but I think the concept really hits home).

I encourage you to observe your day. What is something that you may be shrugging off as nothing when it might actually (if you let it) have the potential to feel like a mini success? What direction would this point you? Is it a different direction than shrugging it off as nothing? How might looking at this small change from a new vantage point help you? With this thinking, you may just be one step closer to your goals.

The New "MyPlate"

The following offers a brief history of the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) nutritional guidelines and how the Food Guide Pyramid and the new “My Plate” came to be. Although “My Plate” is not thoroughly explained in this blog article, resources explaining the plate further are offered below.

From Pyramid to Plate

Actually, from Farmers’ Bulletin to Plate! Did you know that the first dietary recommendations were issued by the USDA in 1894?[1] This first publication of nutritional advice was a Farmers’ Bulletin. At that time specific vitamins and minerals had not even been discovered; they were referred to as “mineral matter”. Add that to your trivia chest! Since the Farmer’s Bulletin, advances in scientific research have contributed to massive expansion of nutrition guidance from the government.

Various publications were developed over the years to reflect the most recent research. And in the 1980’s, the USDA and DHHS (Department of Health and Human Services) published the Dietary Guidelines for Americans in response to, “the public’s need for authoritative, consistent guidance on diet and health”.¹  These are the same guidelines that we have today and they are updated every  five years.

It was not until 1992, though that the first graphic to represent the Dietary Guidelines for Americans was released: the Food Guide Pyramid. Since the icon was established, three updated editions of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans have been published. And on June 2^nd a plate model became the new icon for the USDA guidelines. The new plate icon is based on the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.[2] The icon has changed; however, the guidelines are the same (updated of course). To learn more about the new plate icon, check out these YouTube videos:

-                 Introducing the New Food Icon: MyPlate

-                 Food Pyramid Will Change To Shape Of A Plate

We realize that all the various guidelines and symbols can just add to confusion of nutritional jargon. To simplify: balance (food and life), moderation and variety, joy of eating, and living healthy, active lives. 

Let us know if you have questions or comments about MyPlate or general meal balancing by posting a comment to this post!

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^[1] USDA Publications Davis, Carol and Etta Saltos. “Dietary recommendations and How They Have Changed Over Time.” USDA/ERS, AIB-750.

[2] http://www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2010.asp

Emotional Eating Study

A recent CNN story explored the science behind emotional eating. Specifically, the study in reflection examined why some people gravitate to fatty or sugary foods when feeling emotionally “under the weather”. How the study worked is patients were tube fed patients particular nutrients (in this case saturated fat vs a saline solution) while they watched sad faces or listened to sad music. The saturated fat seemed to result in the most upbeat reactions (post-negative stimuli). See the article for more on how these reactions were measured. The article underlines that this research suggests a biological component to emotional eating. The biological mechanism is not understood, but suggests a relationship between the stomach, brain, and hormone stimulation that moves us towards certain nutrients.

The following piece of the article intrigued me specifically:

“The deep-seated connection between our stomachs and our brains helped keep humans alive when food was scarce (as it was during most of human history), but it may have outlived its usefulness and may be contributing to modern health problems such as obesity, Van Oudenhove adds.

‘Evolution has made every aspect of feeding as rewarding as possible," he says. "These days it may not be a good thing anymore. When food is available anywhere, then it may be a bad thing, leading to obesity or eating disorders in some people.’

The study drives home just how difficult it can be to eat healthy and resist so-called emotional eating in our stressful world, says Susan Albers, Psy.D., a psychologist at the Cleveland Clinic and the author of "50 Ways to Soothe Yourself Without Food.””

At this point, I was just really hoping that the article wasn’t going to end up blaming food and biology entirely for food-related behavior. Fortunately, it did not:

“Therapy or other treatments that ‘teach people how to deal with strong emotions would likely...help people improve their eating habits,’ she (Susan Albers) says.”

Thank you! (Cheering from Creating Peace with Food). “Would likely”, in my opinion, is not accurate enough though. Therapy and other treatments that help people work through strong emotions without food DOES help people improve their eating habits. I am a blessed eyewitness of this change in our clients every day! Whether a client is coping with strong emotions by restricting or over-eating food, introducing new coping mechanisms and developing healthy eating habits together has been a success for our clients time and time again.

Don’t get me wrong, I think this research about the biological connection with emotional eating is imperative for our society’s understanding of emotional eating. This will only help us and our clients more. At the same time, I am grateful that the ability for a person to change their behaviors was somewhat mentioned. Regardless of the biological component of emotional eating being fully understood or not, people can and do change their behaviors daily. Food is not an exception and with a little support and guidance, success can be achieved in this area of health and well-being.

I encourage you to read this article and post comments if you have them. Be informed about this article for in the case that someone you know says something along the lines of, “oh well, I can’t do anything about it; it’s just the way my biological makeup is,” you will know how to respond with another perspective. :)

Article Source linked above: http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/07/25/study.clues.emotional.eating/index.html  

Play with My Food? Yes!

Growing up, most of us probably got scolded for playing with our food. It's time to change our perspective on the subject.

Playing with your food does have it's own boundaries so let's set them out to be clear. On one end of the spectrum is the curious toddler-inspecting, tasting, spitting out, touching, and staring at their food. On the opposite end is the person struggling with an eating disorder who is cutting up the food, strategically moving pieces on the plate so others think more is being consumed than what really is.

When I say, play with your food, I'm encouraging you to do just that! Set up mini-experiments, indulge in taste tests with your family, or copy Gordon Ramsey's blind taste test challenge from his TV show Hell's Kitchen. 

Doing this serves an important purpose! It gets you & your family/friends together by introducing everyone to new foods in a fun, non-threatening way. It encourages food acceptance, reduces the risk of developing eating disorders(ED), and can help an person struggling with ED to challenge those feared foods in a supportive environment. For those of you just beginning to develop your kitchen skills, playing with your food will help you feel more comfortable in the kitchen and familiar with foods you don't have experience working with.

Paddle Boarding!

Between recipes, nutrition, and behavior change tactic posts, I thought it would be also fun to write an activity-related blog post.

Have you ever heard of paddle boarding? Apparently, it is also referred to as SUP- Stand Up Paddle Boarding. Think surf board, but not surfing; and paddling without the boat. This will give you an idea:

Image: Alki Kayak Tours

I went for the first time on the 4th of July and it was a blast! We went to the Alki Kayak Tours stand, paid 15 dollars, signed a waiver, put on our life jackets (of course!) and we were off. There are lessons too if you desire though. I thought it was going to be a lot harder to balance than it was. I actually ended up jumping off my board at one point just because I wanted to get into the water. SUP is a sneaky workout too! I didn't even know that I was really getting a workout until we got back to the shore and I almost fell over when I tried to pick up my board.

There are many places to try paddle boarding in the Seattle area: Alki, LakeUnion, Green Lake.

Do you know of others? Please post them. Have you tried it before? We would love to hear about your experience. And if you have advice for others, that would be helpful too.

Also, for those of you looking for a real challenge, there are SUP races and also SUP Yoga and Pilates- yes you heard me right, yoga on a paddle board. I would have never thought of that. It sounds really tough but really fun.

Whatever you have planned this weekend, be safe and enjoy! And if the weather is nice (or not) maybe give paddle boarding a try. Cheers!