Developing Good Eaters- for You and Your Loved Ones

Regardless of if you have little kids, big kids, a spouse who still acts like a kid, they are your family and it’s important to know how to feed them right!

We are going to go in-depth on several hot topics such as How to Raise Good Eaters-or Re-Raise Good Eaters at Any Age, Handling Picky Situations, What is Normal?!, Dinner Time Shuffles, and much more!

Our first topic…..Setting Expectations

Expectation 1:
Know Your Responsibility. Parents are responsible for the what, when, and where of feeding. Your child (NO MATTER the AGE) is responsible for the how much and whether of eating. (See Ellyn Satter’s article: Division of Responsibilites. We will discuss this in further detail soon. Until then check out this link.

Expectation 2:
Kids have about a 5-10 minute window where they are willing to sit down and eat a meal. So it’s important that you are able to enjoy these brief moments of stillness by being present with them at the table.

You can make this a reality by: Planning your meals ahead of time and have what you need for that meal available to you or your kids before sitting down (such as napkins, bibs, beverages, etc.).  This will limit the number of times you have to leave the table for small trips back to the kitchen.

Expectation 3:
Food preferences vary and if you have toddlers this can vary from breakfast to lunch! It can take 8, 10, 15, or 20+ times of introducing a food before it may even be tasted.  Be patient, have no fret, eventually the asparagus will get eaten.

Expectation 4:
Honor Your Mealtimes. Seems easy enough, but so often we feel rushed, anxious, and full of stress we forget to eat, skip it intentionally because of no time, or pass snacks to the kids while in the car.  Occasionally yes, life happens. However on a daily basis, the consistent neglect of sitting down to eat a meal together is role modeling to our families that meals are not important, eating and enjoying our food is not important, our bodies and health are not important. This is a classic example of “Do what I say, not as I do.” Reverse this by designating set meal times through-out the day for breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, & dinner. You may already be following a similar routine without knowing it!

Expectation 5:
Before you help another, you have to help yourself. Do you have a personal struggle with your relationship to food? Maybe it is skipping meals, avoiding certain foods, emotional eating, or finding time to prepare & plan healthful meals at home. Acknowledge your weaknesses and address them. A registered dietitian can help you overcome these issues so that you can lead your whole family to good health.

Weekly Challenge: Read Ellyn Satter’s Division of Responsibilities. Consider how you can apply these principles into your daily life. Post your insights, questions, concerns, & successes in the comment section. We love to hear from you!!!

"Tech Support"- utilizing technology for recovery- Recovery Record

Are you recovering from an eating disorder or trying to improve you relationship with food? There's an app for that. Have you heard of Recovery Record? Check it out on the internet or on your smart device. We learned of this application through clients who have been using it (and they are raving about it).

What is the app?

• Basically support by technology to help you continue making the choices you want to in the day. You could also call it coping via technology. The story behind the application is very neat as well.
• The app offers a place for you to log and track your food intake (no calories of course which is great) based on an eating frequency that you set.
• You can then set alarms with encouraging messages to help you keep achieving your goals.
• Messages are sent to you throughout the day to remind and encourage you.

Some aspects of Recovery Record our clients like:

• Custom settings to fit my needs
• Encouragement
• Help keeping the choices I really want to make, in the forefront of my mind

• Something I can have with me all the time

• Reminders, reminders, reminders

Some aspects of Recovery Record we like in particular:

• We see ways this application can be used not only for eating disorders, but for many people striving to create peace with food (talk to us in session if you are interested and we can help configure your settings)
• The ability to connect with providers through the application! We are not quite sure how this feature works, but hope we can try it in the future.

• Encouragement, coping, and helping people to continue striving to eat at regular intervals throughout the day.

Let us know what you think here and/or at our forum!

Resriction Vs Restraint, Blog 2

Last time we explored the concepts of restricting and restraining. Today, let's take a look at an example of restraint.

Precursors to practicing restraint:

1. Eating within an hour of waking
2. Eating meals and snacks every 3-4 hours until bed
3. Practicing balance at the plate using our CPF Plate Model
4. Practicing mindfulness at the plate

These practices will set us up for success when trying restraint. Without them, we are likely to be over hungry and craving which makes practicing restraint more challenging than it needs to be.

Step 1: Observation (each to take place over  a series of meals during the week, I would recommend 1-5 meals for each):

• Observe the point at which you sense you are full, do you stop eating or do you keep eating?
• Observe when you sense you are no longer hungry and then observe when you are satisfied or full. What do each of these stages feel like? 
• How do you respond to the above stages? Do you stop eating? Do you feel good, bad, happy, satisfied, angry, depressed? Try to point out why you feel the way you do (you may not know, but continue to ask yourself this question).

Step 2: Dialogue If you realize further from your observations that you have a hard time stopping after meals, write out the dialogue present. Usually it sounds something similar to the following:

Notice the spiral on the left side and no comment from the right side. We may be left feeling discouraged and disappointed.  Contrary to leaving these situations "happy", we are working towards leaving these situations with acceptance, forgiveness, and with nurturing help for the future. The above dialogue does not provide this.

Step 3 Act and Observe More:

• For a few meals:
• Eat to the point of feeling satisfied or full
• Observe your thoughts, actions, feelings
• For a few meals:
• Eat to the point of feeling satisfied or full
• Set your food and utensils down
• Your action is to do nothing but to continue observing your thoughts and feelings
• The tendency here will be to want to pick up the food item or food utensil again to silence all the thoughts
• Your challenge- restrain yourself so that you can experience sitting with these feelings
• Allow your thoughts and feelings to just be
• Once you are able to accept how you feel and think, begin to explore other dialogue that may be helpful for you. Here is an example (this is very informal because I am trying to mimic actual thoughts rather than providing a formal conversation that you may not identify with):

continued (I could not get the picture to format the same)....

Notice the difference in this set of thoughts versus the pattern of thoughts in the grid in step two. With this grid, we leave with constructive points. With the first grid we leave with destructive points.

Encouraging note: this is HARD work. Yes, it takes work. My claim is that it is worth the work and I think you will find this too. 

My challenge to you: be very aware of thoughts that say, "look how hard this is for you, you are bad at this, this is why you are never going to be able to do this, it is too hard." Try answering and standing up to these thoughts: "Yes! You are right! This is really hard. And that is okay. It is okay for this to be hard. It is not fun but it is realistic to expect that it is going to be hard; I have never learned how to do this before. I have never learned how to withstand, persevere through, or thrive through these types of situations. I have a lot of learning to do. And yes, it is going to be hard. That doesn't mean there is something wrong with me. It means I am human and I am right on track."

Restriction Vs Restraint

If you are working with us at Creating Peace with Food (CPF), we are or will be talking about balance at some point. One balance related topic we will talk about today is understanding restriction vs. restraint when it comes to food.

Here is an example for our discussion:

• You are trying to eat better.
• Let's say you really enjoy and may even emotionally eat sweets or salty treats.
• Your dietitian at CPF says that these foods can be part of your food intake, but you may wonder- how? "How can these be part of my meal plan when I can't just have "a few"? Isn't it this what is keeping me from attaining my goals in the first place? Don’t I need to cut it out completely?" Your dietitian's answer is no (because this would be restriction)  and you leave with a goal of trying to enjoy a smaller amount of these foods, although you are not sure how this is going to work.
• You sit down with your meal  and decide to also include one of your favorite treats with your meal. 

After having a seemingly small portion of your treat, compared to what you usually have, a dialogue begins: 

• So….I want more, of course.
• I can't have more.
• Well actually, I CAN have more.
• I am choosing not to have more.
• Isn't this a form of restricting myself, to tell myself that I can't have any? 
• But I CAN have more. I can choose to have more or choose to not have more.
• I can't get my mind off this food! Doesn't that mean I should have more? If I just have a little more I will be satisfied…..

Have you ever experienced something along these lines? When am I acting from a place of restriction and when am I acting from a place of restraint? The goal is to be acting from a place of restraint when needed. And restraint in the context of feeling total freedom is the ultimate goal. Today we will focus on just the restricting and restraining part. Read more here…..

Restriction Vs Restraint Continued

Here are some thoughts and situations that can help you identify when you are acting or thinking  from a place of restriction:

• I can't have those foods
• I had that already this week so I can't have it again
• I ate that so I should eat less at this meal
• I didn't eat breakfast so I can surely have this treat
• I'm having this treat and I will just work it off tomorrow or I won't have (you put something in the blank here) tomorrow.

Here are some thoughts and situations that can help you identify when you are acting from a place of restraint:

• I ate a nourishing meal. I am not going to have more because I am satisfied or full.
• I am eating all my meals and snacks and nourishing myself well. Even though I know I can have more of this treat, I am not going to because I feel it becoming more triggering. I've had sweets the past couple days and I am starting to feel again like I have to have a sweet after my meal. I'm going to take a break and readjust how I am relating to this food again.
• I am very used to having a large portion of this food. I am choosing to have less. I know I can have more if I want to. Part of me wants to, but what I really want is to focus on the fact that I am nourishing myself well and I CAN have these things. I am choosing to not have them, but I am not choosing to not have them because I  can't or because they are bad. Once I feel like I can have these foods without them being so triggering, I will have them. In the meantime, I am going to continue working on nourishing myself faithfully.

Weekly Challenge:

1. What are your thoughts moments like these?
2. Are you thinking or acting from a place of restriction or restraint?
3. Join our forum to discuss the topic further. See our website for directions to the forum.