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Showing posts with the label restriction

Is your diet too strict?

When someone expresses dietary struggles to me, I often hear responses like "I need to be more disciplined" or "I feel so out of control, I need to get back on track." While it's advised to adapt a nutritious diet for health reasons, eating healthier should never become rigid and extreme. And unless you adapt your eating in a way that honors your hunger, makes you feel satiated and aligns with your personal health and activity goals, you may find yourself with a lot of food-related guilt, shame, deprivation, and a feeling of failure from an unstainable style of eating. Signs that your eating style may be too strict include: watching the clock for permission to eat having an off-limit food list only eating conditionally (ex. reward food) developing a fear of "bad" foods avoiding social situations involving food feeling constant hunger difficulty focusing, headaches or lightheadedness avoiding foods that you enjoy eliminating food groups or certain food...

Breaking the holiday restrict-binge cycle

The holiday season is here and it's filled with family, friends and.....food.  Without a doubt, food is a significant component of every holiday. For anyone who suffers from an eating disorder or an unhealthy relationship with food and the body, this can be a challenging time of the year.  You may not realize it but the holidays bring several triggers that could lead to disordered eating and exercising behaviors. Often times, stress, overwhelm, people pleasing, travel, toxic relationships/family members, uncomfortable conversations and finances can bring on uncomfortable feelings. In order to lessen those emotions, it's easy to resort to food restriction (or dieting). And with restriction often comes binge eating. Overeating from time to time does not mean that you have a binge eating disorder. Fundamentally, binge eating is different from overeating.  Signs and symptoms of binge eating include:  Eating a large amount of food in a short period of time (ex. over 2 ho...