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One of nine children growing up on a farm, Gail recalls childhood meals full of fried foods and unlimited desserts. Though body weight was “part of my family’s consciousness,” neither Gail nor any of her family members were seriously overweight, due in part to working the farm and plenty of bicycling on country roads. Throughout her high school years, however, Gail began to struggle more and more with her body image, self-confidence, and eating patterns. “I don’t remember having very much fun in high school. A couple of my older sisters had gotten into trouble, so I tried to be the perfect student. I got a job, dated a little, and went to night school, and that was the first time I can remember dieting. I know now that I was bulimic, but we didn’t call it that at the time. I remember stopping eating for six days at one point; I was thin, but I was totally out of control.” Fortunately, Gail recognized how unhealthy she had become and gradually stopped her purging behaviors, going on to marry and move to Indianapolis. The move proved stressful, and she again turned to eating to manage her emotions. At 36, Gail was diagnosed with osteoarthritis and placed on medications, while her work environment and one particular supervisor were driving her back to destructive eating patterns.
“It was a horrible situation, and I started eating to deal with my unhappiness. I probably gained 50 pounds that year.”
After discontinuing her arthritis medications during pregnancy, Gail decided she didn’t want to start them up again after she’d delivered her son, so she joined the NIFS Fitness Center in 1996.
“I knew it needed to be convenient and supportive, and it was, but I was really disappointed that I didn’t lose weight quickly at first. I yo-yo’d up and down for about seven years before I finally decided I had had enough. On December 4, 2002, I had just gotten to the point where I was feeling really horrible. I had watched a TV program that encouraged people to seek out a support system and develop goals, so that night, I drew up my own personal timeline. My goal was to lose 40 pounds, one pound per week.”
Gail still struggled with emotional eating and with finding a time for her workouts, but she had an “a-ha” moment with both issues. First, she decided to keep track of every situation or emotion that seemed to trigger negative eating patterns. She wrote each situation on an index card, and on the reverse side, developed a list of “eating alternatives” for that particular situation.
I carried those cards with me wherever I went—in the car, at work, in my purse.
They were always there to remind me what to do if I was struggling.” As for finding time for her workouts, Gail decided to juggle her schedule a bit to move exercise to her lunch “hour.”
“It just came to me. I asked my boss if I could come in a little earlier and stay a little later, and take a long lunch for my midday workouts. I’m still coming to NIFS almost every day during the week to exercise. I know how important it is for stress relief, and it’s almost like I have two days within a day now. I get to shower and go back to work in the afternoon more refreshed.”
Gail firmly believes in personal responsibility for changing your habits while finding support and accountability to help you accomplish your goals. “You have to find that place or that group or that person to support you—something to provide the consistency and accountability. It’s tough to get out of the destructive cycles; I know I couldn’t have done it without my husband. But you have to make the decision. No one else can do it for you. I know my body so much better now. I know how I feel when I eat too much, and, because I’m much more tuned in to my body, I just don’t think I’ll ever go back to the kind of patterns I had before.”

Hunger is one of the most primal drives that humans experience, but it certainly
isn’t the only need to which you must attend. Far too many people attempt to use
food to meet these other needs, often to the detriment of their overall health and
well-being. Part of leading a balanced lifestyle includes being able to identify and
satisfy some basic needs in an appropriate manner. These needs include, but are not
limited to

• Adequate, quality sleep
• Physical activity
• Appropriate medical care
• Connecting with other people (emotionally, physically, spiritually, intellectually, and socially)
• Expressing emotions and thoughts
• Respect
• Rewards
• Pleasure
• Relaxation

How about you? Do you look to food to manage these needs? Do you eat when you are tired? Stressed? Bored? Lonely? Anxious? Do you reward yourself with food? Do you feel like you haven’t taken a legitimate break from work unless you’ve had something to eat? Is food your primary sensual pleasure? If you’ve answered yes to some or most of these questions, it’s time to take a serious look at your behaviors and evaluate how you can begin meeting these needs in a healthier way. It never hurts to talk to someone you trust or to seek out a qualified counselor to help you identify and develop ways of satisfying your legitimate needs as a human being. The following story shows how one of my clients learned how to meet her own needs and break an emotional eating pattern.

Mindfulness, or paying attention, is a technique inherent in the natural eater. It sounds so simple, doesn’t it? But in a world that pushes convenience, speed, and efficiency, paying attention to what, how much, when, and why you eat can be daunting. The following concepts can help you work toward a more mindful eating experience.

Know That You Can Eat Again
If you believe that this is the last time you will enjoy steak and potatoes (at least for a while), you create a mindset that lends itself to overeating. As you recall from the study on human starvation, deprivation usually promotes binging when food becomes available again. Overeating is not a sign of a defect in character; rather, it often points to prior restriction of food or particular types of food. This is why diets that place certain foods on “to be avoided” lists almost never work in the long haul.

Make Eating a Priority
It’s difficult to be mindful when you’re trying to eat, talk on a cell phone, and navigate the morning rush hour. Even if you have only five minutes to devote to a meal, sit down, take a deep breath, and enjoy it as much as possible. If your food options are limited, make the best of the situation and focus on whatever is sitting in front of you.

Create a Positive Eating Atmosphere
Many people find it helpful to go out of their way to create a positive, relaxed atmosphere when they eat. You’ve probably heard it before, but this time act on it! Go ahead—get out the candles, put on good music, use real flatware, turn off the TV, and don’t answer the phone (or email or voice mail). This particular concept takes many different forms depending on your needs and preferences. Some people find cleanup after meals to be such a burden that they occasionally use disposable plates and utensils to feel more relaxed while they’re eating. These aren’t rules, merely suggestions. Do whatever you can do to eat in a positive environment.

Honor Your Taste Buds
Have you ever eaten a food strictly for its health-promoting qualities? I’ve worked with many clients who consistently order a salad for lunch, dutifully munch through a plate that sometimes contains far more calories than they realize, and get absolutely no satisfaction from that meal. What happens in the afternoons? They raid the vending machine or a colleague’s candy dish for food that tastes good to them. By respecting your unique food preferences and choosing to eat a variety of foods that you truly enjoy at mealtime, you will be less likely to go on food raids at other times of the day.

Check In with Your Body During the Meal
This is especially helpful if you have little control over the portions served, as in restaurant meals. As soon as you are served, mentally or physically separate the meal into two or more portions. When you’ve finished one portion, pause for a moment to evaluate how you feel, how the food tastes, and if you really want the rest. If you’re eating at home, you can accomplish this “body check-in” by starting with smaller servings, eating what’s on your plate, pausing for a short break, and then deciding whether to get another helping. Sometimes you may choose to keep eating, even if you know that you have had enough to satisfy your physiological hunger. Special meals or celebrations and traveling to places that offer new foods are common and legitimate reasons to eat more than usual. The key is to recognize that your body and appetite will adjust for these decisions, and your next hunger signals may not appear as soon as they usually do!
As you become a more mindful eater, it may become clear that you are or have been using food to meet legitimate, nonhunger needs.

One of the most concrete steps you can take to uncover your natural eater is also one of the most basic—respond to your unique body’s signals that ask for nourishment. People who have ignored these signals for much of their adult lives often report that their appetites resemble insatiable beasts instead of the gifts that they truly are. This can be a direct result of past dieting or attempts at severe calorie restriction. In a classic study on the implications of starvation, Ancel Keys and his colleagues made intriguing observations of men who voluntarily restricted calorie intake to half their typical levels (Biology of Human Starvation, University of Minnesota Press, 1950). Among other disturbing characteristics, the subjects enrolled in the study displayed

• Food obsession—These men spent most of their waking hours contemplating food, recipes, eating, meals, snacks, and calories. They talked about food, collected recipes, and fantasized about elaborate meals that included their favorite foods.
• Compulsive eating behavior—They hoarded food, pushed food around on their plates to prolong meals, and binged when they were allowed free access to food during the “re-feeding” period of the study.

• Depressed cognitive function—Subjects were apathetic, despondent, tired, and uninterested in sexual activity. They could no longer think creatively. Does any of this sound eerily familiar?

Normal, everyday people can exhibit the same characteristics when they consciously restrict calories to a level that is inadequate for daily activities and functions. Learn to work with, not against, your body’s physiological hunger signals to optimize your health and quality of life.
0—absolutely famished
1—extremely hungry
2—very hungry
3—hungry
4—just beginning to feel hungry
5—neither hungry nor satisfied
6—just beginning to feel satisfied
7—comfortably satisfied
8—full
9—extremely full
10—stuffed or nauseous

If this is the first time you’ve made an effort to identify your body’s hunger signals, don’t worry about doing it “correctly.” Each person experiences hunger and fullness a little differently, and there are no rules about how often and how much you should eat. Some people prefer to allow themselves to get fairly hungry in between meal times; they tend toward the traditional “three squares” a day. Others don’t like getting that hungry and would rather eat smaller amounts more frequently; they are often called grazers. Both styles of eaters are legitimately honoring their bodies’ signals. It will be up to you to determine the best way to incorporate responding to your hunger in your particular lifestyle.
For now, just concentrate on making eating a priority when you become hungry. If you’re thinking “What kind of plan is this? Eat when I’m hungry?! What if I can’t stop? I need concrete rules!” take a deep breath (or 10 or 20) and relax. It’s taken a long time to get where you are today, and it may take a long time to become comfortable with the natural eating process. Expect it to be a learning experience, complete with mistakes, blunders, and a healthy dose of humility. As you’re learning to respond to your body’s hunger signals, you’ll also want to start tuning in to your body’s satiety, or fullness, signals. Varying levels of satiety correspond with numbers 6 through 10 on the Hunger-Fullness Scale. To respond to these signals, you will need to become more mindful during the eating process.

Natural eaters are the embodiment of the age-old nutrition tenets of variety, balance, and moderation. Natural eaters come in all shapes and sizes. Some are tall, lean, and lanky; others are round and soft; still others are muscular and solidly built. The common thread among natural eaters is that food is simply not an issue. They rarely think about food apart from designated meal and snack times and are able to eat a wide variety of foods—including so-called “junk foods”—without experiencing a moral dilemma. This often prompts their dieting acquaintances to remark “How can you finish that whole slice of cheesecake?! I’d feel so guilty!” or “How can you eat whatever you want and never gain an ounce?” or “What do you mean, ‘you don’t want a brownie right now’?”
Do you know people who seem to be natural eaters? Spend time with them, observe their behavior, and listen to their conversations. You won’t hear them talking about the latest, greatest fad diet or discussing the calorie, fat, or carbohydrate content of the foods being served as if that were the most fascinating topic of the day. Natural eaters have a knack for listening to their bodies, honoring what they know about nutrition, and respecting their own and others’ food preferences. Sound appealing? There’s a natural eater inside each and every person waiting to be discovered. Resolve here and now never to tread the dieting path again; life has so much more to offer!

The emotional eater turns to food to lessen the intensity of negative emotions and enhance the enjoyment of positive emotions. He is usually sensitive to others’ needs, opinions, and attitudes. Criticism can send him in search of a candy bar, potato chips, and soda. Common emotional triggers for eating in the absence of physiological hunger are anxiety, depression, boredom, loneliness, fear, stress, excitement, joy, happiness, and many others. Food is the emotional eater’s drug of choice, and instead of turning to less acceptable methods (such as drinking, gambling, or smoking) of dealing with life’s curveballs, he heads for the freezer. All people, dieters at the top of the list, can fall quickly into emotional eating patterns, especially if they are overworked, deprived of quality sleep, or faced with more than they feel capable of handling.

The chaotic eater runs at full throttle day in and day out. She may juggle a full-time job with family and community responsibilities and often works long hours, stealing time from exercise and/or sleep to please as many people as possible. The chaotic eater frequently uses convenience foods and rarely sits down at a table to eat. She might eat in the car, on the bus, at her desk, during meetings, or while talking on the phone or answering emails. Her life is fast, and so is her food. She knows she should feed herself more nutritiously, but life is simply too hectic to make it a top priority.
Chaotic eaters spend a lot of time at the extremes of hunger and fullness. They may go many hours or most of the day with nothing more than coffee and a vending machine snack, and then gorge themselves at night when they finally have the opportunity.
Other chaotic eaters simply don’t want to be bothered with planning nutritious meals and
snacks. They believe that tedious task is reserved for health nuts and nutrition professionals. Dieting veterans can be chaotic eaters when they are “off” their diets; they reason that they’ll get back on the bandwagon when life slows down a bit and they can muster a little more willpower.

The restrained eater often appears to be the picture of health. He may work out religiously, scrutinize his food choices, and keep close tabs on his body weight. Below the surface, however, the restrained eater agonizes over food choices and may miss out on social events due to erratic eating and exercise patterns. He spends an inordinate amount of time thinking about food, planning what to eat or avoid, and/or exercising to “make up” for indulgences. The restrained eater may look like the textbook definition of health, but he is far from achieving a balanced lifestyle or peace of mind. Many dieters fall into this category when they religiously count calories, points, or grams of carbohydrate, fat, or protein. For some restrained eaters, food is the one thing over which they exert full control, so eating becomes their method of coping with an otherwise unpredictable life.

To identify your eating pattern, you must be willing to evaluate your relationship with food and eating. Humans have all sorts of reasons for eating—celebration, stress, boredom, comfort, loneliness, pleasure, social situations, cultural traditions, control, anxiety, habit, and countless others that have little or nothing to do with a physiological need for nourishment. The beauty of natural eating lies in its ability to both fulfill your body’s need for energy and respect your unique mind, heart, and soul. Does this mean that you should never eat for purely social, cultural, or emotional reasons? Absolutely not. By becoming a natural eater, you’ll begin to understand how your body adjusts for these situations and provides you with reliable hunger and fullness signals to reestablish your connection with eating’s original purposes.

Sound like a bunch of feel-good jargon? I will identify several eating patterns so that you can relate to these concepts on a more personal level. I’ve included examples of life situations that illustrate each pattern, but you may exhibit characteristics of the pattern without matching any of the examples. You’ll also find that you probably fall into more than one category depending on the situation at hand. The label isn’t as important as your willingness to examine all the ways in which you might use food.

Although this is a blog designed to help you improve your habits, many of you are also curious about what constitutes a healthy body weight. First and foremost, it’s important to remember that weight is simply a number. Focusing on body weight as a goal can be counterproductive for a number of reasons, but because we live in a weight obsessed age, this topic merits further discussion.

For many individuals, a modest loss of even 5% of current body weight can improve health parameters such as blood pressure, blood sugar, and blood cholesterol levels. Unfortunately, most people who embark on weight loss programs begin with completely unrealistic goals—they report an inability to be satisfied with modest, but beneficial weight loss. This kind of all-or-nothing mentality is a recipe for frustration, body dissatisfaction, and preoccupation with body weight and appearance. For these reasons, I will not use typical methods employed by many organizations and professionals to determine your “ideal” body weight (there’s nothing inherently wrong with the charts and tables; it’s simply more productive to focus your energy elsewhere). If you prefer, go back to the section on your personal weight history and use this information as a starting point to determine a healthy weight range. Choose a range that you were able to maintain as an adult without dieting or excessive exercise but that reflects adequate nutrition, regular activity, and attention to overall health.

Another important consideration is respect for your basic body type. Many people attempt to change their body shapes with dieting and exercising only to become frustrated, tired, and obsessed with their various imperfections. It’s an unfortunate result of a culture that has little regard for the beauty of genetic diversity in body types or the inherent worth of a person’s soul and character. Learn to work with the wonderful body you’ve been given. You don’t have to be enamored with every last inch, but do try to see yourself in a positive light.
In the same way that your genes determine where you store body fat, they will determine how you lose that fat. Do you have illusions of reducing body fat in select areas of your body? Many women, for example, are frustrated by the apparent tenacity of fat stores in their hips and thighs (or other areas of the body). Although balanced nutrition and regular exercise can improve many health parameters and decrease overall body fat, women must accept the fact that they are biologically wired to store fat in these areas. Keep this in mind if you are embarking on a weight loss program with someone of the opposite gender!
Again, focus on changing behaviors, and you will naturally arrive at a healthier weight. Identifying your eating style or styles is an important first step in changing your eating behaviors and working toward becoming a natural eater.