How do you stay so thin?

The question was innocent enough. I had been posting my food forays from France all week and believe me, when I travel to France, it’s no holds barred. It’s the one place I can enjoy a loaf of crusty glutenFUL bread and not worry that someone is going to look at me and gasp. A culinary ‘nutrition guide’ partaking of wheat? Blasphemy!

First, I have to say, when I look in the mirror I don’t see thin. I see a body that has finally found its happy weight. I remember the first time I heard that phrase, happy weight, and how sweet it sounded. Bittersweet for me because I had never in my entire life considered my weight ‘happy.’ Recently I’ve been poring over old photos as I assemble a luscious legacy project for my mother’s 90th birthday. When I look at those photos I feel a deepening sense compassion for both my younger self and for my mother. I grew up in a weight loss war zone; my mother was always on a diet. At times, she was dangerously overweight.

I was convinced I would follow in her footsteps. At that time I didn’t understand emotional eating or the meaning of poor quality food. I knew I loved the foods that came from my grandmother’s kitchen (whole foods made from scratch) but I also grew up in an era where packaged foods were being celebrated and women were leaving the kitchen in droves. The birth of Hamburger Helper, Shake and Bake, Minute Rice and Pillsbury Instant Mashed Potatoes (homemade fluff and flavor) meant the death of real food with real flavor. It also created a cultural mindset that continues to undermine both our health and our kitchen experience today. 

My grandmother wouldn’t have dreamed of adding water to feather-like flakes to create mashed potatoes. My mother, on the other hand, loved the new convenience foods. Who wouldn’t?

click image for video, it’s a hoot!

A few days later I returned home to an email from a former client who wanted to tell me about a really cool app that she found that allows her to record what she eats and track the nutritional content of her food. It tracks her exercise, too. While I’m always really excited to hear about strategies that work for my clients, I felt a pang of sadness when I read that email. Here’s why: I was once a ‘tracker.’ A rather obsessive tracker. That kind of tracking took me further and further away from the wisdom of my body and from my own satiety cues. It also took me further and further away from the pure joy in preparing and eating delicious foods. When I began to observe healthy eaters, I noticed something. They eat when they are hungry. They stop when they are full. Sometimes, they even leave some food on their plates. Gasp.

Recently I found some of the tracking systems I used during my body hate years. Pages and pages and pages (we’re talking notebooks FULL) of various tracking systems that I used for much of my adult life as I wrestled my body into the size and shape I thought it ‘should’ be, according to what standards I can’t even be sure. When I look at what I was eating and how meticulously I was tracking that food intake, I want to wrap that young women in my arms and say, “Sweetie, you don’t have to work this hard. Go read a delicious novel or make a piece of art. Life is short. Too short.”

note: diet coke, Go Lean cereal, protein bars, cold cuts, cottage cheese are NOT health foods

But back to the question … how do you stay so thin? First, let’s reframe the question. Let’s ask, “How do you maintain a healthy body weight?” Or, for me, “How did you finally make peace with your body and allow it to find the weight it wanted/needed to be?” which by the way, when I look at all these little pieces of paper and tracking tools I found, is the weight I was fighting against all those years. Silly me. No wonder I developed osteoporosis.

I almost never write a ‘prescriptive post’ but today I feel called to help you dispel at least one of the myths that might be keeping you from finding your happy weight.

Myth: Eat less, exercise more. That never worked for me. Exercising more actually made me hungrier so eating less was not an option. Nor should it be. Higher activity levels require more fuel. I also believed cardiovascular exercise was the best way to burn those pesky little calories (former aerobics instructor and ‘spin’ enthusiast). In later years I learned that weight bearing exercise was far more useful and MUCH better for my bones, too. (Goodbye osteoporosis.) Now, I have a healthy mix of exercise in my repertoire. If you’d like to know more about high intensity, low force exercise, you might enjoy the interview I conducted with my Instructor, Tim Rankin of SuperSlow Zone®.

Here’s what I’ve come to know. My food intake is largely determined by my activity level. When I’m working from home, in front of a computer, I require less food than when I’m walking the streets of New York City or Paris.

I eat according to my hunger.

My former life, chasing frolicking first graders all day, running up and down halls to get them to and from special classes, the cafeteria, or the bus, had me moving a lot more. I absolutely needed more food to fuel my body at that time. Ironically, the years of restriction … the body hate years … were the years I most likely needed MORE food to fuel the body, not less. (Um, yes, the ‘tracking’ thing.) Today I’m less active, unfortunately. Writing blog posts and meeting with clients on the phone or SKYPE requires less fuel so my meals are proportionately smaller. I’m following my hunger cues instead of a chart.

As for what I eat, well, that’s easy. I eat beautiful food. Whole food. Food that I prepare with love and with a consciousness I didn’t have in those early years. If you’re interested in knowing more about preparing food with this kind of love and attention, you might enjoy my Clueless in the Kitchen online course. You don’t have to be clueless, just curious.

It begins on March 20th. I’d love to see you in the roster! You can register right here.