I love being a Chocolate Fairy. Not just because it’s the best job title in the world but because it’s the job I always wanted. I know some of you may think it’s a bit twee (some of you have told me the name puts you off) and that somehow it trivialises what we do or makes it less professional but to me it’s fun and above all it’s honest. I call myself a Chocolate Fairy (and we call all the women we train Chocolate Fairies) and not counsellors or coaches or leader or anything like that because my real qualification for doing this work, for running workshops, retreats and ecourses and for writing books is that I am a woman who spent years, decades, struggling with my relationship with food and my body. I tried everything and nothing I tried ever worked. I started more diets than I can remember, I invented my own, I cut things out of my diet, I tried exercising and being good, I counted calories and points and despite my best intentions and my utter desperation, more often than not I didn’t lose weight and when I did I never managed to sustain it for very long. My real qualification for doing this work is that after years of dieting I finally realised that it was the dieting that was making me fatter and fatter and so I STOPPED and found another way. With the help of some trail blazing women (Roth, Orbach, Hirshmann & Munter) and their inspiring books I stopped turning to the diet companies, the media, the celebrities and the so-called experts for the solutions and I started to be my own Guru. Once we realised that it was the diets that were failing us, not the other way round (have you read Audrey's post: Weight Watchers admits that diets doesn't work?) Audrey and I created Beyond Chocolate as much to support ourselves as anything else. Being a Chocolate Fairy was the perfect way to keep making amazing, transformational changes in my own relationship with food, empowering myself know and trust my body in a way that I had never experienced before. Being a Chocolate Fairy means that I stay motivated and inspired and above all aware. Being a Chocolate Fairy places my relationship with food (and ultimately my relationship with myself) at the heart of my life, and that has been such a precious way of continuing to explore and experiment over the past eleven years.
Being a Chocolate Fairy is about being there to support other women, not as an expert who knows better or as a teacher who imparts information but as a compassionate, kind, encouraging ally. It is the most precious privilege to run a workshop and meet the brave, honest women who come, hopeful, cautious, desperate. Sometimes they tell us, this is their last attempt, if this doesn’t work they can’t imagine where to turn or what to do and what they discover is that Beyond Chocolate offers them a real way forward. One that definitely requires effort and commitment, that generally takes time (despite being Fairies, we don’t do magic) and that is so worth the wait and the patience.
The world needs more Chocolate Fairies. Women need allies. We need women who understand, who will offer support and ideas, who know how to listen, who have a deep and well stocked tool bag and who understand what it’s like to have a tool bag and not know how to use it! Women need kindness and compassion and care. And that’s the job of a Chocolate Fairy. Wouldn’t you just love to be one?
Showing posts with label diets don't work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label diets don't work. Show all posts
Thursday, 16 February 2012
Friday, 10 February 2012
Is Weight Watchers a diet?
Weight Watchers are very keen to distance themselves from diets. As Audrey in wrote last week’s post, they are keen for women (and sadly more and more men ) to see what they offer as a lifestyle choice, as a healthy way of living for good. They are inviting us to play Weight Watchers these days. Yes, play, they suggest, as if counting points, controlling portions and limiting food choices or running around the block to make up for transgressions from the rules (have you heard the ad on the radio?) is just a bit of fun really. In my experience there is nothing fun about being overweight and miserable about it. There is nothing fun about feeling out of control around food, not knowing how to resist the temptation of chocolate and cake and the endless foods that appear on the diet's forbidden food lists. Struggling with eating and body size is not a game, it saps energy and destroys lives.
Beyond Chocolate is not a diet. Weight loss is not the primary goal. Our aims are to empower women to know and trust their bodies, to feel relaxed and in control around food. To feel good about the way they eat and the way they look (whatever their size). And there is always a danger that if you have been dieting for many years and you’re new to Beyond Chocolate, you will make this into a diet too.
It’s tempting to turn the principles into rules or guidelines. Either unconsciously, out of habit or because we feel lost without a sense of structure, without someone telling us what to do. Taking responsibility for ourselves can be challenging.
It’s easy to fall into the all or nothing, doing it/not doing it, diet mentality. After so many years of dieting, being our own Gurus does not come easy to many of us.
So, here are some suggestions for avoiding the diet trap:
If you like structure and you know it works for you, create one of your own. There’s nothing wrong with having a plan or a framework if you know that it supports you.
Give yourself a weight loss holiday - how long would you be willing to experiment with Beyond Chocolate without thinking about whether or not you’re losing weight? Put your bathroom scales away, out of sight, just for a while.
Choose one principle at a time to focus on.
Take action.
Be willing to make mistakes. If you do all the principles properly, all the time, you will learn nothing and nothing will change.
Support yourself along the way with like minded people (the Beyond Chocolate Forum is a great place for that).
Wherever you start be gentle with yourself, cultivate a spirit of curiosity and kindness, take yourself gently by the hand and take action.
- Weight Watchers is a diet because it has a clear set of rules and guidelines which anyone on the plan has to follow.
- Weight Watchers is a diet because it defines for you the foods that are ‘good’ and ‘bad’.
- Weight Watchers is a diet because 99% (if not 100%) of the focus is on weight loss, not on developing a healthy relationship with food and your body.
- Weight Watchers is a diet because you are either on it and doing it, or off it and not doing it.
- Weight Watchers is a diet because food is translated into points that you have to count and measure.
- Weight Watchers is a diet because it measures success by the number on the scales.
Beyond Chocolate is not a diet. Weight loss is not the primary goal. Our aims are to empower women to know and trust their bodies, to feel relaxed and in control around food. To feel good about the way they eat and the way they look (whatever their size). And there is always a danger that if you have been dieting for many years and you’re new to Beyond Chocolate, you will make this into a diet too.
It’s tempting to turn the principles into rules or guidelines. Either unconsciously, out of habit or because we feel lost without a sense of structure, without someone telling us what to do. Taking responsibility for ourselves can be challenging.
It’s easy to fall into the all or nothing, doing it/not doing it, diet mentality. After so many years of dieting, being our own Gurus does not come easy to many of us.
So, here are some suggestions for avoiding the diet trap:
If you like structure and you know it works for you, create one of your own. There’s nothing wrong with having a plan or a framework if you know that it supports you.
Give yourself a weight loss holiday - how long would you be willing to experiment with Beyond Chocolate without thinking about whether or not you’re losing weight? Put your bathroom scales away, out of sight, just for a while.
Choose one principle at a time to focus on.
Take action.
Be willing to make mistakes. If you do all the principles properly, all the time, you will learn nothing and nothing will change.
Support yourself along the way with like minded people (the Beyond Chocolate Forum is a great place for that).
Wherever you start be gentle with yourself, cultivate a spirit of curiosity and kindness, take yourself gently by the hand and take action.
Wednesday, 19 October 2011
Developing Body Intelligence
Gretel Hallet, is a Trained Chocolate Fairy and is running the Getting Started half day workshop in Norwich - perfect for beginners to experience the core principles of Beyond Chocolate and equally great as a refresher for any Beyond Chocolater. If you live in East Anglia and want to know more about Beyond Chocolate or her workshops, get in touch with Gretel.
Oh how the internet LOVES lecturing us about dieting! This is one of the latest efforts and, at first, I thought we were heading in a Beyond Chocolate direction.
Check it out.
“This year, over 10 million of us will go on some sort of diet. Six weeks on, half of us will have thrown in the towel and, even if we do manage to shed a few pounds, 12 months later 95% of us will have put all the weight back on. The key to escaping this on-off dieting mentality, says Zest nutritionist Judith Wills, is to boost your body IQ. 'Intelligence is usually applied to our mental prowess; we rarely think of our physical intelligence,' she explains. 'Upping your body IQ means learning how your appetite works naturally ...”
At this point I was getting excited and thinking that this Zest nutritionist was a Beyond Chocolate fan. But then she blew it ... read on ...
“... and getting savvy about the hidden fat traps that send you off course, such as two-for-one supermarket offers, indulgent restaurant meals and shop-bought salads that come with a creamy dressing.... “
Oh dear. And we’re back to deprivation via the short route of ‘avoid anything that is generally considered ‘fattening’ or ‘bad for you’.
From personal experience I can categorically say that attempting to avoid the sorts of things mentioned in this article is a guaranteed short cut to bingeing. The body is a clever, but tunnel visioned, thing. As far as the body is concerned Fat = Good. Fat = Saving Us from Winter Famine. Fat = Rare and Must be Consumed Whenever Encountered. What the body doesn’t realise is that these days fat is no longer scarce; in fact, fat is all around and very freely available.
And the phrases she uses aren’t helpful either. ‘Hidden fat traps’, ‘send you off course’, ‘indulgent’ (I may forgive her the last one, but not in the context she uses it). I think it’s insulting to our intelligence to assume we don’t know that some foods are fattier than others and that if we buy two of something when we only needed one, we are likely to over-eat. We do actually know this. The ‘problem’ is that food manufacturers want us to buy lots of food, more if possible, and this can bring us into conflict with our dislike of ‘wasting’ food. We have two cakes where we only wanted one, so what do we do? Throw it away? Eat it?
And, if we are not dieting, how can we be ‘sent off course’ by fatty food anyway? Despite recognising that diets don’t work, this nutritionist hasn’t investigated the alternatives – she assumes that people will go on dieting but just not call it that to themselves, that people will live with constant deprivation and constant avoidance of ‘traps’ in foods.
The nutritionist does claw it back a bit by the end, however. She says:
“And if you change your habits? You'll get weight loss without the work... and no chance of the pounds creeping back on, either.”
I agree with her but I don’t agree with how she got there. Beyond Chocolate does involve a change of habits. It can lead to weight loss (and we do have to work at it), and, once we’ve got it all in balance, the weight won’t ‘creep back on’ again – ever.
Thursday, 29 September 2011
Calories in, calories out myth - debunked and a fantasy
According to a very interesting article called Diets fail because advice is wrong, say researchers which I came across on the BBC News website the other day, the "eat less and you will lose weight" mantra on which all dieting advice is based on today doesn't actually work.
What these diet companies, along with government bodies, and healthcare professionals are telling us (and have been telling us for years) is that if we reduce our daily intake by 500 calories then we can expect to lose 1lb (0.5kg) in weight every week. Therefore, the reasoning goes, if you stick at it for a year, you can lose 52lbs (23.5kg). The researchers have shown that it takes much longer to lose that kind of weight. Everything from our age, our genes and the type of food we eat will impact how much weight we lose and in what time frame. They've also shown the psychological impact of setting up people for failure by setting unrealistic and unachievable goals. It's what we call the Diet Mentality at Beyond Chocolate.
The part of the article which I found most troubling is an interview with Helen Bond, from the British Dietetic Association who, when asked about the calories in/calories out theory admitted,
"We all recommend it - it's what we are taught. But I don't know what the scientific evidence for it is. It's not very motivating to tell someone that if they cut their intake by 10 calories a day every day for the next three years they will lose a pound of weight. But saying 'cut out your daily habit of a 250-calorie chocolate bar and you will lose about 25 pounds and, if you stick at it, the weight will stay off' - that is.
Well, lots of Fairy dust to Helen for honesty.
I feel quite sorry for Helen. I have this image (which I'm sure is pure fantasy) of a bright, committed woman who is constantly frustrated at working in a medieval environment. Deep down she knows that telling people it's possible to lose 25lb in a year by eating a bit less chocolate - whoever we are and whatever our diet looks like beyond that chocolate bar - doesn't make sense. She can see with her own eyes that the calories in/calories out equation hasn't helped anyone. There have never been so many people on diets as there are today...and we've never been fatter. The old guard can cling on to their diet myths but Helen knows there's another way. Maybe she's heard of Beyond Chocolate! Maybe she is at this very moment plotting a new course for the British Dietetic Association, one which shuns calories altogether and embraces mindful eating. In fact, back in 2003 The Independent on Sunday published an article in which they quote Dr Wendy Doyle of the British Dietetic Association saying that "the Beyond Chocolate appraoch is pretty much spot on". So they've known all along.
Well, while I wait for this great day, I shall continue to fantasise about what this revolution would look like...
Can you imagine a government policy paper outlining the 10 Beyond Chocolate principles and being adopted by healthcare professionals across the land? Can you imagine millions of women meeting each week to practice tuning in, to learn how to eat when they are hungry, to eat foods they like, with mindfulness and enjoyment. Can you imagine these women talking, connecting, laughing, supporting each other, celebrating? Talking openly about their relationship with food. Can you imagine hundreds of millions of pounds being spent to fund local cookery clubs? Places where people can gather to cook and eat good meals. A place to taste new foods and be shown how to cook them. Hundreds of millions of pounds and government backing... just think of what Jamie Oliver manages to do with a fraction of that. Imagine thousands of mini Jamie's doing their thing up and down the country. Inspiring people to eat fresh, local food. Imagine a system of publicly funded allotment projects where you get free produce in return for putting in some elbow grease. A place where young and old can work side by side. Where age old green thumb tips get handed down. Imagine each neighborhood having as many public steam baths as there are libraries. Imagine women gathering to bathe and steam and lounge and chat. Hundreds of women of all shapes and sizes and colours, without their clothes, their makeup, their bags and shoes and jewellery. Just bodies. All beautiful. Imagine the school curriculum completely rewritten to include subjects such as 'Body Image' and 'Consumerism'. Programmes that give girls a place to talk about the changes going on their bodies in those critical teen years. A chance to ask questions, to exchange stories, to meet inspiring, older women who challenge the media's definition of beauty. Programmes that teach children about the mechanics of the consumer society, about supply and demand and the theories behind advertising and merchandising and PR. Generations of children being taught that as consumers they can vote with their wallets. Millions of children watching an advert for cereal and thinking: "Yeah, the Monkey's cool but that doesn't mean the cereal is too". Just imagine...
Ooooh! It is nice to indulge in a little fantasizing now and again. Post me your fantasies of a post diet world. We can collect them and be ready with the best ideas when Helen spearheads the revolution.
What these diet companies, along with government bodies, and healthcare professionals are telling us (and have been telling us for years) is that if we reduce our daily intake by 500 calories then we can expect to lose 1lb (0.5kg) in weight every week. Therefore, the reasoning goes, if you stick at it for a year, you can lose 52lbs (23.5kg). The researchers have shown that it takes much longer to lose that kind of weight. Everything from our age, our genes and the type of food we eat will impact how much weight we lose and in what time frame. They've also shown the psychological impact of setting up people for failure by setting unrealistic and unachievable goals. It's what we call the Diet Mentality at Beyond Chocolate.
The part of the article which I found most troubling is an interview with Helen Bond, from the British Dietetic Association who, when asked about the calories in/calories out theory admitted,
"We all recommend it - it's what we are taught. But I don't know what the scientific evidence for it is. It's not very motivating to tell someone that if they cut their intake by 10 calories a day every day for the next three years they will lose a pound of weight. But saying 'cut out your daily habit of a 250-calorie chocolate bar and you will lose about 25 pounds and, if you stick at it, the weight will stay off' - that is.
Well, lots of Fairy dust to Helen for honesty.
I feel quite sorry for Helen. I have this image (which I'm sure is pure fantasy) of a bright, committed woman who is constantly frustrated at working in a medieval environment. Deep down she knows that telling people it's possible to lose 25lb in a year by eating a bit less chocolate - whoever we are and whatever our diet looks like beyond that chocolate bar - doesn't make sense. She can see with her own eyes that the calories in/calories out equation hasn't helped anyone. There have never been so many people on diets as there are today...and we've never been fatter. The old guard can cling on to their diet myths but Helen knows there's another way. Maybe she's heard of Beyond Chocolate! Maybe she is at this very moment plotting a new course for the British Dietetic Association, one which shuns calories altogether and embraces mindful eating. In fact, back in 2003 The Independent on Sunday published an article in which they quote Dr Wendy Doyle of the British Dietetic Association saying that "the Beyond Chocolate appraoch is pretty much spot on". So they've known all along.
Well, while I wait for this great day, I shall continue to fantasise about what this revolution would look like...
Can you imagine a government policy paper outlining the 10 Beyond Chocolate principles and being adopted by healthcare professionals across the land? Can you imagine millions of women meeting each week to practice tuning in, to learn how to eat when they are hungry, to eat foods they like, with mindfulness and enjoyment. Can you imagine these women talking, connecting, laughing, supporting each other, celebrating? Talking openly about their relationship with food. Can you imagine hundreds of millions of pounds being spent to fund local cookery clubs? Places where people can gather to cook and eat good meals. A place to taste new foods and be shown how to cook them. Hundreds of millions of pounds and government backing... just think of what Jamie Oliver manages to do with a fraction of that. Imagine thousands of mini Jamie's doing their thing up and down the country. Inspiring people to eat fresh, local food. Imagine a system of publicly funded allotment projects where you get free produce in return for putting in some elbow grease. A place where young and old can work side by side. Where age old green thumb tips get handed down. Imagine each neighborhood having as many public steam baths as there are libraries. Imagine women gathering to bathe and steam and lounge and chat. Hundreds of women of all shapes and sizes and colours, without their clothes, their makeup, their bags and shoes and jewellery. Just bodies. All beautiful. Imagine the school curriculum completely rewritten to include subjects such as 'Body Image' and 'Consumerism'. Programmes that give girls a place to talk about the changes going on their bodies in those critical teen years. A chance to ask questions, to exchange stories, to meet inspiring, older women who challenge the media's definition of beauty. Programmes that teach children about the mechanics of the consumer society, about supply and demand and the theories behind advertising and merchandising and PR. Generations of children being taught that as consumers they can vote with their wallets. Millions of children watching an advert for cereal and thinking: "Yeah, the Monkey's cool but that doesn't mean the cereal is too". Just imagine...
Ooooh! It is nice to indulge in a little fantasizing now and again. Post me your fantasies of a post diet world. We can collect them and be ready with the best ideas when Helen spearheads the revolution.
Monday, 26 September 2011
Letter to a co-worker
Dear co-worker
I have been working with you for a few months now and some things have come to my attention, which I may be able to help you with.
I gather (from our colleagues) that you have recently gained a lot of weight and I know that there are a number of pressures in your life. Your husband is ill, your mother has just been diagnosed with dementia and your son recently lost his job. You are working full time to keep the family going.
Since I started work here, I have observed that you eat non-stop from the time you arrive at work until you leave.
I know that it may sound presumptuous of me, but I do know what that’s like. I have been in places like that before. Sometimes I’m in that place myself, even after working with Beyond Chocolate for a couple of years. The difference between us, I suspect, is that I know when I’m over-eating and can choose to continue or stop, whereas you just eat – because it helps.
I acknowledge that eating helps. It helps in so many situations and in so many ways – but ultimately eating when we’re not hungry will cause us to put on weight. If we don’t know we’re doing it, we can’t choose whether to continue or stop. If we don’t know that we eat because we’re unhappy or frustrated or bored, we can’t decide whether that helps or not and we can’t decide whether we want to stop, or not.
I spent many years eating out of boredom, anger, fear, upset, and also because food was there, because it was a meal time, because someone offered me some food, because (I thought) I loved food and just wanted to eat lots of it. Over these years I attempted to counter-balance the eating with a range of diet and exercise plans, but I never looked at why I was over-eating in the first place. And, not one of the diets ever helped me to get to the bottom of my over-eating – all the diets were interested in was reducing my bottom ;)
What changed for me was the moment when I went on to amazon hoping against hope that there was a new diet out there, one that would work first time and forever ... and what amazon recommended for me was ‘Beyond Chocolate’, by Sophie and Audrey Boss.
I don’t hesitate to recommend it to you.
With warmest wishes
Gretel
I have been working with you for a few months now and some things have come to my attention, which I may be able to help you with.
I gather (from our colleagues) that you have recently gained a lot of weight and I know that there are a number of pressures in your life. Your husband is ill, your mother has just been diagnosed with dementia and your son recently lost his job. You are working full time to keep the family going.
Since I started work here, I have observed that you eat non-stop from the time you arrive at work until you leave.
I know that it may sound presumptuous of me, but I do know what that’s like. I have been in places like that before. Sometimes I’m in that place myself, even after working with Beyond Chocolate for a couple of years. The difference between us, I suspect, is that I know when I’m over-eating and can choose to continue or stop, whereas you just eat – because it helps.
I acknowledge that eating helps. It helps in so many situations and in so many ways – but ultimately eating when we’re not hungry will cause us to put on weight. If we don’t know we’re doing it, we can’t choose whether to continue or stop. If we don’t know that we eat because we’re unhappy or frustrated or bored, we can’t decide whether that helps or not and we can’t decide whether we want to stop, or not.
I spent many years eating out of boredom, anger, fear, upset, and also because food was there, because it was a meal time, because someone offered me some food, because (I thought) I loved food and just wanted to eat lots of it. Over these years I attempted to counter-balance the eating with a range of diet and exercise plans, but I never looked at why I was over-eating in the first place. And, not one of the diets ever helped me to get to the bottom of my over-eating – all the diets were interested in was reducing my bottom ;)
What changed for me was the moment when I went on to amazon hoping against hope that there was a new diet out there, one that would work first time and forever ... and what amazon recommended for me was ‘Beyond Chocolate’, by Sophie and Audrey Boss.
I don’t hesitate to recommend it to you.
With warmest wishes
Gretel
Tuesday, 26 July 2011
Recent Study Proves Dieting Doesn't Work
Gretel Hallet, is a Trained Chocolate Fairy and is running the Getting Started half day workshop in Norwich - perfect for beginners to experience the core principles of Beyond Chocolate and equally great as a refresher for any Beyond Chocolater. If you live in East Anglia and want to know more about Beyond Chocolate or her workshops, get in touch with Gretel.
I’ve just found this article on the internet – it made the news headlines, but I wonder how many people will notice it or believe what it has to say. I know that (generally) listening to gurus is unwise, but this looks like it was a serious scientific study, and as the results confirm what I already know to be true, I’m happy to accept their findings.
The article claims:
“Once you are fat it is unlikely you will ever return to your former size, no matter how hard you diet. Scientists have confirmed what most dieters already suspect; most people who lose weight end up putting it back on again, according to a long-term study of 25,000 men and women living in the UK.
The scientists, from the Medical Research Council's National Survey of Health and Development, tracked 5,362 adults who were born in 1946, and 20,000 born in 1958, assessing their weight, blood pressure and lifestyles.
While around 12 million Britons go on diets of one kind or another every year, only around 10 per cent lose a significant amount of weight, and most regain it within a year.”
This may look like depressing reading, but it does confirm what Beyond Chocolaters already accept, that dieting is a pointless activity. Interestingly, the article did look at lifestyle, and I would hope that their subjects were drawn from as wide a range of geographical locations, social and economical backgrounds and lifestyle choices as possible.
The really depressing bit about this article is the alleged fact that around 12 million people in Britain go on diets every year. 12 million people! That’s around the number of people that live in the metropolitan area of London. That means that around 1/5 of the UK population is on a diet every year. And for the overwhelming majority of them, it doesn’t work.
I wonder how many of those 12 million people are serial dieters; people who are returning to dieting after previously unsuccessful attempts. I wonder what has to happen for those people to realise that if it didn’t work last time, it won’t work this time. I wonder how long it will take for those people to look for an alternative. When they do, we’ll be here and we’ll understand and we’ll be able to help them. I look forward to it.
Tuesday, 12 July 2011
When will I ever learn?
Gretel Hallet, is a Trained Chocolate Fairy and is running the Getting Started half day workshop in Norwich - perfect for beginners to experience the core principles of Beyond Chocolate and equally great as a refresher for any Beyond Chocolater. If you live in East Anglia and want to know more about Beyond Chocolate or her workshops, get in touch with Gretel.
I went out to a friend’s house for dinner the other evening and lay awake all night unable to sleep because I’d overeaten. I bought a pink iced doughnut and ate it because that’s what I do on my lunch-break; it’s my treat after a morning’s work. I ate five squares off a large bar of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk when I got home from work because I was tired and there wasn’t anything else immediately available. I thought that, by now, I wouldn’t be doing these things any more. After all, I’ve been working on my relationship with food and my body for 3 years now ... I thought I would be ‘sorted’, I thought I wouldn’t be making these mistakes anymore, I thought I would be ‘cured’ – oh, and I thought I’d be several sizes smaller than I am.
Does any of this sound familiar?
The questions: "How soon will I be ‘cured’?" Or "How long before I stop overeating?" Or "When will I lose weight?" come up regularly on the Beyond Chocolate Members Forum. We can be forgiven for asking ourselves and/or the Chocolate Fairies these questions.
After all, Beyond Chocolate is about stopping over-eating, losing weight, being ‘cured’ of our bingeing and emotional eating. Isn’t it? Well, yes and no. I’ll explain.
Yes, absolutely Beyond Chocolate can help us to stop overeating, lose weight, stop emotional eating and become ‘normal’ around food. And, no, it can’t unless we are prepared to put in some spade-work and acknowledge (a) that we want to work with our bodies (and minds), and (b) that we accept that we won’t be instantly ‘cured’ forever, even if we do put in the spade-work. When I look back at those occasions when I overate (listed above), I realise how far I’ve come since I’ve been working with Beyond Chocolate. I overate at the friend’s house with total awareness. I don’t eat out every night, so one night’s discomfort isn’t actually that big a problem.
The pink iced doughnut. Well, I certainly didn’t need it on this occasion (I wasn’t hungry) I didn’t enjoy it very much and will remember that next time I think about buying one. There are some occasions when I really enjoy eating pink iced doughnuts – I’ll look out for those occasions and buy one then.
Using chocolate as a ‘pick me up’ doesn’t actually work for me. I know this. I’ve proved it to myself over and over. So why do I still do it? Maybe I don’t quite believe myself. Maybe it does help, just not in the way I intend it to. I like chocolate but have found out that on some occasions it tastes just sooo much better than on others. I am learning what those better occasions are and, in the main, I eat chocolate on those occasions and really enjoy it.
Before I started working with Beyond Chocolate I wouldn’t have stopped eating as soon as I did at the dinner with my friend – I would have gone on until I was nearly sick and then eaten some more when I got home. I would have bought a six pack of the pink doughnuts and eaten them all, in secret, hiding the wrappers in a bin. I would have eaten the whole ‘family size’ bar of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate in one go ....
So, I have learned. And I continue to learn. Unlike diets, which promise us we’ll be ‘sorted’ in 28 days or in time for some event, Beyond Chocolate is a process of continual learning and in that way it works for me.
Wednesday, 6 July 2011
Sixty-one and on a diet
Sixty-one
Sixty-one and on a diet.
Will I end up thin or fat
When my heart and brain go quiet?
Sixty-one and on a diet
Yet again. My hopes run riot:
Better life, new start - all that.
Sixty-one and on a diet.
Will I end up thin or fat?
by Wendy Cope
Thirty-one, forty-one, fifty-one, sixty-one… How old do we have to be? For how many years will we keep buying into the fantasy? For how long do we let our hopes run riot? I dieted for 20 years. For all that time I yo-yoed up and down in weight. Thin, fat, thin, fat. Endlessly. Hoping beyond hope that I would ‘end up’ thin. For good.
Diets equal deprivation, iron will, endless counting and measuring, trusting anyone but ourselves, our own bodies, often, far too often, starving. Literally. Starving, to have a body that says “I am in control, I am successful, I am acceptable, I am lovable, I am sorted”. Starving to make sure our bodies project the security and confidence that we don’t necessarily feel inside. Going hungry. Going without. Forgetting what it means to experience the sensual pleasure of taste, without guilt. So long as we look acceptable we can play the part. We can act as if, we don’t have to acknowledge even to ourselves that all is not as perfect as it looks. No one need know that our houses are built on sand. That when we look in the mirror we don’t like what we see, that our reflection will never be quite good enough.
I am so grateful that I won’t reach the age of sixty-one still wondering whether I will end up thin or fat. So grateful in fact, that I have made it my lifetime’s mission to empower myself and other women to know and trust our bodies, to reach sixty-one feeling good about our relationship with food and the way we look. To know that we are good enough. That confidence and beauty and value does not depend on the size of our bodies. For me, that’s what Beyond Chocolate is all about.
PS - Thank you to the Beyond Chocolater who introduced me to Wendy Cope's poetry. This one is taken from her book Family Values
Sixty-one and on a diet.
Will I end up thin or fat
When my heart and brain go quiet?
Sixty-one and on a diet
Yet again. My hopes run riot:
Better life, new start - all that.
Sixty-one and on a diet.
Will I end up thin or fat?
by Wendy Cope
Thirty-one, forty-one, fifty-one, sixty-one… How old do we have to be? For how many years will we keep buying into the fantasy? For how long do we let our hopes run riot? I dieted for 20 years. For all that time I yo-yoed up and down in weight. Thin, fat, thin, fat. Endlessly. Hoping beyond hope that I would ‘end up’ thin. For good.
Diets equal deprivation, iron will, endless counting and measuring, trusting anyone but ourselves, our own bodies, often, far too often, starving. Literally. Starving, to have a body that says “I am in control, I am successful, I am acceptable, I am lovable, I am sorted”. Starving to make sure our bodies project the security and confidence that we don’t necessarily feel inside. Going hungry. Going without. Forgetting what it means to experience the sensual pleasure of taste, without guilt. So long as we look acceptable we can play the part. We can act as if, we don’t have to acknowledge even to ourselves that all is not as perfect as it looks. No one need know that our houses are built on sand. That when we look in the mirror we don’t like what we see, that our reflection will never be quite good enough.
I am so grateful that I won’t reach the age of sixty-one still wondering whether I will end up thin or fat. So grateful in fact, that I have made it my lifetime’s mission to empower myself and other women to know and trust our bodies, to reach sixty-one feeling good about our relationship with food and the way we look. To know that we are good enough. That confidence and beauty and value does not depend on the size of our bodies. For me, that’s what Beyond Chocolate is all about.
PS - Thank you to the Beyond Chocolater who introduced me to Wendy Cope's poetry. This one is taken from her book Family Values
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
