The Question Is When...

So the question is when?
When are you going to stop taking orders from the mirror?
When are you going to stop letting a number on the scale make or break your day?
When are you going to stop stuffing all the pain that is inside of you?
When you going to stop hating yourself?
When are you oing to start loving yourself?
When are you going to stop running from everybody and everything?
When are you going to stop all the starving and purging?
When are you going to finally let go?
When will you stop listening to the voice in your head-the eating disorder?
When will you finally stop trying to be in control of everything?
When will you stop over-exercing?
When will you begin to trust others?
When will you learn to reach out to others?
When are you going to let go of all the shame and guilt?
When are you going to start believing in yourself?
When are you going to start respecting your body?
When are you going to actually eat and follow your meal plan?
When are you going to learn to accept things as they are?
When are you going to start moving forward with your life?
When are you going to stop restricting fluids?
When are you going start forgiving others?
When are you going to stop isolating yourself from others?
When are you going to start living your goals and dreams?
When are you going to stop blaming yourself for everything that has happened?
When are you going to the things that happened in your life are not your fault?
When are you going to realize that mistakes happen?
When are you going to learn that it’s okay to be healthy?
When are you going to start being more kind to yourself?
When are you going to stop masking the real problem and dealing with it?
When are you going to realize that you don’t have to be perfect. Perfect doesn’t exist?
When are you going to be fre(ed) of your eating disorder?
When are you going to realize the eating disorder is destroying your family?
When are you going to realize that eating disorders do kill?
When are you going to realize all the people in your life you lost to the eating disorder?
When are you going to stop comparing yourself to others?
When are you going to stop worrying all the time?
When are you going to start trusting yourself?
When will you be able to develop a healthy relationship surrounding food?
When will you be able to use effective coping skills in time of need?
When will you give yourself time to heal?
When are you going to start dealing with all the anger stuffed deep inside of you?
When are you going to realize that your eating disorder does not determine your self-worth?
When are you going to understand that you are not worthless?
When will you realize that there are no “good foods” or “bad foods”?
When will you understand that you deserve to be happy?
When will you stop punnishing yourself through your body?
When will you get rid of your skinny clothes?
When will you be able to go out to eat with your family and actually enjoy the food?
When will you allow yourself to have a dessert once in awhile?
When will you understand that everyone has some fat on them and it’s perfectly okay?
When are you going to realize that one can not survive without food and water?
When will you start to take care of yourself?
When will you change all the unhealthy behaviors?
When will you realize it’s okay to have sadness and cry?
When you understand that you need to deal with all your fears?
When will you understand
When will you stop buying diet products such as diet coke etc…?
When will you understand that the size of your clothes does not determine who you are?
When will you realize that you are beautiful inside and out?

Insurance...Need I Say More

Two beautiful souls in the past few weeks have lost the battle with their eating disorders. Some because the eating disorder held them captive which I refer as the "monster" while others fight the battle of getting insurance to cover a very fatal illness. Since when does insurance decide to denying  coverage based on what is "medically necessary"  Many if not all truly do want recovery and fight insurance companies hard, but sadly insurance companies keep denying coverage to an illness that no one ever asked for. If a hear patient goes into a hospital for chest pains do you deny them treatment because the heart is still beating? If a cancer patient that enters a hospital in need of life saving treatment do you deny them the right to live? Think about this, if your son or daughter was suffering from an eating disorder you would probably go great lengths to help those overcome and recover. Eating Disorders are supposed to be treated the same as a physical illness and the message is very clear that they are not being treated in this manner. Something needs to change as we keep losing beautiful, talented souls to this evil and very destructive illness. Did you know that Eating Disorders have the highest mortality rate of any other psychiatric illness or even car crashes for that matter.  23 people a day die from an eating disorder and that's every 62 seconds and this is not okay. Treatment for an eating disorder is at least $40,000 a month. A day spent in an ER is the amount a weeks worth of treatment would cost. Insurance companies are holding lives in their hands and nothing is being done about it.  Write your congressmen, sign the change petition. The change starts with you!

Health At Every Size (HAES)

I love Linda Bacon's approach at Health At Every Size (HAES)  Below is an article on the HAES concept

What is Health at Every Size?
By Dr. Deah Schwartz
There has been a great deal of discussion lately about the Health at Every Size ℠ philosophy and how it can interface with the field of eating disorders. Some of the conversa­tions have been quite heated with concerns that this approach grants permission to eat uncontrollably thus giving up any investment in obesity control. Others cite current research that challenges the assumption that being fat equates with being un­healthy. People with eating disorders explain their resistance to adopting a HAES ℠ approach for fear that they will never be thin; and others have tried to transform HAES ℠ into a new weight loss technique, which goes against everything that health at ev­ery size is about. With such a diverse range of reactions among people in the field of eating disorders, I was curious to learn more.

There are many players on the team battling eating disorders. First and foremost, of course, are the people diagnosed with, or at risk of developing, an eating disorder. Then there are the clinicians and professionals from a variety of disciplines who are working with the clients, e.g. therapists, medical and mental health doctors, nutritionists, dieticians, alternative health practitioners, weight management and fitness coaches, all of whom assert that their goals are to eradicate eating disorders and help people overcome their problems. Sounds like a cohesive team doesn’t it? And it would be except for the fact that while all eating disorders have to do with food, not all fat people have eating disorders. This may not seem to be a dividing factor but if you add societal factors into the mix, the scenario becomes more complex.

There is an array of reasons why people may be fatter than the societal norm that have no association with disordered eating and may not even result in poor health. These etiological differences may go unnoticed how­ever, because of a cultural bias against fat people. The common assump­tion is that if someone is fat, they are out of control. Falsely accused of being lazy, ugly, and undisciplined, this negativity often leads to futile attempts at dieting, using diet pills and undergoing unnecessary surgery (such as liposuction), in an attempt to conform to a more culturally accepted standard of beauty. The result of these tactics is frequently weight gain and disordered eating patterns that previously didn’t exist. Conversely, a person with Anorexia or BED (Binge Eating Disorder) may go undiagnosed be­cause their body conforms to the societal expectation of thinness. A person who is thin from restrictive eating is not subject to the same negative societal stigmatiza­tion. Quite the opposite, their behavior patterns are positively reinforced until the tipping point of “too thin” is reached and their health compromised. In both cases if the focus stays on the person’s health rather than their weight, the likelihood of a more positive outcome increases.As I familiarized myself with HAES ℠, I kept in mind the wide spectrum of clients with eating disorders that I have worked with during my years as a thera­pist and what the role of HAES ℠ could be. My conclusion: incorporating HAES ℠ is both a pro-active and sustainable therapeutic approach for those strug­gling with a diagnosed eating disorder, sub-threshold disordered eating, or body dysmorphia. The basic premise of health at every size, as written in Linda Bacon’s Book, Health at Every Size: The surprising truth about your weight, is that “Health at Every Size” (HAES) acknowledges that well-being and healthy habits are more important than any number on the scale.Participating is simple:

1. Accept your size. Love and appreciate the body you have. Self-acceptance empowers you to move on and make positive changes.

2. Trust yourself. We all have internal systems designed to keep us healthy — and at a healthy weight. Support your body in naturally finding its appropriate weight by honoring its signals of hunger, fullness, and appetite.

3. Adopt healthy lifestyle habits. Develop and nurture connections with others and look for purpose and meaning in your life. Fulfilling your social, emotional, and spiritual needs restores food to its rightful place as a source of nourishment and pleasure.Find the joy in moving your body and becoming more physically vital in your everyday life.Eat when you’re hungry, stop when you’re full, and seek out pleasur­able and satisfying foods.Tailor your tastes so that you enjoy more nutritious foods, staying mindful that there is plenty of room for less nutritious choices in the context of an overall healthy diet and lifestyle.

4. Embrace size diversity. Humans come in a variety of sizes and shapes. Open to the beauty found across the spectrum and support others in recognizing their unique attractiveness.These are strategies and mindsets that are applicable to all people struggling with body dissatisfaction and eating disorders. True, there may still be dis­agreements among the multi-disciplined clinicians as to what additional interven­tions are efficacious for specific treat­ment goals and objectives, after all each person is unique and this field above most others should be reticent to adopt any “One Size Fits All” approach. But I am hard pressed to imagine a situation where encouraging clients to focus on health and self-acceptance would be ex­cluded in anyone’s treatment plan. If our primary goal is improving one’s quality of life this means battling the societal and psychological factors that have created the disordered eating patterns and not labeling fat, in and of itself, as the enemy. It is acknowledging that the road to health is an incremental process that takes renewed commitment and success-oriented approaches. There is no quick fix and no miraculous interven­tion. 

One specific “how-to” provided in Dr. Bacon’s book is the following contract:
Today, I will try to feed myself when I am hungry.
Today, I will try to be attentive to how foods taste and make me feel.
Today, I will try to choose foods that I like and that make me feel good.
Today, I will try to honor my body’s signals of fullness.
Today, I will try to find an enjoyable way to move my body.

Today, I will try to look kindly at my body and to treat it with love and respect.

Within the framework outlined, this ap­proach does not focus on weight loss as the sole indicator of health or encourage self-destructive abandon in one’s eating. What I see is a weight-neutral approach and an opportunity to explore a more intuitive relationship with food, engag­ing in pleasant physical activity, and self/ size acceptance. It couldn’t hurt!