When Lunch is a Bag of Chips. The Power of Zooming Out.

Well, it happened again!

The other day, I once again didn’t have time to eat lunch. When I did, I grabbed a bag of chips.

They were fast, easy and tasty. 

It wasn't a big deal. I just ate them and moved on.

When I was entrenched in diet and wellness cultures, my internal Food Police would have been screaming at me.

It would have been shouting things like, “What’s wrong with you? I can’t believe you ate such a bad lunch! You’re so unhealthy. You really need to get it together! And you better make up for it!”

My chip lunch would have been a BIG DEAL, one loaded with guilt, shame, punitive thoughts and compensatory behaviors.

Different Perspective
Thankfully, after years of challenging my inner Food Police voice and all the rules it tries to enforce, it’s much quieter these days and rarely pipes up. 

Plus, I’ve learned to take a different perspective.

Both diet and wellness culture condition us to hyper-focus on every single morsel we eat. 

They make us feel like one episode of eating will make or break our health, heal us or kill us, turn a “good” eating day into a “bad” one. 

They cause us to fear “messing up” and convince us we have to eat perfectly to be a healthy, in control, good person.

This rigid, black-and-white, perfectionistic approach is unrealistic and harmful. 

It causes a lot of unnecessary guilt, stress and anxiety and can drive a disordered relationship with food.

Zooming Out
One of the most helpful practices I’ve learned is to change my perspective by zooming out. 

Zooming out means widening your lens and viewing your eating patterns over time instead of hyper-focusing on one bite, snack, meal, day or week of eating. 

Unless you have a health condition that requires full adherence to a specific way of eating, what you eat over a longer period of time matters much more than what you eat for an afternoon snack or weeknight dinner, at a business lunch or birthday party, or on a weekend getaway, weeklong work trip or two-week vacation. 

Most and Sometimes
It’s also helpful to think in terms of “most of the time” and “sometimes.”

Take my chip lunch, for example:

Most of the time, I eat a balanced, substantial and satiating lunch. Sometimes, I just eat a bag of chips. 

(If you have kiddos in your life, this is an incredibly useful way to navigate their eating, too.)

Please note, I’m not demonizing chips! If most of the time your lunch consists of just chips and they satisfy your needs, this is totally okay. Intuitive Eating is all about doing what works best for you.

Flexible and Peaceful
I encourage you to cling less tightly to diet and wellness cultures’ narrow ideas about the right way to eat and to instead practice widening your lens.

Zooming out enables you to take a much more flexible, gentle, satisfying and sustainable approach to your eating. 

And, it makes for a much more peaceful and pleasurable relationship with food

Weight-Loss Drugs, Sugar Addiction and More

It’s been a while since I shared a round-up of some of the content I’ve been consuming lately.

I hope you find the following pieces illuminating and helpful. Once you check out the ones you're interested in, I think you'll be as grateful as I am for these incredibly smart and gifted content creators.

Ozempic
There’s been a lot of buzz regarding the new weight-loss drugs in the past year. In this episode of Maintenance Phase, Aubrey Gordon and Michael Hobbes do a deep dive into the research and discuss the (often problematic) discourse surrounding these medications. 

It’s an informative, balanced and thoughtful review—one you’re unlikely to get from mainstream media.

What’s the Deal With GLP-1s?
On her Find Your Food Voice podcast, registered dietitian Julie Duffy Dillion explains how GLP-1 drugs, like Ozempic and Wegovy, work, explores some of the research and unknowns, and discusses their potential side effects and contraindications. 

Why Sugar Isn’t As Bad As You’ve Been Told
In this Rethinking Wellness podcast episode, registered dietitian Christy Harrison talks with sociologist and Sugar Rush author Karen Throsby about the demonization of sugar despite scientific uncertainty, the connection between anti-sugar sentiment and anti-fat bias, the research behind sugar addiction, and more.

Similar to Christy, I was also trained years ago by my health coaching school to teach people to be hyper-vigilant about sugar. Thankfully, I also changed my ways as I gained a better understanding of the research, diet culture, disordered eating, the harms of binary thinking and food moralism, social determinants of health, and more.

The Burnt Toast Guide to Kids and Sugar
Speaking of sugar, Virginia Sole-Smith recently published this comprehensive guide to kids and sugar, which covers topics like sugar highs and sugar addiction and provides guidance and resources on how to navigate your own and your kids’ relationship with sugar. 

Even if you don’t have kiddos in your life, I think you’ll find much of the information to be helpful.

Eugenicists Shaped the Pathologized Way Many Americans Think About Nutrition Today
In this fascinating and infuriating article, writer and public health dietitian Anjali Prasertong examines the connection between early dietetics and eugenics. 

“The science of modern nutrition was born deeply entwined with the ersatz science of eugenics, a tangle that mixed up morality with food choices, blending ‘eating white’ and ‘eating right.’ And as much as today’s nutrition community would like to distance ourselves from the harmful teachings and practices of [the Progressive Era], many of the ideas about dietary choices and health born during this time are still alive and well.”

What’s the Cultural Significance of a Calorie?
I’ve shared before how counting calories really messed with my head. On this Getting Curious podcast episode, Jonathan Van Ness discusses the history and politics of the calorie with Dr. Athia Choudhury, including how this metric represents so much more than a number on the back of a chip bag.

Last but not least, in case you missed it, in June I shared my summer reading list. I was fortunate to have the time to read every book and highly recommend them all.

To empowering yourself with knowledge!

I Eat When I'm Not Hungry. This Used to be a Bad Thing.

The other day, I ate my lunch much earlier than usual even though I wasn’t hungry. 

I had an appointment downtown during my regular lunchtime and knew if I didn’t eat beforehand, I wouldn’t be able to eat until much later. Experience has taught me this would turn me into one cranky lady with a headache and brain fog.

During my dieting days, I likely wouldn’t have eaten before my appointment. Thanks to diet culture, I believed it was wrong to eat when I wasn’t hungry.

Perhaps you have believed this, too.

You might also feel this way with Intuitive Eating as there is a misconception that eating intuitively means only eating when you’re hungry.

While it’s important to honor your hunger when it surfaces to the best of your ability, it’s also important to give yourself unconditional permission to eat when you’re not hungry.

Many Valid Reasons
There are many valid reasons why you may need or want to eat in the absence of hunger. Here are some scenarios you might relate to:

• Your partner or friend is fixing a snack and even though you aren’t hungry, you accept their invitation to share it because it’s a yummy activity you enjoy doing together, especially while watching a favorite show.

• You find nibbling on food throughout the day, regardless of your hunger level, helps you stay focused on your work, so you have a dedicated snack drawer in your desk.

• Years of dieting have disconnected you from your hunger cues. To ensure you’re nourishing your mind and body on a regular basis, you eat a meal or snack at least every 3-4 hours even if you don’t feel hungry.

• You’re not usually hungry during your scheduled breaktimes but you eat anyway as it’s the only chance you’ll get for a while.

• You have an afternoon of back-to-back meetings so you eat lunch early to ensure you will have the focus and energy needed to be present and productive.

• When you’re sad, eating your favorite comfort foods is one way you self-soothe. It’s not about taking care of your physical hunger but rather your very human need for emotional comfort.

• You are going to a show, and although you aren’t hungry for dinner yet, you eat anyway to avoid becoming ravenous and distracted by your growling stomach during the event.

• You’re not hungry before your workout but eat a snack as you know your body will benefit from the extra fuel.

• It’s rare for you to be hungry when it’s time to feed your kids dinner but you eat with them anyway as you love the ritual of sharing a meal together and talking about your day.

• A health condition or medication you’re taking makes it challenging to sense your hunger cues, so you eat according to a schedule to ensure you’re consistently giving your body what it needs.

• At the last minute, your friends decide to go to dinner. Although you don’t have much of an appetite yet, you decide to join them as you don’t want to miss out on a night of fun and bonding.

• You’re not hungry but know the snacks offered on your flight won’t be enough to satiate you later so you eat a meal before you board.

• You turn to food when you’re anxious as the act of eating, whether you’re hungry or not, helps you calm your nervous system and feel grounded.

• You’re walking down the street and are enticed by the delicious aroma wafting from a nearby food truck. You stop and buy something not because you’re hungry but because you want to experience the pure pleasure of their food.

Form of Self-Care
Whether your reason (quite frankly, you don’t even need one) is practical, logistical, emotional, values-based, pleasure-driven, etc., non-hunger eating is often a form of self-care.

It’s a way of taking care of yourself, a way of ensuring your needs are met.

If eating when you’re not hungry makes you feel bad or guilty, I encourage you to reflect on the beliefs behind these feelings. Where did they come from? Are they serving you? How would you feel if you let them go? 

It’s understandable if it feels scary to defy diet culture and trust yourself to make eating decisions that work best for you. With each small step you take back to yourself, you’re one step closer to a more empowering relationship with food, one that’s full of ease, peace and freedom.