{via etsy}

Here’s part two of my interview with professor, researcher and registered dietician Michelle Neyman Morris.

Below, Morris reveals how readers can eat mindfully (along with sharing helpful resources), why we tend to gravitate away from nutrient-rich foods and how to find a reputable dietician.

Check out part one here.

{via etsy}

There are so many myths about healthy eating and good nutrition. As I said in one of my questions below, I feel like in our society, nutrition education is often used as a weapon to rein in eating, shame people into losing weight and promote guilt around certain food choices.

Healthy eating has become synonymous with dieting and restriction and counting calories and good vs. bad foods. And I hate that. Many people develop a distorted, confused view of healthy eating thanks to a steady diet of women’s magazines, weight-loss commercials, obesity epidemic hysteria and self-created shame and guilt.

That’s why I’m thrilled and honored to share this eye-opening interview with Michelle Neyman Morris, Ph.D, who clarifies the many misconceptions. Morris is a registered dietician, researcher, Health At Every Size advocate and professor at California State University.

Below, Morris discusses what healthy eating really is, our society’s distorted view of healthy nutrition and how to be a critical consumer of it all.

Learn more about Morris and her work here.

{via etsy}

One of the best parts about writing Weightless is getting to talk to so many different people that are doing amazing work. I love sharing interviews with you, because I love sharing valuable insight and recovery tools.

There’s plenty of inaccurate and damaging information out there, particularly about body image and disordered eating. So I especially like to include interviews that shatter common myths and genuinely offer helpful tips.

Today, I want to highlight some of my older interviews on everything from body image to binge eating to building a healthy relationship with food. I hope you find these helpful!

How One Author Learned to Love Her Body: Q&A with Kim Brittingham (Part 1 and Part 2).

Kim Brittingham wrote a beautiful and heartbreaking memoir called Read My Hips: How I Learned to Love My Body, Ditch Dieting and Live Large. Here, we talk about her book, finding self-acceptance, her favorite body image tips and much more.

{a self-portrait by sui solitaire}

Here’s part two of my interview with Sui Solitaire, who writes the blog Cynosure. Yesterday, we talked about what inspired her to write the e-book The Thing about Thin and why pursuing thinness prevents us from following our dreams.

Today, she shares the importance of listening to your heart and reclaiming your own power — even though our society seems to encourage anything but. Plus, she reveals two of her favorite books.

Q: In your book, The Thing About Thin, you write that “The purpose of life was to give, help, inspire — to illuminate the world.” How can individuals figure out their specific purpose for contributing to the world?

A: Juicy question! It definitely takes a level of self-awareness and self-trust that, honestly, many of the messages we are fed so often actively work to squash.

It takes self-love and self-trust. If you’re currently struggling with an eating disorder, I beg you to seek treatment first, of course. But if you’re already on the path of recovery, what else could I say, but listen to your heart?

The pursuit of thinness narrows our lives; it forces us to focus on scarcity, on what we don’t supposedly have, on how we’re supposedly flawed and limited.

This reminds me of what Golda Poretsky of Body Love Wellness writes in her book Stop Dieting Now! 25 Reasons to Stop, 25 Ways to Heal.  She explains that dieting creates a notion of lack and the scarcity spreads to our entire lives, not just eating. She writes:

Diets work on a scarcity principle. Diets make dieters focus on lack, tell them they can only have “this much and no more” and that to want more is a bad thing. Because dieting is so all-encompassing, this scarcity principle often filters into other aspects of dieters’ lives. They begin to see lack and scarcity in their relationships, in their jobs and in the world.

Focusing on abundance, on possibilities, on there being enough for everyone, is a very powerful framework for feeling good about one’s life. I often find that when my clients start focusing on what is good about their lives, that sense of happiness – and indeed, those good things themselves – continue to grow. Alternatively, when they focus on what is wrong in their lives, and on what they can’t have, their worldview and happiness, continue to shrink.

And when our perspectives and thereby our lives shrink, we’re less able to focus on what truly matters.

Blogger and author Sui Solitaire of Cynosure recently wrote the e-book The Thing About Thin, where she shares her own struggles with body image and disordered eating and encourages readers to go beyond the desire for thinness to focus on what truly matters: your dreams and contributions.

In part one of our interview, we talk about what inspired her to write The Thing about Thin and why pursuing thinness stands in the way of following our dreams. Stay tuned tomorrow for part two!

{via etsy}

Whenever I tell someone that diets don’t work, they follow up with, “OK, but then what does?” or “What should we eat?”

We’re so used to the idea of dieting that we yearn for rules, for barriers, for restrictions to keep us eating “right.” And when we don’t have any regulations, we get confused, uncomfortable and maybe even disappointed.

Years ago, I remember sitting with my furrowed brows, thinking, “So I can eat whatever I want? Really?” What do I do with that information? And, wait a minute, how do I keep myself in line?

{via etsy}

Recently I was reading this blog post by Golda, a coach, consultant and author, at Body Love Wellness. And she made a really powerful observation about the holidays and setting New Year’s resolutions. She writes:

It feels inevitable. December is all about holidays and parties and joy and togetherness. There are bright lights and gifts and delicious food and hundreds of tubas playing carols. At least, that’s the hope. It’s a time of year when we try, as best we can, to connect with our abundance and our joy.

Then, suddenly, January 2nd rolls around, and we’re asked to drop all of that merriment and get real. We’re supposed to take note of our flaws and resolve to be better — to eat better, to exercise more, to party less, to stop having such a darn good time and get down to work, usually on ourselves.

{via etsy}

Yesterday my friend and talented blogger Shannon Cutts published a post on her blog, Mentoring & Recovery, that really resonated with me. And I think it will with you, too.

She talked about having the confidence and knowing yourself enough to do what’s right for you.

This is especially relevant to body image and disordered eating. When we rely on diets and other people’s rules for eating, it’s because we don’t trust ourselves to make decisions about what to eat, when to start eating and when to stop.

We worry that we can’t be trusted. That if left to our own devices, we’ll eat the entire fridge — and pantry. (And many magazines and “experts” like to nudge us toward this very idea.)

Making art “is a remarkable tool for recovering our right to be heard, letting go of perfectionism, and restoring self-acceptance,” according to art therapists Mindy Jacobson-Levy and Maureen Foy-Tornay in their book Finding Your Voice through Creativity: The Art and Journaling Workbook for Disordered Eating.

“And it can foster self-discovery by opening new, symbolic doors into our hearts and minds. Creativity connects us to our ‘inner voice’; healing occurs when we listen!”

Their book features a variety of interesting and valuable activities. Today, I’m sharing four artful activities to help you heal your relationship with food and with yourself.

After each activity, a journal entry follows so you can dig deeper. Because it’s better to do the activity before reading the journal entries, I’ve included those at the bottom. So if you’re interested in doing any of the activities, avoid peeking at the entries!

{via pinterest; originally from here}

The media perpetuates a kind of dread of the holidays, especially Thanksgiving. For instance, today, in just a span of 10 minutes, I received two emails from WebMD about holiday foods that will wreck my diet.

Yes, really, those were the terms they used. (I can’t tell you the satisfaction I get from simply deleting these emails and others like them.)

It’s hard to look forward to our favorite foods when we’re taught to feel fearful, guilty and ashamed for eating — and actually enjoying it.