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Is Martyrdom Fueling Your Overeating?

August 24th, 2009, No Comments »

Do you overeat when you are stressed or tired or overwhelmed?

Do you flop down exhausted at the end of the day feeling like there is never enough time for you?

Despite your best intentions, do you never seem to get to that exercise plan, that journal that you want to write in, or that fun project you really want to start?

Do you ever feel like no one really understands how much is expected of you?

Are you feeling resentful that there is never enough time to get to you?

If you find yourself answering yes to any of these questions, it’s time to consider whether martyrdom is having a negative impact on your eating, your weight, your health, and your life.

What do I mean by martyrdom?  I’m talking about sacrificing yourself—literally—for whatever cause it is that you choose to be a martyr for.

Martyrdom is not the same as caring for others.  Healthy caring assumes that you are just as human and needy as everyone else.  When you distribute your care, you get an equal share (it’s like dividing up a pizza—everyone gets a piece).

The martyr approach doesn’t work that way.  The martyr assumes that caring for others takes priority or somehow cancels out her own needs. She assumes that in order to be “good” at caring for others (or other responsibilities), she must sacrifice her own agenda.  The martyr believes that “personal stuff” happens after you’ve taken care of everything else. The martyr often says, “I can’t (meditate, go to the gym, ever see my friends, fill-in-the-blank) because Junior’s soccer schedule is so busy or I’ve got that committee work to do or I have to make dinner.  Here’s the litmus test: if Junior has an unscheduled extra practice or the committee calls another meeting, the martyr will move mountains and give up on sleep to make that happen.  Her own needs—they just don’t get the same priority.

The tradeoff for choosing martyrdom is feeling exhausted and deprived and unfed, overlooked, and uncared for.  Resentment usually follows.  Let’s see a show of hands.  When you feel exhausted, deprived, unfed, overlooked and uncared for (with a hefty dash of resentment), who finds those chocolate chip cookies a lot harder to resist?

Martyrdom breeds overeating—of many different types.  When there is never enough time, food becomes an easy-to-turn-to fix for all the unfilled places in your life. If martyrdom is ruling the day, then no matter what great strategies you learn to take control of your emotional eating, you’ll rarely feel entitled to implement them.

How to leave martyrdom behind?  The first simple, big, bold step has to take place in your head.  It comes when you can really truly see the cost of this kind of behavior and let go of the myth that martyrdom is a desirable quality.  It means challenging beliefs you may have that taking time for yourself is selfish.  Care is NOT an either/or proposition.  You don’t have to choose—“Do I care for them or do I care for me?”  The truth is, in order to really be able to provide your best care for anyone else, you have to be in good running order. In a healthy life, self-care and the care of other people and things go together. While you get comfortable with this notion, consider whether you have a support system that can help you settle in to this new way of thinking.  It’s much easier to leave martyrdom behind when you have the support and encouragement of others who believe in what you are doing and will remind you of your priorities along the way.

One more thing—letting go of martyrdom also means accepting the concept of time.  You are not responsible for the fact that there are only 24 hours in a day and that sometimes 24 hours isn’t enough time for everything.  It isn’t your job to take your life off the menu so that others can pretend that they are entitled to a bigger slice of life.  It’s not your job, it’s not fair, and it doesn’t work.<

Am I striking a nerve? Preaching to the choir? I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments.

It’s Not JUST Emotional Eating…More Overeating Traps to Avoid

August 4th, 2009, No Comments »

So you know that you are a stress eater or that you eat for comfort or to cope with a bad day. . .  Emotional eating is a major cause of overeating and weight gain and it’s important to have tools and strategies to take charge in those situations.  But guess what?  Sometimes our urges to eat, binge and overeat are more than a learned way of coping. Sometimes excessive appetite is biologically driven. Here’s a quick easy-to-read overview of some of the research findings on exhaustion, stress and weight gain courtesy of Psychology Today.

We can put our smarts to work and use this knowledge to anticipate tough spots, pre-plan, and strategize.

Take good care,

Melissa

Emotional Eating and Asking For What You Want

July 16th, 2009, No Comments »

There are lots of possible triggers for overeating and emotional eating.  Many people turn to food when they feel dissatisfied or trapped or unhappy—when life isn’t working the way they want it to.  An important and related skill that many people could work on enhancing is asking for what you want or need or dream of.

When people explain to me that they can’t get what they want, I usually ask them if they’ve asked for it.  It’s amazing to me how often they haven’t.  Sometimes there explanation goes like this: “No, I haven’t asked.  What’s the point?  It’s not possible.”

I know, from my own experience, and that of countless clients, that if you don’t ask, you’ll never know what’s possible.  In fact, quite often, things that seem impossible unfold with ease once you begin to believe that you are entitled to ask for them.  Often, what seems like a HUGE favor to you, is small potatoes to the person you are asking
I also know that asking isn’t only beneficial if you receive.

Asking for what you want is a powerful action whether or not it leads to the result you hoped for. Asking for what you want is not only a request to the person you are speaking to. Voicing your need, desire, or dream is also a very personal statement of where you are in the world.

By asking you take a stand.  You say something about who you are and what you believe is important. You voice your agenda.  These are incredibly important and personal actions.

Here is what I have found.  If I ask for what I want with confidence, conviction, and a belief in the importance of what I am asking for, two things happen.  First, I feel better for saying what I’ve said.  Second, I feel closer to getting what I want or need—whether or not my request is immediately met.  If I don’t get a positive response, I may need to wade through some initial disappointment, but even if I don’t immediately receive what I’ve asked for, I’ve learned that putting my request into words creates important change.  Sometimes it changes what I do.  Sometimes, the conversation that follows my asking alerts me to new possible avenues for getting my needs met.  Sometimes sitting with that initial disappointment really clarifies how important my request is to me—or it helps me see how I need to re-craft my request.

The bottom line: asking is taking action, and often, choosing not to ask is a decision to stay in a place that isn’t working for us.  When we ask, we take charge of the direction of our lives, we step out of overwhelm and stuckness and we start addressing whatever it is that isn’t working for us.  Is there anything you could benefit from asking for today?

Emotional Eating Tip: Coping With Overwhelm

July 14th, 2009, No Comments »

Overwhelm is something that we can’t always avoid, and it can be a major trigger for emotional eating, overeating, or bingeing. While it’s great to have strategies for staying out of overwhelm, sometimes–no matter how skilled or proactive or positive we are–overwhelm just plain happens.

A colleague, Sandy Martini, sent me a gift recently. She sent me a timer. She didn’t have to explain what it was for, because I know her strategy. She’s about getting big things done by making them do-able.

That is such an important key. When we are facing something that feels overwhelming, when we are staring up at a mountain, it may feel intimidating to even think about getting started. We can feel so overwhelmed simply thinking about how big the mountain is that we never even begin to climb.

Last year I ran a marathon for the first time. Here’s what I know. If I had stood at the starting line thinking about how I was going to be running for the next 26.2 miles I might not have started. I certainly would have panicked. I started the race by moving forward. I took some steps and then I took some more. I looked for the mile marker that told me I had run the first mile. I ran from mile marker to mile marker and I didn’t let myself think much farther ahead then that.

Today I had to work through some difficult and rather uninspiring tasks. I’ll be honest. They were overwhelming and I’ve been avoiding them. I’ve been sitting here all day setting my timer for fifteen minutes at a time, taking a break with a more pleasant activity each time it goes off. It’s only noon and my desk is almost clear. I’m amazed at how much I’ve accomplished and I never would have really gotten started if I hadn’t broken it down into small chunks.

I know that when you are facing an overwhelming project or decision or whatever your mountain is, those small fifteen minute chunks can seem like nothing. They can seem insubstantial and “not serious.” Don’t give into that thinking. It will sink you before you start.

My suggestion for you this week is to pick something you feel overwhelmed by or that you’ve been avoiding because you don’t know where to begin. And then dig in–anywhere. Just start moving in a small, time-limited way. Work through the first fifteen minutes. Just start. Give yourself permission not to do the whole thing or have the whole course charted out. Taking action feels better than feeling stuck.

Take good care.

Melissa

Emotional Eating Tip: Don’t downplay the little things.

June 15th, 2009, No Comments »

When we feel off track or out of control or out of our routine, it’s easy to fall into overwhelm. When things are not going smoothly, it often feels like a very big deal to start getting back on track. Sometimes it seems like such a big deal that we have a hard time getting back into action.

It really doesn’t have to be that way.

The truth is, it’s not big dramatic actions that indicate whether we are on or off track—whether we are moving in the direction we want to be. Ninety-nine percent of the time, it’s our attention to the little things that indicates how we are doing.

By little things, I’m referring to those small consistent actions that help us thrive; things like packing a lunch, taking vitamins, spending ten minutes a day writing in a journal. Little deliberate acts like pausing before you head off to the vending machine to ask yourself whether you are really hungry or whether you are stressed. Taking five minutes in the morning to think about where you will fit in a walk or some play time.

In my Emotional Eating Toolbox program, I ask clients to think about their “non-negotiables” the must-do things that keep their life running smoothly. Usually these are small consistent things—they are different for everyone—that fuel you, allow you to function at your best, and that make YOU feel like you.

I recommend you take some time today to make a list of the little things that help you be your best. These little things might involve planning around food or exercise, or they may be things that bring you peace like having a clean kitchen or ironing your clothes, or taking time each day to do some mindless reading. Are you downplaying these small actions? Is there anything you would benefit from paying more attention to or anything that has slipped off your radar?

Make the adjustments. It won’t take very long at all, but tracking those small essentials is actually what usually makes the difference.

Take very good care,

Melissa

Emotional Eating, Stress Management and Playing Outside

April 19th, 2009, No Comments »

Taking control of emotional eating often means taking charge of your own well-being. Here’s a tip for one small way you can attend to your needs, your stress, and your self.

The New York Times recently published an interesting article on the power of the outdoors. It’s a read I recommend. It turns out that our moms were onto something when they sent us outside to play. The author, Paul Bloom, reminds us that research shows that being outside, or at the very least being able to see the outdoors from our indoor perch, even in limited doses, can improve our health and reduce our stress.

Some of us are lucky enough to live in a place or work at a job that encourages us to be outside, but for many, it’s possible to go from our home to our garage to our car to our workplace with only the briefest of moments where we breathe the outdoor air and spend time out of doors.

Being outside can be rejuvenating. It can relax us. If we spend time in beautiful places it can uplift us. Spending time outdoors, even in the city, can remind us that we are a part of something much bigger and can help us put our own life and our own worries into a different perspective. Being outside, if we let the feeling in, just-plain-feels good.

It doesn’t have to be beautiful and sunny to be outdoors. When was the last time you got wet in the rain or played in the snow or got muddy? When was the last time you dug in the dirt or rolled in the grass or felt sand between your toes? When was the last time you spent time outdoors and felt the sun on your face or wind in your hair or really smelled the air. I’ll bet whenever it was you felt ALIVE.

My tip: try spending some time outdoors everyday. Next time you feel overloaded or overwhelmed or like heading for the vending machine, head outside instead. You might take enough time to enjoy a walk or you might simply make the conscious decision to be outside for a few minutes to experience the weather and the day—and to experience YOURSELF outside. Allow yourself get cold or hot or wet or blown. Breathe it in. Consider going outside to play.

If getting outdoors is a challenge, bring the outdoors into the place where you spend your day—gift yourself with some flowers or a plant or cut some budding branches and put them in a vase. At the very least find a beautiful picture of an outdoor place that makes you smile and put it somewhere where you can see it. Notice the impact.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about this tip. Leave a comment and share your favorite outdoor spots and experiences.

Take good care,

Melissa

Life Balance and Secrets to Thriving: WOC Telesummit

March 23rd, 2009, No Comments »

Tomorrow, March 24, 2009 at 6pm Pacific/9pm Eastern I will be the guest speaker at the Women’s Wellness Telesummit: Women of Confidence Series.

Viki Stanley-Hutchison and I will be discussing Life Balance: Secrets to Thriving.

I’ll be covering:

• What life balance is and what it isn’t—how to identify a life out of balance
• How women fit it all in—how to balance your life when you don’t have any time
• Secrets to staying in balance

I will also be answering questions during the call. Best of all, there is no charge at all to attend! Viki has some other fantastic topics lined up in the coming weeks. For all the details and registration information, just go here:

Hope you can make it,

Melissa

Emotional Eating Tip: Get Out Of Your Head

March 16th, 2009, No Comments »

Emotional eating, stress eating and overeating all happen when we are disconnected from ourselves—out of touch in some way with what we are feeling or needing or with how to respond to those things. I’m a strong believer that we are at our best and at our most powerful when we are connected with ourselves. It’s only then that we are really able to access our wisdom about what we need and how to take care of ourselves.

Stress, multitasking, not getting enough sleep, too much stimulation in our environment—these are just some of the things that can pull us out of connection with ourselves. These distractions can make it hard to hear the signals we send ourselves about what we need, whether we are hungry, or how we are feeling.

When we get disconnected, it’s important to make the space and the time to connect back up again. Unfortunately, during times of disconnection, our frantic thoughts often tell us that that simply isn’t possible. Anxiety tells us unhelpful things–that we can’t possibly stop, that we’ll get to it later, and that it is somehow better to just ignore ourselves and keep moving.

This is exactly the mindset that will build on itself, that leaves many of us trying to make up for unmet needs with snacking or food rewards or with binge eating. And then—of course—we feel more overwhelmed, more out of control, and our frantic brain might even tell us that now we REALLY can’t afford the time and energy to stop and reconnect.

Here’s a tip for short-circuiting that vicious cycle.

An important strategy is learning how to get out of your head. When we are anxious, our thinking may tell us that the answer is continuing to “think” our way out of the situation. The problem is, our thoughts are fueled by emotions and stress and they just tend to get us in deeper—and the more we keep thinking in this pattern, the more disconnected we tend to become from the present moment, from ourselves, and from our physical body. The tip I’m describing helps you get out of your head and reconnect with your body.

Here’s what I want you to do. Place your hand over your heart. Try to position it so that you can feel your heart beating or so that you can feel your chest rise and fall with each breath you take. Place your other hand on your abdomen. As you breathe, concentrate on filling your lungs as completely as you can. Believe it or not, your lungs extend all the way down to almost the bottom of your rib cage. Can you feel where that is? Imagine good clean air filling your lungs all the way to their bottom. Feel your abdomen and your chest rise and fall with each breath.

Breathe in and breathe out. As you breathe, focus on you. Not your thoughts, not your schedule, but the you inside your body. Scan through your body for tension. Shrug your shoulders, wiggle your toes. Breathe in. Breathe out. Ask yourself what your physical self needs right now—a stretch? A change of posture? Water? Ask yourself whether you are hungry or full or tired. What emotions are you feeling? Check in with yourself. Note the answer.

To end this brief check-in, stretch out as long and tall as you can. Stretch long and feel how far you can reach. Take a deep breath. Now do what you can to give yourself what you need. That’s it. It’s simple and it takes about thirty seconds, two minutes at the most, but this quick check-in can be a powerful tool in helping you stay balanced and out of overwhelm.

Take good care,

Melissa

The Economy, Stress and Life Balance

March 12th, 2009, No Comments »

These days there is an abundance of unpleasantness–bad news, worry, and stress–pulling for our attention. While staying informed has value, so does remaining aware of how the bad news, dire predictions and elevated levels of stress and worry are affecting us. It’s especially important to consider how much we might be allowing the information or the collective mood to influence us without our awareness and how much energy we are expending on the issue.

In every situation, we choose exactly where we place our attention and our focus. At this moment I am choosing whether I will focus on the sounds outside my window, the thoughts I am having, the way my clothing feels against my skin, or the smell of the orange I just ate.

The quality and the content of our thoughts affects the other things we think about as well as our mood and our level of hopefulness. The things we pay attention to NOW have the potential to influence the things we will pay attention to in the future, because, as research tells us, we tend to notice the things that confirm what we already believe.

Why is this important? It’s important because, if I am walking around feeling scared or anxious or worried or pessimistic, I am not only going to experience those feelings, I am also going to be a magnet for any evidence that seems to confirm that mindset. Even if I don’t realize I’m doing this, my mind will be working to notice the things that agree with how I already feel and think and to NOT NOTICE the things that are in conflict with how I am feeling

Is it possible that in this time of economic worry and stress we are conditioning ourselves to NOT notice the good and the positive? I think it’s a question worth asking

If you haven’t already, I suggest you take some time to think about how the current collective “mood” is influencing you. You may have worries or fears that you didn’t have a year ago. Has there been a shift in your attitude or outlook? Have you changed your approach in certain situations? Are you responding to new and different demands? Look carefully. Someone I spoke to today said that he feels more tired and realizes that he is spending a lot of energy simply trying to cheer up other worried people. It’s starting to bring him down and he acknowledged he needs to seek out more “lightness” in his life.

Take a moment to notice how society’s stress is affecting you. There isn’t a correct response, or a “right way” to be affected. However, what IS unhelpful is to be impacted but unaware of how you are being influenced or to be out of touch with the impact your environment is having on you.

My challenge to you is to take some time to consider whether the economic worries are influencing you and whether you are responding in the way that you want to.

Ask yourself how much time you are spending thinking about or exposing yourself to this area of your life? Is it useful? Is it just right? Is it excessive? Are you avoiding it altogether, but laying awake at night worrying about questions that you feel too afraid to ask? Again, there are no correct answers, just an opportunity to be aware and make choices based in awareness.

Now ask yourself how you want to carry yourself through this time. How much of your energy do you want to give it? How much of your attention? Where else do you want to focus your attention? Are there positives you want to be sure to notice? Are there good self-care habits you want to be especially careful to maintain?

We choose where we place our attention. Take very good care.

Managing Your Stress: Own Your “Me” Time

March 9th, 2009, No Comments »

I just frittered away 45 minutes wandering around the internet. I wasn’t having fun, I was clearing out email, following up on things. I’m not really sure what I was doing. All I know for sure is that by the time I remembered the thing I had originally sat down at the computer to do, my time was up and it was time to get back to work.

This got me thinking about how often my friends, my clients, and I complain about having “no time.” So often, it feels like there isn’t enough time to do the things we want to do. Our time IS limited and we ARE very busy. And yet, many of us are not nearly as proactive about how we manage our “me time” as we are about how we manage the other areas of our lives.

We can’t add more hours to the day, but there are some ways we can maximize the power of the ones we have (and I’m not talking about crazed, superwoman multitasking). Here are some ideas for maximizing me-time. Please share your tips and ideas by adding a comment at the end of the post.

1. Pre-plan and pre-schedule. You know the concept of paying yourself first. It doesn’t sound very sexy, but it works. Get your me time on your schedule and don’t keep it a secret. Put your exercise, lunches with friends, hobby time, and dates with your spouse on your calendar–and the household calendar if it’s not just you, but others as well who will need to know you have a prior obligation. Consider setting aside a time at the beginning of each week or month specifically to schedule time for yourself.
2. Consider how (or if) you could use your commute for me time. If you have a commute, you already have a consistent time set aside. Have you considered how you’d like to use it? Your commute might be a time for switching gears, escaping into your own thoughts, dreaming about the future, or learning French from CDs. Think about what you would need to increase the quality of your commute time–better music on your MP3 player, ear plugs for the train, or a great novel or book on tape? Could you walk or ride your bike? Make sure you are allowing enough time on either end of your commute so that you aren’t automatically battling stress. If you find yourself irritated by traffic and the commute itself, ask yourself how you could shift your mindset. How could you OWN the time instead of feeling like it was wasting away?
3. Consider teaming up. Are you doing tasks alone that would be easier and more fun if they were shared? Could you consider partnering with someone else? One of the best ideas I heard was the idea of a gardening co-op. Four women formed a group to tackle their big yard and garden projects. One afternoon a week they would descend on one member’s yard and get to work. Four people were able to accomplish tremendous amounts of labor in a relatively short time–and they had a lot of fun sharing the afternoon and socializing while they gardened. How could you think creatively about your life demands to increase the fun factor and contribute to me time?

What helps you own and maximize your time so that you get more of what YOU need? Leave a comment and share your ideas and strategies.

Take good care,

Melissa