Eat When You're Hungry

Eat When You're Hungry Blog is Moving

2011-03-22T16:51:00.000-07:00

Big news!! Eat When You're Hungry blog is moving. After much thought and many hours behind a computer screen, I decided to redesign my website so I can have more control over it. As part of the redesign, my blog will now be under the same roof as my regular website, at www.eatwhenyourehungry.com. Take a few minutes to look around and let me know what you think. And please bare with me as I navigate this new design. I will certainly make tweaks along the way, but one thing will never change: my message to eat when you're hungry, stop when you're full and love yourself.

Favorite Product of the Week: Keurig

2011-02-09T06:00:00.000-08:00

As you know, I love my Nespresso machine, which makes amazing espresso for lattes, cappuccinos and other high-end coffee beverages. However, I’m not always in the mood for espresso. Sometimes I want regular coffee, and our old coffee machine began failing about a year ago. Because I loved the pod system of the Nesspresso so much I decided I had to have a similar system for coffee. The question was, which one?

I asked for advice right here on my blog. I posted to Facebook and I read every review I could find online. I was obsessed. My husband can vouch for that. I rewound DVR recordings just to watch a Keurig commercial. I read ads in magazines, I read reviews online and I talked to people about their coffee pod machines. While reviews helped me zero in on which machines I was interested in, the only way I felt I could make an informed decision was to taste the coffee. Not as easy a task as you might imagine. Until I discovered (when researching the Dolce Gusto, a coffee maker created by Nestle), that the day after Thanksgiving, Bed, Bath & Beyond was conducting live demos of the exact three machines I was interested in:

Keurig
Dolce Gusto
Tassimo

During my daughter’s naps on the three days following Thanksgiving, I drove over to Bed, Bath & Beyond to taste coffee. The first day I tasted coffee made in the Keurig. They weren’t serving decaf that day and it was about 2 in the afternoon so I limited myself to just a tiny cup, but I must say, it was love at first sip. I tasted the Donut Shop variety and I loved it. It just tasted great, plain and simple. It was exactly the kind of coffee I like, it was the perfect temperature and there were no grinds at the bottom of the cup -- a problem that was getting increasingly worse with our old machine.

Day two was a demo of the Dolce Gusto. I don’t have much to say about this machine other than it’s kind of cute and has a very small footprint, which is nice. I just didn’t like the coffee it produced nearly as much as I liked that made in the Keurig. So I moved on. But I do have to thank the folks at Nestle for posting information about the demo on their website, as that is the only way I found out about the Dolce Gusto demo (and subsequently the other two demos, which I learned about in the store).

On day three I tasted coffee from the Tassimo. We have good friends who have this machine and they love it. About a year ago we even had lattes made in their machine and we talked about those lattes for a week. We loved them. But I wasn’t in search of good lattes. I was in search of good coffee. I will say that the cup of decaf Tassimo coffee I sampled that day was good. It just wasn’t great. I was of course limited to trying the variety they had on display at the demonstration so it’s entirely possible I would have liked a different variety better.

The Tassimo has some real positives. Most obviously, it makes everything: lattes, cappuccinos, drip coffee, hot chocolate and tea. If we didn’t already have the Nesspresso, we may have indeed opted for the Tassimo. It also has a smaller footprint than the Keurig and I think has a slightly better, more sophisticated look about it. To be honest, the smaller footprint was a big selling point for me. However, I didn’t love the coffee I sampled that day and that bothered me.

So, after much debate about which machine to go with, I decided to opt for the Keurig and I must say, I love it! I haven’t consumed this much coffee ever, and I look forward to every cup. The coffee selection is tremendous. I also just happen to like the brands of coffee that are made for the Keurig machine better than the brands made for the Tassimo. To date, my favorite varieties are: Donut Shop by Coffee People, Dark Magic® Decaf Extra Bold by Green Mountain Coffee, Celestial Seasonings English Breakfast Black Tea (I was very skeptical of this one, but I LOVE it!) and….wait for it…Green Mountain Coffee® Half-Calf!!! That’s right, they make half-caf pods, which means the machine truly answers all of my coffee prayers.

We've had the machine since Christmas Eve, thanks to my mom asking me exactly what I wanted this year (I did my research!). I keep telling her that I think this is my favorite Christmas present ever. I love the machine, I love the pods, I love the coffee and the lack of clean-up. I love that I can make a cup of decaf after putting my daughter to sleep and it takes a mere 30 seconds. I just looooooove this machine. I may just have to host a BYOP (Bring Your Own Pod) party one of these days.

Thanks again, Bed, Bath & Beyond, for your holiday demos!

(Delicious) Three-Ring Circus Last Night

2010-12-17T12:58:00.001-08:00

Two blog posts in two days, I can hardly believe it. Last night I had exactly 45 minutes to get to and from the store and buy food for two meals I'll be cooking for company on two different nights this weekend. Amidst my hurrying and scurrying around to find recipes, make a grocery list and get my butt to the store, I decided to try a new recipe for the three of us on a Thursday night. Why? Because we didn't have anything at home to eat, and I a) didn't want to eat out again, b) couldn't take another night of tacos, and c) have been wanting to try this recipe from The Pioneer Woman for quite awhile.

So I did. And it was fantastic! I will say that Emily whined the entire time I cooked and Jeremy and I were laughing (sort of) at the three-ring-circus that was our kitchen during my rushed cooking of this meal. But the only reason it was so rushed was because I had a hungry 16-month old who was clearly still dealing with the frustration that comes with her parents child-proofing the kitchen. The horror!

Otherwise, it's actually quite easy (and fun) to make. My hubby and I have been craving good Italian food, and we both agreed that this pasta was definitely restaurant quality. The only change we made to the recipe was adding pancetta for some protein. It was delicious.

And despite my husband assuring me that the alcohol was cooked off, I still felt uncomfortable serving it to Emily, so I didn't. Any pointers there are completely welcomed.

I'm also trying to improve my food photography skills, which is a bit difficult considering that my primary tool right now is my iphone. We're noodling around with the idea of getting the Nikon D3100, but until that happens, my iphotos will have to do. Not bad, I don't think ??

Curried Couscous Salad -- A Gift In Itself

2010-12-16T12:05:00.000-08:00

I made a new recipe last week that I think I've talked about (or ate) every day since I made it. The recipe comes courtesy Giada De Laurentiis and it's a keeper! I actually think it is a wonderful holiday recipe because of the warm roasted cashews and tart dried cranberries. Add to that the curry powder, roasted cauliflower and lemony dressing, and you're transplanted to another planet -- one with the most perfect salad in the world! The curry powder really wakes up your taste buds, which is important because you don't want to miss any of the flavors and textures abundant in this dish. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to share the joy that is this salad with anyone yet because my hubby doesn't care for curry powder or dried cranberries (more for me!). So I'm sharing it with you right here. Please do yourself a favor and make this salad. Let me know what you think!

Recipe is here.

Video is here.

Enjoy!

Favorite Product of the Week: Nespresso Essenza

2010-11-23T06:00:00.000-08:00

One of my absolute favorite products that my husband and I use on a daily basis is our Nespresso Essenza machine. We registered for this when we got married and were over the moon when it appeared in our kitchen. Our machine (Essenza C100 model) makes single-serve esspresso that has the aroma, taste and crema that rivals any latte I've ever ordered in a restaurant or coffee shop. In fact, I prefer it to the lattes I used to get at the place around the corner from us, which shall remain nameless. It takes up barely any space on our counter and seriously makes the best esspresso ever. The aroma alone brings a smile to my face.

We have a milk frother (also made by Nespresso) as well because we usually drink our espresso in lattes or an occasional cappucino, though this stuff is so good we have, on occasion, sipped it just as it is (i.e., without milk). This machine feels at the same time like an absolute luxury and a total necessity, if that makes any sense at all. The quality is top-notch, so you think it is indeed a luxury, but when you get used to having it in your house, you cannot live without it. Ever. Again.

During the winter months we make lattes on a daily basis, and on hotter days we make iced lattes that I think we could sell on the street for a hefty price. They're that good. In fact, when I was on maternity leave, I got so used to my daily afternoon iced-latte that I wondered how much of I hard time I'd get if I bought a second Nespresso machine to use at the office. I decided against this, but haven't entirely called it out of question in the future.

Anyway, we looooooooooooooooooooove our Nespresso machine and tell everyone about it. That said, we don't love our regular coffee maker and are ready to replace it. The debate I'm having is whether to go with the pod system for drip coffee (we love it so much for esspresso!!) and if so, which one: Keurig? Tassimo? Others? Any/all suggestions welcomed!

Intuitive Eating: Book Review

2010-11-05T07:16:00.000-07:00

I've been putting off writing a review of Inuitive Eating because I'm afraid my words won't do justice to it at all. Because this book made such an impact on me, I want this review to be extra special. I was lucky enough to find this book right after finishing Making Peace with Food, and let me tell you, I couldn't put it down.

The first chapter of Intuitive Eating is called Hitting Diet Bottom, and hit it I did. The second chapter looks at what kind of eater you are: the careful eater, the professional dieter, the unconscious eater, an on and on. There are then sub-categories under each of these. If you've ever struggled with eating and cannot find a description of yourself on these pages, you should probably write your own book because I felt so immensely understood by these authors in their picture-perfect descriptions of me and how I chose my food at the time.

The book then takes you through the 10 principles of intuitive eating, starting with Principle 1: Reject the Diet Mentality. This principle was hugely important to me. It lays out in a very clear and compelling way, all the reasons why diets don't work and, frankly, aren't good for you. Here's just one nugget, from page 49 of the second edition:

"A thirty-two-year study of more than 3,000 men and women in the Framingham Heart Study has shown that regardless of initial weight, people whose weight repeatedly goes up and down--known as weight cycling or yo-yo dieting -- have a higher overall death rate and twice the normal risk of dying from heart disease. These results were independent of cardiovascular risk factors, and held true regardless if a person was thin or obeses. The harm from yo-yo dieting may be equal to the risks of staying obese."

Even after I'd finished the book, I often came back to this chapter after overhearing someone in an elevator at work talking about needing to "go on a diet" or "spend an extra hour at the gym" because she ate a, gasp(!), brownie. It was my salvation to come back to this book for reassurance that the non-dieting path I was on was the right one for me.

Another one of my favorite quotes from the book can be found at the beginning of chapter 12. It says:

"Accept your genetic blueprint. Just as a person with a shoe size of eight would not expect realistically to squeeze into a size six, it is equally futile (and uncomfortable) to have a similar expectation about body size. Respect your body so you can feel better about who you are. It's hard to reject the diet mentality if you are unrealistic and overly critical of your body shape."

So rational, and yet so far from the reality of so many people. We're taught that our bodies are a constant project to be poked, prodded, evaluated and dieted down to the "perfect" size and shape, which of course doesn't exist.

Elyse Resch, who I'm lucky enough to know and study under, brings a spiritual approach to the book which I found particularly comforting and inspiring. Evelyn Tribole brings an entirely different energy (and she has lots of it!) that's focused on the facts and motivating her readers to give up dieting and trust their bodies.

The one chapter that was tough for me to swallow while in the midst of healing from my eating disorder, was the one dedicated to Principle 10: Honor Your Health -- Gentle Nutrition. Because I had such a fear of fat during my unhealthiest years, this chapter was difficult for me. I had to put this chapter on the back burner for years because I needed to focus on anything but nutrition. To focus on nutrition at the end of this otherwise life-saving book, felt to me like giving an alcoholic a glass of wine on new year's. So I had to ignore it.

That said, the book is written by two nutritionists, so they had to share their wisdom about nutrition, and their advice is solid. I would just recommend skipping this chapter until you are fully recovered from your issues with food. I also know for myself that when I don't worry about nutrition, I get it. Does that make sense? When I don't worry about nutrition, I'm free to eat a burger and fries, but I'm also free to eat an entire bowl of brocolli. So I'm quite confident that all in all my body is getting a wonderful array of nutritients, vitamins and minerals. I just can't "try to be nutritious" because it screws with my head.

I could go on about this book, but I'll wrap it up here. If you had only one book to read on the subject of recovering from disordered eating, this would be the one book I'd tell you to buy. So, if you haven't already....

Making Peace with Food: Book Review

2010-09-28T05:59:00.000-07:00

Here it is. My first book review, and I've not written one before, so this is going to follow no particular format. I'm most excited to tell you about this book because it was the first book I ever read on the topic of non-dieting. I discovered it deep in the stacks of my college library and sat down on the library floor to start reading the book. I couldn't put it down at the time because I was in such desperate need for help. So without further adieu, my first book recommendation:

Making Peace with Food by Susan Kano

This book feels like a textbook and workbook all in one, and from the illustrations sprinkled through every chapter, you'll see right away that it was published in the 80s. But don't let that scare you. This book marked a turning point in my life, and I imagine in the lives of many other women and men struggling with eating disorders.

The cover of the book tells you exactly what you're getting. "OVERCOME YO-YO DIETING, BINGE EATING, FOOD ANXIETY, BODY ANXIETY, AND SELF-DEFEATING GUILT." Does the book accomplish this? Yes. Well, as much as a book can. The rest is up to the reader to dig deep and implement in his/her life.

Each chapter of Making Peace with Food includes a "Personal Questions" section at the end that asks the reader to answer questions that will usually illuminate themes from that chapter as they appear in his/her life. Many sections also include goals for the reader to strive towards on the journey of overcoming food anxiety.

One of the biggest takeaways for me in this entire book -- that I still talk about with clients today -- is the "setpoint theory."

Basically, the notion of setpoint theory is that our bodies each have a weight they are happiest at. This is the weight where we feel most energized, alive and frankly, comfortable. Our bodies want to be at this weight, so if we eat a little less than usual one day because we're in back-to-back meetings, our bodies aren't going to drop weight. They're going to fight to stay at their ideal setpoint weight. Likewise, if we eat a little more than usual one night, we're not going to bust out of our pants immediately. Our bodies will fight to stay at their ideal setpoint weight. Setpoint theory is very complex, and different things affect our bodies' setpoint weights throughout our lives including age, activity and genetics. The whole idea of setpoint theory spoke to me when I was going through my own process of recovery and I think the theory makes a lot of sense.

In general, I think Kano does an excellent job of relating her personal experience to readers and also imparting a hefty amount of information to the reader to convince them (if you've been dieting all your life, you need to be convinced that it doesn't work) that they can achieve freedom from food anxiety.

Great quote from the book, page 18:

"Some of us are meant to be very thin; some of us are meant to be very fat; and most of us are meant to be somewhere in between. We all deserve to be at peace with our bodies instead of in a constant state of tension and dissatisfaction. We all deserve to be proud of ourselves and our bodies no matter how fat or thin we are."

Making Peace with Food will help you understand that belief and so many more. It will also help you, especially if you're just starting out on this journey, to make peace with food and with yourself. Let me know if you've read this one and what you think.

If It's Thursday, It Must Be....

2010-09-23T05:45:00.000-07:00

Chicken Noodle Casserole Night!

I like testing new recipes. Sometimes they're good and sometimes they're not. And sometimes they are tasty enough and easy enough to prepare that they make their way into our repertoire of weeknight family meals.

That's what happened with this Chicken Noodle Casserole, so I thought I'd share the recipe.

How this recipe came to be

I'd always wanted to make a tuna noodle casserole because, well, hasn't everyone eaten one at some point? Not me -- in 30+ years, I'd never eaten a tuna noodle casserole! So I finally looked up a recipe and made it. The dish was pretty good, but by night two (leftovers) I was sick of the fishy taste, so the next time around we used chicken instead and made some other adjustments to the recipe. Our version follows. Let me know if you try it and what you think!

Chicken Noodle Casserole
INGREDIENTS
1 (8-ounce) package wide egg noodles
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt (optional)
1 cup milk
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
1 can of chicken (we use the bigger, 12-ounce can), drained
1/2 bag of frozen peas
A few handfuls Planko or breadcrumbs

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Coat a casserole dish with cooking spray.
3. In a medium saucepan, combine flour, butter and salt. Stir until butter is melted and ingredients are combined evenly. Add milk, and whisk until the sauce thickens (no more than a few minutes). Add cheese to mixture, and whisk until cheese is melted and mixture is well-blended. Stir in tuna, peas and noodles. Spread evenly in prepared dish. Top with Planko or breadcrumbs.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes.

Book Reviews Coming Soon

2010-09-20T05:59:00.000-07:00

Nearly every client I've worked with has asked me for book recommendations. Usually they have read Eat When You're Hungry, and many times they've read Intuitive Eating as well. But at a certain point in the coaching process, they want a new perspective on eating and body image. I totally get that.

I remember when I was going through my own process of recovery I felt exactly the same way. I wanted to read as many books as I could that reinforced the same messages: Love your body. You never have to diet ever again. Diets don't work. All bodies are beautiful. Learning how to eat mindfully is a journey and you will figure it out.

I think when we're taking on a new perspective we want to read as many books and articles about it as we can -- just to know that it "works," and to hear it from different people.

In support of you and your journey toward freedom in the food arena I am going to do my best to post book reviews of some of my favorite books on the topic, including the first one I ever read and the one that is sitting on my nightstand right now.

Some of my newest book recommendations didn't make it into the photo you see with this post, because they are loaned out from my personal library, so there will be more reviews than you see books in that pile. And yes, I had to include my own book, though I won't write a review of it. Those are on Amazon, and if I'm feeling it, maybe I'll ask someone to write a guest blog post that reviews it for me right here on my blog.

Have a great week everyone. Time for me to start writing book reviews!

Wholly Guacamole

2010-09-14T20:45:00.000-07:00

I made a discovery in the produce aisle at the supermarket two weeks ago and I have to share it with you here.

The product is one you may already know about. It’s called Wholly Guacamole, and I think it’s getting a fair amount of buzz. I first discovered it at my friend Shelly’s house during book club a few months ago. As someone who regularly orders restaurant meals because they come with a dollop of guacamole, I can tell you I love the stuff, but it’s got to be good. I don’t like fancy spices or unexpected flavors in my guac, and as you know by now, I like mine homemade. Just about everything is better when you make it yourself.

However, when I first ate Wholly Guacamole at Shelly’s house, I a) assumed it was homemade, and b) wondered why on earth I’d ever make my own guac again (after discovering it was store-bought and not full of chemicals). This product was so perfect that it almost didn’t seem worth it to make my own anymore. And then I did. During Labor Day weekend, I made a batch for us to have one afternoon. It was pretty good, but honestly, not my best showing in the guac department.

A day later while we were grocery shopping, I had a full-on MOMENT in the middle of the produce section at the grocery store. I spotted what I thought was Wholly Guacamole single-serve packs, and froze immediately, as if zeroing in on a target. I did a double-take from afar and approached my target slowly. I then cautiously picked up what I thought couldn’t possibly be staring at me from the refrigerated supermarket shelf.

But it was!

“Oh my gosh!” I hollered. “Jeremy, come here!! You’ve got to see this,” I exclaimed. “Wholly Guacamole has single serve pouches now,” I told him. “Remember the guacamole I told you about from Shelly’s house!? It comes in single serve pouches,” I gloated. “I can take it to work for lunch and not worry about it getting brown.”

“Cool,” he said, happy to see me so excited about one of my favorite foods on the planet, now in a brilliant new (to me) package.

The next day I brought a sandwich to work for lunch (a rarity, as deli sandwiches don’t usually sound good to me), made on an English muffin. I proudly packed my Wholly Guacamole on the side with some chips in case I had extra guac that didn’t fit in my sandwich (which I did).

I felt like the skies opened up above my desk and gave me a big kiss when I ate that sandwich. All because of the guac.

And let me tell you – this is a bit of a confession, as I haven’t spoken about it on this site before – I don’t like lunch food all that much. My sister and I have a running joke that we hate lunch. For some reason, nothing sounds good to me at lunch, particularly if I’ve brought it from home. This has been going on for years, and of course I’ve found work-arounds so that I can enjoy my lunch.

But, oh my gosh, these single serve pouches of Wholly Guacamole may have just completely transformed my relationship with lunch. I’m excited to see my guac every time I open my lunch, and the options are endless. It will dress up just about any sandwich, and actually make it worth eating. I've even started buying extra vegetables just to dip into the guac that doesn't fit in my sandwich. I’ve always said that avocado is like a little bit of luxury in my mouth. Well, guacamole is a full-on party in my mouth.

Now, I get to enjoy it every day for lunch, thanks to the folks at Wholly Guacamole, who invented the single serve pouch.

Plus, the ingredients are simple: avocados, jalapeño puree, dehydrated onion, salt and granulated garlic.

Never a dull lunch again for this mamma. If you’re a fan of guac, I encourage you to find this stuff. Your lunchbox will thank you – and so will your taste buds!!

This is surely one of my most favorite products that I've reviewed to date. I only hope I’ve done justice to my newest discovery.

Reader Question: What if I Want to Eat When I'm No Longer Hungry?

2010-07-28T22:34:00.000-07:00

I have heard from many Eat When You’re Hungry readers, “Maggie, I’ve done such a great job of eating mindfully. I tasted every delicious morsel of food at dinner and I even stopped when I was full. But then I got anxious (or sad, or bored, or tired, or excited...or fill in the emotion that applies to you), and though I wasn’t hungry, all I wanted to do was eat. HELP! What do I do? I only know how to soothe myself with food.”

Excellent question! This is probably one of the most common questions that comes up among people who are on the journey toward a non-dieting way of life. Particularly among those of us who have come to rely on such a wonderful companion -- food -- for so long.

The first step toward learning how to soothe yourself without using food (when you’re not hungry) is to stop, pat yourself on that back and say, “Wow, at least I got to where I am today even if it took a hundred sleeves of Oreos to get here." That’s right, I want you to acknowledge where you are today.

We need to accept and celebrate where we are today and where we’ve come from in order to get to where we want to be -- free from food restrictions and enjoying a non-dieting way of life!

The first thing I suggest to those wishing to release their reliance on food to soothe their emotions is the following: make a list of your top 10 favorite things to do. Some examples are getting a manicure and pedicure, pouring a cup of tea and curling up on the couch with your favorite book, going to the movies, calling your friends, playing with your kids, getting a massage, having a dance party for one in your bedroom, cleaning your closet, going for a walk, playing Tetris or jumping on your trampoline.

Now that you have this list you’re going to use it. I know just as well as you do that at some point soon you will find yourself standing in front of the refrigerator listening to an inner monologue that goes something like this. “I’m not hungry, but I want to eat. I’m bored, and this brownie will perk me up, or maybe I’ll have ice cream, or there’s that leftover pizza. Shoot, but I’m not hungry! What do I do? ” Ah - ha! This is what you do. You close the fridge, get out your list of self-soothing activities and choose one to engage yourself in for the next half-hour. This may feel funny at first, and you may feel sad to give up the ice cream sundae that you weren’t hungry for -- at first. But just remember, that ice cream sundae and that pizza will be waiting for you in the fridge/freezer just as soon as you’re hungry for them. And they’ll be so much more enjoyable when you’re eating them with an appetite in your belly.

Do you want to know a secret? You might always feel a little sad to turn down food that you want when you’re not hungry. Just the other night after finishing a tasty dinner of meatloaf and veggies, I wanted to eat a bowl of ice cream. But I knew I wasn’t hungry for it. The meatloaf I made was quite filling, and I just didn’t have room for ice cream at that particular moment. I was thinking about the ice cream for a good 10 minutes while we started catching up on The Daily Show from the week prior, but by the end of the first show, I’d forgotten entirely about the ice cream. And that’s what you’ll find happens with you. You won’t necessarily not think about eating when you’re not hungry, but you’ll learn how to self-soothe without food. And in the process, you’ll tap into an inner strength you never knew you had.

I hope this has helped shed some light on the common question about eating when you’re not hungry. Write to me and let me know what your experience has been with this. And remember, eat exactly what you want, when you’re hungry, and stop when you’re full.

How I Feel About Exercise

2010-06-10T22:17:00.000-07:00

How do I feel about exercise? It’s the title of a chapter in my book and a question I get asked frequently. I will say that I feel very differently about exercise today than I did a year ago, when I was about a month away from giving birth to my daughter.

Before becoming pregnant I was a walker. Ever since college when I began walking with my roommate in the beautiful Gambier, Ohio, walking was my chosen form of exercise. I loved it. I would wake up early in the morning and walk outside before work for anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. That was "My Time." My sacred time to myself before the day began. Over the years, I have also enjoyed tennis and dance, swimming, skiing and an occasional jog on days I had a particularly large amount of energy to burn off.

Despite my love for these activities, when I got pregnant I ceased practically all body movement. Why? Because I was TIRED!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For 39 weeks, I didn’t exercise at all, with the exception of a few short walks with my husband for fresh air. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend such an abrupt end to exercise, as I think more movement would have actually been good for me while I was pregnant, but my body didn’t want to move much during those 39 weeks and I listened to it.

How things change when you have a baby...after giving birth to Emily, along with practically every single thing in my life turning upside down, so did my exercise. I craved any and all forms of body movement almost as much as I craved all the food I was putting into my body. I think I craved it because my body missed the natural high it gets from exercising. Perhaps exercise also signaled that I was taking back my body after loaning it out -- happily -- to my daughter.

So when I got approval from my doctor, I started moving. Of course I took stroller walks proudly showing off my baby girl to fellow exercises who wanted a peak inside the stroller (I still do!). But because it was so hot and I was fearful of my baby overheating, I quickly took my exercise inside. While she was napping I did workout videos, strength training with free weights....heck, I must admit that I actually hoola hooped in front of the TV while Emily was sleeping one day. During this time I also took a few (very intense) treadmill classes while granny or grandma watched Emily, and it felt AMAZING!

Now that I'm back at work, my time to exercise is limited, but I'm still squeezing it in. My husband and I are actually working out together these days. We're doing a CRAZY set of workout DVDs that I never imaged would be sitting in our bookshelf. They're called Insanity. You may have heard of them. The workouts are literally INSANE. I couldn’t possibly do everything the instructor tells me to do, and I am by no means following the schedule of workouts that the instructor suggests. What I am doing is pushing myself hard, and enjoying a good sweat and stress reliever at the end of the day (at least a few times a week). I'm also feeling stronger than I’ve felt in years.

Before I go further, I must say that I hesitated writing this post because I know that for many people, a workout program such as Insanity is something that plays into the restricting, diet-focused mentality that I try to protect you from here on this site. But I’m writing this post because I am truly enjoying the workouts (and the increased energy they produce), and because I want to relay the message that you can enjoy exercise – even very intense exercise – without buying into the diets and punishment that often go along with it.

Like me, you may have to make a conscious effort to tune out messages about weight loss that are spewed forth in workout classes and on home workout DVDs. You can’t control the entire world’s messages about weight and body image. But if you enjoy moving your body and want to feel stronger, you deserve to do it. I’m engaging in more intense exercise than I’ve ever done because it feels good, and frankly, because I want to build my muscles so that as Emily grows, my body keeps up with her.

AND I DON’T FEEL GUILTY IF I MISS A NIGHT – OR A WEEK – OF EXERCISE.

Believe me, there are many nights when Jeremy wants to exercise and I don’t. Sometimes I push myself to participate, and sometimes I don’t. Because these workout DVDs are a treat for me now, and not punishment, I look forward to them in an entirely different way than I would have when I was struggling with food issues years ago.

So I ask you – are there any activities you’re denying yourself because of the associations they carry?

Happy International No Diet Day!

2010-05-06T22:30:00.000-07:00

I almost missed International No Diet Day yet again. How did you mark the occasion? Or did you? Every day is a no diet day for me.

On that note, I hope you had a wonderful day filled with delicious food and mindful eating.

To the right is a close-up of the blueberry muffins I baked this past weekend -- and have been eating every morning for breakfast. Recipe follows:

Blueberry Muffins

Makes 12 Muffins

(Recipe courtesy The Gourmet Cookbook)

For Batter

3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter

1/3 cup milk

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

2 cups (12 ounces) blueberries (I usually use frozen)

For Topping

3 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

3 1/2 tablespoons sugar

Directions

Put a rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat to 375 degrees.

Generously butter (I use cooking spray) muffin cups.

Melt butter in a small saucepan over moderately low heat; remove from heat.

Whisk in milk, egg, yolk, and vanilla until well combined.

Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl.

Add milk mixture and stir until just combined.

Gently but thoroughly fold in blueberries.

Divide batter among muffin cups and spread evenly.

Combine all topping ingredients in a bowl and rub together with your fingertips until crumbly.

Sprinkle evenly over batter in cups.

Bake until golden and crisp and a wooden pick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean, 18 to 20 minutes. Cool in pan on a rack for 15 minutes, then run a knife around edges of muffin tops and carefully remove from cups. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Shout out to ABC's Good Morning America

2010-03-23T21:15:00.000-07:00

I have to give a big shout-out to ABC's Good Morning America for producing such an important and thoughtful piece on orthorexia. Claire Shipman reported this story and rather than provide a deep analysis here, I thought I'd just share the link so you can watch it yourself. It seems that orthorexia is gaining more attention from media and I'm "glad" to see that. I put "glad" in quotes because of course I wish media didn't have to report on this disorder because that would mean it didn't exist. But since that is not the case -- orthorexia does exist, and is probably much more common than we all might imagine -- I'm glad ABC shed light on the issue. Apparently the piece grew out of this Time magazine story, so a shout-out to Time reporter Bonnie Rochman as well.

Portions Schmortions

2010-03-18T21:34:00.000-07:00

While you’ll never hear me yell, “Portion control, portion control!” on this blog or anywhere else, I do have something to say about a recent realization I’ve had with the first of those two words: portion. Or, to be grammatically correct: portions. What gives? Nursing. Or actually: no longer nursing.

As I’ve alluded to before, nursing made me hungrier than I think I’ve ever been in my entire life. Including when I had a hyperactive thyroid and ate pretty much all day long every day. It made me hungry in an animalistic way. (And when I was pumping, I actually felt quite like an animal: a cow, to be precise).

I remember one day meeting my mom (a.k.a., granny) at the park with Emily. As any good mommy/granny will do, she brought me a roast beef sub that admittedly was the biggest sub I’ve ever seen (and the best one in the city). It was so big that I knew I wouldn’t be able to finish it. Until I did.

When we were packing up to leave the park, my mom asked if I’d put the second half of my sandwich in my diaper bag because she didn’t want mommy-brain-over-here to forget to put it in the fridge when I got home.

I smiled. And gulped.

“I finished it.”

“You did?!?! Maggie, that was the biggest sandwich I’ve ever seen!”

“I know,” I said proudly. “I was hungry!”

My mom looked impressed. And I’m quite certain that when I got home from the park I ate dessert.

For some reason, when I was nursing Emily – especially during the first few months of her life – I would sit down to meals wondering what I could have for dessert because I was always quite confident that the meal itself would not satisfy my cave-woman appetite. I ordered the heartiest things on menus all over the city, and followed up many meals with dessert. I never. Ever. Felt overly full.

Just so we’re all clear, after 39 weeks of being “nausry,” as my husband and I called it – nauseous but hungry – I enjoyed every single bite of food I consumed while I was nursing my little pumpkin. The fact that I could eat so much food every day was utterly enjoyable. Particularly after wondering for 39 weeks if any food other than ice cream would ever appeal to me again.

I knew at some point this last-supper style of eating would come to an end, and it eventually did. A few weeks ago, when I stopped the very glamorous job of pumping milk for my baby, I realized that I was still sitting down to meals with the anticipation that the food in front of me wouldn’t fill me up. I was finishing every morsel on my plate BECAUSE IT WAS THERE. After all, I was used to eating everything offered to me so it had become habit. The only problem was, my body no longer needed this much food.

After a number of meals that left me feeling uncomfortably full, I realized I was not honoring my fullness. I think I was also eating a lot faster than usual because I was in the “eat-while-you-can” mentality that any new mother understands. The problem was that my fullness just couldn’t keep pace with the rate at which I was shoving food into my mouth in an effort to eat quickly before needing to perform another gravity-defying diaper change.

Queue light bulb flashing above my head. And a thought cloud fading in.

"Slow Down," it read.

After eating dinner one night after work a few weeks ago and feeling way too full, I realized I had to take some time for myself in the food department. I decided that even if my child was demanding my attention three seconds after I finally sat down to eat, I needed to slow down and tune into the food I was putting into my body.

Doing so has been a wonderful experience, albeit challenging at times. I’ve been re-tuning into my body, trying hard to listen to my fullness and honor it. I don’t always get it right, but more often than not, I’m stopping just at that point of satiety when I’m no longer hungry and before I become over-full.

The picture above was taken at one of my favorite burger places: The Stand. I actually stopped a wee bit short on this meal, as I got hungry again earlier than I would have liked. But it’s all been a great reminder to me that my body’s needs change from time to time, and if I’m tuned in she’ll let me know exactly what she needs.

And just so you know: even the most “expert” intuitive eating experts will tell you (if they are honest) – that this is a journey, and every now and then due to circumstances beyond our control, we get out of touch with ourselves. The beauty is that as often as we get out of tune, we can adjust a few chords and get ourselves right back on track. And no, I don’t mean with a diet.

Close Your Eyes

2010-03-06T10:46:00.000-08:00

First off, I am so sorry for not blogging for over a month! I can't believe it's been that long, but the time-stamp on my last post says Jan. 25, so I guess somehow February flew by without me blogging. Yikes. Sorry about that.

Now that I'm back at work full time doing the juggle, my blogging has clearly slowed down, but stick with me -- I hope to ramp back up starting now. I have tons of posts in my head, and I am committed to finding the time to get them out on "paper" and up on this site as often as I can. Which brings me to the title of this post.

Have you ever tried closing your eyes when you eat? It sounds a little silly and actually doing this at home -- and certainly in public -- might feel bizarre, but I recommend trying it.

Every time my husband and I eat sushi, Jeremy closes his eyes. No, not throughout the entire meal, but during his savoring of each piece of sushi. I have to admit, this practice has sometimes embarrassed me. Sushi chefs have looked at him wondering if he's okay, and I've wondered where to focus my attention as I'm eating with my eyes wide open while he's having quite an experience in his mouth with his eyes closed.

Because Jeremy always looks euphoric with his eyes closed, sushi dancing around in his mouth, I had tried it many times before, but usually opened my eyes too quickly out of self consciousness from doing this in a public place (with sushi chefs mere feet away). I don't know why it made me feel so funny, but it did.

Well, this past month -- on Valentine's Weekend, I did it. Finally. For real. We were eating dinner at Koi, a hip, happening high-end restaurant in L.A. that has two of my most favorite dishes in the city: creamy rock shrimp tempura and spicy tuna on crispy rice. As we were eating these dishes during an early Valentine's celebration, no one was hovering over us and the tastes in my mouth were so overwhelmingly delicious that I couldn't help it: I had to close my eyes.

The food was just too delicious not to close my eyes. Does that make sense? It's as if taking in any distractions or sensations other than what I was taking in through my mouth would have diminished my experience. And that, I tell you, is true pleasure in eating. Ever since then, I've tried closing my eyes for bites here and there just so I could fully be present to the food in my mouth. It's a wonderful way to connect with yourself while you're eating, and tune into the experience fully.

All I can say is: I highly recommend it. Whenever you're eating a special meal (or any meal, for that matter), try closing your eyes. Don't worry about whether or not someone catches you. I promise, when you experience your food with your eyes closed, eventually you won't care what, if anything, others are thinking about you. In fact, through the experience you may discover an entirely new relationship with your food.

So there you go. I'm back online blogging. Here's a well-deserved shout-out to my hubby for teaching me this wonderful lesson.

**Note: the picture above is not from Koi (we forgot to take photos there). It's a picture of the spicy crunchy shrimp tempura roll at Hirosuke in Encino**

Favorite Product of the Week: Galeo's Salad Dressing

2010-01-25T05:42:00.000-08:00

I have been eating a lot of salads and raw vegetables lately, and there is one very specific reason for this -- Galeos Salad Dressing. I was turned onto this after eating lunch at a friend's house a few months ago. She made a big salad for lunch, and to be honest, I was a little worried that just a salad wasn't going to be filling enough for my very large, nursing mother's appetite these days.

Not only was it surprisingly filling, but it was exceptionally delicious -- all because of this salad dressing. It's called Galeos, and the flavor she used was Sesame Seed. I can honestly say this is the best store-bought salad dressing I've ever had. I've since turned many people onto it. I'm telling you -- once you buy a jar, you're going to be hooked. Not only do I eat it on salads almost every day now, but I dip raw bell peppers and cucumbers in it and pinch myself every time -- it's that good. My husband can't get enough of it either. He'd like me to introduce it to his parents the next time we have dinner together.

The Sesame Seed flavor is our current favorite. It tastes like one of those really good salad dressings you'd get in a Japanese restaurant and don't have a clue how to replicate. It's creamy, tangy with a hint of miso, and really just indescribable beyond that. Delicious and yummy are the only words that come to mind.

As an added piece of information, it's somehow extremely low-calorie and made with ingredients you'd find in your own kitchen cabinets. You know how I feel about counting calories (I don't do it), but I thought I should acknowledge the nutrition information in this post, as I learned after some very limited research that this dressing is apparently sought after because of it's low calorie count. So not posting that fact might be akin to ignoring the big white elephant in the room. If you've been reading my blog for any amount of time, however, you'll believe me when I say that the reason I rushed out to the store to buy this stuff just hours after eating it is because of the taste and the taste alone. It really is that good.

Go see for yourself.

Your Weight Is Not Going to Change. Are You?

2010-01-06T06:32:00.000-08:00

What if I told you that your weight would never change? That whatever number that appears on the scale today is what it will be for the rest of your life (despite the fact that I don't really believe in scales)? I'd like to know the answer.

Would you minimize your email window right now and walk to the nearest ice cream store? Would you make a doughnut date with your best friend for tomorrow morning? Would you eat every cookie and cupcake passed around the office no matter what the flavor? If so, awesome. Go for it!

Seriously. If you need permission, I hereby grant it to you: you have unconditional permission to eat whatever you want whenever you want it. Remember, in this scenario, there is no changing your weight. It is what it will be for the rest of your life.

I ask this question because last month, I overheard two different nutritionists saying that, really, we can't change our weights. Shocking? It shouldn't be. We all know by now that diets don't work. Yes, I suppose that if we continually eat past our fullness levels, perhaps we'll increase our weights. And yes, if we starve ourselves for any length of time, perhaps we'll decrease our weights (temporarily). But as we all know by now, diets don't work, and 95 percent of people who lose weight on diets end up regaining it ultimately (oftentimes reaching higher weights than they were at prior to dieting). So, really, the vast majority of us are meant to be at whatever weight we're meant to be at.

End. Of. Story.

So I ask you again, what would you do if you knew that your weight would not be impacted by what you ate? Just for fun, why don't you play with that notion for the next month. Eat whatever you'd like and pay attention to how it makes you feel. If you truly give yourself unconditional permission to eat whatever you want (and are not worried about your weight for one moment), I think something magical might happen for you. It happens for virtually everyone who goes through this process, also known as intuitive eating. I could tell you that you'll eventually learn which foods leave you feeling fabulous and which ones make you want to curl into the fetal position in your bed and not get up until morning. But I'd prefer not to answer the question for you, and instead let you experience it fully. For yourself.

Let me know how it goes, and if you can't bring yourself to try this experiment, write to me and let me know why. No judgment here. Just curiosity with the aim of helping you make peace with food and with yourself. Happy eating!

[*At right: the turkey burger from John O'Groats. It tastes as good as it looks]

Happy New Year

2010-01-04T11:14:00.000-08:00

I sent out the following letter to my newsletter subscribers this weekend and it dawned on me this morning that perhaps it would be beneficial to post it to my blog as well. So...here's a letter from me to you....just a few days into the new year.

Happy New Year!
Wishing you a happy, healthy 2010

As I type this email on New Year's Eve, my husband is cooking dinner, my baby girl is practicing pre-crawling maneuvers on her play-mat and I am happily settling into a new home office we created for me this week. I don't have a profound message to type tonight, nor do I have an inspiring story to tell. I just want to reach out to you during a time that can be a struggle for those committing to a non-dieting way of life.

Airwaves are abuzz with dieting offers and "slim-down" "tips and tricks" at this time of year, and as you know by now, supportive non-dieting messages are too few and far between. So before you get tempted to buy into the multi-billion dollar diet industry, I'd like to gently remind you that diets don't work. They're not good for you, they've been proven to correlate with weight gain in the long run, and the yo-yo cycles created by diets have been proven time and time again to be unhealthy.

So as you ring in the new year I offer you a virtual hand. You can hold my hand for as long as you want on your journey to make peace with food and with yourself. I'll be here to cheer you on, offer a shoulder to cry on and remind you as many times as I need to that you are perfect just the way you are. I'll also be here to remind you that changing a number on a scale won't make you any happier. Changing your perception of and love for your body, though, just might.

My message is as simple today as it was when I launched my business two years ago: Eat When You're Hungry. Stop When You're Full. And Love Yourself.

And have a happy, healthy, joyful new year filled with laughter, lattes if you like them, and all the things that make life so delicious.

Warmly,
Maggie

Tune In Tomorrow Night (12/30/09)

2009-12-29T10:24:00.000-08:00

Help spread the word. Rachel Simmons' "A Girl's Life" is airing on PBS stations across the country tomorrow night. I just learned of this film so I can't guarantee the quality of the content, but from the preview below, it looks like it will get the Maggie Miller stamp of approval. Set your Tivos and tune in. I think this will be a good hour spent in front of the tube. If your daughters (and sons) are old enough, I'd recommend watching it together as a family. For those of you in Los Angeles, it airs at 8 p.m. on KCET.

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In the spirit of holiday giving

2009-12-23T13:56:00.000-08:00

I thought I'd share this video I happened upon today. It has nothing to do with food, body image or eating. But it made me smile, and I hope it does the same for you. Enjoy!! And have a wonderful holiday, whatever you're celebrating.

Run (Don't Walk) to John O’Groats Encino!

2009-12-02T14:45:00.000-08:00

So here it is: my first-ever restaurant review for “Eat When You’re Hungry” readers. I don’t know if I’ll do more reviews or not, but I am so excited about this new-to-the-valley restaurant that I can’t contain myself any longer. In fact, I’m so in love with said restaurant that I’ve put off writing this post because I didn’t think my words would do justice to the place.

Since I just can’t wait any longer, and without further adieu, here goes: my review of the fabulous, scrumptious, gem of a restaurant where the owner knows your name after your first meal there: John O’Groats.

If you’re familiar with John O’Groats, no doubt you’ve been to the one on Pico Boulevard in West L.A. It’s been a staple there for decades and grew out of the equally fabulous (so I hear) Bit O’ Scotland restaurant. It’s a family-owned eatery, and the owner Paul, who went to Cornell’s hotel management school, understands how to run a restaurant like few people can. The West L.A. location is known for it’s amazing food including everything from comfort food classics and sophisticated scrambles, to O’Groats creations like huevos rancheros on their famous biscuit dough. John O'Groats is also popular because of its equally addictive atmosphere (the owner really will get to know you and ask about details you forgot you’d shared with him the last time you were there). Some people go to the restaurant for the biscuits alone because they are just that good.

Anyway, when I found out that John O’Groats opened in Encino, I was cautiously thrilled. The West Los Angeles location has a personality that I figured couldn’t be recreated in a new location. Well, my caution was for naught because John O’Groats nailed it in the new spot. I almost think it’s better than the original restaurant. Let’s start with décor. It’s updated and sophisticated, yet the entire restaurant reminds you why you love the original one so much. They even incorporated the famous (at least “famous” to regular patrons) U-Shaped counter that is so loved in the West L.A. location, where you can watch all the action or simply sit back and read the paper over a good cup of coffee.

Plus, gift of all gifts – the restaurant is equipped with personal PURSE HOLDERS! That’s right: every table has a little hook under it to hang your purse. All restaurants in America should take note and follow suit. For that reason alone, you should go to John O'Groats Encino and personally thank the owner for thinking of this.

I should also note that by the time I’d been to the restaurant twice, the owner and the manager (two different people) already knew me and my entire family. Speaking of family, despite occasional trepidation at taking four-month-old Emily to meals in restaurants, I’ve always felt totally comfortable bringing her to John O’Groats in Encino. There is a changing table in the Ladies’ Room, plus two back rooms where you don’t feel abandoned by the restaurant staff, and yet feel okay if your baby decides to break out in sobs because she’s hungry (or wants to be held, or needs a diaper change, or just feels like exercising her lungs).

And the food is scrumptious! I tend to keep it simple with bacon, eggs and fresh-from-the-oven biscuits served with butter and jam. They also have the best steel-cut oatmeal in the city, in addition to sophisticated omelets, scrambles, burgers, salads, sandwiches, and yes, pot pie. (Note: The lunch and dinner menu is just as good as the breakfast one, so don't be misled by the pictures of biscuits and french toast on the restaurant's website)

If you want a treat this weekend, run (don’t walk) to John O’Groats in Encino. Introduce yourself to the owner, Paul. And let me know what you think!

Full of Thanks this Thanksgiving

2009-11-23T07:46:00.000-08:00

I’ve been thinking a lot about what to focus on in my Thanksgiving blog post. Yesterday I queued up my first-ever restaurant review, but I’m saving it for after the holiday because I don’t want it to get lost in the shuffle of turkey recipes and holiday travel-mania. I’ve obviously thought a great deal about how this holiday comes with a big helping of anxiety for those suffering with food issues. But rather than write about the Thanksgiving meal itself (and all the food-related anxiety that can come along with it) as I did last year, I thought I’d take the focus off of the dinner plate and instead share with you what I’m grateful for this year.

And here it is: my list of the top 10 things I’m thanking my lucky stars for as I head up to beautiful Lake Tahoe for the holiday:

• My appetite (and taste buds). After 39 weeks of preggomania, I thought I’d lost both for good, but I didn’t, and they’re BACK!
• My family and friends, and their understanding of all the highs and lows I’ve been experiencing since little Miss Munchkin began her life inside of me at about this time last year.
• Laughter (and the discovery of things like this and this that have kept me laughing even when I couldn’t get Muffin Bunny to stop crying).
• A freezer door full of extra Munchkin Milk.
• The best husband in the world (and his first-class “shushing” skills, exhibited brilliantly during the first few weeks of Emily’s life).
• Looks from Little Miss Munchkin that make time stop, put a smile inside of me that I’ve yet to be able to describe in words….and make me think that maybe, just maybe, I could do this again in a few years.
• A roof over my head, and a job to return to in a week and a half, even though I’m terrified to cut the chord with Little Miss Munchkin during business hours (yes, I broke the rules and put two things in one bullet).
• The cutest belly in the world to look at every day (see above), which reminds me just why we should never have anything but love for our own bodies and bellies.
• This blog, which has helped me stay connected to my identity during a time that I have turned my life over to someone else.
• My readers, who continue to inspire me, reminding me daily why I wrote my book and continue to dig the meaning out of mundane life situations…and write about it here.

You’ll notice that not one item on this list has anything to do with the size of my pants or the calorie count of the beef stew I ate at my mother-in-law’s house last night.

If you’re already feeling weighed down by food anxiety, put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and write out your own list of what you’re grateful for. You might find that all of the life (and food) worries that consume your thoughts melt away into a beautiful pile of gratitude that reminds you just why this life of yours is so damn sweet.

Happy Thanksgiving. And thank you for helping to make mine one to be thankful for.

KCBS-TV Nailed It!

2009-11-18T23:45:00.000-08:00

I have to give a huge shout-out to Lisa Sigell and KCBS-TV for their fabulous story on
orthorexia which just aired during the 11 p.m. newscast. This is such an important topic, and the station nailed it! Not only did the station get the facts right, but it picked up on all the nuances of what is a very complicated issue. Reporting at its best. So...have a look, let me know what you think, share the link with your friends, and continue to tune into KCBS-TV. I am very impressed with the station's top-quality stories. Thank you, Lisa Sigell and KCBS-TV!

A Warm Welcome

2009-11-12T07:00:00.000-08:00

Given all the wonderful feedback I've received both online and off for my reaction to the WCBS-TV piece on orthorexia, I felt it inappropriate to switch focus abruptly and continue posting on my usual topics: food, intuitive eating, body image and even some reflections on my relatively recent entree into mommyhood. Inappropriate because I'm still processing the entire experience and trying to determine whether it's worth it for me to continue to put myself out there in front of the media and risk having my voice completely mis-represented, in the hopes of reaching a few more people with my message.

So while I continue to process the experience and respond to all of the wonderful feedback I've received from new and long-time readers alike, I thought I'd give a warm welcome to all my new visitors. To you I say, WELCOME! Sit back, pour a cup of coffee and dig into some of the thoughts I've poured out onto this site over the last few years. And then, come back soon!

I have lots of posts lined up about some pretty interesting topics, and I have one restaurant review that has been percolating in my head for weeks now -- I'm very excited about it, and just need to find a way to write it in such a way that does justice to how much I love this restaurant.

Anyway, thanks for all the positive feedback to my posts this week (if you've emailed me your reactions, feel free to post your comments next time -- others enjoy seeing all the feedback), welcome to all of you new visitors, and stay tuned -- lots of new posts to follow soon!

Additional Thoughts: Once an Eating Disorder, NOT ALWAYS an Eating Disorder

2009-11-10T21:44:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting on my couch, laptop in lap, thinking about why I feel so unsettled that the WCBS-TV story labeled me "Orthorexic." And I'm realizing that the reason it doesn't sit well with me is because I shed that label many years ago. My entire philosophy and message in my book is that just because you once suffered from an eating disorder does not mean that you always will. I am living, breathing proof that you do not need to carry that label around with you for the rest of your life.

Perhaps the producer(s) at WCBS-TV think of an eating disorder as a disease that comes with a lifelong membership and/or label. But that's not true. My own experience has taught me that is not the case. My sole purpose in writing Eat When You're Hungry and spending nights and weekends authoring this blog and answering emails from people all over the world about intuitive eating, and recovery from lifelong diets, is to help people shed these labels they have given themselves.

I actually just got home from a wonderful dinner with my family to celebrate my mother's birthday. I enjoyed a delicious lamb ragu pasta followed by a fabulous chocolate bread pudding with peanut butter ice cream. I worked hard for many years to be able to get to a place where I could actually enjoy a meal like that guilt-free and data-free (un-learning the calorie and fat count of all of those foods), and yes -- I was successful, and you can be too!

Today I am Maggie Miller, mom, wife, mother, daughter, sister. I eat real food and I don't feel guilty about it. I eat real food and I don't calculate calories, fat or fiber. I'm about as "normal" an eater as you could possibly find now, with virtually no disordered thoughts about food left in my psyche. So to see that title "Maggie Miller, Orthorexic" on screen tonight really surprised me.

Please know, if you are currently suffering with an eating disorder, or simply a seemingly never-ending struggle with body image and/or food, that you can be free from it -- you DON'T have to carry that label with you forever (even if a TV station mistakenly places it next to your name).

All in the Details

2009-11-10T21:10:00.001-08:00

After being interviewed more than a month ago, the story on orthorexia finally aired on WCBS-TV tonight. I must commend WCBS-TV for devoting air-time to such an important topic. However, I am both shaking my head and smiling while I type this: the title the station granted me was "Maggie Miller, Orthorexic." I might have preferred, "Maggie Miller, Author, Coach." I even would have taken "former orthorexic" or "recovered orthorexic."

Sidenote, I never refer to someone as an "orthorexic," "anorexic" or "bulimic." People are more than the issues with which they struggle, so I always refer to people by name and if relevant say that they are suffering with anorexia, bulimia or orthorexia...rather than define them as their eating disorder. But I digress.

That being said, I stand by my words quoted in the story. My life did open up once I finally recovered from disordered eating. I decided that life was more important than having the "perfect" diet. I set out to write "Eat When You're Hungry" with one goal: to help as many people as I possibly could to stop dieting and start living. I hope that despite the incorrect label "Orthorexic," without the word "former" in front of it, my story of recovery will come through and help others who are currently enmeshed in this labyrinth of eating choices.

I hope I remain a living, breathing example to people all over the world of someone who has successfully overcome years of restrictive eating. Remember, eat when you're hungry, stop when you're full and love yourself.

Tune in Tomorrow Night

2009-11-09T11:25:00.000-08:00

Big news at Eat When You're Hungry! I was interviewed back in September by a producer at WCBS-TV in NY for a story she was working on about orthorexia. The story is set to air this Tuesday night during the 11 p.m. newscast. If you're not in New York, you can view the story on the WCBS-TV website. Let's try to get as many people as possible to watch this story on such an important topic. Spread the word, re-tweet my announcement on twitter, and tell your friends to tune in. If you're pleased with the story, email WCBS-TV to thank them for devoting airtime to such an important subject.

(*Disclaimer: I have not seen the story yet, so I'm hoping I'll be pleased with the reporting on orthorexia*)

I'll Bake If I Want To!

2009-11-04T06:00:00.000-08:00

I’ve been having a craving for oat bran-raisin muffins for weeks, and finally had 10 minutes to put my little munchkin down and bake a dozen of them. Because I like to share recipes (and all other things) I love with you here on this blog, I considered snapping a picture of the treats and typing up the recipe. But then my very overtired brain started having a dialogue with itself, wondering if such a post would be a good idea.

“Oat bran is labeled by so many people as a ‘health food,’” I said to myself. “People will think that this anti-diet preacher is a fraud,” I thought. They’ll think that while I say I eat REAL FOODS including the ones with fat inside of them, that really I subsist on fat-free, fiber-filled oat bran, skim milk and dried fruit.

As I’m typing this on my computer (with a bowl of oatmeal by my side) I’m realizing what a ridiculous conversation this was that I had with myself. I blame baby brain.

Now the dialogue in my head is going something like this: “Seriously, Maggie? Because you actually enjoy (er, LOVE….and had a major craving for) something that others label as a ‘health food,’ you think your Eat When You’re Hungry message will be tarnished?”

“Well, yes,” I thought. That is exactly what I was thinking.

But then I came across this blog post talking about delicious foods that have been “hijacked by diet industry hype,” and it got me thinking – I love my oat bran muffins, darnit, and I’m sharing the recipe on my blog!

These muffins are simple and satisfying, and if we’re being honest on this blog (which we are), they really are a raisin delivery device for me. Plus, my hubby can’t stand raisins, so I don’t have to worry about them disappearing from the freezer before I’ve had a chance to get my fill of them.

Anyway, try out the recipe if you want to, but in the meantime, let me know – are there any foods you love that have been “hijacked” by the diet industry?

Oat Bran Raisin Muffins
(Courtesy of Mother’s Oat Bran – side of box recipe)
2 ¼ cups Oat Bran Hot Cereal, uncooked
¼ cup chopped nuts (I omit these and replace with raisins)
¼ cup raisins (I put in quite a bit more than this)
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
¾ cup milk
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1/3 cup honey or molasses
2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Heat oven to 425 degrees. Line 12 medium muffin cups with paper baking cups or spray bottoms only with no-stick cooking spray. Combine dry ingredients; mix well. Add combined milk, eggs, honey and oil; mix just until dry ingredients are moistened. Fill prepared muffin cups ¾ full. Bake 15 to 17 minutes or until golden brown.
1 Dozen

Guest Post: How to Raise an Intuitive Eater

2009-11-02T06:00:00.001-08:00

By Maryann Tomovich Jacobsen, MS, RD

Maryann Tomovich Jacobsen is a registered dietitian, mother of two and creator of www.RaiseHealthyEaters.com, a blog dedicated to providing parents with the most credible nutrition information. You can follow her updates on twitter.

Even though I was born an intuitive eater, I had to work at becoming one as an adult. I wish I could get back the countless hours I spent obsessing about food and weight. And while I’m grateful that I found a way out, I’m determined to spare my children of the experience.

When I first started on this journey I wanted to know the answer to one question: what makes someone eat the way they do? Why do some people listen to their hunger and satiety cues and others ignore them?

I’ve learned that parental feeding strategies have a big impact on a child’s future relationship with food. Because most food learning occurs the first 5 years of life, parents are a child’s most important “food” teacher.

On my blog, www.RaiseHealthyEaters.com, I write about three crucial factors for raising children to eat intuitively. To understand why each is so important, let’s go over each one:

1) How to feed: The most important way to help children create a healthy relationship with food is to work on how you feed them. Remember, children are born with the natural ability to regulate food intake. So focus on feeding strategies that protect their in-born satiety and fullness cues.

Ellyn Satter, dietitian, feeding expert and author of several books, created the Division of Responsibility of feeding. Basically parents decide the “when,” “what,” and “where” of feeding and children decide the “whether” and “how much” of eating. Children know how much food they need – and when parents let them decide how much to eat they learn to listen to their bodies. But if kids are controlled at mealtime, they’ll learn to eat for external reasons instead. Studies show children eat less when pressured and more when food is restricted.

2) What to feed: A parent’s main responsibility in feeding is deciding what their child will eat. Nutrition is important for growing children. For more on nutrition needs at certain ages, see How to Maximize Nutrition at Every Stage.

The goal is to expose your child to a variety of foods including fruits, vegetables, whole and refined grains, dairy, meats, beans, nuts, fats and sweets. Children under 18 months of age don’t have much room for empty calorie foods like ice cream and cookies, but as they get closer to 2 these food can be part of their balanced diet. Studies show that when offered a variety of foods, children will get the nutrition they need.

Why is a dietitian recommending you serve sweet foods? Because studies show that restricting access to such foods causes children to eat more in the absence of hunger. But you also don’t want to offer sweet foods at every meal and snack. Instead, offer them every so often at a regular snack time. But that’s not all – you’ll need to make sure your child can have as much of it as they want.

In her books, Ellyn Satter discusses this idea of scarcity of eating. When children feel they can’t get enough food, especially highly palatable foods like sweets, they will want them even more. That means restricting them to only one cookie when they really want two or three, makes them fixate on these foods more. The bottom line is kids need to learn how to eat all types of foods.

3. Be a positive role model: You can master the how of feeding and provide balanced meals but if you still battle food your child will take notice. I truly believe becoming a parent makes you a better person. The love a mom and dad have for their child is an incredible force that can be channeled into overcoming life-long challenges.

So if don’t have a healthy relationship with food, take steps to work on it. If you’ve been reading Maggie’s blog, you’re already on your way. It starts with listening to you hunger and satiety cues, making feeding yourself a priority (along with your children) and reading some good books including Maggie’s story and Intuitive Eating.

Raising an intuitive eater is not an easy task in today’s world. But if you can focus on the three crucial elements – how to feed, what to feed and being a positive role model – you’ll have it mastered in no time.

Do You Think I'm Fat?

2009-10-30T07:23:00.000-07:00

As a mother of a three-month old baby girl, I guess tears well up pretty easily, but wow. I think this is pretty powerful -- for anyone.

Fat Talk Free Week

2009-10-19T06:10:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again -- Fat Talk Free Week . Watch this video, visit the site, get involved.

Do You Ever Eat Fast Food?

2009-10-13T07:07:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, a producer at WCBS-TV in New York contacted me to discuss a story she was working on about orthorexia. At the conclusion of what turned out to be a two-hour whirlwind of camera tests, lighting adjustments and a wonderful interview about a subject near and dear to my heart, the producer asked me a telling question.

“I know you probably eat very healthfully most of the time, but do you ever, you know, stop at a fast food restaurant on the turnpike,” she asked? “And if you do, do you feel guilty about it?”

Her question made me smile because it reminded me that despite my standing on a soapbox at every opportunity I find to preach “Stop Dieting!” “Stop Labeling Foods as Good or Bad!” people still assume I eat an “extremely healthy diet,” whatever that means to each person who makes the assumption.

My answer to the producer’s question was a resounding, “YES!”…and “NO!”

“Yes, I eat fast food occasionally, and NO I don’t feel guilty about it,” I told her passionately. “My husband and I – and now our baby – drive up to Lake Tahoe fairly regularly and we always stop at In ‘N Out, Wendy’s or whatever other fast food restaurant is available when hunger strikes.

To be clear, I care about health and wellbeing. I’m a trained wellness coach, after all, and as I’ve written in my book, I have genetically high cholesterol (when I went vegan for six months many years ago in an attempt to bring it down, my cholesterol actually went up), that I must monitor and ultimately treat.

Having a baby has also made me care about my health more than I have at any other time in my life because I want to be there every step of the way for my girl – on the sidelines at soccer games, from the front row of piano recitals and on the sofa at home when tears pour out of a broken heart.

However, I believe very strongly that emotional, spiritual and psychological health are just as important as physical health. You can have the healthiest diet in the world and be quite unhealthy (case in point: orthorexia). To the contrary, we’ve all watched interviews with enthusiastic 103-year-olds who gloat that one of their secrets to living so long was enjoying a bowl of ice cream every day.

Given my focus on eating real food in lieu of “food products” filled with chemicals, I can understand the assumption that I eat quite healthfully much of the time, and yes, I guess that’s actually true. But I also eat foods that have no (or very little) nutritional value whatsoever. I enjoy the tastes that dance around my mouth as I eat these foods (I’m still talking about the peanut-butter cookie dough ice cream I discovered at Ben & Jerry’s over a month ago). Sometimes these foods make my body feel good, and sometimes they don’t.

Saturday, for instance, on vacation in Palm Desert, I started the day with a big bowl of oatmeal and coffee, which I enjoyed thoroughly. At lunch I ordered a chicken sandwich, French fries and a salad from the poolside cafe. The food at lunch was marginal, but I was hungry, so I ate quite a bit of the salad (it was the best part of the meal) and all of the chicken. I skipped the bun because I didn’t like it at all, and that left room for me to eat all of my French fries, which I did. Feeling unsatisfied after this meal, I changed the flavor in my mouth by chewing a sugary piece of watermelon-flavored gum a friend of mine offered me back at the pool.

Did I enjoy my lunch? No, not particularly. Did I enjoy the company of my family as I ate it? Absolutely. Did I feel sad that I didn’t have a sybaritic meal? Yes, a little bit. Did I feel guilty about the French fries? Not in the least. Was I looking forward to preparing homemade lunches when I returned from vacation? Yes, though I knew I’d miss the desert air I enjoyed so much over the weekend.

Life is about choices, and I chose many years ago to let go of the guilt I used to feel about food. I never thought that would be possible so many years ago when I struggled through orthorexic behaviors, and it took many years to fully let it go. But I can honestly tell you now that my guilt about food is gone.

When I eat ice cream I enjoy every bite, without a dollop of guilt on top.

I tell you this both as a way to address the assumption about my “healthy eating” and to celebrate full recovery from disordered eating. I am living, breathing proof that the saying “once an eating disorder always an eating disorder” is not true. You can heal from encaging food thoughts and behaviors.

Keep your eyes open for the WCBS-TV story on orthorexia, and write to the station to thank them for devoting airtime to such an important subject matter. I’ll be the first to let you know when it airs.

Favorite Product of the Week: POM Wonderful

2009-10-12T07:54:00.000-07:00

I recently started a Favorite Product of the Week series, with the intention of sharing information about (real) food products I love.

I guess the folks at POM Wonderful have been reading these posts, as they recently sent me some of their juice. I have to say, with the exception of my pregnancy-induced cravings for grapefruit juice and my post-partum cravings for cranberry juice, I’m not usually much of a juice drinker.

My hubby, on the other hand, is. His favorites are orange juice with lots of pulp, and for about the last year or so, POM Wonderful. When POM contacted me, I asked my husband what made him start drinking the juice. “I wanted to start drinking something full of antioxidants,” he said. Because the juice is so strong, he mixes about one part juice to three parts water, pours it over ice and drinks a large glass of it almost every day.

Given Jeremy’s positive reaction to the juice, when POM Wonderful contacted me with free product I gave it a whirl. And you know what? It’s pretty tasty juice. I’ve had a little shot-glass full of the stuff every morning for a few days now, and it’s a nice way to start my day. I don’t know that I’ll continue drinking it every day like Jeremy does, as it’s pretty strong, and I actually don’t like the watered down version quite as much. But for now, I’m enjoying the juice.

As you know, I don’t get too caught up in health claims of any particular food (or drink). But POM Wonderful does appear to be made from real pomegranates, it’s tasty, and now my hubby and I can toast each other’s good health each morning with our glass of magenta juice.

If you’re looking to give your taste buds a new flavor to explore (the taste is quite distinctive), give it a try. I think you can buy the juice in most supermarkets.

Intuitive Eating: A Case Study

2009-09-30T08:44:00.000-07:00

In case you missed my tweet earlier this week, I want to direct your attention to an important piece from Elyse Resch, co-author of Intuitive Eating. In The Sadness of Saying “Enough,” Elyse takes us through a case study of how intuitive eating was used to help one teenager acknowledge and heal from emotional eating.

If you have questions about how intuitive eating "works," or just want to learn more about it, I urge you to read this thoughtful piece. When you're done, let me know what you think.

Mommy Knows Best (and so do you)

2009-09-28T08:02:00.001-07:00

Pregnancy taught me a lot. Not just about my life and goals, my emotions, fears and joys, but yes, about food too. As I wrote about in Cry When You’re Hungry, when I was pregnant food didn’t taste particularly good to me. The nausea subsided after about 3-4 months, but until July 16 when my daughter was born, eating was a bit of a chore, and one that often made me feel at least slightly sick to my stomach.

Then a fabulous thing happened – I gave birth.

In addition to meeting and subsequently falling in love with my daughter, I also got reacquainted with my taste buds. Since this blog is about food and not about motherhood (though I guess it’s becoming more about both these days), I’ll stick with the food lessons here.

As soon as I was allowed to eat real food after the birth of Emily I did, and it tasted DELICIOUS WITH A CAPITAL D. The only way I can describe it is to say that my taste buds blossomed after being in hibernation for 10 months. When I say food tasted delicious (and it still does!), I mean every morsel that went into my mouth gave each taste bud a big, fat hug on the way down.

In the first days and weeks after delivering Emily, I had intense cravings for cranberry juice. I have no idea why, but I drank it by the bucket-full it seemed, and enjoyed every sip (and gulp). As soon as that craving mellowed out, I recognized – and have been honoring ever since – a very hearty appetite for meat.

Just last week my mother-in-law prepared the most delicious Julie & Julia inspired beef bourguignon with roasted potatoes I’ve ever had (actually, I think it’s the only time I’ve had the dish, but I’ll gladly eat it again). I enjoyed every mouthful. While I never used to order roast beef sandwiches, I’m now proud to say that I know the best one in the city. I also crave broiled chicken breasts, chicken salad sandwiches, zucchini, roasted carrots, asparagus, beef burgers, turkey burgers, mango, espresso and chocolate. I’m enjoying all real foods that I used to love but had no taste for throughout my entire pregnancy.

What’s intuitive about this? I just think it’s interesting that after 40 weeks with absolutely no taste for protein, it’s taken center stage on my plate for the last 10 weeks. Not because a doctor prescribed it, and not because I think I should be eating it, but because that’s what my body is craving. Intensely.

And then there’s oatmeal. Ever since I returned home from the hospital all I’ve wanted for breakfast is a big bowl of oatmeal with sliced bananas on top. I keep thinking I’ll crave eggs for breakfast again soon, or yogurt and fruit….a blueberry muffin, perhaps, but no. In 10 weeks, it hasn’t happened.

What’s so interesting to me about my taste for oatmeal is what I learned recently in my mommy and me class: oatmeal is said to increase milk production. I don’t know if this is true or simply an old wives tale, but as you can see from the picture above (those are bags of stored milk in our freezer), I’ve got enough milk to open my own store: Maggie’s Milk for Munchkins.

Who knows why I’m so into oatmeal these days, or if my meat craving is my body’s way of making up for the lack of it in my diet for so many months. But I say it’s no coincidence. I say my body knew exactly what it needed to produce a hefty milk supply, and sent me signals of what foods would help generate the most efficient “production line.”

Lesson learned? Our bodies possess an inner wisdom. They know what they need to eat to function properly. Pregnancy and now nursing has magnified this lesson for me in a beautiful (and delicious) way. Do you have any good examples of this in your life? If so, please do share.

Favorite Product of the Week: Wolfgang Puck Tortilla Soup

2009-09-18T11:52:00.001-07:00

**Disclaimer: I am writing this post in a very rushed manner, but if I don't do it now, it won't happen. So please excuse any and all grammatical errors. On that note, let's just keep this disclaimer for all posts from here on out. Such is my life with a 9-week old baby, who, if you care to know, I am totally in love with**

I have a thing for tortilla soup. I love it, but I only love a certain kind of tortilla soup. It has to have a thick red broth, not a clear broth you can see through. It’s got to have some spice and it just has to be good. One of the best tortilla soups I ever had was a special on the menu at The Abbey in West Hollywood. I really wish that restaurant would put the soup back on the menu as a staple. It’s that good.

I’ve also never been able to find a recipe for the kind of tortilla soup I love. I just had to eat it at restaurants when I was lucky enough to spot it on the menu.

I also have a very strong dislike for most canned soups. I have yet to taste one that was actually worth eating. Until today. As I was rushing through the aisles of Gelson’s earlier this week between feedings (all of my errands must now take place between the end of one feeding for my bambina, and the start of the next one), I came across a display of Wolfgang Puck soups. Given that I have no time these days to cook much beyond what can be broiled or baked in the oven while I’m doing something else (changing diapers, trying to ease my little girl into a nice nap, or feeding her), I thought, what the heck. I’ll give it a try.

And let me just say, “I’m so excited!!!!” Wolfgang Puck’s tortilla soup is GOOD! Really good. It’s exactly the kind I like, and it is definitely restaurant quality. It bears no resemblance to the airplane-food-quality of nearly every other canned soup I’ve ever eaten. I just ate an entire can of it along with a chicken salad sandwich (I have a VERY healthy appetite these days with the nursing) and it was delicious!

Okay, my munchkin is calling. More later, but check out this soup and let me know what you think!

What If You Could Eat Anything?

2009-09-02T07:58:00.001-07:00

What if you could eat anything you wanted? It’s a question that intuitive eating skeptics ask often. “If I could eat anything I wanted, I’d weigh [fill in the blank] pounds,” some say. “I’d eat ice cream all day long.” “All I’d eat is cheeseburgers.”

“Really?” I want to ask in response. But instead, I usually say, “Try it.” An awkward silence ensues. “I’m serious,” I say. “Give yourself unconditional permission to eat whatever you want – chocolate, cheeseburgers, pizza, ice cream, whatever your ‘scary’ food is.”

People rarely take me up on this suggestion, but I wish they would. If they did, they’d see that giving oneself unconditional permission to eat anything, anytime, really does lead, ultimately, to balanced eating. This lesson was reinforced recently when I had my wisdom teeth pulled. (Yes, I had to be put out to have all four wisdom teeth pulled a month after giving birth – luckily, I had a hefty milk supply in my freezer at home for my munchkin – more on that later).

After the big extraction, the nurse in the dentist’s office told me to only eat soft foods for the first few days – ice cream, pudding, yogurt, chicken broth, etc. “Can I eat oatmeal or cottage cheese?” I asked, hoping for permission to eat something with protein (cottage cheese) and something that wasn’t sweet (oatmeal). Her eyebrows raised and her lips puckered up in disappointment. “Mmmm, probably not for the first few days, but see how you do.”

Not one to break the rules, I stocked up on everything she suggested. Keeping in mind there is only so much chicken broth one can eat, I was pretty much stuck with sweet foods. And I have to say, from the moment I started “eating,” if you could call it that, all I wanted was oatmeal, a plate of eggs and a nice piece of chicken (not all at once).

I’m quite certain that if I was told I couldn’t eat dairy, all I’d want was ice cream, a warm latte or a bowl of yogurt and fruit. This is how our minds work. If we’re told to limit a particular food from our diet, that’s all we’ll crave. And if we’re told we can eat as much of something as we’d like (yes, even ICE CREAM), we’re generally going to get sick of it very quickly.

So, the wisdom from getting my wisdom teeth extracted: give yourself permission to eat what you want, when you want it when you’re hungry. And stop when you’re satisfied. Doesn’t get much simpler than that.

Putting the Fork (or Spoon) Down

2009-08-06T08:43:00.001-07:00

About a month and a half ago I traded in gelato for apricots on a warm summer evening, when all I wanted was a delicious frozen dessert. “How is that intuitive,” you ask? Read on.

Jeremy and I had just finished one of the most delicious Thai dinners we’d had all year, and though it was satisfying, we wanted to cap it off with an equally tasty dessert. We saved room for it, and eagerly made our way to our neighborhood’s newest dessert shop, which I’ll leave nameless just in case they are having early opening product snafus. (I don’t want to give them a bad name if their product improves)

When we walked into said nameless dessert shop on Ventura Boulevard, we strolled through the entire store just admiring the design, décor and concept. It was part old-fashioned ice-cream parlor and part candy store. I was in heaven – already picturing many evening trips to this place, hubby on one arm, Baby Miller on the other. The store serves gelato (one of my personal favorites), frozen yogurt, candy and an assortment of baked goods – cookies, cakes, cupcakes, you name it.

Wonderful idea. Bad execution.

Jeremy ordered a frozen yogurt, which he got to serve to himself (part of the fun), and I ordered gelato. We sat at a table outside to enjoy our desserts and one of our quickly evaporating nights out as a couple before our little Emily arrived. But then we tasted our treats. After about three or four bites, I put my spoon down and gave it to Jeremy.

“Does this taste funny to you?” I asked, wondering if it was my highly sensitive pregnancy taste buds playing a trick on me or if the gelato was simply not good.

“Yeah, it’s gross,” he said after taking a cautious bite. “And my yogurt is disgusting, too.” We each took a few more small bites, in the hopes of our desserts magically improving, but they didn’t. Being extremely pregnant, and having my heart set on a frozen dessert, I suggested we bail on the $8 worth of bad gelato/yogurt currently melting on the table between us, and go to Baskin Robbins.

Because you can’t turn down a pregnant woman’s request for ice cream, my hubby started driving us to our local shop. Just as we were about to pass the turnoff for home, I said, “You know what? I don’t think I want it anymore. That gelato kind of ruined my craving for ice cream.”

He felt the same way, so we headed home, where I found, to my delight, two delicious looking (and tasting) apricots sitting in our fruit bowl. Needless to say, that was my dessert and it was more satisfying than ice cream ever could have been at that moment, post gross-gelato.

Intuitive Eating Takeaways:

- Eat when you’re hungry, stop when you’re full, and certainly stop when something doesn’t taste good. It’s all too easy to eat an entire meal (often past fullness) in the hopes that the next bite will be satisfying, when in actuality, it’s not.

- Give yourself permission to eat your favorite foods. Unconditionally. Because I knew I could go to Baskin Robbins anytime I desired, I was able to listen to my body and change course, trading in a chocolate-peanut butter cone for two apricots. (When my taste for ice cream returned a few days later, we did make our way to Baskin Robbins, and I ordered my cone)

Top 10 Signs I’m A New (and Very Sleep-Deprived) Mom

2009-07-30T09:05:00.000-07:00

As I ring in a key milestone today – our little Emily turning 2 weeks old – I thought it appropriate to encapsulate a list of the top 10 signs that I am a brand new and very sleep-deprived mom. This list isn’t exactly about eating when you’re hungry or listening to your body (I’m doing the former, but not the latter, given that all my body is saying now is GET SOME SLEEP), but I find the following list worth posting anyway.

Most of these things (minus number 6, which brought my husband and I to the ground in laughter the first time it happened) have not been funny in the moment of impact, but in retrospect, I guess they are fairly comedic. Here goes….

1. Boob Lube. My entire life now revolves around two sources of food sitting atop my chest – and the care (read, expensive products) that goes into keeping my girls happy, healthy and producing milk for my munchkin, is beyond anything I’d ever imagined.

2. Dead Car Battery. Earlier this week, I discovered that my car battery was dead after gearing up for over an hour to get out of the house for one errand (to which my mom was going to drive me, as I can’t get behind the wheel yet). Reason for dead battery – light was left on (by sleep-deprived mommy) in the backseat.

3. Meals A-Flying. Last night, all I wanted was broiled chicken breasts, green beans and biscuits and I was determined that 13 days into motherhood, I could pull this off. I will commend myself for pulling it off (and the end result was surprisingly delicious), but that was after I literally dropped the chicken and the pyrex pan in which it was sitting, into the stove. The pan ended up face down on the open oven door, with the raw chicken breasts slammed against the oven window. Hubby was called in for the rescue, and the meal was saved.

4. SYTYCD….the 24-hour show. It now takes me at least 24 hours to get through one episode of my favorite show, So You Think You Can Dance.

5. DVD Pause Button Wearing Down. During the last two weeks, our DVD player has taken on a new function – teaching us what the heck we’re doing with various baby products. At the end of week 1, my hubby and I were on hands and knees with our munchkin atop one of her many swaddle blankets (see image above), watching the Luna Lullaby DVD explaining how to swaddle appropriately. We had a lovely orchestra of screaming adorable-munchkin to help set the mood, and we paused after each step was taught to practice it ourselves. One week later, Emily is sleeping soundly in a top-notch double-swaddle as mommy writes this post.

6. Projectile Poop. I’ve now officially caught in my hand both poop and barf. That alone qualifies for a good present for my first mother’s day next year.

7. White Noise = One of Life’s Biggest Joys. That’s right, the white noise maker we bought on Amazon during week 1 is definitely up there on my list of favorite products. It helps during the swaddling process to calm our munchkin…..which in turn helps keep mommy and daddy sane.

8. Diaper Diva. Yes, our little girl is a diaper diva. Her first 24 hours at home filled an entire Diaper Genie II with dirty diapers.

9. New Vocabulary. Most frequently used words include: swaddle, wet, swaddle, dirty, swaddle, hungry, swaddle, poop, swaddle. Get my drift?

10. Love Takes On New Meaning. It baffles my mind that I can love someone so much and so unconditionally, particularly given that this someone poops and barfs on me, keeps me up all night long and produces the above top 10 list. But I guess that’s how parenthood works. I’m in love with my little girl. And that’s that.

Cry When You’re Hungry

2009-07-28T10:57:00.000-07:00

Hi there. Sorry I’ve been away for some time. I was off having a baby! That’s right. I haven’t blogged about being pregnant, though I might still write about the experience, as so many different food and body image issues arise during pregnancy.

Two of the most prominent for me were the following:

1. Food grossed me out. Food never tasted quite the same to me when I was cooking our little bun in my oven. People often asked me if I had any weird food cravings, and aside from milk and grapefruit juice, which I couldn’t get enough of during the first six months, the answer was mainly no. Way more bizarre to me was the long list of foods I normally love that I just could not stomach during pregnancy.

2. My body became a conversation topic – anywhere and everywhere I went. It’s a good thing I am in a healthy place with body image, because the moment I became pregnant, my body – it’s size, shape, growth or lack thereof, was on the table for discussion. Publicly. And now that I’m not pregnant anymore, it actually still seems to be. Quotes from the last 12 days include: “Wow, your belly really went down since yesterday!” “How long will it take for you to not look pregnant anymore?” Said over laughter, "You still look pregnant!" (hysterical, right?) And my personal favorite, “Why do you still look pregnant?” Hmmm, let me think for a moment -- because I had a baby 12 days ago? Just a guess.

Anyway, all sarcasm aside, I am now a very proud mommy to my little pumpkin. And though this blog is not about pregnancy or babies, it’s all a part of who I am now, so I thought I’d better make the announcement here.

Plus, I have a sense my little girl is going to have a lot to teach us all about intuitive eating and listening to our bodies. During the past 12 days I’ve already learned volumes about what intuitive eating looks like in babies.

It’s called CRYING. And lots of it until you give them that milk. Sometimes it takes my husband and me an hour to figure out that – though she just had a great feeding an hour prior– our little pumpkin is still hungry. And the moment mommy gives her some milk, she’s calm as can be.

So…..here’s to intuitive eating from birth. More regular blog posts (including some, perhaps, about pregnancy and about the intuitive eaters present in all of us from birth) to come when I have a little more sleep in my system.

To the right....pregnant Maggie, and Mommy Maggie with Baby.

Buttermilk Biscuits, Anyone?

2009-07-16T07:04:00.000-07:00

In honor of the weekend, which is almost here, I thought I’d post the recipe for my favorite homemade buttermilk biscuits. I discovered this recipe sandwiched between 300+ pages of a wonderful book called The French Don’t Diet Plan. Please don’t be scared off by the word “plan” in the title. I realize that word can suggest this book is actually a “diet plan,” even if it’s being marketed as a “don’t diet plan.”

While I don’t recommend this book to the novice intuitive eater, I do recommend it to people who have truly made peace with food, and are looking to explore their palates even further. It offers a nice glimpse into the “French paradox,” and I find it a refreshing reminder of the importance of finding pleasure in eating. I also enjoy re-reading it after any particularly annoying experience of hearing someone tell me something is “fattening” or “caloric” or you-name-it.

Anyway, like the book or not (I really enjoyed the read, and many subsequent re-reads), these biscuits are sure to make any morning a good one. If you have time this weekend, I highly recommend you preheat your oven to 475 and enjoy the aroma that fills your home as these wonderful biscuits puff up in the oven.

“Somebody’s Buttermilk Biscuits”
Courtesy of The French Don’t Diet Plan

You’ll Need

2 cups all-purpose flour
Pinch of baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 ¼ cups buttermilk
2 tablespoons unsalted butter

In a Large Mixing Bowl

Mix the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, salt, and baking powder). Then mix the wet ingredients (oil and buttermilk) into the dry ingredients. You can either stir them around with a wooden spoon, use a food processor, or knead it with your hands until the dough is nice and smooth. If your hands get a bit sticky from the wet dough, just dust a bit of flour on them. (NOTE: This dough is very wet! I usually add a tiny bit more flour to make it easier to handle. But don’t worry if the dough seems too wet. It probably isn’t).

Preheat the over to 475 degrees.

On a Cutting Board

Sprinkle with flour and set the dough on it. Knead it a few times to increase the fluffiness you can expect from the biscuits when they come out of the oven. The dough picks up flour from the board; make sure it takes on just enough to be soft but not sticky.

Form the dough into a round that’s about ½-inch thick. Use the open end of a small glass to cut the biscuits.

Dab the glass in flour periodically or it’ll get sticky from the wet flour on the inside of the dough. The biscuits don’t have to be perfectly round, and you can mold them into any shape you want. Put them in a 9-inch baking pan or large iron skillet so they’re snug one next to the other. Once they are all packed in, cut a sliver of butter to place over the top of each.

Bake for about 14 minutes (my oven runs “cool,” so they take a bit longer for me). When you smell them and the tops are golden, take them out and enjoy.

Favorite Product of the Week: Bonne Maman Strawberry Preserves

2009-07-15T07:02:00.000-07:00

I like to eat real food, and I like to make it myself when I can. But I’m also a full-time working woman writing a blog during my “free time,” and still trying to be the best wife, daughter, sister and friend that I can be. As you can imagine, this leaves little time for cooking. So when I find a product that tastes like I (or better yet, my mom) made it, and the ingredients are easily pronounceable and appear to be things I could purchase myself in the grocery store, I get very excited.

That happened this week, so I have to share it with you here.

My favorite product of the week is Bonne Maman Strawberry Preserves. Not surprisingly, this is a product of France. It comes in an adorable jar that looks like your grandmother jarred it herself. The ingredients are what you’d expect to find in strawberry preserves and it tastes like it was made fresh from the strawberry farm and jarred just for you!

Before the weekend, I will try to post one of my favorite recipes that makes a scrumptious bed for these preserves.

Pork Cutlets with Mustard Sauce

2009-07-11T12:59:00.000-07:00

“Maggie, what do you eat on a daily basis,” people often ask me when they first learn about Eat When Your’e Hungry. “Give me some of your real food recipes.” Well, I’m just as busy as the next person in this 24-hour/day nonstop working world, but when I do find the time to cook a meal worth sharing, I guess I really should start posting the recipes here. These are tried and true Maggie favorites: easy and delicious, and always made with real food (rather than food-like-substances).

Here goes. This is a recipe we made last week and one that has become almost a weekly staple. It’s a cinch to make and tastes like a meal you’d eat at a fancy restaurant. As you can see from the picture, we often make it with roasted potatoes and either broccoli or asparagus. Bonus points for you if you see the heart-shaped potato on my hubby’s plate.

Try this recipe when you feel like putting on your chef’s hat. You’ll be so impressed with yourself after making this dish, you may even feel inspired to buy the entire cookbook.

Pork Cutlets with Mustard Sauce
Courtesty of Food Made Fast: Weeknight (Williams-Sonoma)

Boneless center-cut pork loin chops, 4, each about 6 oz
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Mustard seeds, 1 tablespoon
Unsalted butter, 3 tablespoons
Shallots, 2, minced (chopped frozen onions are also A-OK)
Dry white wine, 1/3 cup
Chicken broth, 1/3 cup
Heavy (double) cream, 1/3 cup
Honey Dijon mustard, 2 tablespoons

1. Cook the pork

Season the pork chops with salt, pepper, and the mustard seeds, patting them firmly into the meat. In a large frying pan over medium-high heat, melt the butter. Working in batches if necessary, add the pork chops and cook, turning once, until golden on the outside and barely pink in the center, about 8 minutes total. Transfer to a plate.

2. Make the sauce

Add the shallots to the drippings in the pan, reduce the heat to medium, and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Add the wine and broth, stir, and cook, scraping up the browned bits on the pan bottom, for about 1 minute. Add the cream and mustard and cook, stirring, until smooth and bubbly, about 1 minute. Return the pork and any juices from the plate to the pan. Simmer until the pork is heated through, about 1 minute. Season to taste with salt and pepper

Eat When You're Hungry Now At Amazon

2009-06-27T16:39:00.000-07:00

After many requests from friends and strangers alike for hard copies of Eat When You're Hungry, I'm happy to report that the book is now available on Amazon! What's most gratifying about seeing my book on the "shelf" at Amazon is that it now has the potential to reach an even broader audience. When I first put fingers to keyboard and set out on this Eat When You're Hungry journey, my goal was simple -- to help as many people as I possibly could to stop dieting and start living. That remains my goal today, and thanks to the wonder of the Internet, I'm reaching more people every day.

Go check out my hard copy book, share the link with friends and family, and if/once you've read the book, consider writing a review.

Happy eating (and reading)!

Food, Inc.

2009-06-21T13:49:00.000-07:00

Last night I saw a film that I recommend you see ASAP – before it’s out of theaters. It’s called Food, Inc. If it’s not in a theater near you, put it on your Blockbuster or Netflix list for when it comes out on DVD. And in the meantime, you can learn more about the film and the issues it explores here.

I can’t believe it, but I hadn’t heard of this film before last night, when my husband and I were looking for a movie to see. We were planning to see a fun summer flick, but when I saw the title “Food, Inc.” our plans changed. Rotten tomatoes gave it at 96 percent on its tomatometer, so that should speak for itself.

And don’t worry – this isn’t a holier-than-thou film professing the “perfect” diet or suggesting anything negative about meat-eaters (you know I wouldn’t support anything like that). It’s a holistic look at the food industry, food safety issues and a number of larger policy and socioeconomic issues.

Let me know if you see it, and tell me what you think!

What I Learned from a Bag of Pretzels

2009-05-19T07:07:00.000-07:00

As you might have guessed from the picture, this is a post about peanut butter pretzels. Yes, I’m digging deep to keep this blog updated and offer you some sane, non-diet, intuitive eating insight at least on a weekly basis. Which leads me to write today’s post about, yes, peanut butter pretzels.

I used to salivate just looking at these puffed pretzels sprinkled with salt and filled with one of my favorite foods – peanut butter. I don’t buy the pretzels all that often because I’m not a big salty-snack snacker. I tend to gravitate towards sweet things – fruit, biscotti, or a buttery Madeleine cookie. But, my tastes change on occasion and sometimes I want salty.

That was certainly the case during the peanut butter scare a number of months ago, when all I seemed to want was salty peanut butter filled pretzels from Trader Joe’s. Not being able to eat them (because of the PB scare) made them even more enticing to me, so once I felt they were safe I bought a bag. Not long after I dipped my hand into the bag of what some would call a “very dangerous” snack (more on that later), I got very sick of the pretzels and haven’t been able to enjoy them since.

How did I tire of such a delightful snack so quickly? Here’s how it happened. It was Sunday afternoon, and a few hours after a delicious breakfast with Jeremy, I left home to meet my mom and sister for a bit of shopping. Given that I’d had a late breakfast, I wasn’t hungry for lunch, but I knew if I didn’t eat anything until dinner I’d be famished and cranky, possibly with a headache. So I packed a large Ziploc bag full of the pretzels, and put it in my purse along with a string cheese in case I got hungry on the road. Which I did.

As you can imagine, all I had to eat was my string cheese and PB pretzels. I enjoyed probably about the first 20 or so pretzels, but mid-way through the bag, I noticed that I was forcing myself to eat them, simply to alleviate growing hunger pangs.

I discovered on that afternoon that, delicious as they are, pretzels of any kind do not a meal make.

Fast forward about a month or so. I was at work late one night last week, fully immersed in a research project. I was growing very hungry for dinner, but I didn’t want to leave the office because I was not sure if I’d be able to re-enter the zone of productivity I was in at that moment, hunger pangs and all. The only snack I had with me was, you guessed it – that same bag of peanut butter pretzels I’d longed for during the PB scare…..yes, that one bag of pretzels had been sitting on my desk at work for weeks, untouched after opening it to get my through my afternoon shopping excursion with Mom and Big Sis.

Once again, I forced myself to eat the pretzels simply to ward off a headache and growing hunger pangs. I guess they sort of did the trick, but I didn’t enjoy one of them, and they kind of ruined my late dinner once I finally got home. As I sat at my computer, plowing through research, I begrudgingly ate one pretzel at a time, not enjoying the experience one bit.

When I got home from work that night – the remaining PB pretzels in hand – Jeremy looked at them and his eyes grew large, filled with that warm-fuzzy look you get when thinking about your mom’s jelly toast that no one made quite as well as she did (or whatever food it is that “does” it for you).

Just days later, when my parents were at our place to help us move furniture, we were literally walking out the door to dinner, and my mom spotted the pretzels. “Can I have just a few?” she asked with the look of a child caught awake way past her bedtime. “Of course!” I said, “Help yourself.” She and Jeremy then commiserated about how you can’t ever eat just one of those pretzels. “They’re addictive, and very dangerous,” Jeremy said. “I can’t buy them or I’ll eat them all in one sitting,” said my mom. “I know! I asked Maggie to keep them out of the house or I’d eat the entire bag.”

Well, I’ve got news for my hubbie, my mom….and you. The pretzels lose their allure (or “danger”) when you give yourself unconditional permission to eat them. Without judgement. Or shame. Or a slap on the wrist. But be careful – if you’re like me and make your previously mouth watering snack into a makeshift meal on a shopping spree, you may never want to eat it again.

Intuitive Eating -- For Real

2009-05-10T16:56:00.000-07:00

Two Sunday mornings ago, all I wanted for breakfast was berries – strawberries, blackberries and blueberries, ideally with yogurt and granola, and a buttery croissant on the side.

We were all out of fruit at home, and our favorite dive diner has delicious eggs, but yogurt parfait isn’t on the menu. As we laid in bed thinking of where to go, we decided on Coral Tree Café. There’s one not too far from our place, and actually we’d never been there together for breakfast.

On our way there, windows open, the air so perfect it hugged every finger floating out the window, we noticed that Cheesecake Factory was serving breakfast! This caught our attention because CF has a big patio and the day was just so yummy that we wanted to take it all in by eating outside. So right then and there our journey to Coral Tree derailed.

Big mistake. Good weather aside, we should have stuck to our original plan. Sorry, Cheesecake Factory, we've enjoyed many delicious dinners at your restaurants, but your breakfast was awful. I’m not sure how you can make eggs so tasteless, and when I asked if I could get strawberries instead of bacon with my eggs, the waitress said, “We don’t have any fruit.” Seriously? Seriously. No fruit for Sunday brunch. I could write a very long post about how disgusting our breakfast was, but I’ll spare you. All I’ll say is that sitting on the patio in beautiful southern California weather didn’t make up for the pathetic breakfast we begrudgingly made our way through.

I share this story with you because I want you to know that every meal isn’t going to be perfect. Some meals may be so dissatisfying that you stop eating them with hunger pangs still in your belly. Other meals will be so disappointing that you’ll want to stop mid-way through, but you won’t because you’re hungry and there’s food in front of you, and you have to get to Costco, get the kids fed and bathed, finish a PPT and put the next meal on the table. So you eat it.

And if you’re like me two weekends ago, it may very well ruin your entire morning. In fact, my mood didn’t turn around until about 3 in the afternoon…….when I got home from the store with a palette of strawberries, a container of blackberries, my favorite yogurt and a new box of granola. Guess what I ate for breakfast every day last week?

So, just remember that even a “seasoned” intuitive eater like myself sometimes has gross food. And sometimes it even ruins my day. But, it’s all a part of this journey. Every meal is a learning experience. You’ll notice that my disappointing meal at CF did not lead me into a binge-fest (though it did lead to a week’s worth of yogurt parfaits for breakfast, and I enjoyed every bite!).

One other little nugget for all those nay-sayers out there who say, “Intuitive eating? Doesn’t that mean you can eat anything you want? All I’d ever eat is donuts and cheeseburgers!” Guess what, sometimes all you’ll want is fresh fruit.

Intuitive Eating Audio: Must Listen!

2009-05-01T17:38:00.000-07:00

If you're looking for yet another tool to help you break free from the diet mentality, I strongly urge you to buy the recently-released Intuitive Eating audio CDs. If you've already read Intuitive Eating in print, don't think this is the same thing. It's not. I think it's best used as a companion to the book.

As I said in my review of the CDs on amazon, having worked with people struggling to break free from the diet mentality (and having done so myself many years ago), I can honestly say this CD-set is a must-have! I recommend Intuitive Eating (print edition) to people regularly and now I recommend this as well. Elyse and Evelyn are on the top of their game in these CDs. They both share so much wisdom, passion and clarity about food and body image -- you can't help but to feel at peace -- and energized -- just listening to the CDs. Their philosophy just makes so much sense, and it works.

If you're looking to break free from the diet mentality, and make peace with food and with yourself, listen to this CD set and practice the exercises. You won't be disappointed.

Open Letter to Oprah

2009-04-30T21:39:00.000-07:00

Dear Oprah,

I Tivo your show every day and reference it almost as often in my daily life. I think you are truly an inspiration, though I know that sounds cliché. In fact, it is because of my great respect for you, that I’ve hesitated writing this open letter to you for some time. However, after today’s show, “Why Kirstie Alley Fell Off the Wagon,” I must put my fingers to the keyboard and get out my thoughts.

You said today, as you have said many times this year, that you can’t believe you’re still talking about weight. With all due respect, then stop talking about weight!

If you can truly stop talking about weight, you will find that your issues with weight will melt away (often along with the weight itself). But you can’t focus on that last part – the weight. You just can’t. And unfortunately, though I know you know “it’s not about the weight,” you’re still focusing on it during your shows [insert flashy teaser of “World’s Best Dieter” who has gained and lost 3,000 pounds over his lifetime].

Despite so many weight-loss/gain shows, I know you get – profoundly – that "it" is not about food, weight or diets. I know you do. And your wisdom on that subject snuck out, even during today’s show that was purely about weight loss and gain.

You wisely asked Kirstie if the bikini has to be the goal. You reminded Kirstie that it’s not about comparing yourself to someone else’s body (thank you).

Oprah, you get that this is a journey about health, and you get that health means emotional, spiritual and physical health. You understand better than many other people that “it” is not about weight or food.

But sadly, your show continues to be about weight and food. We’ve seen close-ups of your meal plan(s), we’ve listened to Dr. Oz review caloric information with vulnerable kids who want to lose weight, we’ve looked through the pages of “Eat This, Not That” and been reminded too many times that “It’s not about the food, so choose the good foods.” That just doesn’t work.

Stick with your guns. This is NOT about food. There are much more important issues that should pave the road of this journey for every single person on it. Issues of worth and love, emotional hunger, joy, sadness, fear. Feelings. True, real-life, don’t-always-feel-good feelings. That’s what this journey is about. It’s not about the cheesecake (eat it if you love it). And it’s not about organic strawberries (eat them if you love them – but do so from a place of pleasure rather than from a place of deprivation or self-righteousness).

Oprah, if you truly are committed to changing the conversation about weight, I urge you to stop focusing your show on weight. Stop producing flashy teasers of weight loss and weight gain stories. You have offered so, so much to this world, and I’d love to see you help our nation change the conversation around diets (which are proven to result in weight gain in the long term) and weight.

If you’re looking for an alternative to attention-grabbing weight-loss (gain) stories, please, please, please consider devoting an entire hour-long show to Intuitive Eating. And start with the co-authors of the book. There is so much wisdom between the pages of that book and in the minds of the nutritionists who created this non-diet approach that is helping – even saving lives of – people all over the world.

With an overflowing sense of respect,

Maggie

When Healthy Eating Becomes Unhealthy

2009-02-28T10:05:00.000-08:00

I have to give a shout-out to New York Times reporter Abby Ellin for writing What's Eating Our Kids? Fears About 'Bad' Foods. This is such an important subject and one that Abby has tackled well for The New York Times. I attended an Eating Disorders Bootcamp workshop conducted by nutritionist Jessica Setnick, who is wisely quoted at the end of the article, discussing just how damaging it can be for parents to label foods as "good" or "bad," or worse, to disallow certain foods from their children's diets because they apparently carry the label, "bad."

And while I am a huge fan of Nina Planck's book Real Food, and recommend it to people often (though not unless they already have made peace with food), I respectfully disagree with her assertion, "that it’s a 'total cop out' to lay blame on schools and parents for children’s eating disorders [because] the eating disorder comes out of a disordered psyche." That may be very well and true that an eating disorder is part of a larger pyschiatric issue, but the fact remains that there are people all over the world suffering daily from disordered eating that is not viewed as "severe enough" to be labeled "anorexic," "bulimic" or even "orthorexic." For those people to turn on the television, open a magazine, walk into gym class or just sit across the breakfast table from mom or dad and hear foods being described as "good" and "bad," I'm sorry. That affects people, and in my opinion it does so in an extraordinarily unhealthy way.

Sure, some people can hear about "good foods" and "bad foods" and let it slide out of their mental cavity without internalizing one word of it. But most people can't. I can't tell you how many people's obsessions with "healthy eating" that turned very UNhealthy, started when they moved into a community (such as Los Angeles) that was saturated with negative talk around "bad" foods. And that's why we have such an obsession in this country with our foods being functional and healthy. YES, of course I'm in support of healthy eating, and yes, I just savored a delicious bowl of homemade oatmeal with sliced bananas and a glass of milk. And yes, I also savored a delicious chocolate fudge brownie yesterday afternoon at work. But folks, it's true -- healthy eating can turn into a very unhealthy obsession. It's the entire reason I wrote Eat When You're Hungry: to help the kids Abby writes about in her article, and the adults they will become who will want to make peace with food, but won't know how without help.

There's not much more I can say on this topic without writing another book. In the meantime, thank you Abby Ellin for your great article in The New York Times. And thanks to my friend Linzey, for bringing it to my attention during what was a very busy week!

What do you think about this article? I'd love to hear your comments.

Happy Valentine's Day!

2009-02-14T11:19:00.000-08:00

Valentine's Day is one of my favorite holidays, and it was even before I met my husband. After all, it's a day filled with my favorite color, flowers, hearts and chocolate. What's not to like? Actually, many years ago, it was an annual tradition for my sister, one of our mutual friends and me to make Valentine's Day cookies together. That friend moved away, so we've had to start new traditions. And boy did I find a good one this year!

If you're ever looking for a fun treat to give someone.....for Valentine's Day, for a birthday, graduation or just because, I highly recommend that you check out Good Fortunes. They make all sorts of customized cookies, but their specialty is the giant fortune cookie. You choose the coating (dark chocolate or white chocolate) and you write the message inside the giant cookie! I had so much fun with this, I can't wait to give one to someone else for a birthday, congratulations or just because. I ordered mine a bit early, so it came two days before Valentine's Day, and my husband was so surprised and delighted, that he called me at work and sang "You Are My Sunshine" over the phone. That was almost better than the fun of ordering the cookie.

He waited to crack open the cookie until I got home, and I have to say, the cookie lived up to all expectations. I took a few photos to give you a sense of it.

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

An Unseasonal Treat

2009-02-07T07:41:00.000-08:00

I have a treat I'd like to tell you about, but it is completely unseasonal, particularly for those of you living in places where the weather actually reflects winter right now. But I'm sharing it with you anyway. Iced pomegranate green tea.

I discovered this over the summer at a friend's house during a girls get-together, and to be honest, I almost didn't try it because I generally am repulsed by iced tea (unless it's mixed with lemonade in an Arnold Palmer). I love hot tea, but I've never liked it on ice, despite it looking so refreshing and appearing to be such a satisfying beverage. To be polite (and adventurous), I timidly poured myself about a quarter of a glass and to my utter delight and surprise, I loved it.

First, let's start with the color -- it's a beautiful shade of redish pink. The color alone will liven up any festivity. And then there's the taste. It's absolutely delightful. So light, refreshing and yes, smile-inducing. Definitely more exciting than water, yet it doesn't leave behind a sugary aftertaste in your mouth like a juice or lemonade would.

Recently, I've been making a pot of it at home on Sunday, and bringing it with me to work during the week. At about 3 or 4 in the afternoon when I'm craving a pick-me-up, this stuff does the trick. It makes me feel like I'm out at a picnic in the middle of New Hampshire (and I don't even get to drink it out of an adorable glass like I do at home).

Here's the kind I drink. Try it out and drink in good health.

New Year, New Newsletter!

2009-01-02T13:11:00.001-08:00

Just a quick note to say, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! And....I have a brand new e-newsletter! After many hours devoted to drafting e-newsletters that I used to send out manually through gmail, I finally decided to automate the system to serve you better. I still draft the emails, but now they're delivered to your inbox from an outside vendor so I don't have to worry about exceeding the limit of email addresses on gmail.

The new format now includes pictures, recipes and other content from me -- all in pretty pink. I've included a place to sign up for the newsletter to the right, so be sure to do so. In this month's issue I gave out a coupon good for 10 percent off Eat When You're Hungry coaching if you sign up between now and Jan. 31. And yes, I'll extend that offer to you for reading my blog, too.

I'm also toying around with forming a set of group coaching sessions, so if your'e interested, sign up for the newsletter so you don't miss out.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Eat When You're Hungry -- at Thanksgiving Too!

2008-11-26T19:59:00.000-08:00

I can hardly believe Thanksgiving is already upon us, and my apologies for not posting sooner. I've been very busy to say the least. I've also noticed a recent increase in form submissions on my Web site and book sales. I don't have a magic crystal ball to tell me if this will continue through the holiday season, but I suspect it will. And, to be honest, it doesn't surprise me in the least. While the holiday season has reason to be depicted as warm and fuzzy in commercials – it is a wonderful time to spend with family and friends – it also brings with it loads of anxiety or even depression for some people.

Why? Well, let's count the reasons. Loss of loved ones, recent breakups, having a life that doesn't seem to "measure up" to what it's "supposed to be" at this time of year, and….food. For those of you currently in the midst of trying to make peace with food once and for all, the holidays bring with them, food. Lots of it, and lots of feelings about it.

I remember when I was in the throes of my very restrictive behavior around food, I used to do any number (and sometimes a combination) of the following:

- Worry if there'd be anything "for me to eat" at Thanksgiving dinner
- Feel guilty (or weird) that I wasn't starving myself all day for the big meal
- Worry about what people would think of me if I only ate the leanest of the turkey and the least "offending" of the vegetables and skipped dessert altogether
- Tried to figure out how I could pull off the above without anyone thinking I was doing anything differently than anyone else

As I write (and re-read) this now, it seems absolutely ludicrous to me that my mind used to operate this way. I say that not from a place of judgment, but actually from a place of gratitude that I really, truly, have overcome all of the issues I used to have with food. When I was in the throes of this mindset (and once I finally wanted to be free from it), I thought I would never FULLY recover from it. You read all over the place that, "once and eating disorder, always an eating disorder." And I guess what I've been astonished by is how untrue that has been for me. Yes, I still have times when I wish I could rely on food to create a sense of control in my life or to give me a feeling of a "fresh start," but after about 30 seconds of going down that route, I realize I couldn't make myself go there even if I tried. It's just not me anymore.

I've probably gotten off track with this post, but I've been struggling with blog content lately because I actually feel so far removed from my previous dieting mindset. I am still 100 percent committed to helping as many people as I possibly can to stop dieting and start living, though. So plan to come back to my site often. We'll see how it transforms in the new year.

In the meantime, I wish you a happy, healthy and delicious Thanksgiving filled with all of the things you want. And remember, it's okay to be a picky eater, even at Thanksgiving. I can't wait for my mom's chocolate walnut pie (which tastes like a giant chocolate chip cookie) and you can bet that I'll be skipping the sweet potato brulé (I don't like sweet potatoes or brulé, but particularly not together) to save room for my favorite part of the whole meal.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Fat Talk Free Week

2008-10-15T21:31:00.000-07:00

These are the kinds of videos I've dreamt about making, but I'm just not skilled enough in technology to pull it off. Watch this. It's powerful, poignant, well-executed and oh-so-important. If you were caught up in your head when you arrived at my blog today, watch this. It'll bring you back down to earth. Turn on your volume, hit play and enjoy. Then pass it on.

20/20 Tackles Orthorexia

2008-09-05T23:09:00.001-07:00

I am both thrilled and crushed all at the same time tonight. Thrilled to see that 20/20 aired an extensive story on orthorexia, and crushed because I missed it. I'd actually talked to one of the producers of this episode to share my personal story of orthorexia and recovery. And frankly, I thought the story was dropped. It wasn't. And I'm so glad it wasn't. I guess 20/20 stories just take a lot of hard work, research and time to get produced.

I'm so glad these producers found the resources they needed to complete the story, and I certainly hope I'll be able to get my hands on a copy of it. In the meantime, if you missed it too, you can at least read the online version of the story here.

I want to give a big shout-out tonight to Miguel Sancho, John Stossel and 20/20 for diving into orthorexia, a disease that's often quite perplexing to those outside of it.

If you're not familiar with orthorexia, it's basically an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating. People with orthorexia become obsessively fixated on the purity and health of every morsel of food that goes into their bodies. And thanks to the saturation of our airwaves with dieting messages and dieting gurus and diet, diet, diet, it's no wonder that orthorexia has become our nation's next eating disorder.

As you know if you've read my book, orthorexia was my eating disorder of "choice." I am living proof that you can recover -- FULLY -- from it, and it's my mission to help you do exactly that. Food doesn't have to be an obsession. And if we all commit to seeking out supportive, rather than diminishing, resources, we can end our nation's unhealthy obsession with dieting. Statistics show that 80 percent of eating disorders start out as diets. Don't be part of that statistic. Easiest way to achieve that -- don't diet.

Instead, learn to eat when you're hungry, stop when you're full and love your self. And...send a message to 20/20 to say, "Thumbs Up" for giving a voice to a previously silent eating disorder.

The Joys (and Tastes) of a 3-Day Weekend

2008-08-31T11:35:00.001-07:00

I don't know about you, but I'm eating up this three-day weekend. My husband and I decided to stay at home for this holiday and we haven't regretted our decision once. Particularly since we re-discovered the beauty of our favorite appliance ever: the bread machine. When we were deciding what to make for dinner last night, I said, "What about homemade pizza?" and his eyes lit up about as bright as my were shining when I thought of the idea.

We'd never made pizza dough before, so the whole process was new and therefore fun and oh-so-yummy. I got the ball rolling on this one, but as soon as the dough was ready to come out of the bread machine Jeremy couldn't take his hands off it. There's something about digging your hands into real homemade dough without the emulsifiers and pectins and guar and xanthum gums...and whatever else comes in the pre-packaged stuff.

And I have to say -- this pizza was the best pizza I remember eating in a long time. As you'll see above, this wasn't a picture-perfect pie because we had to break the dough into two oblong pieces to fit in the cookie sheets we had. But it made it even more fun to eat.

If you're wondering what was in Maggie & Jeremy's best pizza ever, here are the ingredients, which I'm proud to say are fully pronounceable and amount to only 8 ingredients! Dough: warm water, olive oil, all purpose flour, salt, sugar, dry yeast; and then cheese and pepperoni, which came from Whole Foods. DELISH!

We were planning to go to our favorite gelato store in the city after dinner, but both of us were so satisfied with this meal (with also entailed broccoli cooked with garlic and olive oil) that we didn't want dessert -- and that's practically unheard of for us.

I'm telling you -- Eat When You're Hungry (make it good-quality stuff), and stop when you're full. It's the only thing you ever need to know when it comes to food and feeling good.

Happy Labor Day!

America The Beautiful

2008-08-21T21:24:00.000-07:00

I just found out about America The Beautiful, a documentary exploring our nation's obsession with beauty. I am turning my schedule upside down so I can see it this weekend, and I encourage you to do the same. Check out the trailer below. I'm so excited about this film. I think it's going to be an important one. Come out and support it with me!

Way To Go, Margaret Cho!

2008-08-11T23:23:00.000-07:00

Despite being a person who rarely uses a bad word -- it just doesn't come naturally to me -- last year I shared a piece written by Margaret Cho that, aside from being filled with f-bombs, was brilliant. Today I'm happy to follow that up with this "news." Cho's weight loss is making headlines this month and for once in my life I'm happy to share the news of someone's weight loss on this blog.

Why? Because Margaret Cho reminds us all that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. Because Margaret Cho reminds us that she eats ice cream and pizza and chips. Because Margaret Cho reminds us that diets don't work, and that listening to our bodies -- even when they want cheeseburgers -- does work. It works by helping us tune into our own hunger and fullness signals. It helps us learn to appreciate our curves, our strengths, and yes, even our weaknesses.

Back to watching the Olympics. Just wanted to share this with you before the "news" is forgotten.

And so you're not surprised, I plan to re-post Margaret Cho's original piece as long as the link is live. It just doesn't go stale.

Dieting Doesn't Work. Intuitive Eating Does

2008-08-02T08:25:00.000-07:00

We all have reason to celebrate today. And to thank Ken Carlson for writing a great piece in The Modesto Bee about intuitive eating. I hope to see more of these soon.

Only thing I must caution you about when reading this piece is the last part of the article where a source from WW says that WW is not a diet. HA! Though believe me, I understand the requirements of journalism and balanced reporting, so this was probably necessary.

If you ignore that last bit about the WW DIET, this is a great article on intuitive eating.

This is all very funny timing for me. For some reason, I've encountered a lot of people recently who are on diets. Friends, colleagues and acquaintances who are skipping out on things they enjoy (wine, salad dressing, you name it) because it isn't allowed on their particular diet.

This saddens me. Immensely. Because study after study after study after study has shown that diets don't work. As Traci Mann, UCLA associate professor of physchology and lead author of a study on dieting, said, "Diets do not lead to sustained weight loss or health benefits for the majority of people."

And....intuitive eating does. So take a deep, appreciative breath of life. Close your eyes for a moment. And remember that if you listen to it, your body will tell you exactly what it wants -- and needs -- to eat. Honor that.

And have a great weekend while you're at it.

Take a Stand!

2008-07-14T12:01:00.000-07:00

My number one mission in launching Eat When You're Hungry was to help as many people as I possibly could to stop dieting and start living. I'm proud to say that I think I'm doing that, reaching one person at a time. At the heart of my efforts is and always has been health.

Health of body
Health of mind
Health of spirit

Given my commitment to health, I was awe-struck when I learned about a new movement called Stand Up To Cancer. It's mission is simple yet poignant -- to Stand Up To Cancer. The site beautifully states that "this is where the end of cancer begins: when we unite in one unstoppable movement and Stand Up To Cancer."

So check out what is shaping up to be a pretty massive movement. All inspired by people's personal experiences with cancer. You can share your story, take a stand, launch a star, or befriend the movement on Facebook.

I may be posting more about this in coming weeks, so stay tuned. But for now, consider doing something grand today -- go out there and take a stand!

Birthday Bowls (thanks Katie!)

2008-07-12T13:51:00.000-07:00

My sister bought me these adorable bowls for my birthday this past Wednesday, and after eating out of one of them today I had to write about it. After all, when there's even an iota of an Eat When You're Hungry lesson I have to share it here first.

To finish off my lunch today, I cut up some fresh pineapple, and while I'd normally serve my fruit in a plain glass bowl, today I served it (to myself) in one of my adorable new birthday bowls. It will be no surprise to anyone that I chose the pink one to try first. After cutting up the fruit and placing it inside the bowl, it was time to sit down and eat. And let me tell you -- it was just about the cutest, birthday-ish pineapple I've ever eaten. Because the bowl was so fun to eat out of, I ended up savoring each and every bite of pineapple so I wouldn't have to put away my brand new bowl too soon.

So if you're having trouble slowing down your eating and actually tasting your food, try serving meals on/in your most favorite dishes. If you don't have anything other than boring white dishware, splurge on one pretty dish, and start with that. It'll be a whole lot cheaper for you -- and don't even get me started on how much healthier it will be -- than starting a new diet.

Below....my new birthday bowls, and some Saturday afternoon pineapple.

Summer Special

2008-06-20T16:07:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow is the first official day of summer, and I have one message for you: beware of advertisements that are going to try to convince you to start a new diet. Airwaves around the world (as well as new stands, water cooler conversations and grocery check-out lines) are saturated with dieting messages right now. These messages can be alluring because they're fueled by a multi-billion dollar diet industry that's dependent on signing you up for a new gimmick just in time for bathing suit season.

In order to stay true to my original mission -- to help as many people as I possibly can to stop dieting and start living -- I'm dropping the price of my book to $9.99.

If you haven't bought my book yet, and are feeling tempted by the smiling faces of people dancing across the screen (or page) in dieting ads, buy it now.

Imagine a summer spent in freedom. No dieting, no restricting, and no foods off-limits.

I'm off to try a new recipe for peanut-butter and jelly bars -- kind of like peanut butter cookies meets blondies meets PB&J. I thought it would be a good snack to bring pool side on the first day of summer.

Happy swimming!

The Magic of Mindfulness

2008-05-14T20:21:00.001-07:00

I've got to give a shout-out to The Wall Street Journal for publishing an article by Melinda Beck this week about mindful eating. Apparently Duke Integrative Medicine is studying how eating mindfully can help people heal from eating disorders. And I say, way to go!

If you need a refresher course on mindful eating, definitely read Ms. Beck's piece.

Please note, however, that just because you're eating mindfully doesn't mean you're going to feel satisfied with three bites of food. While I appreciate Ms. Beck's article (that should be clear by now), I also know that the dieting-minded among you are going to feel guilty for wanting more than three bites of food. Reality check -- I eat mindfully most of the time. I eat when I'm hungry and stop when I'm satisfied. I enjoy every bite. And I generally eat way more than three bites of food. Enough said.

If you really want to dig deep, picture yourself not only eating mindfully, but living mindfully. Right now. Do it. Not in ten minutes. Not tomorrow. Right now. Can you feel your eyes moving across the screen reading this post, can you feel your finger on your mouse, scrolling down the page? What about your lips, are you noticing them curling into a smile yet?

Happy Wednesday evening.

What Do You Feel Like Eating Today?

2008-04-29T22:05:00.000-07:00

I came across this article today by Donna Fish in The Huffington Post and I think it's worth sharing. She paints a very real picture of what intuitive eating looks like and shows that even when you've made peace with food and learned how to listen to your body, you're going to order wrong in a restaurant now and then. And by wrong, I mean you ordered something that didn't satisfy you.

Guess what? It happens, even to those of us who are in a healthy place with food. Even I -- who generally listen to my body by eating when I'm hungry and stopping when I'm full -- have meals that don't satisfy me and lead me to eat past fullness because I didn't enjoy the food I was eating and thought that by eating more I'd somehow magically feel satisfied. (Note: that never works)

So, do yourself a favor and read this article. Just another perspective that I think you'll enjoy.

What Is Image, Anyway?

2008-04-24T20:43:00.000-07:00

People often ask me what they can do to improve their body image. It's a good question and one that is not easily answered in a nice, neat sound bite. My first reaction to that question is generally another question: "What fills you up? What makes your juices flow? What do you care about and what makes you laugh?"

By immersing ourselves in issues, pursuits and interests that will fill our lives with much more meaning than a "pretty" body ever could, we almost circumvent the need for a wonderful "body image." Not that positive body image isn't valuable -- it is. But I find it most helpful to start with a pursuit of a positive self image. If you get that down, the body image will follow.

That being said, take a look at an excerpt from a wonderful book I discovered this week. Boy do I want to get my hands on a full copy of this book! And though I've not met you, Rosanne Olson -- kudos to you for this new release. We need more work like this floating around our bookstores.

What a Feminist Looks Like

2008-03-25T14:18:00.000-07:00

I received a link to this video today and what a great way to start my day. Enjoy.

Why Real Food, You Ask?

2008-02-11T20:15:00.000-08:00

People often ask me if I have any rules about which foods I eat or don't eat. And the answer is no foods are off limits. What is off limits for me is fake food. This includes sugar substitute, fat substitute, and ingredients I can't pronounce. "But why shouldn't I eat fake food," people will ask me....often followed up with all the fake foods they love. "I can't live without my fat-free, sugar-free, raspberry cheesecake 100-calorie yogurt in the morning."

If you love your fat-free, sugar-free, chemical yogurt product, believe me, I'm not going to stop you from eating it. You have to eat what makes your body feel good. And what feels good to one body doesn't feel good to another one. But what I will say, and what I've always said, is that I can't guarantee that when you eat your fat-free, sugar-free foods that you'll ever be able to get quite as in tune with your fullness signals as you might if you ate real food.

And as today's story in the LA Timesproves my point. "The study in the journal Behavioral Neuroscience found that the calorie-free artificial sweetener appeared to break the physiological connection between sweet tastes and calories, driving the rats to overeat."

If you're someone who needs science to prove it, please take this study as a good excuse to throw out your fake food and replace it with the real stuff! Try eating mindfully and enjoy every nook and cranny, ever luscious bite of everything you eat. And I bet that before you know it (probably before you've even finished your meal), you'll start to notice how much more in tune you've become with your hunger and fullness signals....all from switching to eating real food.

Imagine that...

Oprah Magazine Piece Got It

2008-01-10T20:30:00.001-08:00

I am so pleased to report that Naomi Barr is spot on in her column in the February issue of Oprah Magazine. It's called "Maybe You Need To Gain 10 Pounds." Hurray! Finally some press and a reputable study showing that being a bit "overweight" is actually healthy! In all of the research and reading I've done over the years, I've read about this phenomenon many times -- that "overweight" is actually healthier than "under weight" and sometimes even healthier than "normal weight."

This particular government study shows that "carrying a few extra pounds may actually help you live longer." Yes, you read that correctly.

It goes on to say that in the study of 37,000 death records done by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Cancer Institute, people who were "overweight" not only didn't have a greater risk of dying from cancer or heart disease than "normal weight" people, but that in fact they were less likely to die from chronic respiratory disease, infections and Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease, among others.

The funny thing is that we're still using the terms normal weight, overweight and underweight, as if there is a standard that fits for everyone. Funnier still, because if "overweight" people are actually living longer than "normal weight" people, then shouldn't they also be given the much sought after label of "normal" too so they can stop feeling bad about their weight label?

Anyway, if you get Oprah magazine, check out this piece on the bottom of page 108. And paste it wherever you need the reminder to stop dieting and start living.

And by the way, happy new year!

Eat When You're Hungry E-Newsletter Coming Soon!

2007-12-17T22:25:00.000-08:00

Are you committed to the non-dieting way of life? Do you want support in your choice to never diet again? Do you simply want a resource for healthy, supportive, non-dieting messages to balance out all of the self-defeating, diet-filled messages you're bombarded with daily? If you answered yes to any of these questions I have good news for you! I am getting ready to launch the Eat When You're Hungry E-Newsletter!

It's still in the works, but will be coming soon. If you want to sign up for this free non-dieting resource, simply go to my web site and subscribe in the pink box on the right-hand side of the screen. You'll receive an acknowledgement email after submitting your name and email address, and you can of course unsubscribe at any time.

As I'm putting this e-newsletter together, please feel free to send along any suggestions or questions you have as you release dieting from your life forever and embrace a natural, healthy relationship with food. I just may address your question or comment in the next newsletter (with your name left out for confidentiality)! To send suggestions and comments, contact me through my web site. I appreciate your feedback.

Happy Monday...

Kugel, Latkes, Brisket and Pie -- Oh My!

2007-12-03T19:59:00.000-08:00

If you read my book you know that my mother-in-law knows how to cook. Her meals are truly exquisite down to the china they're served on. And last night was no exception. We had an early Hannukah dinner which meant we had a feast of delicious food spread before us on beautiful platters and serving pieces that my mother-in-law has collected from around the world. On the menu last night was brisket stewed in an apple cider, wild mushroom kugel, potato latkes, spinach and pomegranate salad, asparagus, challah and an English apple-blackberry pie. Everything of course, was handmade. And everything of course (since it was cooked my my mother-in-law), was delicious.

When it came time to fill our plates with food and dig in, I knew to take a smaller than usual portion of everything because there were so many different foods to taste. There was also a hot apple-blackberry pie and freshly whipped cream waiting for us after dinner, and I wasn't about to miss out on that due to getting full too quickly.

When I took only one potatoe latke, my mother-in-law said, "Oh, come on, you can have more than that -- we have so much food!" I cringed at the thought of appearing ungrateful for such a beautiful meal by only taking one latke, but the truth was that EVERYTHING looked so magnificent that I wanted to have all of it.....which meant one latke would be enough if I was also going to have a piece of challah, some of the kugel, brisket, salad, asparagus and .... the apple-blackberry pie with whipped cream. "I need to save room for everything," I said. "I can only eat so much."

After lighting the Hannukah candles and saying a prayer (we did it early this year because some of the family would be out of town on Hannukah), we lifted our forks and knives to begin experiencing the wonderful journey of flavors set before us. Needless to say, absolutely everything was, as my grandmother would say, "Divine!" "Maaaarvelous!" I told my mother-in-law that of all the delicious meals she's made this one ranked as one of my favorites. My husband's cousin agreed.

When we got in the car, Jeremy said to me, "I don't feel stuffed at all." "Neither do I," I said, "Tell me more." So he continued, "Normally I would go back for seconds and I almost went back for another few latkes because they were so good, but I decided to wait and save room for dessert. And by the time we were done with dinner and dessert I realized that my fullness caught up with me, so now I'm full but not stuffed. I'm so glad I didn't go back for seconds because I am completely satisfied right now. That really was a good meal!"

Today as I was walking from the kitchen to my office with leftovers from last night's dinner, two colleagues stopped and stared in awe at my food. "This is one of the many gifts my mother-in-law has," I said proudly. "She is an amazing cook."

And the best part about eating when you're hungry and stopping when you're full is.....you get to have the meal all over again the next day when you're hungry at lunch time -- and you don't even have to cook!

A Common Question

2007-11-20T22:15:00.000-08:00

Someone recently asked me what she should do when she finds herself eating past the point of fullness into the place of being uncomfortably stuffed. This is a question that comes up frequently, so I thought I'd put my fingers to the keyboard and share the advice I tend to offer on this topic.

Generally what I ask is for you to consider a few questions....

Do you recognize when you are full, and yet you continue eating anyway? And if so, the deeper question is why? (And believe me, that's a hard question for everyone!) But take moment to think about it. What does the eating past fullness bring you? Perhaps it brings you comfort, perhaps distraction, perhaps you simply eat past fullness because the food you were eating didn't have the "satisfaction factor" you needed. Once you can answer these questions, you can begin to consider ways to address your concern. For example, what else is comforting to you, what else provides distraction, or what other foods can you choose that WILL feel satisfying to you?

And most importantly, don't beat yourself up about it. Each day is an opportunity for learning. And little by little you'll get to the place you want to be.

Hard Copies of Book Now Available!

2007-11-15T10:03:00.000-08:00

This news is for all of you who have been asking for hard copies of Eat When You're Hungry.....they are now available! To purchase a hard copy of the book, go to https://www.cafepress.com/eatwhenhungry. You'll find the book under "Books and CDs" as well as lots of other goodies dedicated to helping you stop dieting and start living!

Want other Eat When You're Hungry updates? If so, please email me at maggie@eatwhenyourehungry.com with the subject "Update Me," and I'll add you to the list. I won't share your email address with anyone, and you can always email me to say you no longer want my messages. And don't worry....I won't email you every day -- only when I have new Eat When You're Hungry news!

Don't Let the Headline Deceive You

2007-11-07T13:35:00.000-08:00

Below is a link to a very interesting article in today's New York Times showing that in fact "overweight"* people have a lower death rate than those people who are "normal" weight, "under-" weight or "obese."

Just some interesting food for thought if you are one of the countless individuals trying to "get healthy" by dropping those last 5, 10 or 20 pounds....and starving yourself in the meantime.

Read on...and don't let the headline deceive you.

NYT

*I put this term and others in quotes because what any particular guidelines deem as being "overweight" is not necessarily what any one of us deems as being "over" the weight at which our bodies are happiest.

What I Learned from a 3 Musketeers Wrapper

2007-11-01T20:23:00.001-07:00

I was walking to my car after work today and saw something shiny on the ground that caught my eye. It was blowing across the parking lot and I couldn't figure out what it was until I got closer: a 3 Musketeers candy wrapper. All of a sudden it hit me -- "I didn't have one piece of candy on Halloween this year."

It was at that moment -- 24 hours after Halloween -- that I realized I hadn't thought about candy once the entire day. As I continued walking to my car, it dawned on me that my experience with Halloween candy through the years would be a wonderful example to show what disordered eating, "recovery" eating, and ultimately "Eating When You're Hungry" eating looks like.

So here goes...

Many years ago, when I restricted my food, I would think about Halloween for days and sometimes even weeks before the holiday to figure out how I'd avoid eating Halloween candy without looking like I had any problems with disorered eating. I wouldn't touch a piece of Halloween candy so I never had debates in my head about whether I'd eat it or not. But I didn't want to appear to have an eating disorder, so I would spend a considerable amount of time figuring out how to not eat the Halloween candy and not have people notice anything peculiar.

Years later, when I was in "recovery," I would look forward to Halloween. Why? Because it was a chance to eat candy and be "normal!" So during my years of recovery, I would anticipate Halloween (and other food-related holidays) with excitement because I'd get to be just like everyone else. I'd enjoy it when I could actually eat Halloween candy in front of other people to show that I was "normal." This of course was major progress, albeit still a bit disordered.

Fast forward to today -- when I have no disordered thoughts around food anymore -- and I actually forgot about candy on Halloween. It turns out that just this past weekend (days before Halloween) I was in Chicago, and while I was there, I discovered an amazing ice cream shop and a delicious ice cream flavor: Fat Elvis. The Fat Elvis flavor of ice cream at this particular ice cream shop was banana ice cream (very mild banana flavor) filled with peanut butter chunks and chocolate chunks. Heaven. I loved it. In fact, I loved it so much that I had a Fat Elvis ice cream cone every night I was in Chicago (3 nights). On the last morning of the trip, my sister-in-law recommended breakfast somewhere that is known for their cinnamon buns. I happen to love cinnamon buns, but the thought of eating something sweet that morning did not appeal to me in the least, so I got eggs instead. Clearly, after three nights of large Fat Elvis ice-cream cones, I wasn't craving anything sweet (I was craving protein), which explains why candy was not on my mind yesterday, and why I didn't even realize until tonight as that 3 Musketeers wrapper caught my eye, that I forgot about Halloween candy.

So that, my friends, is a little glimpse into the future for all of you who are committed to never dieting again. Some call it intuitive eating. I call it eating when I'm hungry. Whatever way you slice it, it all evens out in the end.

On that note, Happy (belated) Halloween!

**And one final comment. I told my husband about this blog posting and he said, "I had a similar experience today!" "Really," I said? Yes. He realized today, when he walked out of our front door and saw a neighbor's "witch's pot" full of candy, that he too, forgot about eating Halloween candy yesterday. And he realized that he actually didn't want any.

This is not to say that there is anything wrong with eating Halloween candy. You see, my husband was a bit ice-creamed out from our Chicago trip too, and so he wasn't craving anything sweet today either.

So there you have it....that's what eating when you're hungry looks like. Talk to me in a week and I'm sure we'll both be back to wanting some dessert (or candy)!

What does healthy mean to you?

2007-10-24T09:40:00.000-07:00

When it comes to eating healthy, there are a million and three different notions of what that means. There are also countless numbers of people suffering with disordered eating who are masking their struggle under the virtuous sounding phrase, "In Good Health." Those are often the people with the most work to do to get to a healthy place around food....ironic, hu?

Don't get me wrong, health is something I'm grateful for every day of my life, and being healthy -- emotionally, spiritually, intellectually -- is something I strive for every day of my life, too. But I want to challenge you today to consider that there's only one source of information for what "healthy" is for you. And that one source is not the news media, not your next door neighbor, not your cubicle mate who counts calories. It's YOU!

As you know if you've read my book, I used to be of the mindset that high-fiber, low saturated fat and tons of fruits and vegetables were the "ticket" to health. But when I finally turned off the television and stopped reading all of the advise "out there" about what being healthy meant, an amazing thing happened. My body told me what it needed for ME to be healthy -- it needed saturated fat and animal protein, exactly the foods we're all told to eat in limited quantities.

Well, it was precisely when I began eating what my body told me it needed (cheeseburgers, tuna melts, eggs and bacon, real milk), that I began to notice a beautiful transformation of my body to an emotionally, physically, intellectually HEALTHY place. Ironic, given all the "un-healthy" foods I was eating...

In case you're struggling with trying a piece of real cheese with all that real, yummy, protein and calcium-rich fat inside of it, take a moment and read Sandy Szwarc's latest entry that just might encourage you to finally trade in that fat free, sugar free, yogurt imitation product for the good, old fashioned real, whole milk white stuff....it's called REAL YOGURT.

Read on...

http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2007/10/junkfood-science-exclusive-big-one.html

You Say You Want To Diet?

2007-10-19T09:31:00.000-07:00

My words today just don't do justice to the message I'd like to convey, so I'm going to instead share a link to one of my favorite pieces of writing about diets, and not-diets and becoming free around food. You ask what intuitive eating, non-diet and positive body- (and self-) image look like? Read on.

My only warning is that if you're going to be offended by the F-Word (and extreme repetition of this word), this piece may not be for you. But if you can tolerate a few F-Words, please read on. This is just brilliant.

http://www.margaretcho.com/blog/fuckitdiet.htm

What If Nothing Sounds Good To Eat When I'm Hungry?

2007-10-16T19:51:00.000-07:00

As the creator of www.eatwhenyourehungry.com I get a lot of questions from people taking the journey into a non-dieting way of life, and I recently responded to a question that I think is worth sharing. A woman wrote to me to tell me that she sometimes feels very hungry but nothing appeals to her. "What should I do?" she asked. "And has that ever happened to you?"

What an excellent question...

In a word, yes. I definitely have experienced hunger coupled with an aversion to just about every food I can think of eating. You see, sometimes we're hungry and absolutely nothing sounds good to eat. It happens to everyone sometimes. So what should we do? As you know if you've read my book, I never tell people what they should do because every body is different. What I can share is what I do in those situations.

When I'm hungry but no food appeals to me I usually either wait until something DOES sound good, or I wait until I'm too hungry not to eat, in which case I'll decide what to eat and see if it satisfies me. Remember, this is a journey which means that every experience is a learning opportunity. And while the goal is to have as much satisfaction in our eating as possible, every meal isn't always going to be 100 percent satisfying, and that's OKAY. This is all a learning process and an EXPERIENCING process. It's not about perfection, but about getting in touch with what our bodies need....and learning how to honor that.

Sound good to you? I hope this helps...

A Figure Skater Who Eats When He's Hungry

2007-10-12T17:21:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to a fundraising dinner for a wonderful organization a friend of mine started called CoachArt (http://www.coachart.org/). Low and behold, I found myself sitting next to a professional figure skater! I wasn't planning to mention Eat When You're Hungry, as I tend to only discuss food and body image with people who bring it up themselves. Well, someone else at the table mentioned my book and this figure skater sitting beside me wanted to hear all about it. I figured that he was interested in the subject matter because eating disorders (and disordered eating) are clearly at epidemic proportions in the skating industry, right? Well....not exactly, which is where the conversation got interesting.

This young man told me that he skated in Denver for eight years, and that his peers and fellow skaters in Denver did NOT obsess about food! Sure, there were the occasional skaters who struggled with food issues, but they were the exception and not the norm. He said that it wasn't until he started skating professionally in Los Angeles that he noticed he was surrounded by people who were obsessed with counting calories, fat, carbs, you name it. This is a young man -- thank goodness -- who has just about the healthiest relationship to food that one can have. He eats what he wants, when he wants it when he's hungry. And I think he tends to stop when he's full. He doesn't monitor every morsel of food that goes into his body.

"But wait," he said. "If I'm being really honest, I guess I do watch what I eat sometimes." "Oh? What do you mean?" I said. "Well, you see, I could live off of red meat, chocolate and cheese alone. Really, I could eat any of those foods everyday all day long. I love them," he said. "But, chocolate really spikes my energy, too much cheese makes me a bit tired, and red meat sometimes doesn't sit well in my stomach, so I do sometimes make sure that I don't eat too much of any of those foods in one sitting."

This, my folks, is not only OKAY, but it is a beautiful example of being in tune with one's body. Eating what you want doesn't just mean eating what your tongue wants (though that's a big part of it). It also means eating what your energy-level wants, what your stomach will react to comfortably, and what won't cause an allergic reaction. Get it?

Anyway, this very healthy young man with not one eating-disordered thought in his mind said that it's becoming annoying to be surrounded by peers and colleagues in Los Angeles who obsess about food -- because it sometimes makes him feel like there is something wrong with him!

And we wonder how eating disorders get started.....

My First Day Blogging

2007-10-11T15:57:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Eat When You're Hungry -- the blog! I am creating this blog for the same reason I created Eat When You're Hungry the e-book and www.eatwhenyourehungry.com -- to help as many people as I possibly can to stop dieting and start living.

In this blog I plan to address questions people ask me about the book, offer insights about my approach to food and life, and discuss anything else that comes up along the way. I will write about particularly noteworthy experiences I have with food, with body image and with all of the facets of this wonderful journey I've taken back to a healthy, comfortable relationship with food and with myself.

I have never blogged before so this is all new to me. Please feel free to email me any suggestions, comments or feedback through my website www.eatwhenyourehungry.com. This is a wonderful journey, and I'm so glad to be a part of it.

~ Maggie