KimMcLaughlin - Feed Your Soul Therapy

A Guide To Thriving Over The Holidays

by KimMcLaughlin | Dec 17, 2013 | Podcast

This is the time of the year that we are bombarded with messages of the holidays. Besides being a time of joy, it can be a time of resentment and frustration. There are many messages that we can carry regarding expectations for the season. Messages such as: “I have to spend time with my family, I have to buy many gifts, and I am too busy.” I want to encourage you to make this the holiday season that fits for you. It can be hard to change patterns that are “the way it has always been” and make this your season.

Whatever your beliefs, many people have an expectation to enjoy the holidays and, sadly, this is not necessarily the outcome for many. Here are some tips to thrive this holiday season:

Pay attention to your spending. Develop a budget for decorations, presents, and activities as well as gifts. This can be the season to overspend and I encourage you to carefully consider what you are buying and determine if you are buying things for the sake of buying or is it a gift from your heart.
Spend time with people you want to spend time with. There may be family rules or traditions influencing you to spend the holidays with certain people. Consider your time as precious and decide who you would really like to spend it with.
Spend some time taking care of yourself. Self-care is often at the bottom of the list. I talk to many people who are stressed out from all they have to do and never consider taking time for themselves. You will be refreshed and better able to handle stress as it comes up.
Consider not engaging in the “I can have this, it’s the holidays.” Many people allow themselves to gain weight over the holidays. Do you really want to go into the New Year heavier? I suggest you eat yummy food in a mindful manner, so you can be satisfied with less.
Create a holiday ritual that fits you. How do you want to celebrate? It could possibly include spending time outdoors or something new. Evaluate how you spend the days, and ask yourself if there is something you find missing and add that to create something unique.

I encourage you to take some time to evaluate what you want to have happen this holiday and see if any of the above suggestions work for you. There is a way to be true to you while meeting family and societal obligations. Put yourself in your schedule and take out the activities that no longer serve you. In the end thriving over the holidays consists in making sure you give yourself the gift of yourself.

Kim McLaughlin, MA is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who specializes in helping people with eating issues and eating disorders. If you are concerned that about overeating, weight or your use of food in general please contact her here. Sign up for her FREE Top Tips to End Emotional Eating here. Check out her website at www.FeedYourSoulTherapy.com.

What is a Binge Eating Disorder?

by KimMcLaughlin | Dec 11, 2013 | Podcast

Binge eating disorder has been officially recognized now in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual V- (DSMV). The DSM is a manual used by clinicians to classify mental health disorders. Binge Eating Disorder has been renamed as an actual disorder, rather than the generic catch all term Eating Disorder NOS (not otherwise specified) from the DSM IV. According to the DSM-V, binge eating disorder is characterized by these behavioral and emotional signs:

Recurrent episodes of binge eating occurring at least once a week for three months
Eating a larger amount of food than normal during a short time frame (any two-hour period)
Lack of control over eating during the binge episode (feeling you can’t stop eating or control what or how much you are eating)

Binge eating episodes are associated with three or more of the following:

Eating until feeling uncomfortably full
Eating large amounts of food when not physically hungry
Eating much more rapidly than normal
Eating alone out of embarrassment over quantity eaten
Feeling disgusted, depressed, ashamed, or guilty after overeating

In addition:

Marked distress regarding binge eating is also present
Binge eating is not associated with frequent inappropriate compensatory behavior, such as purging, excessive exercise, etc.
Binge eating does not occur exclusively during the course of bulimia nervosa or anorexia nervosa

This change in DSM classification is significant since it brings to light the problem we have with acknowledging binge eating as a disorder that needs treatment. This is not about someone who over eats occasionally. This is part of a psychological process that can have a severe impact on someone’s life in ways other than the issue of weight, particularly one’s self-worth and self-esteem as well as the accompanying shame and guilt.

What should you do if you think you meet the criteria for a Binge Eating Disorder?

First, know that there is a solution. Seek services from a reputable clinician who is trained in Eating Disorder Treatment. Choose someone you trust and feel can help you. Make sure you feel comfortable with them. If the person is not a good fit for you, try someone else. Ask them for a consultation and ask them how they can help you. Beware of a one size fits all package; your needs might be different from another’s.

The DSM’s recognition that Binge Eating Disorder is a distinct mental health issue is a step in the right direction. This classification makes this illness more recognizable and I hope it will decrease some of the negative associations with binge eating. This new classification will give the community the option to get more information and services to help stop it.

Kim McLaughlin, MA is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who specializes in helping people with eating issues and eating disorders. She provides counseling in the Roseville and greater Sacramento CA area. If you are concerned that about overeating, weight or your use of food in general please contact her here.

Sign up for her FREE Top Tips to End Emotional Eating here. Check out her website at www.FeedYourSoulTherapy.com.

Intuitive Eating

by KimMcLaughlin | Dec 11, 2013 | Podcast

Intuitive Eating is a concept written about by two Registered Dieticians: Evelyn Tribole, M.S., R.D. and Elyse Resch, M.S., R.D., F.A.D.A. They found there were people that they worked with who could not follow a “healthy” eating plan and they realized that there was something deeper at work. They found there were principles that when followed there is a freedom with food and weight no diet could achieve. Their ground breaking book “Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works” outlines their discoveries. Their ideas have been talked about by others, but they are dieticians who discovered a new way of looking at binge eating.

I work with many people who are compulsive/binge eaters. I have found using Intuitive Eating gets to the basics of putting food in its place as nourishment and nurturing as separate from food. In our coaching sessions my clients and I focus on how they eat and what is eating at them. In this way we can get to the heart of the matter with their compulsive eating: ultimately letting go of the emotional component with food and utilizing specific techniques to break through this problem many of them have had for most of their lives.

Reject the Diet Mentality
Honor your Hunger
Make Peace with Food
Challenge the Food Police
Feel Your Fullness
Discover the Satisfaction Factor
Cope with Emotions without using Food
Respect your Body
Exercise- Feel the Difference
Honor Your Health- Gentle Nutrition

I think these principles of Intuitive Eating are really a key component in helping someone who is a binge/compulsive eater reconnect with their body and eat in a healthier manner. This is a process that takes time and effort, but the dividends are long lasting. No one can tell you how to do it for you. Sometimes it is necessary to have a safe trusted guide who can help you look at your emotional blocks, the history you have with food, the shame about your weight and your body. If you are suffering from binge eating, take the chance and reach out for help to get on the road to eating the way you were meant to eat without the emotional baggage.

Concerned about Holiday Overeating?

by KimMcLaughlin | Nov 15, 2013 | Podcast

Each holiday, I read online posts from people concerned about overeating during this holiday. There is a worry about not being able to say no to those yummy goodies and treats.

Holidays can be a particular struggle for those with eating issues.

Maybe you have lost weight and don’t want to go backwards, or you are worried about eating the right foods and holiday food definitely seem like “bad” foods. I am not a dietician or a nutritionist, so I cannot talk to you about calories associated with holiday foods. As a counselor and motivational coach, I do know there are a lot of emotions that get triggered on holidays that can affect your food choices. Family issues may drive feelings of anger or loss. Personal issues may drive feelings of loneliness or fear. There is also the simple fact that there is a lot of food staring at you and you feel like you have to just go for it.

I have found there are tricks to handle emotions that might surface over the holidays. Here are some suggestions to help you keep a little more centered at the holiday meal.

First it can be helpful to identify the difference between physical hunger and emotional hunger.

Take a deep breath and check in with yourself to notice what is going on. Are you feeling physical hunger? Often people go to a holiday meal famished and overeat because they are too physically hungry. Being overly hungry is a strategy for failure for someone who has a tendency to binge eat. Honor your hunger and feed yourself when you are physically hungry. Not letting yourself get overly hungry is such a great strategy for the holidays (and any other time).

If you find you are not physically hungry, but still want to eat, consider that you are emotionally hungry. Emotional hunger comes from transferring feelings (sad, lonely, anxious) onto the thought of hunger. This is not true physical hunger. Acknowledge to yourself that you are not physically hungry and wonder to yourself what might be going on. Possibly you feel lonely or hurt and are misinterpreting those as physical hunger. Ask yourself what you need to do to address the feeling. Some options are:

Take a short walk to get away from a situation and strategize better options.
Take a deep breath to regroup and center yourself.
Talk to a supportive person about your feelings.

These strategies will slow you down to help you determine if you are physically hungry or emotionally hungry. If you are physically hungry- then eat. If you are emotionally hungry- take care of that emotion. These suggestions work for those who binge eat only at the holiday time and for those who binge eat more frequently.

I would love to hear your strategies. What do you do to end holiday overeating? You can post them below.

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade

by KimMcLaughlin | Nov 1, 2013 | Podcast

I made some lemonade recently- not the juice kind, but the life kind.

My family and I were heading off for a weekend camping trip when about 2 hours into our 4 hour drive smoke came out from under the hood of our car. My husband opened the hood and saw some smoking fluid in the area where the car was recently fixed. At this point, we were on a rural highway with 2 hours left on our trip. We had to decide if we would chance it and keep driving or turn around and find an autorepair shop nearby. We chose the later. I encouraged my husband to call the shop that fixed the car recently to see what they suggest. That shop provided an 800 number of affiliated repair shops around the state that could look at the car to determine if the part that was put on previously was faulty, and would be covered under warranty. If that was not it, then we would at least have a mechanic assess the problemto help us make our next move.

We called two local affiliated repair shops, but both were booked through the end of the day. Did I mention that this was at 3:30pm on a Friday? So we started driving in the direction of our home- thinking we can’t take a car that had a smoking engine to a distant campground. As we drove, I got internally quiet which helped me feel calmer and look for other options. I realized my in-laws lived nearby and I suggested we call them to see if we could stay with them and get our car looked at tomorrow morning near their home. I called them and they gladly said that we could stay the night. I found a nearby affiliated repair shop that was able to schedule an appointment to have our car looked at first thing next morning. My pessimistic thoughts about our weekend camping trip being ruined shifted right then, and everything henceforth started working in a positive way.

The end of the story goes… we spent a relaxing Friday night with my in-laws in a warm bed and spent time with people we love. Saturday morning the local mechanic looked at the car and said the smoke was old oil burning off the engine from the previous repair, and not a new leak or problem. The smoking ceased and we then were back on the road to our campsite.

We removed the sourness (lemon) of the situation:

Car appears to be faulty when we are far from home.
We lost a night of camping and no refund.

And concentrated our thoughts on the sweetness (lemonade):

We had a fun weekend away, which was the point all along.
We spent special unexpected time with my in-laws.
We spent a great 2 days (1 night) camping at a serene, gorgeous campsite.
We went with the flow.

I can count so many times in my life where I was seeing the situation as bad and I was angry (lemons) when if I had changed my perspective and gone with the flow, I could see the sweetness (lemonade).

Are there times in your life when you could make lemonade out of a seemingly bad situation (lemons)? I find this change in perspective opens me up to seeing the same situation in a different way that positively influences my attitude, resulting in a much more enjoyable experience.

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