WIN Wyoming
Thought Bullets
for
December 1998
I recently read a book entitled When You Eat at the Refrigerator, Pull Up a Chair,
by Geneen Roth. In between bouts of laughter and tears, I gained some valuable insights,
and wanted to share a few with you. If you are interested in purchasing the book, the ISBN
number is: 0-7868-6395-1.
- Feeling fat has nothing to do with being fat. Women with
X's after their dress sizes can feel thin and women below size 6 can feel fat.
- Every diet works. For a day, a week, a month or even a
year. And then every single one stops working. EVERY SINGLE ONE. When a person feels fat
and ugly, the idea of going on a diet is very seductive.
- Quote from Geneen: "When I stopped dieting, I stopped
bingeing."
- Begin showing up for your own life. Develop a sense of presence.
Don't think about your life when you are thinner--enjoy your life now. Too often we don't
enjoy the cookie we're currently eating, because we are already thinking about the next
cookie (or candy, or chip, or whatever). Enjoy what you are eating---every morsel----and a
sense of satisfaction will surround you and you won't want the next cookie.
- Quote: "Bad hair days don't hold a candle to
feeling-fat days." On bad hair days you can wear hats. On feeling-fat days you can
not wear a full body bag.
- Hunger doesn't cause obesity. Eat when you are hungry.
Denying hunger is what leads to bingeing and over-eating. Anyone who has ever been on a
diet can relate to this: I'll eat this bag of chips (or cake, or box of cookies) today,
because tomorrow I won't eat very much and I need to store up for the hunger to come.
- Most of us manage to get food into our mouths without
counting it as eating. Here's a few of my favorites from the book: broken cookies don't
count, eating food I don't like doesn't count, eating something someone else bought
doesn't count, sampling food when you are cooking doesn't count. Here's Geneen's advice:
if you're going to eat 13 pieces of a broken cookie, eat a whole cookie instead (just be
present when you eat and enjoy it).
Source: Roth G. When You Eat at
the Refrigerator, Pull Up a Chair. New York: Hyperion; 1998.
Compiled by Betty Holmes, MS, RD
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