Food Deprivation-Why It Doesn't Work

Today I wanted to talk a little about the 2nd principle of Intuitive Eating. In their book, Tribole and Resch call this principle 'Honor Your Hunger.' The basic idea of this principle is to keep your body adequately fed and to learn to recognize the first signs of hunger (before that hunger becomes excessive). I remember the first time I read this chapter of the book while in inpatient treatment. The part that stuck out to me the very most was the description of a starvation study conducted during World War II. I completely related to everything described and it was a very enlightening experience. I came to a total realization and understanding of the biological and psychological consequences of trying to starve myself for all the years of my eating disorder. 

World War II Starvation Study

The study was conducted by Dr. Ancel Keys, for the purpose of helping famine sufferers. There were 32 participants who were all men. These men were chosen because of their "superior mental and physical health." The men were studied for the first three months while they practiced their normal eating habits. During the next 6 months of the study, their calories were cut down to an average of 1570 calories per day and they were required to lose 19-28% of their weight (Resch, Tribole 2012). Here are some of the shocking side effects these men experienced:

• Metabolic rate decreased by 40%
• They became obsessed with food (heightened cravings, talking about food, collecting recipes)
• Eating styles changed (at times the men gulped down their food very quickly and other times they would draw out meal time for hours)
• Several men couldn't adhere to their diets and reported episodes of bulimia
• Some men flagrantly broke diet rules. One man ate several sundaes & malted milks, and even stole penny candy. Another 'lost control' and ate several cookies, a bag of popcorn, and 2 bananas.
• Some men exercised for the sole purpose of getting more food rations
• Personalities changed (apathy, irritability, moodiness, and depression)

(Resch, Tribole 2012)

The Refeeding Period: After the 6 month starvation part of the study, the men were allowed to eat how they pleased. I found this to be one of the most interesting and telling parts of the study. It took the men an average of 5 months before being able to normalize their eating to what it was before the study. During that time their "hunger was insatiable." They had weekend binges where they would consume between 8,000 and 10,000 calories. This type of behavior had never been observed in any of these men prior to the study. Remember, they were chosen because of their "superior mental and physical health" (Resch, Tribole 2012).

Another thing that was so shocking to me about this particular study was the fact that these men were eating an average of 1570 calories during the starvation portion (Resch, Tribole 2012). Now, granted I am a woman and women usually need less calories than men. Still, the fact that this number seemed so high for a 'starvation study' and the men experienced such severe side effects was shocking to me. Many of the diets people participate in these days contain significantly less calories than this. In my eating disorder there were times that I would go days with absolutely NO CALORIES. When I did allow calories, the intake was so low it could never have sustained me and I only allowed calories from "good" foods. Then I would wonder why after doing 'so well' on this type of restriction (for a certain amount of time) I would ALWAYS end up uncontrollably bingeing and purging. I truly thought I had some character flaw that caused me to binge. I never stopped to consider that what I was experiencing was the result of me trying to override one of my most primal and necessary drives as a human being. It cannot be overridden. You may be able to temporarily suppress it, but you will suffer the backlash and consequences of doing so. Our bodies were divinely designed by a master creator. We all have several mechanisms that drive us to seek out the necessary calories and energy we need to survive and thrive. Our creator also put in place mechanisms to help us survive periods of famine. The body cannot distinguish between a person that is truly living through an actual famine and a person that is experiencing a self-imposed famine through dieting. The same biological responses happen in both cases: decreases in metabolic rate and increases in the brain chemicals that drive hunger, specifically Neuropeptide Y-the 'carbohydrate craver' (Resch, Tribole 2012). Now, I want you to stop and think about this for a minute. Think about a time when you went hungry. This could be a time that you dramatically cut back on calories or carbohydrates for a diet, or it could be a time where you just couldn't eat for some other reason (ie fasting before surgery or a procedure, being away from food for an extended period of time, etc). Did you obsess about food during this time? How did your body react when you came off your diet or when you could eat normally again? How intense were your cravings for carbohydrates? Did you eat more than usual?....Failing at a restrictive diet has NOTHING to do with willpower, and EVERYTHING to do with our primal and biological drive to eat. PERIOD.

Let's go back just a little bit to the 'refeeding period' of the starvation study. The fact that it took these men 5 months (on average) to normalize their eating shows that there are not just biological consequences to dieting and starvation, but psychological ones as well. Resch and Tribole state that "the psychological terror of hunger is profound." This 'terror' can have lasting effects on a person's psyche. In the book it mentions that orphans adopted from poor countries will often obsessively smuggle and hide food. There are also a large number of survivors of Nazi concentration camps who are now obese. Hunger from dieting may not be as 'terrifying' as being starved for reasons out of your control, but the psychological results are very similar. Chronic dieters often binge in-between diets, as they fear they will not be able to eat certain foods or certain amounts of food again (Resch, Tribole 2012). In recovery, I went through my own 'refeeding period.' As I have mentioned before, I struggled a lot with binge eating early on. Even after being in recovery for several months, and having my body biologically fed, I still suffered the psychological effects of starvation and dieting. I was still obsessed with food, and still felt the need to eat as though it may be my last meal. Getting through this part of my journey will be discussed in later posts as I explain the other principles of  Intuitive Eating.

What 'honoring your hunger' looks like in my life...
The principle of honoring your hunger has become etched into my very being. After working so hard to get through the biological and psychological consequences of my eating disorder, I never EVER want to go through those things again. This principle goes right along with rejecting diet mentality for me. Now that I have experienced what it feels like to not be controlled by food, I would never want to compromise that for a diet or a return to my eating disorder. I've become very in-tune with my hunger signals and what my body is craving. Some days I am more hungry so I eat more. Other days I am less hungry so I eat less. It's as simple as that. I try to never let myself get ravenously hungry, and I always allow myself to eat until I am satisfied. I've learned to trust my body. I trust that it knows what and how much it needs. This does not mean that I am perfect at this principle, or any of the principles of Intuitive Eating for that matter. That's the beauty of this process, it doesn't have strict rules to follow. It is meant to be a learning process. One thing that I do have to be extra careful with in applying this specific principle, is to not use a temporary loss of appetite as an excuse to restrict. There have been times in recovery where I have completely lost my appetite. It usually happens when I go through periods of deep stress. It can be easy to slip into a mind set of justifying restricting myself since I don't feel hungry during these times. I've learned that I must use a second person (my husband) to keep me in check, and make sure that I am getting enough food and nutrients until my appetite returns.

In Conclusion...
If you have ever felt like a failure because you couldn't stay on a diet, I want you to think about the men in the study I discussed above. Think about what dieting did to them. Think about the biological mechanisms that you tried to override while dieting. Think about the other 95% of dieters who 'failed' too. See that your own 'failure' with diets has nothing to do with your character or willpower. See that you are not a failure, but a human being created by an all-knowing Father and that is definitely a good thing.

Sources

Resch, E. & Tribole, E. 2012. Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works. St. Martins Press: New York, NY. 

Why I Don't Diet: An Intro to Intuitive Eating

"Dieting will not make you thin, and being thin will not make you happy."

For me, going on a diet would be taking that first step onto the slippery slope of my eating disorder. Although this is the MAIN reason I don't diet, it is definitely not the ONLY reason. The concepts of intuitive eating were intertwined with almost everything we did at the Center For Change. The more I learned, the more my excitement grew as I imagined a life in which I wasn't a prisoner to food. The program we were taught was taken from a book appropriately named, Intuitive Eating, and was written by two registered dietitians (Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch). It is based on 10 different principles, with the very first being:

 1. Reject Diet Mentality

To reject diet mentality means to make a commitment to never diet again and to let go of all hopes that dieting will help you.When I say "diet" I mean it in every sense of the word. Ever since going to treatment for an eating disorder, I have not gone on any kind of diet. I also do not count calories, fat grams, carbs, etc. I do not restrict or deprive myself in any form, and there isn't a food in the world that I tell myself I can't have. I have also spent YEARS learning to disconnect any feelings of guilt from the act of eating.

The following are all the reasons I don't diet, and never will again:

Diets don't keep their promises

What does every diet seem to promise you? It promises that you will be thin and beautiful. Not only that, it promises you happiness and self esteem. A simple phrase that I repeat in my head any time I am tempted to diet is, "dieting will not make you thin, and being thin will not make you happy." As for the diet industry's promise that dieting will make you thin, I will let the statistics speak for themselves: 

• 95% of all dieters will regain their lost weight within 5 years (Renfrew 2003)
• Up to two-thirds of people on diets regain more weight than they lost within 4 or 5 years (UCLA 2007).
• According to the co-author of one of the most comprehensive studies on dieting ever conducted, "...dieting is actually a consistent predictor of future weight gain" (UCLA 2007).
• According to research conducted on kids ages 9-14, "...dieting to control weight is not only ineffective, it may actually promote weight gain" (Resch, Tribole 2012).
• A study conducted on 2,000 sets of twins, showed that "...dieting itself, independent of genetics, is significantly associated with accelerated weight gain and increased risk of becoming overweight." (Resch, Tribole 2012)

Now, as for thinness as a means to happiness- I can wholeheartedly and unflinchingly state that this is a bald faced lie. This is a lie that I bought into as a young, depressed, lost, naive, teenage girl. I thought there was some magic number on the scale that would automatically make all my problems go away. The truth was that no matter how low that number got, it never made me happy. Sure there was a temporary 'high' from losing weight, and compliments from others gave me a  'boost,' but this false sense of happiness and self esteem was always so fleeting. Soon the excited, happy feelings would be gone and I would be left wanting. This would eventually lead me to set a new goal for the scale, and so goes the cycle of an eating disorder.

Dieting causes damage to your body

Dieting causes a decrease in metabolism and an increase in binges and cravings. That right there explains many of the statistics listed above. According to a 32 year heart study, yo-yo dieters have "twice the normal risk of dying from heart disease." (Resch, Tribole 2012). It's also interesting that the risk factors held true for yo-yo dieters, regardless of their weight (Resch, Tribole 2012). Dieting can also change your body shape. Yo-yo dieters often regain their weight back in the abdominal area, which  increases risk of heart disease as well (Resch, Tribole 2012). 

Dieting causes damage psychologically and emotionally

My eating disorder started 'innocently' enough with my first diet. Little did I know what I was embarking on when it began. Not everyone that diets will develop an eating disorder, but they are 8 times more likely to than non-dieters (Resch, Tribole 2012). Dieting has also been shown to lower self esteem and create feelings of failure (Resch, Tribole 2012). With a success rate of 5%, who isn't going to feel like a failure? I know for me, every time I broke a diet rule or binged, I felt like something was wrong with me. I never stopped to consider that the problem might not be me, but the diet itself. Dieting only added to my already low self-esteem. 

Some final thoughts....

The decision I made 12 years ago to never diet again, and to put trust in this thing called "Intuitive Eating," has changed my life in ways I could have never imagined. Intuitive eating is not a quick fix, but a process. It is a concept that I am still learning and growing in to this day. I hope that I can accurately portray my own personal journey through the intuitive eating process, and in so doing, help others that may be struggling with food issues of any type. This post is only a small glimpse into the process. I intend to use this blog to explore all the principles of intuitive eating, and my experiences with those principles.

Sources

Resch, E. & Tribole, E. 2012. Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works. St. Martins Press: New York, NY. 

The Renfrew Center Foundation for Eating Disorders. 2003. Eating Disorders 101 Guide: A Summary of  Issues, Statistics and Resources.

University of California- Los Angeles. 2007. Dieting Does Not Work. Research Report. Science Daily  Retrieved from: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070404162428.htm