Of course from my current perspective, 30 years later, I realize that my friend probably suffered from an eating disorder, most likely a form of orthorexia. Her dogs did too but had no choice. Like it or not, food is such a basic human need that it has undeniable social, emotional, and cultural components. It is perfectly normal and healthy to anticipate a good meal, and to delight in food that is pleasing to the eye, the nose and the palate. The problems occur when we develop an unhealthy relationship with food and begin using it to meet other needs, for example to distract from feelings of unhappiness or anxiety, to dull pain, or as an antidote to boredom or stress.

An overall philosophy of mindful eating aims to restore a healthy, balanced relationship with food that honors its importance to our physical, emotional and spiritual well-being. When we take food into our bodies, it assimilates into our inner most beings, mingling with saliva and stomach acids while moving through the digestive tract and into our blood. Therefore eating is a personal and intimate act that should not occur without due appreciation, contemplation and a little meditation. People need to be present, moment by moment, for each sensation that happens during eating, and to think about where our food came from, how it grew, and what path it took before reaching our plates. The path to our plates is much shorter and easier to comprehend for fresh, whole foods. These foods not only provide superior nutrition, but help us appreciate food in its own right rather than for its ability to meet other social and psychological needs.

Why Whole Foods?

It is crucial to serve whole foods whenever someone gets treatment. They provide an important ingredient to the “healing brew” that makes up the use of whole, unadulterated, unprocessed foods.

Whole foods should be a big part of any healthy diet, but for women recovering from eating disorders, they are absolutely essential. When a woman is recovering from an eating disorder, she is generally malnourished. Eating high quality, nutrient- and fiber-rich foods makes sure that she is getting the nutrition she needs and not just packing on the pounds.

The term “whole foods” conjures up memories of Saturday mornings in the Unitarian Church basement with huge bags of wheat berries, mung beans and carob. Fortunately, whole foods have come a long way since then and are now more varied and widely available in supermarkets and health food stores as well as farmers’ markets.

Many people confuse whole foods with organic foods, which are much less available. Whole foods are about where food comes from, and organic foods are about how it is grown.

Whole foods are very simply “foods that appear as they do in nature when we eat them and that are minimally processed and free of artificial flavors, colors and preservatives”.

Visit a kitchen serving whole food and you won’t see trays of frozen entrées ready for the microwave. Instead, mountains of fresh vegetables and fruit and a wok sizzling with fresh fish, chicken, turkey or tempeh. Savory dishes such herbed fish with risotto and yams, roast turkey with stuffed acorn squash, or chicken or tempeh stir fry with soba noodles, miso soup and rice, to name a few, can all be tempting. Besides healthy, mindful eating, classes in nutrition, cooking, and gardening are wonderful.

A holistic nutrition philosophy is as follows: To help people develop good life skills and enough knowledge of food to make good choices that will continue not just through their recovery, but throughout the rest of their lives.

By Dr. Jeanne Rust

Thousands of people have benefited from neurofeedback, a therapeutic training tool that is very effective in the treatment of ADD, ADHD, epilepsy, fibromyalgia, head injury, substance abuse, eating disorders and chronic pain. Not only does neurofeedback alleviate a variety of emotional problems and physical ailments, but it does so without invasive procedures or the need to take expensive and potentially addictive medications.

Neurofeedback improves the formation of essential neuro-pathways in the brain, actually reconditioning and retraining brainwave patterns. Psychological testing and brain mapping (QEEG) show any abnormalities in brain function. During the training sessions, clients learn to normalize their brainwave patterns through feedback, coaching and practice.

During typical neurofeedback training, sensors are placed on the scalp and/or ear lobes. An EEG unit provides instantaneous audio and visual display of brain wave activity. This “feedback” allows the individual to alter brain activity, increasing or decreasing certain frequencies in order to function most efficiently for the task at hand. The client literally learns how to train the brain to function with greater control and stability through self-regulation.

Frank H. Duffy, M.D., a Professor and Pediatric Neurologist at Harvard Medical School, stated in an editorial in the January, 2000, issue of the Journal of Clinical Electroencephalography that scholarly literature now suggests that neurofeedback “should play a major therapeutic role in many difficult areas. In my opinion, if any medication had demonstrated such a wide spectrum of efficacy it would be universally accepted and widely used. It is a field to be taken seriously by all.”

Neurofeedback can also be used for performance enhancement, improving memory skills and increasing concentration, and focusing abilities. When combined with conventional treatments, neurofeedback results in very low relapse rates as it seems to function as a form of “mental antabuse.” The overall success rate of neurofeedback training is reported to be more than 85% for some disorders, including eating disorders and substance abuse.

Neurofeedback has been used in the treatment of alcoholism, helping clients achieve relaxed states by increasing alpha and theta brainwaves and reducing fast beta brainwaves. A 1990 study by Peniston and Kulkosky found that after four years, 80% of alcoholics treated with traditional methods had relapsed, whereas 80% of the experimental group who received neurofeedback in conjunction with regular treatment were still sober. Since over 40% of all eating disordered patients also have issues with substance abuse, neurofeedback is an extremely effective treatment modality.

For the treatment of ADD and ADHD, Rossiter and LaVaque (1995) found that 20 sessions of neurofeedback produced the same improvements in attention as taking Ritalin. A 2002 study with a one- year follow-up by Monastr, et al, discovered that neurofeedback was far superior to Ritalin.

Neurofeedback’s time has come, and more and more treatment centers and pain clinics are confidently offering neurofeedback to their clients. Mirasol pioneered the use of neurofeedback in the treatment of eating disorders and remains a center for research on the use of neurofeedback as an alternative to psychotropic medications. Not all medications need to be eliminated – indeed, they are absolutely necessary in many cases. But we have also found that people can actually retrain their brains so they may use much lower dosages of medication and even in some cases none at all.

In this morning’s New York Times appeared the article, “Tossing Out the Diet and Embracing the Fat.”  Whew!! Quite a mouthful.  Easier said than done when someone has been accustomed to dieting and hating the fat for years.

As a therapist who has treated hundreds — if not thousands — of compulsive eaters who are overweight according to our beloved insurance charts and BMI tables, I wish someone could wave that magic wand and have everyone who has lived on and off diets for most of their lives be happy just with themselves as they are.

So many women live sad lives of “when I lose the weight” or “if I’m able to take it off by Christmas,” my  life will be pretty perfect!  So many lives of creative, brilliant women literally on hold with these unattainable dreams.

It could be that we might be in the midst of a bit of a paradigm shift.  Even Oprah “now sites her goal as not being ‘thin, but ‘healthy and strong and fit.”  What a statement!  I’ve always thought that Oprah manages to look pretty snappy even when she’s heavier!  She’s certainly an attractive woman.  What would it take for more and more American women to say, “You know, I think I’ll be like Oprah! I think my goal will be to be fit, strong, and healthy.”

I loved reading about the medical studies that are now reporting that a little extra fat is not a bad thing.  In last month’s Canadian Obesity Journal, researchers confirmed that overweight “appears to be protective against mortality,” while being too thin can be associated with a higher risk of death.  

We’re actually making some progress in size acceptance in addition to Oprah and Kirsty Alley.  The HAES (Health at Every Size) movement has helps women come to terms with their weight and teaches them that they can be vibrant and attractive just as they are!   Glenn Gaesser, professor of exercise physiology at Arizona State University, has written a fabulous book called, Big Fat Lies: the Truth about Your Weight.  The premise of this wonderful book is that some people will never be thin, that some people who are heavy can be much fitter than people who are thin, and that the only measure of fitness and health is not the scale but the tests that tell us we’re metabolically fit.  What is our blood pressure?  Where is our cholesterol?  What is our blood sugar?  Do we exercise?  Are we metabolically fit? These four questions are the only ones that matter!

Yo-yo dieting leads to weight gain.  Yo-yo dieting leads to weight gain.  I can’t repeat that too often.  And we have the $30-billion weight loss industry telling us the opposite!

The last thing I’ll say on this subject from my soapbox is that I’ve absolutely loved Dr. Michelle May’s new book, Eat What You Love Love What You Eat: How to Break Your Eat-Repent-Repeat Cycle.  This book is the perfect remedy for chronic, yo-yo dieting.  With Michelle’s guidance, we can learn to do away with mindless and emotional eating.  We can learn to eat just when we’re hungry.  

How about that?

What Is Normal Eating? A Podcast by Jeanne Rust, PhD