Self-Compassion Based Eating Awareness Training

By Sophia

The research into the mental, emotional, and physical benefits of self-compassion is piling up: More than 400 studies and dissertations have been published since Kristin Neff, PhD, broke ground on the topic in 2003. Self-compassion—being as kind to yourself as you would a dear friend—turns out to be helpful for everything from lessening susceptibility to PTSD to soothing stress for mothers of autistic children.

And self-compassion can help with weight loss by reconnecting us with our bodies in a kind and nonjudgmental way. If you struggle with overeating, you're probably locked into hand-to-mouth combat with your body: angry with it, mentally disconnected from it, not hearing the messages it sends you. Self-compassion is a route to reconnecting with our bodies and learning to love, respect, and listen to them. And that, research finds, helps people lose weight.

I first learned about self-compassion from Jean Fain, LICSW, MSW, a Harvard-affiliated psychotherapist and author of The Self-Compassion Diet: A Step-By-Step Program to Lose Weight With Loving Kindness. Fain is anti-diet when it comes to our traditional approach of deprivation and scolding, which doesn't do anything to change our relationship with food. Fain's approach is not about denial. She wants us to eat delicious, nutritious food mindfully and in moderation, eating when we're hungry and stopping when we're sated. "Honoring your hunger is essential," she says.

Fain conducts group Self-Compassion-Based Eating Awareness Training in her hometown of Concord, Mass., and online, via Skype. Now you can also download audio of the training, eight recorded sessions plus homework.

Meditation and mindfulness are major players in the program. Fain guides you through mindful eating of various snacks; most sessions require you come prepared with specific foods. And you'll have homework: reading and meditations. Body image is also part of the program, and meditations and exercises help and encourage us to value the body we have.

In her gentle, hypnotic voice (she's also a hypnotherapist), Fain has us evaluate our level of self-compassion; teaches us how to recognize different kinds of hunger, when we're hungry and when we're full; explains taste-specific satiety—that is, when we've had enough of a particular flavor to feel satisfied. One reason we tend to overeat at buffets is because of the variety of foods available; when we are sated on one taste, other foods still look delicious, whether or not we are still hungry.

I don't have a particular problem with overeating but I do tend to eat crazy fast, and this program caused me to analyze that. I realized that the texture of food is as important to me as the flavor and so sometimes I gobble because once a food is chewed, it's not so interesting anymore. I want to get to the next fresh bite. I'm also trying to be more mindful of physical versus emotional hunger; those times when I try to sate boredom with chips.

Unfortunately, just knowing these things doesn't guarantee change. I have to exercise the discipline of mindful eating every day if it's ever to become second nature. And that's the real challenge here. 

The lessons, meditations, exercises, and homework are interesting and eye-opening, but you have to stick with the program. Then you have take the lessons with you into your day-to-day life. The real change comes when you're on your own, looking at full bag of chips or a pint of Hagen Daz or a wheel of Brie or whatever your hardest-to-resist temptations are. 

Staying the course--even making it through all eight lessons--when you're going it alone on a program like this takes discipline. For that reason, taking one of Fain's classes might be more productive: nothing like accountability to keep you on-task.

Still, at $75, the training is a bit of an investment, and you may find that is motivation enough to stick with it. And if you come out of the program with nothing more than an awareness of how and when you struggle in your relationship with food, then you've gained a lot. After all, that's what mindfulness is. Just planting that seed in your brain might someday grow new, healthier eating habits after all.

To learn more about Jean Fain and purchase the recorded eating-awareness training, visit JeanFain.com. 

An Interview With a Big Loser: Abby Rike

By Sophia

I watch The Biggest Loser intermittently--I enjoy it when I stumble upon it but I'm not dedicated to it. But during a couple of sleepless nights this week, I watched several episodes on On Demand and for the first time, found it particularly motivating.

Here's a post on a site I blog for that discusses some interesting research on envy and motivation. It applies. You'll see.

I recently had the opportunity to interview a Big Loser (not the Biggest, but she's good with that), Abby Rike,  a motivational speaker who was in Dallas promoting her new book, Working It Out: A Journey of Love, Loss, and Hope.

Abby is 100 pounds lighter than she was before her stint on Season 8 of The Biggest Loser, but that was the least of her losses—before the show, she lost her husband and two children in a car crash.

At the risk of sounding overly Oprah, I have to say that Abby's positive energy practically beamed through the phone. Step away from your cynical side for this one.

Q: How’s the tour going?

A: So far the tour has been great. Very fast paced and hectic, but getting out and meeting so many great people, that’s really what it’s all about for me.

Q: Are you meeting a lot of people who are grieving?

A: I definitely hear a ton of grief stories. I hear weight-loss stories. I hear “I hug my children more and my husband more.” I get the whole gamut.

Q: Is it doing something for you to meet these people?

A: Absolutely! I was always such a social person and so connected. That’s why I do what I do now. You always want to feel like your life matters and that you’re serving and making a difference. I get this immediate and incredible feedback that blesses me beyond measure.

Q: Is it difficult to keep reliving this really awful moment in your life?

A: At times it is daunting, I’m not going to pretend. But for the most part interviewers have been considerate. I obviously have to tell what happened, but that is not where I stay. And that is what the message truly is, that other people can know joy despite hideous circumstances. Whatever devastation or whatever loss people have experienced--and it comes in so many different forms--there comes a point where you have to look at where you are right now, today, and count the blessings that you have. For me, that’s what had to happen. I had to shift my focus from what I’d lost to what I have now and make the most of this life.

Q: What are the blessings you’re counting these days?

A: Oh my goodness, they’re so great. Everywhere I go I seem to find one person that I just uber connect with. That is always such a blessing simply because I was so lonely for so long.

And then, just the opportunities that God has provided me. One of the biggest blessings is that this is certainly not a life I ever imagined for myself by any stretch of the imagination. I’m just so grateful for all the cool things that I get to do, that I never dreamt possible.  I sit back and scratch my head and think “This is such a surreal life right now.” As someone who never desired to be on TV, that was never my bag. I didn’t want to be on TV. Then I was on TV so that kinda sounds like an oxymoron… but that is was the path that I think I was supposed to go on and it’s been quite a journey.

Q: A lot of people, after a tragedy of such enormous proportions, wouldn’t think “reality TV.” Why The Biggest Loser?

A: Oh, it’s insane right? Who in their right mind does that? I mean, seriously—somebody who has a masters degree nonetheless! 

I was very overweight and decided I would join the gym because maybe I could just feel better. I went one time and ran into Brady and Vicky Vilkin, who had been on Season 6 of The Biggest Loser. I subscribed to her blog, and right about the time I thought “This is the hardest life, I don’t know how I’m going to do this,” I get this information about Biggest Loser open auditions. The timing of it all culminated together and I felt like maybe if I could physically feel better, then emotionally I could heal.

Then I auditioned, and I’d make it to the next round, and the next round, and then at the very end I thought “Oh my gosh, I think they’re really going to pick me. Oh no, uh-uh, I’m not doing this. I came so, so very close to saying “I’m not doing this.”

Q: What changed your mind?

A: I do not say this in a trite way at all…but you want to talk about some serious praying! “Do you really want me to do this, because I don’t want to go.” I did not want to go. but then I truly felt at peace about it. It was just one of those things.

Q: What was the hardest part of The Biggest Loser?

A: The production schedule and the lack of communication from home. We never knew what was going to happen, everything was hurry up and wait. That whole production schedule is insane to me.

And then the fact that we couldn’t call home. We couldn’t even get letters from home. I know people say “Why are people always crying on the Biggest Loser?” But that is because you are truly isolated in this bubble, and that was very difficult. I think that’s why the bonds that develop on the show are so strong so quickly.

Q: Are you still close to people  from the show?

I am extremely close to Shay Sorrells. She actually wrote the forward to my book and I wouldn’t have made it without her. She was my roommate and she became my family.

Q: Did you ever want to give up?

Oh, absolutely. The irony of it is, I could have gone home any other week prior to when I actually went home and I would probably have been a little grateful because I thought this is just too much, I can’t take this. The week I ended up going home was the week I was ready to stay. The ironies, the ironies of life.  That was the week I said OK, I can do this. I got this now. I’m getting my footing here.

Q: Is it tough maintaining your weight?

A: Yes. It’s a daily choice to maintain. I’m certainly not a skinny girl and I am perfectly OK with that, but being fit and feeding myself nutritious foods and exercising have become my new truth. That’s who I am now and it allows me to live a full life. I’ve been on the other end, where it was an effort to get out of bed. I don’t pretend that there aren’t hard days, but it’s a lot easier to deal with the daily grind when you physically feel better.

Q: What’s next?

I love that question because the fact is, I have no idea. I’m a public speaker, I travel all around the country, I have a website where people can book me and so I feel like my classroom has expanded. And then, of course, with the book coming out, that’s a whole new entity in and of itself.

I never envisioned this life so I can’t begin to fathom what the next five years looks like. But I will be prepared and ready. And hopefully I’ll be ready to take that leap of faith when needed. 

The Self-Compassion Diet

By Sophia

I did something radically different (for me) this morning.

Instead of wolfing a bowl of cereal while hunched over my computer—I’m busy, who has time to eat?--I closed my laptop, gazed out the window, and ate my shredded oats in yogurt one square at a time. I tasted it, enjoyed its crunch, and imagined its course from mouth to stomach.

Every time I felt myself tensing up (tick-tock, tick-tock, work is waiting!) I glanced at the clock. My little breakfast took all of six minutes. Which means I must finish off my breakfast cereal in two or three minutes, eating at my usual pace. Wow. Do I even chew?

I’m trying to learn mindful eating, and it’s not easy. But I have come to believe that really paying attention to our body’s hunger and satiation cues, to our food, and to our own cravings is key to having a healthy relationship with food. And that (along with exercise, of course) leads to a better body without a lot of deprivation.

That’s why I’m going off-script today to talk about a book called The Self-Compassion Diet: A Step-by-Step Program to Lose Weight With Loving Kindness, written by a colleague and Facebook friend, psychotherapist Jean Fain, LICSW, MSW.

Fain’s program is not a diet, but techniques to change your relationship with food and yourself. It has four components: mindful eating, self-compassion, social support, and hypnosis. (Fain, a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School, is a certified hypnotherapist. “No, I can’t make you act like a chicken,” she assures us in her YouTube Mindful Eating Trance video.)

The book, written in a friendly and reassuring tone, alternates theory and practice and is full of quizzes, case studies, guided meditations, “Thinspiration” sidebars, and, rather than an FAQ, NSQs: No Stupid Questions.

As the title indicates, self-compassion is an important player here--that is, not beating yourself up about food, or anything else for that matter. (In describing my usual breakfast pace, above, I first ended the paragraph by writing “And that’s gross.” But that’s not a nice thing to say about myself, and it’s counterproductive. If I’m so gross, will I bother taking care of myself? So I changed it. Self-compassion at work.)

I'm cherry picking through the book, finding ideas and inspiration that speaks to me. For a couple of days I kept a food diary of what I ate, when, my mood, and how hungry I was at the time. From that, I realized (to my surprise) how out of touch I am with my body’s hunger cues. One reason I eat fast is because I ignore my hunger until it hurts. Now, I’m trying to note when I’m hungry and take care of it with "delicious, nutritious food" before my stomach yells at me. (Next learning curve is stopping when I’m full.)

I’m also trying to eat mindfully. The operative word is “trying”--I’m not entirely successful yet, but that’s OK. Self-compassion again. I’m dabbling in the hypnosis part of the program, but I’m still a little tightly wound for that. I’m intrigued, though.

Mindful eating is something you could learn and practice on your own. But like any skill, professional advice and guidance is always useful because you don’t know what you don’t know. I like this book, and it’s already given me food for thought.

Jean Fain’s Video About Mindfully Eating a Twinkie