The Oxygen Diet-Try it on yourself first!

I’m not a frequent flier but each time I have been on a plane I’ve been struck by the following flight attendant speech: “In the event of a loss of cabin pressure, an oxygen mask will drop down from above you.  If you are traveling with young children, secure the mask on yourself first. Then place it on your children.”


What? Place the oxygen mask on myself first, not on my kids? What are they thinking? As a mother, it seems so counterintuitive to meet my needs before my children’s. How could my safety and wellness come before theirs?

Well I finally get it. It’s not that my needs or my survival is more important than theirs.  On the contrary. It’s just that in order for me to be of any use to them I need to have my oxygen. I would be in no position to care for my children and make the decisions necessary for their care and wellbeing if I am without oxygen.

Now let’s substitute food for oxygen. Unless you are well fueled you are not in the best position for taking care of others—your kids, needy family members or even close friends. Maybe no one relies on you in this way. But perhaps you babysit, or work in a service profession, where others are dependent on you and your good judgment. If you are restricting your intake it becomes a challenge to make wise decisions and to be successful in whatever you do.

Sounds like I’m just speaking to my eating disordered readers? Think again. Even those of you who do not fit that category can set yourself up in the same way. Perhaps you’re overweight and struggling to move to a healthier place. You may find yourself restricting your food intake, going long periods without eating. You may feel low energy, even a bit foggy headed as a result. And certainly we have all experienced the irritability of the restrictive dieter.

There are two key messages to leave you with.

1) Struggling to motivate, to get healthy for your own sake? While making change for you is ideal, you may find it challenging. Consider finding the strength to make change for the sake of those you care about and may even care for!

2) Changing your weight, even if it is appropriate and necessary for health reasons, doesn’t require suffering. Change, yes. But not suffering. And it shouldn’t compromise your wellbeing. You should not be feeling cranky, lethargic or starving. And if that’s what you’re experiencing, you need to be tuning into your hunger, trusting it and responding to it better!

Size matters. But not how you think.

The facts about serving size and portions.

What do a quarterback, toddler, 90 year old woman and you have in common? Very little, I suspect. And yet each will glance at the nutrition label on packaged foods and observe the serving size. Some may measure it, others might strive to meet it, and many will ignore it. But most of you will expect that you should be sticking to the stated portion. At least most of my blog readers.

So what is the serving size declared on the label really for? It is simply a way to define nutrition information, required by the FDA. And most serving sizes are standardized by product. For instance, approximately 1 ounce of cereal or ½ cup of ice cream, regardless of the brand, are considered the serving sizes. This way consumers know that the information (the protein, calcium, etc.) are based on that serving size listed on the label. And the calorie content for that same serving can vary significantly!

Yet most people I’ve discussed this with believe that the serving size is the amount they are supposed to be eating. And not a morsel more! You measure out 1 oz of cereal for breakfast, the right amount according to the label, and you are left feeling that the problem lies with you. “Why isn’t this enough?” you may ask yourself.  Well, does it make sense that the football player, the growing child and the sedentary woman would all need exactly the same amount of calories, of fuel? And that that amount is also appropriate for you? Clearly not!

If you don’t follow the rules, the amount you were supposed to limit to, you may feel that you have slipped. Yet neither Kellogg nor the FDA knows how much you actually need to eat for breakfast. And neither do I. The only one who can truly judge is you.

I often use the analogy of titration. For those of you who have long forgotten chemistry, it is the process of figuring out just how much of a substance is necessary to cause a reaction. Take a look at this for a quick visual:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKMla6dav7k&feature=related

One clear liquid is added to another, drop by drop, until the point when a reaction happens. In this titration, the solution turns pink. Could they dump all of one substance into the other and have the reaction occur? Sure. But they are looking for the point where it is just enough of the added substance to turn pink.

Continuing with the food analogy, we could eat a lot at once, and have the “fullness reaction” happen, just like you could combine these two clear liquids all at once and have it turn deep pink. But with eating, we are looking to identify just the start of “pink”, so to speak. And it takes a while for us to master our own food and eating titration. So you may be disappointed if you are expecting a quick reaction.

The point? The nutrition label isn’t the answer to knowing how much you need—to knowing how much will put you “in the pink”.  It is a process to figure out just how much your body needs to eat at any time. It takes time after eating your meal to sense fullness (see the Tylenol reference in previous blog entry). And it takes time to identify your eating patterns.

If eating the portion size stated on the label leaves you hungry an hour later then clearly that amount is not enough. So in addition to eating a snack then, be sure to increase your portions next time you eat breakfast and assess how that feels.

And if you can’t tell if your portions are excessive resulting in “deep pink”, consider reducing your portion by 25% and see how you feel. Perhaps that will still get you in the pink, closer matching your need for fuel and energy balance.

Moving your thoughts, moving your body.

Maybe the last post just doesn’t apply to you. The compulsion to exercise is far from the problem. Rather, it’s a struggle to even think about moving more. I mean, why bother when perhaps you feel it’s hopeless? Here are some obstacles to exercising that I frequently hear from my clients:

   -“Last time I started exercising I didn’t see results, so I stopped.”

   -“I’m supposed to be doing one hour or more of exercise per day, and that’s just not gonna happen. So if I can’t do that, no sense doing any.”

   -“I’ve already failed at meeting my goal—I didn’t exercise the past few days, so I may as well skip it altogether.”

See any flaws in this thinking? Perhaps you’re not exercising because you just didn’t “see results”. But were there really no benefits of your increased activity? Did you not notice any improvements in your energy level? Stress? Feelings of accomplishment? Was there no impact on your appetite and your motivation to take care of yourself and eat well? Or perhaps on your sleep? Is weight change the only measure of success, of getting results?

It certainly shouldn’t be! Managing your weight is only one of many benefits of exercise. And I choose the word managing intentionally. Regardless of your personal need in terms of weight—to stabilize it, lose it if you are overweight or increase it if you are underweight, exercise can be quite valuable. That is, if you fuel your body appropriately.

Maybe your past experiences with exercise helped to stabilize your weight, in contrast to the unintentional climbing you struggled with. Exercise may have helped to prevent future weight gain but you failed to recognize its value. Or perhaps you improved your activity, without addressing your eating.

And who on earth begins to be active with 60 minutes per day?  While an hour daily might be a great target, setting the bar too high is likely to set you up for failure. Just today a patient was relating the experience of a recent visit with her physician. Here’s the backdrop. Struggling with binge eating, pre-diabetes, overweight and high cholesterol, Kay presented to me for guidance. Over the past several weeks she reports that her binging has stopped, completely. Still overweight, yes. But her weight is gradually dropping as her eating behaviors and activity have improved. And she feels so much better. And no, she did not begin with an hour a day. In fact, I believe we started with a modest goal of walking 15-20 minutes, a few times per week, appropriate given her sedentary activity level.

So about the physician visit. He apparently told her that her walking isn’t good enough. And that yup, she ought to be doing an hour a day! And that he exercises daily! So instead of acknowledging that she’s made remarkable progress, for the first time in years, he makes these absurd recommendations that were nothing short of devastating.

Rather than viewing your progress as half empty, as just not good enough, try to focus on what you have achieved, even if it falls short of your (or the doctor’s) ideal level of exercise. And please acknowledge the many benefits you're getting from exercise on many levels—physically as well as psychologically. And set realistic, achievable goals and reevaluate them from time to time. And finally, try to choose activities  you enjoy so you’ll be more likely to want to stick with them.


Please send in your comments and let me know how you’re doing!