Tag: food issues

Katie Couric Admits She Was Bulimic

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Katie Couric — mom to two girls — recently confessed she had been bulimic during and after college.

While it certainly isn’t ground-breaking news that a strong, smart, beautiful and powerful woman could have battled an eating disorder in her past life, upon reading this, I couldn’t help but wonder: did she ever talk to her daughters about her past issues, or did she keep it a secret from them, too? And either way, how did she encourage them to have a healthy relationship with food? Was it hard to lead by example given her history?

Granted, I’m not BFF with Katie Couric and I’ll never have the opportunity to ask her such questions, but it does bring up a question I’ve been asked quite a bit, especially in light of some of the press I’ve done in my role as an advocate: do I plan tell Maya about my disordered eating history? Continue reading “Katie Couric Admits She Was Bulimic” →

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Eyes Wide Open

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I’ve always believed whatever your challenge in life, awareness is half the battle.

I know that until I was able to admit I had a problem — i.e., an obsession with food and exercise that led to disordered eating behaviors — I wasn’t going to get better.

I needed to see disordered eating as a problem before I could tackle it head-on.

Once you acknowledge a problem, situation, challenge …the rest is up to you. The next step in the process is to take action. In some cases, that might mean inaction. But for the most part, it means making a change of some sort, be it a behavioral change or a thought-process change. And this is the hardest part. Believe me, I know!

Speaking of awareness, today I read a great post by my new heroine, Bethenny Frankel, called Lesser Evils. She talks about how she doesn’t judge or qualify food, but sometimes we’re all forced to make a decision as to what is the “lesser evil” and how sometimes it can be surprising that what “seems” healthier might not be. I liked all that, but what really resonated was this:

She goes on to say, “Eat real foods. Your diet is a bank account. How are you going to invest?”

Reading that, I felt like I was hit with a bolt of lighting. I’ve definitely not been making good investments lately. Continue reading “Eyes Wide Open” →

Would You Like Fries With That?

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One of the first things I banned when I joined Weight Watchers in 2004 was, naturally, fried food.

After all, fried food has zero nutritional value and is a helluva lot of Points for pretty much nada.

And since I’ve always been more of a sweets-craver than a savory-craver, it has never been a big deal for me to ban this type of food. Continue reading “Would You Like Fries With That?” →

Why Are Women So Weird Around Food?

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I’ve always wondered this, partially because I, myself, am “weird” around food (and working on it!), but Anne at Elastic Waist made a good point about this today, after a strange dining situation she’d had with some women.

We all know eating is a human function, required for survival and longevity. Like water, clothing and shelter, food is a basic need — not something we can “choose” to go without. If we don’t eat, we die.

We fuel our body with nutrients so, like a car, we run smoothly. Many men and women who are dieting play games with this, trying to see how little they can eat and still lose, but the truth is, without adequate food, we’re setting ourselves up for failure.

In fact, taken to extremes (as with anorexia nervosa, which tends to be more about control than food), women can lose their periods, experience hair loss, bone loss, the inability to conceive and a host of other side affects, most tragic of all being death.

In the end, we really do need food. Continue reading “Why Are Women So Weird Around Food?” →