Becoming a Confident, Competent, Fearless Eater

fabuplus magazine beth rosen Beth Rosen, RD

I am SO excited to share with you an article I wrote for FabUplus magazine, whose mission is to be the driving force for real people to live their best lives.

Inside this magazine are empowering messages filled with a weight-neutral, health-centered approach to living life and promoting fitness, self-love, and overall health for “curvy women” – although all women will love this magazine (I do!).

In my article, I write about the steps to becoming a confident, competent, fearless eater.  It is one of the exercises I do with my clients to reduce food stigma and destroy the “good” and “bad” food lists once and for all.  It’s based on research regarding food habituation, and when you practice fearless eating, it really works!  The theory is that the more access you have to a food, the less likely you are to overeat it, to put it on a pedestal, and assume it has a special power over you.  Let me share a real-life story with you about my client Jenna* who loves potato chips:

Jenna loves potato chips but was afraid to keep them in the house.  She believed that if there were potato chips in the house, she would devour them and it would lead her to “fall off the wagon,” “be bad,” or “out of control.”  She just didn’t want the guilt and shame that followed after consuming chips.  She was going about it all wrong!  The chips weren’t the cause of her guilt and shame; the restriction of the chips was the cause.

Jenna agreed to practice fearless eating with potato chips.  She bought 3 bags and she was instructed to make sure there was always at least one bag in the house at all times.  During the first week, she ate a lot of chips.  She ate them with lunch, she ate them for dinner, and snacked on them whenever they “called out” to her.  Over time, and after much potato chip consumption, the desire to eat chips and only chips subsided.  Jenna knew that she could have them whenever she wanted to have them, and since she was no longer dieting, there was no last supper syndrome happening for her.

One day, not too long after beginning her fearless eating practice, Jenna entered my office with a wide grin spread across her face.

Jenna: “Guess what?!”

Me: “What?”

Jenna: “I wanted some potato chips yesterday, but when I ate one, I realized they were stale! It had been so long since I ate them on a daily basis that the open bag was stale and the sealed bags were expired.  I did it!”

Yes, she did.  And so can you.

The steps to becoming a confident, competent, fearless eater are spelled out in the FabUplus article I wrote on page 70 of the Summer 2017 issue.  You can read it here, or buy your own copy on their website or at Barnes and Noble stores.

FabUplus Article: Becoming a Confident, Competent, Fearless Eater

 

 

*I changed the name to protect my client’s identity.

 

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Beth Rosen

Eating Attitudes™ & Gut Expert

Beth Rosen, MS, RD, CDN is a Registered Dietitian and owner of Beth Rosen Nutrition. She practices a non-diet philosophy and is a Health at Every Size" practitioner. Her goal is to end the pain of diet culture, one person at a time. Beth's techniques and programs empower chronic dieters, and those who consider themselves emotional and /or stress eaters, to ditch the vicious cycle of dieting, eat fearlessly by removing Food and diet rules, and mend their relationship with food and their bodies. Beth's works face-to-face with clients in Southbury, CT, and virtually with clients, worldwide.

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