March 15, 2011

Now let us take a look at this battle or race that we are in. What we are to fight and resist are Satan’s lies and our own fleshly desires and temptations to eat more food than the body is calling for (greed). Paul described the location of this battle in Romans 7:21-23 when he said,
So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. Paul went on to say that the Holy Spirit of Christ sets us free from the law of sin and death. But rest assured that we must constantly battle to submit our wills and train our minds to stay focused on what the law of Christ is; and we must put to death our earthly desires.
So we know where the battle is—it is in the mind and heart. And we have some knowledge of what we are up against in this war— our own fleshly desire or will. We know we will win the war if we stay focused on the Spirit of Jesus Christ and on the will of God. This means we spend our energy getting our minds off our earthly wants as Paul described in Colossians 3:5a: “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature . …” By the way, when we put something to death, it is best that we do not slowly torture it to death. “Put to death” or “rid yourself” is a swift, fast action. What we like to do, though, is think about it, consider giving up the food, hear other people talking about giving up their food, and check them out to be sure they have not died doing it—you know, the “drip-drip” method. We do not like to rush into things, but playing around with this process can only get us into real trouble. But as one thing dies, the life of God comes alive in our hearts!
*52\237\2*

March 8, 2011

Before you begin to apply your new knowledge and experience the joys of the Beverly Hills Diet, I need to vanquish a few much-trumpeted diet myths, because one thing you will have to give up to wear that golden pineapple is any preconceived ideas and opinions you have of what fattening is all about.
Gone are the days of the “diet plate”—the hamburger patty and cottage cheese. Never again will you have to look a canned peach half in the eye or eat a grapefruit.
When you think of low cal, do you think of foods you crave, or do you imagine bland, slighdy off, colorless, limp, plastic-like substances? Low-cal substitutes never really satisfy. They merely intensify and aggravate your food fantasies. If you want heavy, rich ice cream, does flimsy ice milk really take its place? If you lust for thick cream, does the watery, bluish 2-percent-fat milk fulfill your craving?
Diet salad dressings, diet butters, diet mayonnaise, most diet foods, in fact, are glutted with sodium. In almost all “diet” foods, calories are replaced with chemicals, which makes them useless—that is, indigestible. Hence, fattening. At least the calories in food can be turned into energy. Do you want to take a chance on blowing your diet because of an inferior substitute that only increases your love of the real thing?
As far as low-cal plates go, you’ll usually find they’re not so low-calorie anyway. Let’s look at a few of the more prevalent ones.
*51\251\8*

March 1, 2011

Today, most weight control authorities believe that getting on the scale to determine your weight and then looking at where you fall on some arbitrary chart may be more harmful than helpful. Determining weight status in such ways may lead many to think they are overly fat when they are not, or that they are okay when, in fact, they may be at risk. A number of measures exist for calculating body content, and some provide a very precise reading or calculation of body fat. Others are less sophisticated but are based on factors that h been identified as key indicators for assessing body com

Body mass index: The New Standard
As you know, BMI is an index of the relationship of height and weight. It is one of the most accurate indicators of a person’s health risk due to excessive weight, rather than “fatness” per se.
Although many people recoil in fright when they see that they have to convert pounds to kilograms and inches to meters to calculate BMI, it really is not as difficult as it may seem. To get your kilogram weight, just divide your weight pounds (without shoes or clothing) by 2.2. To convert your height to meters squared, divide your height in inches (without shoes) by 39.4, then square this result. Sounds pretty and it actually is. Once you have these basic values, calculating your BMI involves dividing your weight in kilograms by your height in meters squared.

BMI = Weight (in lbs) : 2.2 (to determine weight in kg)
(Height [in inches] : 39.4)2 (to determine height in meters squared)

Healthy weights have been defined as those associated with BMIs of 19 to 25, the range of lowest statistical health risk. A BMI greater than 25 indicates overweight and potentially significant health risks. The desirable range for females is between 21 and 23; for males, it is between 22 and 24. A body mass index of over 30 is considered obese. Many experts believe that this number is too high, particularly for younger adults.
In addition, although maintaining a healthful weight is reasonable for those already within the weight guidelines, these standards may be almost impossible for people who consistently exceed the target weights and who have difficulty keeping off any lost weight. Constant failure may lead them to stop trying. The secret lies in establishing a healthful weight at a young age and maintaining it – a task easier said than done. The U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans encourages a weight gain of no more than 10 pounds after reaching adult height and endorses small weight losses of one-half to 1 pound per week, if needed, as well as smaller weight losses of 5 to 10 percent to make a difference toward health.
*5/277/5*

January 30, 2011

Food is necessary to enable the human body to function properly. In many cultures, food is scarce. I recently saw Frank McCourt, the author of Angela’s Ashes (a book I loved), on a television show talking about his childhood and hearing that people in America were actually dieting to lose weight. He commented that he didn’t understand the concept as he spent almost his entire childhood in Ireland hungry and at times starving. Our bodies have not made us overweight. Our behavior has made us overweight.
One night I was flipping channels and came across the movie Cast Away. In it, Tom Hanks plays a plumpish Federal Express employee who survives a plane crash and ends up on an uninhabited tropical island. Because he has to hunt his own food and physically perform all the labor required to survive, he loses weight. In order to realistically depict the passage of time, production was halted for six months to enable Tom Hanks to shed weight to bring his physical appearance in line with his character’s new environment and behavior. Clearly, his body had not made him overweight; his behavior had. The movie depicted this reality. You can do the same with your reality. It’s your behavior. You control it.
*53/280/5*

April 23, 2009

Family therapy

Family therapy – the treatment of more than one member of a family in the same session – is based on the idea that an emotional disorder in one person may be just the tip of the iceberg, hinting at problems with the way the family operates as a whole. The eating disorder will only get better if the whole family system can change.

(In family therapy, the “patient” is really the family itself; the girl with the poor eating habits is sometimes known as the “symptom-bearer.”)

The family approach looks at the disorder as a kind of nonverbal message from the patient. The symptoms are her reaction to problems in her family relationships.

In therapy we ask, “What function does the behavior serve in the family context?” That seems like an odd question, but it’s really not.

You see the trap. Sometimes, as dangerous as it is, an eating disorder can actually stabilize a family. When that happens, the disorder can become even more entrenched. The longer the illness persists, the worse it gets, and the more focus it gets from the family.

Goals of family therapy

As with any treatment, the first task is to help the patient break her abnormal eating pattern. Family members can support her better if they learn the facts. Part of therapy, then, involves educating other members about what’s going on. Once that’s done, the family can shift its focus away from the symptoms and onto the deeper issues.

We then work to change the harmful ways the family interacts. We help parents to pull back, to disentangle themselves. In doing so, they help their daughter develop her sense of autonomy. They also help themselves by shifting responsibility for the illness to where it needs to be -on the patient.

In therapy, we try to shore up the good things the family does and curb the bad things.

Often, family members find that they suppress huge chunks of their personalities when dealing with one another.

Sometimes, getting rid of these masks is hard because families have become so rigid. In this sense, the patient is a “victim of tradition.” Therapy helps families loosen their grip on the past and concentrate on the here and now.

The exact goals of therapy depend somewhat on the patient’s age. When the patient is under eighteen, we usually focus on the parents. We want them to work together to combat the illness. With an older patient, we concentrate more on her need for autonomy. Our aim is to help her separate from her family and live life on her own.

Through therapy, a patient takes control by changing her relationships with others in the family. She learns she can’t “protect” her family through her illness; she also learns how to get others to stop being so protective of her. She sees new sides of her family members’ personalities. If the patient is married, we need to work on marital issues as well as her eating problems.

*98/35/5*

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