Ordinarily, of course, I’d say “no” to dieting. Diets don’t work and they make us feel bad about ourselves. But a low FODMAP diet is actually a tool to help you discover what foods might be triggering certain gastrointestinal symptoms. It is not designed to be followed long-term. And it is not a tool for weight loss or weight maintenance.
Author Archives: Christina Frangione, MS, RD, CDN, RYT
10 Tips from an Anti-Diet Dietitian for Practicing Intuitive Eating at Your Holiday Meal
This time of year, the media is all about how to maintain your weight this holiday season or minimize the holiday eating “damage”. These articles or news pieces essentially give you all the diet tips you’ve heard many times before. They teach you how to spend the whole holiday meal planning to eat enough to satisfy your cravings, but not too much that you might end up gaining weight. The tips are well-meaning. After all, most people are worried about holiday weight gain and then try to go on a diet come January 1st.
But what if you didn’t need to worry about your weight? What if you could just enjoy the holiday season with family and friends? What if holiday gatherings were about all the things you’re grateful for?
Why Should I Eat When Nothing Matters?
Have you ever felt like nothing really matters? Like nothing you do will ever make a difference and your life doesn’t mean anything? That everything is completely random and life is cruel and good people don’t get what they deserve?
So whether it’s from the latest terrorist attack, a natural disaster, a depressive episode, or a personal situation, the last thing on your mind is eating. When nothing matters, why should you bother nourishing yourself?
What is Hunger and How Can You Honor It
When you were younger, it may have been as simple as whenever your belly rumbled, you got yourself a snack. Your body was telling you it was hungry and you fed it in response.
Now, we may not even be attuned to our body’s hunger signals. We may have desperately tried to silence these signals through dieting and deprivation. Or we may keep ourselves full at all times so we never have to experience the emptiness of hunger.
We may associate hunger with binging. That’s because when we get overly hungry, we’re ready to eat just about anything and we want all of it. We may not trust that we’re going to eat again, so we feast. This is one reason why it’s important to listen to your hunger and feed yourself before you get too ravenous.
How to Protect Your Peace as a Non-Dieter in a Dieting World
As someone who’s long ago left the world of dieting and disordered eating behind, I’m still shocked every time I hear references to dieting. It’s all around me everywhere I go. At the doctor, at work, at the grocery store, at the gym, at home, and on my social media feed. At this point, it’s truly impossible to avoid diet culture. Since it can be so easy to be sucked back into diet culture, especially in the beginning, let’s explore some ways to challenge the culture so you can remain a non-dieter, intuitive eater, and lover of self.
Peanut Butter Banana Bread Energy Bars
Snacks are such an important way to get additional nutrition in between meals and satisfy your hunger. They’re especially important for people who need to eat small, frequent meals (which is pretty much anyone with any GI issues). As of late, these peanut butter banana bread energy bars are my favorite snacks to bring to work. I’ve even brought them hiking on my trip to Maine and they held up well.