The beautiful actress and model Portia deRossi (now known as Portia deGeneres after legally adopting her wife Ellen deGeneres' name last week), appeared on Oprah yesterday to promote her new book Unbearable Lightness and to speak candidly about her battles with anorexia and bulimia. Near the outset of the show, she told a heartrending story about ( Read more... )

Chapter 7 of Roth's Women Food and God begins to deal with the practical application of her approach. She begins by outlining how the way we eat reveals what we truly believe about ourselves here on earth.In the moment that you reach for potato chips to avoid what you feel, you are effectively saying, "I have no choice but to numb myself. Some ( Read more... )

After a bit of digging in my LJ archives, I found that I last wrote about Geneen Roth nearly 4 years ago, probably after I'd been referred to her early book called Breaking Free From Emotional Eating by my psychotherapist. In that entry, I outlined Roth's so-called "eating guidelines" and also discussed an audio lecture series I'd been listening to ( Read more... )

Breaking free from compulsive behaviours has mostly to do with present moment awareness. When we indulge in compulsive behaviours, we do so out of a perceived need (or at least, a strong desire) to escape from the current moment in some way. A need to change our level of consciousness so that it becomes different-seeming than whatever's simply ( Read more... )

This morning's local CBC Radio One show featured a guest who discussed her problems with being overweight and how she has begun to treat it through the Hypertension Clinic at the local hospital. Part of her treatment was with a dietician, who exhibited signs of actual insight into emotional eating as opposed to what I remember from any dieticians I ( Read more... )

I went golfing with my dad and his wife today for the first time in about five years. I'm not a practiced golfer at all, and have never seemed to have a natural golf swing nor a strong inclination to play the game ( Read more... )

Did delts + abs at the gym yesterday. During my dumbbell shoulder raises (3 sets anterior raises + 3 sets lateral raises slightly bent (i.e. with participation from posterior delts) + 3 sets overhead presses (military style) + 3 sets Arnolds), I did ball sits with an aerobics ball pressed between my lower back and the wall (it rolls up your back ( ( Read more... )

A few weeks ago, I found myself suddenly invested in finding an old-school weightlifting gym. Full of strong, muscular people who pumped iron in a serious way to gain muscle mass and strength ( Read more... )

1. Eat when you're hungry. Or more specifically, eat when your body is hungry.

2. Eat what your body (as opposed to your mind) wants ( Read more... )

The quote I was discussing here was from Geneen Roth's Breaking Free From Compulsive Eating, and it goes like this:A quest, it seems to me, stems from an intuitive belief that the key to our wholeness lies in the expression of what we've glimpsed in ourselves but not yet touched. A quest is connected to the you that reaches beyond itself to the ( Read more... )