Trust your hunger and make peace with food | Eve Lahijani | TEDxUCLA

I'm the speaker before lunch so if you're anything like me you have one of two things on your mind what's for lunch and where's the nearest bathroom you've been sitting there for a while so some of you are probably gonna go to the bathroom first and when you go to the bathroom you never stop yourself look at your watch and tell yourself it's too early I'll just wait till my usual bathroom time we don't do that then why do we do that with our lunch time in regards to go in the bathroom we never think oh I've already gone three times today and I don't want to overdo it I'm just gonna ignore this feeling then why do we do this with our hunger it seems like so many of us have an unnatural relationship with our hunger I know I certainly did so I want to share my story with you but this isn't just my story this may be the story of the person who's sitting next to you this may be the story of somebody you love this may even be your story you see it wasn't that long ago that I was a student here at UCLA myself and although I was a student here the last thing on my mind was school instead I was obsessed with food eating and my weight in an attempt to control my weight I'd go on diets cleanses I'd push really hard at the gym I'd avoid entire food groups and skip meals there was only so long that that would work before I'd find myself binging out on bowls of milk and cereal and eating massive amounts of cakes and cookies and just one sitting the rule of thumb was the more restrictive I became the bigger my binges got I felt so uncomfortable with myself that this radiated to other aspects of my life I wouldn't want to go out my friends because chances are they're going out to eat and I was actively trying to avoid food I wouldn't go on vacation because on vacation there are these large bodies of water called swimming pools and what do you have to wear to get into a swimming pool a bathing suit would not be caught dead in one of those I didn't get involved in romantic relationships because rumor had it that when you're involved romantically eventually bodies get close and I was too ashamed to let anybody near mine so I was left with one and nothing except food so food became my only friend and I hated that so according to my students it was more of a frenemy situation so I was desperate and I was hungry for answers so he went to grad school to get my masters in nutrition and in grad school I was so excited to learn more sophisticated tools for depriving myself I understand it's funny to you but I was excited I was so excited to learn the government standards of what I should and shouldn't be eating but as you could imagine the more I learned the more alienated I became from my own body the more alienated I became from food meanwhile the restricting and the binging was just getting worse and worse and this went on for about a year after grad school until I had enough dieting wasn't working for me it never had and I made the choice to stop dieting forever and once I made that choice everything changed I practically had to relearn how to eat so some of you may be thinking well Eve that's easier said than done and you're right it may have been the hardest thing I ever had to do but the most valuable so that's why I've dedicated my career as a dietician to help my clients my students and even some of my friends make peace with food and I want to share some of that with you today I had to do three main things the first part was reconnecting with my own hunger it may seem obvious to you but the reason why many people eat has very little or nothing to do with hunger they eat because they're bored their time their stress they're tired they need a break maybe they're eating because food is available or if they're students they're eating if food is available and it's free right still others try to ignore their appetite suppressant or control it in grad school we had to learn long equations to try to predict how much food somebody needs in a day I know now we have apps on our phones that do this but it's really impossible to predict how much food somebody is going to need in a day so what I want to share with you now is the most sophisticated tool for not only telling you how much you need to eat but when are you ready for this it's the hunger fullness scale this is a tool designed to help you tune in with your own body zero and one on the scale that's not hunger that's famished nine and ten on the scale that's not fullness that's painfully stuffed think about Thanksgiving right that's a nine or a ten when I first learned about this scale I was only familiar with the extremes but according to the scale you want to begin eating when you first get hungry and that correlates with the three or a four on the scale the reason why you want to make a point to eat when you first get hungry is because that's the secret of being able to stop when you get comfortably full a six or seven on the scale it's also wise to eat when you first get hungry because you're more likely to enjoy your food you're more likely to eat mindfully and your body will naturally crave more nutritious options speaking about cravings think about what happens to you when you let yourself get too hungry what types of foods do you crave then naturally you crave the fattiest oïleus cheesiest deep fried thing with fries and a milkshake sound familiar what happens to your eating behavior when you let yourself get too hungry chances are you're eating really fast not really paying attention in fact one of the biggest predictors of overeating is letting yourself get too hungry in the first place so when it comes to a healthy weight when it comes to energy levels when it comes to your ability to be in a good mood and have stamina to get through the day learning how to eat when you first get hungry and stopping at fullness is the foundation although what you eat is important it turns out how you eat is just as important and for some of us it's even more important speaking of what to eat that's the second area I had to come in terms with because whenever I was on a diet well the diet would told me what to eat and that was no longer an option so instead of listening to others opinions of what I should eat I became silent and I tuned into my own body and I fed my body what it was craving even if it was my mom's delicious lasagna or my brothers brownies not those kind of brownies and it was amazing because I was actually tasting things for the first time because my mind wasn't filled with judgment and guilt and I actually found that my body actually craved nurturing foods nourishing foods like vegetables and fruits I actually liked my sister's kale and quinoa salad and I'm not just saying that because she's sitting somewhere over there I really mean it so the third area I had to come to terms with had to do with when my eating didn't go the way I wanted it to if I accidentally binge door over ate you see in the past whenever that would happen I'd push really hard at the gym or I'd punish myself with the cleanse or a new diet but I was committed to feeding myself with love no matter what so food was no longer at a punishment and it was no longer award so I found myself comfortable in all types of food situation around any type of food and so I'll never forget the first time I was able to have Girl Scout cookies in my house and actually forget that they were there anybody who struggles with food knows what a big deal that is meanwhile my labs are better than they've ever been before my weight stabilized to where it is now and the best part is that my mind is obsession free but what's really interesting is to see how making peace with food affected other areas of my life you see as I learn how to listen to myself I became better at listening to others I became more empathetic as I made a point to trust myself I became more trusting in my relationships and more vulnerable and as I became more loving to myself and actually loved myself I learned what it meant to love someone else I became who I wanted to be both personally and professionally and that's when I realized that making peace with food went beyond my physical health it wasn't just about the way that I was eating it was about the way that I was living so something my father taught me when I was really young is the way we do anything is the way that is the same way we do everything and that applies here as well think about it when you make a point to listen to yourself and trust yourself and treat yourself with unconditional kindness this affects you on a day-to-day basis it affects who you are in your relationships it affects how you show up for work and at school these things make up our communities our communities affect our economy our country even after all how could you be at peace with others if you're at war within yourself so I want you to imagine what will your life be like when you move beyond the opinion and judgment of others and you learn how to listen to your own inner voice imagine how will your life transform when you have the courage to trust yourself and how will your life feel when you learn how to tune in and treat yourself with love and kindness no matter what when I ask myself these questions I felt like the world is a safer place I felt like I matter and that anything is possible I guess you could say I felt free I felt at peace and that's my hope for you that you find peace and freedom when it comes to food and your eating and that peace and freedom radiates to every other aspect of your life so some of you may be thinking it sounds like I'm saying you could have your cake and eat it too and to those of you you're absolutely right thank you for listening you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 379,812

Rating: 4.9404449 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, United States, Health, Behavior, Body, Education, Food, Happiness, Truth

Id: Ssr2UDB9EWQ

Length: 10min 53sec (653 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 09 2015