A few weeks ago, a producer at WCBS-TV in New York contacted me to discuss a story she was working on about orthorexia. At the conclusion of what turned out to be a two-hour whirlwind of camera tests, lighting adjustments and a wonderful interview about a subject near and dear to my heart, the producer asked me a telling question.
“I know you probably eat very healthfully most of the time, but do you ever, you know, stop at a fast food restaurant on the turnpike,” she asked? “And if you do, do you feel guilty about it?”
Her question made me smile because it reminded me that despite my standing on a soapbox at every opportunity I find to preach “Stop Dieting!” “Stop Labeling Foods as Good or Bad!” people still assume I eat an “extremely healthy diet,” whatever that means to each person who makes the assumption.
My answer to the producer’s question was a resounding, “YES!”…and “NO!”
“Yes, I eat fast food occasionally, and NO I don’t feel guilty about it,” I told her passionately. “My husband and I – and now our baby – drive up to Lake Tahoe fairly regularly and we always stop at In ‘N Out, Wendy’s or whatever other fast food restaurant is available when hunger strikes.
To be clear, I care about health and wellbeing. I’m a trained wellness coach, after all, and as I’ve written in my book, I have genetically high cholesterol (when I went vegan for six months many years ago in an attempt to bring it down, my cholesterol actually went up), that I must monitor and ultimately treat.
Having a baby has also made me care about my health more than I have at any other time in my life because I want to be there every step of the way for my girl – on the sidelines at soccer games, from the front row of piano recitals and on the sofa at home when tears pour out of a broken heart.
However, I believe very strongly that emotional, spiritual and psychological health are just as important as physical health. You can have the healthiest diet in the world and be quite unhealthy (case in point: orthorexia). To the contrary, we’ve all watched interviews with enthusiastic 103-year-olds who gloat that one of their secrets to living so long was enjoying a bowl of ice cream every day.
Given my focus on eating real food in lieu of “food products” filled with chemicals, I can understand the assumption that I eat quite healthfully much of the time, and yes, I guess that’s actually true. But I also eat foods that have no (or very little) nutritional value whatsoever. I enjoy the tastes that dance around my mouth as I eat these foods (I’m still talking about the peanut-butter cookie dough ice cream I discovered at Ben & Jerry’s over a month ago). Sometimes these foods make my body feel good, and sometimes they don’t.
Saturday, for instance, on vacation in Palm Desert, I started the day with a big bowl of oatmeal and coffee, which I enjoyed thoroughly. At lunch I ordered a chicken sandwich, French fries and a salad from the poolside cafe. The food at lunch was marginal, but I was hungry, so I ate quite a bit of the salad (it was the best part of the meal) and all of the chicken. I skipped the bun because I didn’t like it at all, and that left room for me to eat all of my French fries, which I did. Feeling unsatisfied after this meal, I changed the flavor in my mouth by chewing a sugary piece of watermelon-flavored gum a friend of mine offered me back at the pool.
Did I enjoy my lunch? No, not particularly. Did I enjoy the company of my family as I ate it? Absolutely. Did I feel sad that I didn’t have a sybaritic meal? Yes, a little bit. Did I feel guilty about the French fries? Not in the least. Was I looking forward to preparing homemade lunches when I returned from vacation? Yes, though I knew I’d miss the desert air I enjoyed so much over the weekend.
Life is about choices, and I chose many years ago to let go of the guilt I used to feel about food. I never thought that would be possible so many years ago when I struggled through orthorexic behaviors, and it took many years to fully let it go. But I can honestly tell you now that my guilt about food is gone.
When I eat ice cream I enjoy every bite, without a dollop of guilt on top.
I tell you this both as a way to address the assumption about my “healthy eating” and to celebrate full recovery from disordered eating. I am living, breathing proof that the saying “once an eating disorder always an eating disorder” is not true. You can heal from encaging food thoughts and behaviors.
Keep your eyes open for the WCBS-TV story on orthorexia, and write to the station to thank them for devoting airtime to such an important subject matter.
Maggie Miller is the founder and owner of Eat When You’re Hungry, a company dedicated to helping people stop dieting and start living. A trained wellness coach with more than 10 years of study under Intuitive Eating co-author Elyse Resch, R.D., M.S., F.A.D.A., Maggie is a living, breathing example to people all over the world of someone who has successfully overcome years of restrictive eating. Maggie works with clients to help them shed the diet mentality and take on a renewed, natural, non-diet relationship with food. Clients often say, “I haven’t felt this good in 30 years! Thank you for helping me discover that diets don’t work and intuitive eating does.” Maggie lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter. She can be contacted through her website at www.eatwhenyourehungry.com.