Nutritional Healing + Brain Chemistry Balancing For Eating Disorders

I'll be speaking on Brain Chemistry Balancing through Target Nutrition Therapy® at the International Conference on Nutrition & Food Sciences, Valencia, Spain 23-24th of Sept 2014. Complete Speaker program will be up here.

 

Want To Break That Addiction?

Your plate is a direct reflection of who you are.

Your truth is in the details. 

Everything you do reflects who you are, what you believe life is. 

Is life beautiful, abundant, something to be worshipped and savored, or is your belief-system based on deprivation (dieting)... or perhaps something that you stuff down, binge on and then feel sick to your core, because you do not savor the flavors (of life)? 

You are what you eat. It's the small things that count.

What's Your Story?

I think this shirt is pretty awesome. In fact, I am considering giving it to all my girlfriends.

If there's one thing that we all need to change, and that we in fact are in total and complete control over, it's the crap we tell ourselves day in and day out. 

And for a lot of us, it has to do with a very disturbingly poor bodyimage. Often we are so used to this, that we don't even notice that 75% of our awake time goes with talking crap to ourselves - and every time we eat, catch our reflection in the window and when we wake up - we tell ourselves how fat, ugly etc. etc. we are.

The issue is, that we in fact become what we tell ourselves - where focus goes, energy flows, and that's why it is imperative to let go of our narcissistic focus on our body, because we can simply never evolve as humans and reach another level of being and thinking, if all our time is spent with trying to fix a facade or constantly just hurting ourselves with telling how not-worthy we are. 

This is a huge issue, not just for chicks. The thing is, that it is incredibly emotionally draining and spreads a lot of negativity, when we surround ourselves with people who talk crap-talk consistenly about themselves. No one wants to hear it, and we need to stop for a minute and think about what effect, we are having on other people. Because we do affect other people. And you do not want to be that person, who constantly talks about dieting, needing to lose weight, needing to get married, needing to get xyz needing this needing that and yadayadayada. It's desperate and it turns everyone off - even your goddamn cat doesn't wanna hear it.

Even if you have to fake it at first - do it. Just stop verbalizing all your negative self-talk step 1, and step 2 find a mantra that reenforces the person you want to be. Step 3 repeat this mantra til it becomes your new story.

That's it. 

Simply changing your story and what you tell yourself, not only changes your own life, and how you treat yourself, but it also draws in a completely different friend crowd, and you will no longer be that person who drains the energy out of other people, because you are so caught up in your own vanity that you don't even notice others, but only you, yourself and your issues.

Life is too short for issues. And it's all in your mind. It really is. So get over yourself - there are more important things to life.

Neurotic Eating Tied to Emotional Nuttiness: Hello Hollywood.

Just adding to the bunch of studies that show how your eating affects your thinking and emotional health.

With a constant focus on thinness, garbage diet food products and a "less is more" default thinking when it comes to eating in the Western society; no wonder we are seeing a rise in neurotic behaviors and a general lack of people skills/compassion in society that manifest in a variety of ways. So perhaps we should begin consider exchanging marriage counseling for diet counseling: it is not uncommon that my clients report improved social relationships once their nutritional needs are met and matched to their genetic blueprint - which is not really surprising, since we need our basic needs met (cf. Maslow's hierarchy of needs), before we can evolve and connect to other people in a balanced manner and form healthy bonds that are not linked to abusive disorders or emotional dysregulation, simply due to not having mastered the art of feeding ourselves properly.

A new study shows that women with abnormal eating behaviors, such as binging or extreme fear of gaining weight, misinterpreted facial expressions in others, especially anger and fear, compared with a control group, researchers report in the journal Appetite. Women with abnormal eating behaviors mistook fear, bottom right, for anger, left, and sadness, top right, in a series of images of emotions, including happiness, top left.

Abnormal eating is associated with poor social skills and an impaired ability to recognize facial emotions. This study is the first to identify a pattern in recognition errors, researchers said.



Reference: 
Appetite. 2012 Aug;59(1):181-6. Epub 2012 Apr 24.
The influence of emotional intensity on facial emotion recognition in disordered eating.
Ridout N, Wallis DJ, Autwal Y, Sellis J.

Ashley Simpson's nose job linked to body dysmorphic disorder

Body dysmorphic disorder:
Ashley Simpson has struggled with eating disorders
 in addition to having undergone plastic surgery.

According to a new study, one-third of people who get nose jobs also have symptoms of moderate to severe body dysmorphic disorder, a mental illness where a person is so dissatisfied with real or imagined flaws that it disrupts daily life. The disorder can lead to suicidal thoughts, eating disorders, depression, anxiety and -- as is evidenced by this study -- unnecessary cosmetic surgery.

The new research, reported in the August issue of the journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, also shows that body dysmorphic disorder is especially common among people who have had more than one nose job.

Vanity. It kills.

Reference: http://journals.lww.com/plasreconsurg/pages/default.aspx

SKINNY is The New Fat

"Jennifer Ringer, as the Sugar Plum Fairy, looked as if she’d eaten one sugar plum too many; and Jared Angle, as the Cavalier, seems to have been sampling half the Sweet realm." - NY Times

Apparently the writer of these lines (referring to the ballet dancers pictured to the right) seems to have switched his glasses for magnifiers. Or perhaps, he is just another victim of society's "you can never be too young, too rich, too thin etc." mantra. And may I add "too stupid" along those same lines, or so it seems.

When normalcy is Nicole Richie, Paris Hilton and Keira Knightley...
All of whom are rumored to suffer from eating disorders (either that or their derrières have just decided to go awol) - and ballet dancers that show no sign of an ounce of fat on their bodies are critiqued for not looking like Auschwitz victims, you know society is absolutely losing it. Challenging both common sense and the laws of nature simultaneously; that certainly seems like a recipe for a disaster in the making.

Can anyone say Eating Disorder Epidemic?
Are these really the values that we want to pass on to our children?
This is just plain sad - this NY Times review reflects not just the writer's messed up ideals, but an increasingly sickening body image that has become the new normal.

Sometimes I wonder if freedom of speech should not be somewhat restricted 
At least to those with an IQ of min. 90 (which also requires that you had more than that skinny latte for breakfast in order for your brain to function...).

There is just too much time spent on listening to none-sense from nitwits.

Analyze this: The celeb with a serotonin deficiency!

Now as some of you know Britney Spears has undergone some dramatic weight changes throughout her career.

Rumors have it, that she is suffering from bulimia, which is characterized by consuming excess amounts of food in one sitting, only to purge it up shortly thereafter. Unfortunately, this is a very inefficient way of losing weight long-term, as your body responds by speeding up its ability to absorb calories - the absorption of calories from those doughnuts has already begun once the first bite has been taken. This is also why bulimics often are in the normal - overweight weight range.

Britney has previously undergone treatment at Promises rehab for alcohol abuse (one of the most frequent abuses connected with Bulimia). Furthermore the pop princess is notoriously known for binge shopping and episodes of borderline behavior.

Now why am I focusing on these things in particular?

Because our behaviors, eating habits, weight fluctuations and personality traits all reveal how our brain is wired and which communicators are out of whack, so to speak. Those communicators - neurotransmitters - can be rebuilt, and your brain can be rewired in order to combat cravings effortlessly!

In Britney's case there is a clear cut correlation between her key issues and a serotonin deficiency.
Serotonin is the neurotransmitter in our brain responsible for keeping us happy and collected as well as keeping our appetite in check. Serotonin (and its resulting delta brain waves) is produced in the brain's occipital lobes and controls your brain's ability to rest and resynchronize and is also involved in vision. When your serotonin levels are balanced you can sleep deeply and think rationally. You are able to live in the moment and enjoy the simple things in life, such as eating a good meal or watching the leaves play in the wind.

Key signs of a serotonin imbalance are:

• Borderline Personality Disorder
• Carb cravings and alcohol abuse
• Impulsive
• Anger/ Rage/ Emotional outbursts/Anxiety
• Appetite dysfunction: chronic hungry/obsessing over food
• Overly self-critical
• Adrenaline junkie/ thrill seeker
• Depression
• Restlessness
• Difficulty concentrating
• Palpitations
• Binging behaviour (food, shopping, kleptomania, sex etc.)

These signs are simply the symptoms of the cause - which is an imbalanced brain chemistry! In order to treat these issues you need to understand which nutritional strategies, supplements as well as meds that support your brain wiring! When you engage in extreme behaviors you are simply self-medicating on things that give you an instant relief from your pain and imbalanced brain. The key, however, is to rebalance your brain and all the symptoms then painlessly disappear! - Quitting an addiction is NOT about willpower! It's about understanding which chemicals in your brain are responsible for making you crave certain substances and then how you can alter it.

Every time Britney goes on a diet she will deplete that chemical further.

Especially if it's a low-carb diet or a vegan type of diet - both extremes have been proven to screw up serotonin balance big time. And this is something which females are particularly vulnerably to as estrogen and serotonin levels are connected (also why most females crave carbs and suffer PMS during certain times of their cycle - because they are experiencing a drop in serotonin levels due to fluctuating estrogen levels. However, this is something that is preventable - PMS is NOT normal!).

Contact The Nutrition Doctor to get you back on track to a STRONG MIND in a STRONG BODY!