Many people have a problem with their relationship with food. Some overeat, others undereat, and many struggle with their weight despite doing everything right “on paper.” Marc David, addresses these and other issues in his book.
He’s also the head of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating, which offers an eight-week long virtual retreat that teaches you how to nourish yourself in a whole new way. As for how he got into this field, he says:
“Sonoma State University allowed me to do an independent study for my master’s degree in Eating Psychology. I put an ad in a newspaper that said, ‘Graduate student looking to start Eating Psychology study group.’ That was the beginnings for me of learning on the job.
I had a group of 20 plus people — a handful of anorexics; a handful of some of the most obese people I’d ever seen; a beautiful model who had an eating disorder; and a handful of women in their 50s who looked fine to me but [spent their] life chronically dieting.
That was my beginnings of starting to understand eating psychology, counseling psychology, and coaching psychology. I looked at all the different modalities, started doing clinical practice, and said, ‘OK. What works and what doesn’t?’”
Why Does Dieting Oftentimes Fail?
Gradually, over the course of about 15 years, David developed a number of strategies that effectively address weight, body image, overeating, binge eating, emotional eating, and endless dieting.
The key was to distill the science and psychology down into simple, clear, and straightforward strategies that could empower people to take action and get desired results.
For example, many people diet and exercise yet don’t lose weight. Why is that? Oftentimes there are secondary complaints that can offer clues.
“Maybe they have digestive issues. Maybe they have mood, irritability, or fatigue. Maybe they have dry skin and dry hair. Then I look at their diet and find that they’re eating extremely low-fat.
Now, why are they eating extremely low-fat? They’re [doing it] because they have what I call the ‘toxic nutritional belief’ that ‘fat in food equals fat on my body.’ That’s a piece of nutritional information that they’re practicing, using, and abiding by.”
The problem with believing and following this myth is that lack of dietary fat may actually be part of why you can’t lose weight. One of the signs of essential fatty acid deficiency is weight gain or inability to lose weight.
This seems counter intuitive to many, but the proof is in the pudding, as the saying goes, and if you’re not losing weight even though you’ve cut out nearly all fat, then perhaps it’s time to reassess your belief system.
“Then I have to do what I call an intellectual intervention,” says. “This is my opportunity to deliver information… and let them know that ‘here is where your belief is impacting the goal that you want.’
[I’ll tell them] ‘let’s do an experiment because you’ve been doing it this way for a dozen years. So now we’re going to include more healthy essential fats in your diet for the next several weeks. Then we’re going to see how you feel.’”
More often than not, adding healthy fats back into your diet will result in more regular bowel movements, an increased sense of well-being, improved appetite control, and, eventually, weight loss.
Reconnecting to Your Body’s Innate Intelligence
Part of the challenge, David notes, is that most people have lost their connection to body intelligence. “There’s a brilliant wisdom that’s activated once we start to clean up our diet and eat healthier food,” he says.
Most people also eat too fast, and this too cuts you off from your body’s innate intelligence, so slowing down the pace at which you eat is a very important part of reestablishing this natural connection.
If you’re a fast eater, you’re not paying attention to the food you’re eating, and you’re missing what scientists call the cephalic phase digestive response (CPDR).
Cephalic phase digestive response is a fancy term for taste, pleasure, aroma, and satisfaction, including the visual stimulus of your meal. Researchers estimate about 40 to 60 percent of your digestive and assimilative power at any meal comes from this “head phase” of digestion.
“In other words, you look at a food and your mouth starts to water,” David explains. “You think of a food and your stomach starts to churn. That’s digestion beginning in the mind. When we are not paying attention to the meal, our natural appetite is deregulated. On top of that, eating very fast puts your body in a stress state.”
Stress Effectively Hinders Weight Loss
When you put your body in a stress state, you have sympathetic nervous system dominance, increased insulin, increased cortisol, and increased stress hormones.
Not only will this deregulate your appetite, you’re also going to eat more, because when your brain doesn’t have enough time to sense the taste, aroma, and pleasure from the food, it keeps signaling that hunger has not been satisfied.
You’ve undoubtedly experienced this at some point: You quickly gorge on a huge meal, but when you’re finished, your belly is distended yet you still feel the urge to eat more. At the heart of this problem is eating too quickly, which causes stress. As David explains:
“I want to steer people towards more soulful eating,” David says. “Be present. Feel good about what you’re doing. Get pleasure from that meal. Taste it. Stress is arguably one of the most common causative or contributing factors to just about any disease, condition, or symptom we know of.
When I can start to help a person slow down with their meal and get in a relationship with their food, first and foremost, what’s happening is they’re stepping into parasympathetic nervous system dominance.
If you take five to 10 long, slow deep breaths before a meal, or five to 10 long, slow deep breaths before anything you do, you are training your system to drop into the physiologic relaxation response. When I can help somebody drop into that place, magic starts to happen. People start to go, ‘Oh my goodness, I paid attention to my meal. I was present and I slowed down. I’m not overeating anymore.’”
In David’s experience, a person’s problem with overeating or binge eating can disappear within days when they get into right relationship with food and life, which means being present to it. Being present and mindful can actually affect your physiology in a very direct and profound way.
So if you typically reserve five minutes for breakfast, make that 15 or 20 minutes. If you’re taking 10 minutes for lunch, take 30, 40, or better yet, as much as an hour or an hour and a half, which is common practice in many European countries.
Approaching Food from a Place of Inspiration Rather than Fear (continue reading)