Each day is a new one. Leave binges where they are: in the past!

Jenn is a 23 year-old recent college grad from Canada who is a recovering bulimic, but still struggles with binge eating. Today she’s here to tell us about how she deals with what to do the day after a binge. xo…Sunny

“I am so bloated from my head down to my feet.”
“I am so full. Why did I just do that?”
“It will all be okay if I subsist on only protein and veggies today and burn 2000 calories working out.”

I am embarrassed to admit that all of the above thoughts are things that I have thought after a binge and even into the next day. Anyone who is a binge eater knows that the next day you wake up feeling like you have the worst hangover possible. The physical repercussions are not what makes the day after a binge hell, the mental battle with yourself is challenging because you feel like there is no point to what you are trying to do because you’re bound to fail. A cloud of negativity follows you around all day and constantly berates you, making you feel like you are less than. I have found a few tricks that help me feel better about myself I hope will help you repair your self esteem and will help you get back to normal.

1) First and foremost, you must forgive yourself. This is so much easier said than done and I am sure you are looking at your computer saying “Easy for you to say, buddy.” Well friend, why would you not want to forgive yourself? A few times, I have tried to list all of the reasons why I deserve to live in agony because I had a binge, but I was left staring at an empty paper. The first step in this process for me is telling myself that I am forgiven, then displaying it to myself in my actions.

2) Forget the restrictive diets and the cleanses. These regimens are unhealthy and deny our bodies of valuable nutrients. It is imperative that we don’t restrict ourselves because by forcing ourselves to follow a restrictive diet, or we will set ourselves up for another binge; when you “can’t” have something, it is all you think about. I went through a period this past summer where I was experimenting with a popular,  low carb diet and when I finally did give in to my cravings I binged. I am working on finding a middle ground with my wellness regimen and have to constantly remind myself that wanting a cookie or a piece of fruit is okay. It’s also been important to find some form of exercise that I enjoy and that manages your stress. I like Crossfit because it helps me feel strong and like I’m able to do anything I set my mind to.

3) Find meaning in the binge. None of us binge because we like food or because we are particularly hungry. This is obviously really tough to do because it hurts to acknowledge your weaknesses. When I was 19,  I had my first official boyfriend and my first real physical relationship. When he broke up with me in the middle of my exams, and gave me no reason why he had to break my heart, I was devastated. I felt like there had to be something wrong with me as a person because if only I was prettier, skinnier, or a better girlfriend maybe he would not have broken up with me. I am 23 now and since then I have sought out relationships with four men not looking for anything but a physical relationship (they were all single! I didn’t go down that road just to make it clear). After having my heart broken royally this last year, it finally dawned on me that I sought out companionship from men that wouldn’t give me what I wanted because I believed that I deserved to be rejected. Obviously this is completely untrue, but it is something that I know has had a dramatic effect on my self esteem. It’s helped to look at my life and see if there are any patterns that I am repeating. If you can bring positive intention to your future actions and awareness to your weaknesses you can help figure out ways to fight a binge or to distract yourself. When I find myself feeling anxious, I get out of my house and go to the library or to the bookstore and look at novels I would like to read. I have a handful of friends I can talk to that I feel comfortable venting to.

4) Last, but certainly not least, go out of your way to feel beautiful. When I take an extra 10 minutes in the morning to apply eyeliner, put on lipgloss, put on my pretty earrings and my long blue scarf, I feel like a princess. I am not my eating disorder, I am a girl who has struggled but has made the decision to triumph and not let anything get me down.

Thanks again, Jenn, for sharing what works for you! For more smart ideas for what to do the day after a binge, check out this previous post from psychologist Ashley Solomon. Have ideas to share of your own? Please do! xo…Sunny

[photo: whologwhy]

HealthyGirl.org reader Angie told me that she’s had a lot of success recently using cognitive behavioral therapy to help her get (and stay) sane about food. CBT may sound intimidating, but it’s just a style of talk therapy—one that I heard many many experts recommend when I was interviewing them for my book about binge eating. Take a look and feel free to weigh in with your thoughts about CBT, or therapy in general. xo…Sunny

Hello world. This is Angie. I am humbled that Sunny asked me to talk about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). While I have been in recovery from multiple eating disorders for 20+ years, note that I am not a licensed psychologist or medical professional. What I share here is based on my personal experience.

One more caveat: During my recovery I have often searched, in vain, for someone to give me the magic formula for a healthy life. I want someone, anyone, to tell me what to do so I don’t have to struggle with decisions re: food and exercise. This search has been in vain. Life is messy and I have to do the work to figure out what works for me, today, every day. There is nothing that always works. Now, if I haven’t scared you off, is more about CBT:

There are definitions of CBT that you can look up. For me, CBT means that I talk to a licensed psychologist on a regular basis. Out of these appointments, the psychologist observes patterns of behaviors and suggests that I reframe situations and thoughts. Here are a few examples to explain how CBT has helped me recover:

Recognize that I will always have thoughts related to disordered eating. I cannot remember a time when I did not try to find solace and control in food and how I consume food. Instead of banishing these thoughts, I recognize them, but choose not to dwell on them. Countering the food-related thoughts with positive mantras is hard, but helpful.

For example: When I think about binging or restricting, remember that I love to take the dog for a walk and look up at the sky. I am stronger than I think and feeling the fresh air on my face is a way for me to disconnect from the eating disorder. Disconnecting from the ED thoughts is very important for me as it’s been a primary tool in my recovery. It’s actually a tool that a lot of people use when healing from mental disorders. Have you watched A Beautiful Mind? While depression and eating disorders are not the same thing as schizophrenia, there is something to learn from watching how John Nash (played by Russell Crowe) healed from his mental illness. He became cognizant of schizophrenic-type thoughts and, eventually, chose to pivot away from those thoughts by recognizing what was real.

This idea of pivoting away from ‘crazy’ thoughts intrigued me so much that, in addition to watching the movie, I read the book. Nash found that he had to train his mind to ignore the thoughts that sabotaged him. I have found this approach useful when dealing with my ED thoughts. I have been working on my recovery for 20 years and still struggle. In times of stress, my mind tries to escape to thoughts of food and how I can control it. I must make diligent effort to pull myself out of these thoughts and focus on positive mantras.

I also try to think about the people around me. EDs are a disease of isolation. To pull myself away from the ED and isolation, I think, “How can you be an active listener to offer the people in life what they need?” I find fulfillment from healthy relationships with my husband and kids. Being physically, emotionally, and mentally present is healing. That said, it’s not always easy. I must put the phone down, take deep breaths, and follow the advice I give the kids: I need to be present when eating so I can enjoy the food. I should go outside to get some exercise every day. I should read for fun and for work. And, I should enjoy the struggles life presents because that’s when I’m truly growing and learning. No, it’s not easy, but it’s not supposed to be. As my therapist reminds me, we grow in crisis.

What has your experience been (if any) with CBT or other types of therapy? Would you recommend them to others trying to get sane about food?

 

A familiar site for those of us who have had binge eating issues.

I want to say a big thank you to Ashley Solomon, PsyD, a psychologist who blogs at Nourishing the Soul for writing this insightful and incredibly helpful post about exactly what to do the morning after a binge. It’s beautifully written, and cuts right to the heart of anyone who’s ever had to deal with binge eating:

How did your food-sanity fare this holiday season? Photo by Shehan Peruma

Well, hello everyone! This is the first new HealthyGirl.org post since June when I was seven months pregnant. Thanks for being patient with the spotty contact as I readjust to life as a new mom! I have plenty to say about dealing with body image and weight issues after pregnancy, but that can wait until my next post. For today, just two days after Christmas, I want to talk about something that’s clearer to me now more than ever: there’s a big difference between eating too much and bingeing.

Those of you who are regular readers of HealthyGirl.org know that I’m recovered from binge eating disorder and have  written a self-help book for girls and young women about it. During the years when I was actively trying to get sane about food and stop binge eating for good, the idea of eating even a little bit more than I needed to was scary. It was so hard to truly see the line between normal overindulging which everyone does on occasion, and bingeing. I had so much anxiety about it and would work to try to define it exactly. So, as they probably are or were for many of you, holidays were tough.

When I was in a 12-step support group, knowing the difference between overdoing it and a binge loomed even larger in my mind, because in order to do certain service positions in the group, a member had to be “clean” from binge eating. If I had a second helping at Christmas dinner that I didn’t really need and hadn’t planned, was that a binge? Or just an overindulgence? Were they the same thing?

Now, two days after what my mom and I called the most gluttonous Christmas week in our family memory (homemade cookies! special Kentucky doughnuts! mom’s red velvet cake from scratch! traditional Hickory Farms cheeses and crackers!), I am so happy to have figured it out.

For me, there is a huge difference between eating too much and binge eating—and here’s what it is: Run-of-the-mill eating too much doesn’t put me into a trance. I don’t feel out of control. I may wish I’d made some different choices (like when I woke up with terrible chocolate-induced heartburn, ouch!), but I didn’t feel that old self-loathing and guilt. Even though I consumed a heck of a lot of food last week, food did not consume me or my thoughts. I didn’t wake up in the middle of the night and sneak into the kitchen to eat something I was too embarrassed to eat in front of everyone else, unlike past Christmases. I didn’t care more about the cookies I was frosting and decorating than the time I was spending with my mom as we did it.

Do I feel a little puffy and sluggish from all the sugar and fat I ate over the holiday? Absolutely. Do I look forward to getting back into my more usual habits this week? You betcha. But I’m grateful that bingeing is no longer a part of my holiday seasons, and that the guilt and self-hate that accompanied it isn’t either.

How were your food and eating issues this holiday? Did you feel pressured and obsessive, or happier and free?

xo…Sunny

Happy BookClub day! I’m so sorry for missing the last two weeks of posts (see why). But I’m here now, so let’s keep going with Food: The Good Girl’s Drug.

Chapter 2 is all about things that emotional overeaters/binge eaters tend to have in common: Eating in secret, lying about what we eat (even to the point of stealing food), eating strange food or combinations of food sometimes (especially if nothing “bad” enough is readily available). But the one common experience I want to focus on in this post is choosing food over people.

When my binge eating was really bad, I would isolate all of the time. I would cancel plans with coworkers in order to go home and binge; I would make up excuses right before I was supposed to show up somewhere because I suddenly felt too fat and scared to go out—and then would of course end up bingeing; I would end an evening out with friends or a date early so that I could go home and be alone with food. Any of that sound familiar?

I used to feel guilty about all the isolating and “missing out” I did. I used to regret that I “wasted” so much time with food when I could’ve been out connecting with people or having new experiences. But I realize now that when I was doing that, I wasn’t really choosing FOOD over people, I was choosing myself. I was trying to take care of myself, I just didn’t have the tools to do it in a healthier way.

I found that letting go of that guilt and regret—around my behavior with friends, family, and loved ones, and my behavior with food—was key in moving on.

Now, your turn: Did you or do you continue to choose food over people sometimes? Do you still have any lingering guilt or regret about the ways you may have isolated or chosen food over people or over life? If so, how can you start to forgive yourself and replace judgment with compassion? xo…Sunny

Next week’s BookClub post will be Friday, June 17, and we’ll be talking about Chapter 3—the origins of our weird relationship with food.

I know the posts have been intermittent lately, and by way of explanation I can only look down at my bulging, eight-month-pregnant belly and say, “It’s all your fault, sweet little baby!” (I could also point a finger at my very busy day job. Darn you, Redbook magazine!)

Anyhow, I know people have come to rely on the community here and get hope and relief from the posts, and it sort of sucks that they’re not coming as often as they used to. It also sucks if you have to keep checking back on the site only to find that, no, there’s still nothing new.

Solution #1: Sign up to get the blog feed via email! The place to do it is at the bottom right hand corner of the home page. That way, you’ll get an email every time a new post goes up.

Solution #2: Sign up to submit a guest post! You already know that Trish, Erica, and Morgan post occasionally. Why not you? Drop me an email with a quick little summary of what you’d like to write about: sunny@healthygirl.org.

Solution #3: Volunteer to be my site intern! Not only have I not been posting lately, but I haven’t been tweeting my Food-Sanity Tips of the Day, either. With the baby coming, I’d love to get a little bit of help with both. If you have a couple of hours a week to donate to the cause, are in recovery or recovered from overeating issues, and like to write and organize stuff, please send me a note and your resume: sunny@healthygirl.org.

P.S. BookClub post coming later today on Chapter 2!

xo…Sunny

How do you label your issues with food?

Welcome to week 2 of the HealthyGirl.org BookClub featuring on my book, Food: The Good Girl’s Drug! I wanted to talk about something in Chapter 1 again today—but I promise next week we’ll move along to Chapter 2. (For those of you who haven’t had a chance to get a copy you can read most of the first chapter in these excerpts here, here and here. And if you want to get a copy of the book, you can do that here.)

What I want to talk about today is labels: How you describe your relationship with food.

Labels and diagnoses can be helpful—both in getting medical or psychological help, and just in getting clarity in your own head about what’s going on with you. I remember when my first therapist told me when I was 16 years old that what I was doing with food had a name (“compulsive overeating” he called it), I felt immense relief. It was real! It wasn’t in my head! I wasn’t crazy! Well, maybe a little, but at least it was in a way that lots of other people were crazy too, you know?

So, let’s talk about the terms for the weird things we do with food and see which one(s) you relate to most:

Emotional eating: There’s really no official definition, but to me, this means that a person turns to food when upset or bored or when feeling any emotion that shakes them up. This person probably doesn’t have a full-blown eating disorder, but they rely on food often enough to work through stress or anger or other feelings that it’s upsetting.

Stress eating: See above

Loss-of-control eating: Experiencing a feeling of losing control when eating certain foods—you feel compelled to eat, eat, eat and often finish off much larger portions than you meant to. You feel as if you have no control over whether to stop or not.

Eating disorder not otherwise specified (EDNOS): You struggle with obsessive thoughts and behaviors about food and your weight, but don’t have all the symptoms of anorexia or bulimia. Things like purging after eating small amounts of food, or bingeing then severely restricting, chewing and spitting, etc. Basically any disordered behavior that doesn’t neatly fit into one of the other eating disorder definitions.

Compulsive eating/food addiction: Bingeing on large amounts of food and feeling out of control while doing it, feeling compelled to eat by an urge that is almost too strong to fight.

Binge eating disorder: Frequently (at least a couple times a week) bingeing on large amounts of food, and feeling out of control while doing it, feeling disgusted, guilty, and distressed about the behavior afterward. Often paired with depression or anxiety (although not always), and often (although, again, not always) causes weight gain.

I think these labels and terms can be helpful in helping people realize that what they’re going through is real and helping them determine the right next steps to take in recovery. But at the same time, getting too hung up on words can be a distraction: Whether you meet the criteria for an official eating disorder or not, or whether you relate completely to any one of these above terms or all of them, if your overeating and food/weight obsession is causing you pain and problems in your life, you deserve to get better!

Do you believe you have binge eating disorder or EDNOS? Or are you an emotional eater? None of the above? What terms would you use to describe your personal issues with food? I describe mine by saying I am recovered from binge eating disorder. xo…Sunny

See you next Friday for BookClub! Moving on to Chapter 2. (If you have been reading the book and have any suggestions for particular sections or topics you’d like me to discuss here, please leave a comment or email me.)

[photo via briankennedy]

Gooooo book club!

Today’s the first day of the HealthyGirl.org BookClub featuring on my book, Food: The Good Girl’s Drug! For those of you who haven’t had a chance to get a copy (or don’t want to—hey, that’s OK), you can read most of the first chapter in these excerpts here, here and here. Just to recap, each Friday for the next several weeks, I’m going to choose one section, exercise, or journaling question from the book to focus on in the BookClub post. (If you have been reading the book and have any suggestions for particular sections or topics you’d like me to discuss here, please leave a comment or email me!)

So, at the end of each chapter of the book, I or an expert give a few journaling questions for readers to tackle. My book is a pretty easy read for people who relate—I’ve had girls and women tell me that they read it three times in a week!—but it was never meant just to be read. The journaling questions and exercises throughout the book are meant to help you process everything you’re reading. To give it a chance to soak in, to make a difference. Not very many of us can learn, and change our behaviors, simply by passively taking in information.

I know I couldn’t. So I really encourage all of you who are reading along to take the time (OK, maybe on your second read if you must get through it quickly the first time) to stop and do the work. Buy a special journal or notebook that goes along with the book. Treat it like a workbook. If you’re going to invest the $15 (or $8, I think, if you bought it on Amazon!), make it worth it.

OK, enough of me admonishing you to take out your pens and paper—let’s get right to one of the exercises at the end of Chapter 1: Recording your food, weight, and body history. For me, taking a good long look at my patterns with those things was an important step in recovering from binge eating. A quick rundown of my weight and body history:

Childhood: Healthy weight, a solidly built girl. Mom thought I was borderline chunky and at risk of getting “fat”—fear about fat and food started creeping in around 7 or 8
Age 15: Started bingeing occasionally to soothe myself during parents’ divorce; still at a healthy weight
Age 16: Started putting on pounds—partly naturally, just filling out into a more womanly shape, but also because of increased binge eating
Age 19: Was officially “overweight” for my height and body shape from bingeing. Lost 20 pounds on a terrible high-protein doctor-supervised diet.
Age 20: Transferred to a four-year college from my community college; got married (long story! It didn’t last long. Let me know if you want to hear about it sometime. ) Gained all the weight back, plus some. Intermittently dieted or fasted.
Age 22: Became clinically obese due to almost daily binge eating. Weight peaked at the heaviest I’d ever been, but I continued to try to “diet,” and took herbal diet pills almost daily—which landed me in the doctor’s office with racing heartbeat and high blood pressure at one point.
Age 23: Dropped 40 to 50 pounds during divorce process, mostly from natural anxious energy. Continued to diet or fast to try to offset the effects of the frequent–but not daily–bingeing.
Age 25: Moved to New York City after college. Again became “overweight” for my body frame due to bingeing. But began therapy and started to worry a little less about my weight so much and focus more on my issues and my happiness.
Age 27: Momentary loss of reason, went on Jenny Craig and lost 20 pounds. Gained it all back. Binge eating worsened after the diet.

Now, looking at my history up to this point helped solidify for me that I really wasn’t in control of my eating, and that nothing I had been trying to do (a.k.a. dieting, fasting, taking pills, or simply willing myself to stop overeating) was working. It finally clicked for me. I got it. What I was dealing with really wasn’t about weight or food—at all. It was all about me and how I treated myself, how I felt about myself, and what emotional needs I was trying to fill. Now, for the rest of the history:

Age 27.5: Realized that DIETING was part of my binge eating problem and that I was more important than my weight. I didn’t care if I ever lost another pound again. Quit dieting completely and continued therapy. Binge eating slowed more. Trained for and jogged the New York marathon!
Age 28: Binge eating slowed to a trickle. Weight stabilized at a point that was officially “slightly overweight” for my height, but I truly felt fine about my health and my shape. Continued therapy.
Age 29: Weight was stable. But I wanted binge eating to STOP completely; started going to a weekly support group in addition to therapy.
Very early 30s: Was completely recovered from binge eating. Very gradually let go of some more weight after the bingeing ended and stabilized at a very reasonable, comfortable, and healthy set point for my height and shape.

Now it’s your turn: What’s your weight, food, and body history? Did you yo-yo like me, dieting and bingeing, weight swinging from year to year? Or have you been “overweight” since childhood? (I use “overweight” in quotes because the definition is highly debatable, and there is so much natural variation in body shapes.) Or, have you always been slim despite your binge eating? What can you learn about your patterns and your relationship with food and your body from looking at your history? xo…Sunny

Next Friday’s BookClub: How do you describe your issues with food?

[bookbag photo via Coco Mault]

Have you been keeping your eating issues locked away as a secret? Do you think it's time to tell someone?

Hi, ladies—long time no talk! First, I have to say how wonderful it was to attend Sunny’s book release party for Food: The Good Girl’s Drug last month! I met two wonderful girls who were also interviewed for the book, Razieh and Trish. I then went home and read half the book that night, and finished it the following day. Thank you, Sunny, for this inspirational, truly insightful read…and for making me a part of it!

Aside from the HealthyGirl.org community, I would say I’ve told approximately 15 friends and family members about my struggles with binge eating disorder. But on February 23 of this year, I disclosed to all my Twitter followers and Facebook friends. You’re probably thinking, “What are you, nuts?” You see, I have a women’s lifestyle and happiness blog, and sometimes I like to share on Twitter and Facebook what the next day’s post will be about. It just happened to be National Eating Disorders Week from February 20-26, and I had written a post on eating disorders that included a glimpse into my personal experience with BED. I’m pretty sure it shocked a bunch of people because the next day my blog received the most views it had seen thus far.

Despite the fact that I’m typically an open book, if I were at the height of my eating disorder, I doubt that I would have been super excited to share my food and body image issues with the world. (Well, okay, about 600 people, but still.) Because I’ve considered myself to be “recovered” for about two years now, however, it felt easier to reveal one of my best-kept secrets to all these people. I wound up receiving a ton of praise from folks who saw these status updates, tweets and the post itself, telling me how brave I was for putting myself out there like that and how much they believed it would be a source of inspiration for those who could relate. I sure hoped it would be!

More recently, my experience with BED was shared with a way larger pool of people than just my friends and followers on social networking sites. My name, picture, and story were featured in an article about binge eating disorder in the April 2011 issue of Seventeen magazine! Once the mag hit newsstands, the health editor sent me Twitter and Facebook comments from young women saying how happy they were to learn that what they’re going through has a name, and more importantly that they can get better! The article gave them awareness, hope, and drive—what could be better than that?

So now many people know about my history with emotional overeating. I guess I was okay with opening up because I’ve never felt—and would never feel—ashamed (embarrassed maybe, but never ashamed) to share my personal struggles with others. The way I see it, everyone has their own issues, whether it’s an eating disorder, a problem with drugs or alcohol, history of abuse, etc. We each have our own thing, so I’m not concerned about whether or not people are judging me for mine.

Now by no means am I saying I think you must go out and scream from the rooftops that you have BED (unless you want to, of course…heck, make up a dance to go along with it if you’d like); what I am saying is that relinquishing a deep, dark secret can not only be beneficial to our peace of mind, but you also never know who else you may help by opening up. Just think of what Sunny’s done for all of us by providing us with this blog, and now the book! It takes some courage, but I’ve found that revealing that you’re (gasp!) not perfect, can literally be a lifesaver.

Thanks for contributing, Erica! Now, how many family, friends (or strangers) know about your struggles with weight and food? Did opening up help you let go of some shame? xo…Sunny

[photo: marcmo]

Not my belly. But cool pic, huh?

Yesterday I filled you guys in on the body image speedbump I hit around month five in my pregnancy. Today I wanna share the fun convo I had with my doctor  a little over a week ago. It started like this…

I stepped on the scale at my obstetrician’s office at my 24-week appointment, and because the office was short-staffed that day, my doc herself is the one who weighed me. We both watched the scale balance out and settle on a number—and then she turned and gave me a concerned look. Uh-oh. This was a conversation I had been dreading, and hoping wouldn’t happen: The “You are Gaining Too Much Weight” conversation.

I asked her if the number she saw concerned her. Here’s what she said: She didn’t care about the number itself—but what made her nervous is that I had put on about 10 pounds in the previous month, a month when the average weight gain is supposed to be just four pounds. “I don’t want you to end up with a 10-pound baby,” she said. (And I agreed: I don’t want to deliver an extra-large baby either!)

So, before I left her office she gave me my homework assignment: I was to concentrate on gaining only half a pound a week for the next four weeks. That means that by my next check up, she’s hoping that the scale will only have gone up by two pounds. If I was having trouble meeting that goal, she said, she wanted to me to eat more protein and cut out carbs.

Now, as someone with a history of yo-yo dieting and binge eating disorder, I know that “cutting out” something—anything—is not a smart answer for me. Not being “allowed” to eat something only increases the desire for that food and sets me up for failure. My doc didn’t seem to have time for me to get into the whole binge eating disorder history conversation with her (like I said the office was short-staffed and she seemed slammed), so I just nodded and made a mental note to consider her advice very carefully but to make my own determination on what would be best for me to do, physically and mentally.

I felt a little sad right after the appointment. Sort of like I’d done something wrong. The perfectionist in me always wants to be the best, be the good girl, do what “teacher” (or doctor, or boss, or whatever) wants, so I felt a bit like I’d failed. But I just let these feelings wash over me, not really getting stuck on them or letting them overtake me—and I shared them with my husband, John, when I got home, and then with my mom the next day on the phone, and even with a couple of close coworkers at the office who’ve had children.

Happily, I was able to stop well short of beating myself up and my mind didn’t spin out into any crazy cognitive distortions or negative body thoughts. I considered what my doctor had said about carbohydrates though, and realized something important: Because I had been so darn sick up until about week 15, I had gotten into the habit of eating a lot more sugar and simple carbs (easy-on-the-tummy stuff like white bread, macaroni, bagels, etc.) than usual. And even after the nausea left me and I was able to stomach more fruits, veggies, and fibrous carbs like whole wheat bread and brown rice, the habit of eating the more-refined, less nutritious stuff had stuck around.

So, while cutting out any group of foods—no matter how lacking in nutrition they are—isn’t a good option for me, choosing more wisely (for the good of myself and my baby) certainly is. And that’s what I decided to do—gently. So, the next day I swapped out my mid-morning toast (second breakfast is key in pregnancy!) with milk, an orange, or an apple + peanut butter, switched my afternoon pretzels/granola bar/popcorn for a Greek yogurt with honey (another snack I love); I left the boxed mac ‘n’ cheese in the cupboard in favor of brown rice and baked salmon (with lemon salt…mmm); and started having an egg and wheat toast for breakfast instead of pure-carbohydrate cold cereal. I still had a nightly popsicle or Skinny Cow ice cream cone (dessert is a must-have for me most days). And on Saturday while walking around the neighborhood with John, I bought—and thoroughly enjoyed—an ooey gooey chocolate whoopie pie. But in general, my daily staples had become more nutritious, more rich in protein, and less heavy on the simple carbs and sugars.

And guess what? Within just a few days, I noticed less swelling in my ankles and feet, I felt more energetic, and, when I got on the scale to check my progress on Sunday, I was happy to see that my weight gain is now right on track.

The fear of being thought of as “bad” for putting on too much pregnancy weight—and the fear of having an uncomfortable conversation about weight with my doctor—was actually much worse than the reality of my situation, which was that I had developed a couple of not-so-smart habits while I had morning sickness that, once remedied, put me on a healthier track.

I know that this is not the experience that every woman has during pregnancy. Food- and body-sanity can be gravely challenged during this time—in fact, it was a letter from HealthyGirl.org reader Lacy, who had relapsed into bingeing at nine months pregnant, that spurred me to talk about my own pregnancy issues with all of you. (Read Lacy’s story here.)

So, to those of you with kids, how did you deal with food and weight issues during pregnancy? And to those without kids, do these issues ever scare you? Are you worried you won’t be able to deal and stay sane about food? I was, but I’m so happy to say that the recovery foundation I built is still holding strong. And I’m so grateful! xo…Sunny

[pic via David Boyle]