Month: January 2010

During one of my session with doctor Zermati, I broached the question of balanced diet.

– No because you see, indeed I’ve lost weight, but I have the impression  that I eat any old how.

– What does it mean eating any old how? (The question which will lead to a stupid answer from me which will be flummoxed in one second, doctor Zermati’s secret trick)

– Well… it means the five fruits and veggies per day, when we play hide and seek, damn, they can’t find me.

– And is it a problem for you? Are you afraid of deficiencies, are you balance obsessed? (Ok I feel the coup de grâce coming)

– Hum… no, that’s not it, but on the days I eat no vegetable and no fruit, I…

–  … feel guilty? (And bang, spot on, he wins again, it’s too unfair)

– Let’s say I guess it’s not that good for my health, is it? (the girl who tries to buck the trend without really believing in it)

Wrong. Wrong, he explained, mister Zermati, alias Obi Wan Kenobi. Wait he didn’t recommend eating chips with mayo every day, eh, let’s be serious. But you shouldn’t mention too many times these campaigns about 5 fruits and vegs a day to my master Yoda. He looks kind but he could get mad. Why? Because according to him food balance shouldn’t be reached within a short time like one day. Not even one week.

Translation: it’s not because you don’t eat dairy products during a few days that you’ll break into pieces or that all your teeth will fall. Same for oranges, there’s no risk of scurvy if we skip them for a month.

The body knows how to ask for what he needs, same way as it knows how to show it’s hungry. And forcing yourself to eat broccolis with your steak when you feel full, it’s simply dumb (now it’s me talking, doctor Z. is more polite). Because in the end, not only will it not change much on a nutritional level but, furthermore, you gather calories for nothing. And so… you put on weight. By eating broccolis.

The truth, after six months of therapy, is I’ve never bought that many vegetables at the market. Not because I have to, but because I enjoy cooking them and, some evening, after a lunch made of quiche/custard tart/brownie/sandwich (not all at once of course) I want only one thing, to eat another type of food.

But there are also weeks when lacking time, will or need, starches will dominate my diet, or dairies, or fruits or what have you. Likewise thus for my kids. And not only do I keep losing weight but I don’t feel tired or nauseous.

In short, as mister Zermati explained to me, between eating for lunch a pain au chocolat and a full meal like ‘chicken, green beans, bread, yogurt and apple’, it’s the pain au chocolat that will be less calorific. Thus the full meal will make you put on more weight. It doesn’t mean – I insist – that having pain au chocolat at every lunch is good idea. It’s just that we have stupid patterns in mind, as a proof, when he asked me to point out which one of the two lunches would make me put on more weight I chose the pastry. Then I changed my mind, suspecting the trick.

I don’t know for you but it’s doing me so much good this idea that balance is on a longer period than a day. And I can’t tell you how relieved my kids are as I’ve stopped hammering home my dumb principles according to which they will shrink and lose their hair if they don’t finish their soup. It’s a bit like that thing on video games versus reading, basically. You can very well have books periods followed by Mario Bross weeks. And in the end, you will have done both at your own pace…

Come on, may the force be with you, grasshoppers…

“So, now, how would you describe your eating habits?” Doctor Zermati asked me a week ago.

– Hummmmm… I would say I’m more relaxed with food, some days I don’t even think of what I’m going to eat or of the therapy, I let my needs and wishes guide me. I even have the impression I can stop at the end of meal without reasoning just because I’ve had enough. Well, it’s not always the case, but it is nothing like it was before.

– Could we say it’s becoming natural?

– Yes, that’s it, basically, it’s becoming natural, I agreed. And, a few second later, always this nasty habit of opening my mouth too much, I added: “on the other hand, there is still one scenario in which I’m anxious, when I’m invited”. “Because of pre-dinner, I mean”.

– You’re afraid of drinking too much? (Worried face of a doctor who’s wondering if from slightly bulimic his patient became seriously alcoholic)

– Oh noooo, I reassured him immediately. Because of cashew nuts.

– Yeah, ‘cashew nut’, he said with a knowing look.

– No it’s very serious, I can’t stop. I think they put cocaine or something in it, it’s the only thing I can think of, I’m not myself in front of a bowl of cashew. And then, honestly, I don’t know what to do.

– At home, what do you do, then?

– At home? Simple, there aren’t any. I’m not crazy you know.

– Really? You love it but you don’t buy any? (Excessively astonished look of a therapist who wants to send a message). Then what do you serve for pre-dinner?

– Well… cherry tomatoes, possibly some cheese or raw carrots, or…

– And is it good? (Pointedly sceptical look of a therapist who wants me to say cherry tomatoes suck)

– Hum… yes, of course… (Girl who’s that close to crack)

– As good as cashew? (Therapist using the next gear, namely sarcasm)

– Of course no! (Patient falling feet first in the therapist’s trap)

– And people prefer cherry tomatoes to cashews? (Triumphing look of therapist who knows he just dealt the death blow)

– I doubt it but I don’t care, all I know is that at least I don’t fall in it head first. (And bang, get this Sigmund, unanswerable)

– Basically, you prefer serving everyone a pre-dinner that is less appreciated than what you could offer, only so that you don’t eat some, am I correct? And, if I may, do you eat what you put on the table anyway?

– Hum… yes, but it’s better than eating cashew or Pringles, isn’t it?

– …

Ok.

Zermati 1, Patient, 0.

This verbal fight thus ended up, you suppose so, with one of those exercise Zermati likes so much.

For four days, I’ll have to start my lunch with cashews, even – Doctor Z is magnanimous – a mix of these delicious little things and crisps, Pringles or Chipster. Basically same song as with chocolate. Except that now, if I’m hungry again after one hour, I must eat the same and nothing else. Besides, I must have a big enough quantity to have some left afterwards.

And the rest

I throw it away.

Every evening.

Why throwing away? Because according to doc, keeping eating when you are not hungry anymore is nothing more nothing less than considering your stomach as a bin. Or even as a recycling center. He isn’t in favour of wasting but he doesn’t see how throwing rests away is more of a waste than swallowing it when you’re unable to stick it anymore and it will thus do you no good.

In short, here I am, forced to eat cashew four days in a row. What a pain.

Let me point out that contrary to what you could think, the goal is not to put me off cashews for life. The objective is, I believe, to make me discover after what quantity of cashews I don’t enjoying it anymore.

Not sure, it’ll sort completely my issue with pre-dinner, which is also linked, I think, with the sort of anxiety I feel at the beginning of an evening with friends, I don’t know, fear that we don’t get along, that we get bored, that I don’t say things I should, etc etc etc. But never mind, I’ve decided to trust my therapist, thus inch’allah and cashew nuts here I come. Damn it.

This is an informative message, which explains the lack of image with it. Ok, mainly I didn’t have any idea to illustrate it.

As I receive a lot of requests by email or in the comments on how to get information on Zermati’s or Apfeldorfer’s guidelines, I wanted to give you the GROS’ web site, the network created, amongst others, by these two doctors.

You’ll find there plenty information on their method – if we can call it this way – and by writing to the email address given on the site you can get a list of health professionals with the same obedience. I think also by calling Zermati’s secretariat – in the Yellow Pages – you can get some numbers.

I’m often being asked for the price of a consultation and refund possibilities. I said it already but it’s 100 Euros per consultation, with one appointment every two weeks. In my case, I get refunded, as my GP asked for an eating disorder specific care. Now I’m not sure it will work for everyone, but I think so. I have an extra medical aid so personally I can manage. But it’s obviously an investment and you have to pay in advance, thus I agree it’s not within all budgets’ reach.

Here you go, that’s it for today, you’ll excuse the terse aspect of this article but as Helmut loves running jokes, she’s playing the stomach bug sketch again. For the past two day, I think no place in the house hasn’t been sprayed with vomit. Couch and carpet included. I even walked around the whole day with shoes stud with regurgitated milk, maintaining, with typical maternal bad faith, that, really, snow and salt do damage the shoes, damn it.

In short, I imaging that it will be my turn on Saturday to make sure I’m in perfect shape on Monday to start over the week and deal with the olders’ puke as their immune system is equivalent to a fly’s, may I remind you.

Maternity is a rose paved path.

(1) : TN: French research group on obesity and overweight, this association groups health professionals who deal with people struggling with their weight or eating behavior.

The first nutritionist I saw when I was 15 warned me straight away: “You’ll have to watch what you eat all your life, that’s it, don’t believe this diet will last two months only. If you then start eating any old how again, you’ll gain all your weight again.”

Verdict had been given, in terms of diet, I got life sentence.

Years passed, all health professionals told me the same. “You’ll have to WATCH what you eat all the time”

Watching what I eat.

I think I’ve said these words more than ten thousand times. “It’s fine, I manage to stay stable, I’m watching what I eat”. “If I watch what I eat, kilos don’t come back”. “Gosh, I’ve put on weight again, I must absolutely watch what I eat”.

Obviously, the negative variant works too “I haven’t really watched what I’ve been eating lately, my weight is a total mess”. Etc.

It took my meeting with doctor Zermati to understand that actually, watching what you eat is bad. It’s permanent control, the feeling of being imprisoned in healthy food constraints that systematically unleashed my compulsions as soon as I lower my guard.

With this therapy, for the first time I don’t feel this unlimited conviction, I don’t wait for the “end” of the diet, I don’t ask myself the fateful question of “stabilisation”.

Very simply because there won’t be any stabilisation. For the simple and good reason that there’s no diet.

I’m often being asked lately, here or in real life[1], how I will manage “after”.

I answer that there is no after. There is, overtime, I hope, my now at ease food way of live rendered banal.

Ok, put like this it sounds like Frédéric Lefebvre[2].

But I’m as categorical as I can be, I can live the years I have left with these eating habits. It has never been the case in my previous experiences, during which, pick and choose, I weighted each bread slice, cooked for breakfast so called proteins packed pancakes with a subtle taste of Smecta, or 40g of green beans, not one more, enlivened with half a tea spoon of rapeseed oil. Yummy.

This year, I’ve spent festive season enjoying foie gras, smoked salmon, chocolate and chestnut fondant, one of the things I prefer in this world. I’ve also happily skipped several lunches or dinners, without forcing myself, simply because my belly was full. Result: for the first time of my life1, I’ve lost one kilo and even a bit more during the past two weeks.

So yes, I can continue forever, because nothing will ever be forbidden anymore and I haven’t said the now banned sentence: “No thanks, I’m watching what I eat”

On the other hand, to my biggest surprise, I have refused several times truffles, chocolates and other sweets because no thank you, I’m not hungry anymore. And it’s my last word.

Edit: These sweets were sold during the Grand Palais funfair, and I haven’t even been tempted. Amazing.