I have been working with a client who has made tremendous strides with her eating habits and her relationship with food. She is currently 37 years old and describes herself as a long time emotional eater and “on again/off again” dieter. She grew up with a father who equates food with love and has had trouble adjusting her diet now that she is no longer an athlete in training. When we began our work together she felt no forward progress with her diet, despite her recent successes with a new exercise regimen.

I asked her to share with me and with you what she feels are her biggest successes. She title’s her thoughts “3 Lessons Learned.”

3 Lessons Learned

I began meeting with Marci in September of 2009 and feel that I have made tremendous success and progress. Below are the three most important lessons I have learned.

1. Find someone who you click with to discuss your nutrition issues. Finding Marci has been the biggest key to my success. Prior to working with her, I had tried both group counseling and the online program with Weight Watchers. In the group sessions, I didn’t connect with the team leader and I felt very excluded from the group. In fact, it left me feeling resistant and frustrated. I also struggled doing online nutrition programs since they were so sterile and generic. After trying to follow the prescribed program during the week I felt starved and usually overate on the weekend. I ended up gaining weight, which left me feeling like a failure.

2. Be gentle with yourself. Every day brings its unique challenges. A process or regimen that works on Monday, might not work on Friday. So don’t beat yourself up! Keep with it and think of each meal is a new start to your day. I was quite familiar with the start of a Monday morning diet. If I felt I messed up on my nutrition plan I used to say “I’ll start again on Monday.” Well, if I got off to a bad start at the beginning of the week, the following Monday was a long way off. Now, I think of each meal as a fresh start. If I overeat on carbohydrates in the morning, I focus on veggies and protein at lunch to balance it out. I’ve learned that by eating more balanced meals, my cravings for sweets have diminished. But I’m happy to respond to a craving if my body is asking for it.

3. Divorce yourself from “good” and “bad” foods. For years I defined pizza, soda, macaroni and cheese, desserts, and everything that I wanted and craved as “bad” foods that I tried to expel from my diet. I did my best to live off salads and 100 calorie soups because they were “good.” It didn’t work. I vacillated between feeling virtuous (yet miserable) while filling up on “good foods” and like a failure when I caved and binged on the foods I had been depriving myself. This kind of eating led to a constant loss and gain of the same 10 lbs.

I can confidently say that through my work with Marci I have learned to ditch the cycles restriction and overeating. I feel less pre-occupied with food, more trusting of my body, and more confident in my ability to take care of myself. I’m feeling better and grateful that I’m adopting a healthier way of eating that will last a lifetime, rather than a work week.

It's been a while since I posted a recipe and I could not resist sharing both of these with you.  Kale is a stellar veggie that most people have no idea how to prepare.  Kale is a form of cabbage (Brassica oleracea Acephala Group), green or purple, in which the central leaves do not form a head. It is considered to be closer to wild cabbage than most domesticated forms.

Kale is full of powerful antioxidants and rich in beta carotene, Vitamin K, Vitamin C, lutein, zeanthin, and calcium. And when prepared correctly, it is delicious!

Recipe 1: Crispy Kale Leaves from Vegetarian Times
*I served this with Ginger Honey Glazed Salmon and my husband exclaimed "I love Kale! Kale is my new favorite food!"

INGREDIENTS
1 lb kale, rinsed and patted dry
2 Tbs olive oil
1/2 tsp kosher salt

DIRECTIONS

• Preheat oven to 325. Coat baking sheet with cooking spray (I used foil).

• Tear kale into 3″ pieces, removing tough stems. Transfer leaves to a bowl.
• Toss kale leaves with the oil, until well coated.
• Spread on a baking sheet and bake 15 mins.
• Turn kale with tongs and bake another 10-15 mins or until edges are browned and leaves are crispy. Sprinkle with salt. Serve warm or cold. Enjoy!

Marci's Note: I drizzle a bit of balsamic vinegar on top of the kale leaves- scrumptious.

Recipe 2: Portuguese Kale Soup from Food Network
*After I finished dinner I was looking forward to my leftovers for lunch.  So so yummy.

Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic
1/2 cup diced onions
1/2 diced turnips (*didn't use)
1/2 cup diced carrots
1 bunch kale, stemmed and roughly chopped
6 ounces chopped chourico (spicy Portuguese sausage), or chorizo (*I used Trader Joe's Soy Chorizo)
3 bay leaves
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves
2 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme leaves
6 cups beef stock (*I used vegetable broth, it's more flavorful and not as heavy)
1 cup kidney beans
6 ounces diced tomatoes (*I used a 14 oz can of diced spicy tomatoes- yum!)
10 ounces diced potatoes (*I used 1 medium)

Directions
In a large stock pot, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the garlic, onions, turnips and carrots and cook for 5 minutes. Add the kale, chourico, bay leaves, parsley and thyme and mix well. Add the beef stock, beans and tomatoes. Bring the soup to a boil, and then reduce the heat to low and simmer for 30 to 40 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, bring salted water to a boil and add the diced potatoes. Cook until tender, about 10 minutes. Drain the potatoes and add them to the soup.

Remove the bay leaves and serve hot.

Here is a fun article describing the wonderful world of IPhone Food Apps. You can find just about any app you need relating to food: locating a good restaurant, selecting gluten-free foods, creating a new recipe, helping you pair wine and cheese, and even listening to customized audio farts.  Yes, the practical and the useless available on your IPhone.  Enjoy. :)

I wanted to provide one more useful tool for those struggling with an eating disorder.  I recently learned about the "You are Not Alone" Eating Disorder Support Letter.  Subscribe and receive a monthly inspirational letter to support you along your path to recovery.  Please forward this along to anyone you think may benefit from this wonderful service (both patients and clinicians).

If you are looking for more support for your eating disorder and are in the Cambridge/Boston area, please do not hesitate to contact me. 

In good health,
Marci E. Anderson
Registered Dietitian

February 21-27 is National Eating Disorders Awareness Week (NEDAW)
NEDAwareness Week is a collective effort of primarily volunteers, eating disorder professionals, health care providers, educators, social workers, and individuals committed to raising awareness of the dangers surrounding eating disorders and the need for early intervention and treatment.

The Theme: It's Time to Talk About It

The Mission: Prevent eating disorders and body image issues while reducing the stigma surrounding eating disorders and improving access to treatment.

How It Works: A calling for everyone to do just one thing to help raise awareness and provide accurate information about eating disorders.

Doing My Small Part
I am passionate about and fulfilled by the work that I do providing nutrition therapy for my clients who battle with an eating disorder.  But one of the biggest barriers to treatment is helping my clients get coverage from their insurance company.

I recently learned about the Anna Westin Foundation, an organization committed to helping others gain coverage for eating disorder treatment.  After their daughter died of anorexia nervosa as a consequence of their insurance company refusing to cover care for their daughter, Kitty and Mark Westin fought and settled a suit against BCBS of Minnesota.  They are now committing their lives to ensuring that this doesn't happen to others.

So if you know someone who is struggling with gaining coverage for eating disorder treatment, please pass this link along to them.

And consider what one thing you can do to support NEDAW.

So after writing my last post on being a wise consumer, I thought it'd be fun to start a monthly posting called "Product No Case."  I currently blog once a month about a product I love that supports healthy living (see Tag: Product Showcase).  So why not blog about a product that's a dud?  A product that masquerades as something "good for you" but actually isn't. 

So Kashi, you win both spotlights this month.

Product Showcase Winner: Kashi 7 Whole Grain Pilaf
Product No-Case: Kashi Go Lean Crunch Bars

Click on the links to read more.

February is "Wise Health Consumer Month"  and I believe that becoming more involved in your own health care is essential. My sister-in-law was finally diagnosed with Celiac Disease after doing some research and convincing her Dr. to test her for it. 

The American Institute for Preventive Medicine developed a Top 10 list of ways you can become more involved in your own health care.

One way you can become a wise consumer in the grocery store is learning how to decipher your packaged and boxed foods.  Here are three simple tips to get you started.

1.) Ignore the words on the front and back of the box. Catch phrases like "antioxidants" "more fiber" "natural" are simply a sales pitch.
2.) Read the ingredient list.  You should be able to recognize the words you are reading.  Better yet, if it's a grain-based food (as many packaged items are) the 1st ingredient ought to be "whole grain..." 
3.) Check out the number of servings in a package.  It's often more than one.

I recently met with a client who wanted some nutrition counseling for PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome). She had already made great strides with her diet and was seeing me for "fine-tuning." At our first session she brought in a food label of a Kashi bar she likes to eat.  She thought it seemed like a healthy way to take care of her sweet tooth and wanted my opinion.  So, we dissected the food label together (too see the nutrition facts, click on this link then click on the button that says nutrition facts).

Together we learned that the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th ingredients are all sugar!  By the looks of the wrapper, you'd think she was making a healthy snack choice.  Besides, Kashi has a reputation for selling pretty healthy foods.  But in reality, all of those highly processed sugars would actually do more harm to her PCOS than simply having a small serving of dark chocolate after dinner (which what she really wanted!).

So don't be fooled by your packaging.  It's the ingredients that count.  I have a simple handout called "Decoding the Ingredient List." If you'd like a copy, send me an email to marci@marciRD.com.

For this month's fitness fact blog post, I decided to highlight the new Let's Move website I mentioned on Monday's blog post.

For those of you who listened to President Obama's State of the Union address on January 27th, you likely heard him introduce his wife's initiative to tackle childhood obesity.