The challenge of the patterned leggings ...

Last week in my yoga class, the challenge was to wear something that we felt uncomfortable in, but that we would like to be able to wear.  As 'Jambo Yoga' creates such an accepting environment, it went without saying that whatever we wore would be accepted, and so it would be a safe place in which to experiment.

For a lot of my life, I felt very self-conscious of my legs. Prior to starting to practice Forrest Yoga with 'Jambo Yoga', I would never wear leggings without hiding the tops of my legs under long, baggy tops.  Before long though, I found myself feeling comfortable enough to wear shorter, tight fitting vests without feeling self conscious.  I still though wore only dark, plain colours.  In no way did I want to draw attention to my legs.

A while back, I'd told myself, that I would know I'd taken a huge step forward in my self-confidence and body acceptance when I felt comfortable enough to wear patterned leggings. Lots of yogis wear them, so I wouldn't be out of place, but I knew I had to feel comfortable enough in myself before I'd feel able to.

So when last week's challenge was set, I knew straight away that I had to challenge myself and wear patterned leggings!  I didn't have any, but as I was so determined to push my boundaries, I went out and bought some.  I even bought two pairs so that I'd had enough to wear to each of my classes last week.

Before I went to my first class last Monday, I felt slightly uncomfortable.  Not too self-conscious, but very aware of my legs! It didn't change my practice in any way though.  I didn't feel self conscious during the class.  Occasionally, when I looked down at my legs I got a bit of a surprise to see them in brightly patterned leggings ... but I felt good! I liked how my legs looked in their pink patterns!

A couple of us commented to each other about the personal challenges we were engaging in and the fact that if we hadn't told each other what our 'uncomfortable garments were' we wouldn't have known!  No one looked odd.  No one looked out of place.  Everyone was wearing 'normal' clothes.  And that just made me think about the self-consciousness and discomfort we feel in 'real' life ... & the fact that no one else is aware of it.  It truly is a personal thing!


I wore a different pair of patterned leggings at class on Thursday.  And someone commented this time they liked them!  They had no idea they were part of the challenge!  And even though I was having a conversation about my leggings, & hence my legs, I still felt comfortable and okay about myself.  And my legs!

On Friday, I wore the first pair of leggings again.  But this time, I'd realised that in each of the previous classes, I'd worn a black vest.  Still trying to hide away in some small way!  And so for this class, I decided to push myself that little bit more & so I chose to weat a bright pink vest!  I felt extremely visible!  More so than I had in the previous two classes!  I just felt that with the patterned leggings & the bright pink vest, there was no hiding.  I was out there in the world.  I could be seen!

And again, I received only a compliment!  And once I started my practice, all thoughts of self-conscious visibility vanished!  

Last week's challenge was a really good one for me.  And I really enjoyed it.  It was made relatively easy as I knew many other people were challenging themselves in the same way and so it was a shared experience.  The fact that it was set as a challenge too, was also very permission giving for me.  And because the challenge had been set, the 'good obedient little girl' in me had to do it!  And I did it!

The real challenge for me though, will be if I carry on wearing the leggings now the challenge is over.  If I continue to wear them just because I want to!  Just because I like seeing my legs in brightly patterned leggings!

And then the next step comes in carrying the challenge outside of the yoga class & into 'real' life ... can I always be brave enough to wear whatever I want outside of class?

Only time will tell ...

But for me right now, posting images of my legs on here is another declaration of body acceptance!  My journey towards body acceptance has been a long one, and yoga really has been one of the most significant elements in that journey ... 

What am I really hungry for ... ?

In the final week of my 'eating plan' I've been reflecting on the experience & what I've learned from it ...

I've found it much easier to stick with than I thought I might. Having a history of eating disorders I was worried about placing rules around food again. I didn't want to fall back into obsessive ways of thinking about food and prescriptive rules what I could or couldn't eat. I spent 15+ years of my life attempting to live with excessively restrictive rules around food & although it's been many years since I've placed those kinds of rules around food, I did wonder about the possibility of triggering a relapse.  

Hence I didn't embark on this plan lightly. I'd given it a lot of thought before I started. In part, the experience has been connected to my PhD research & my findings around the importance of being connected to our bodies and listening to them & their needs. I felt I needed to 'practice what I'm preaching' to maintain my congruency in my research & therapy practice.  I felt I already had quite a good handle on this, but I wanted this eating experience to enable me to challenge myself a little bit further.

These last few weeks have proven to be everything I'd hoped they would.  And it's been very different from any 'eating plan' I embarked on from my eating disordered self. The 'rules' have been easy to put into practice & as it's essentially been around eating healthy, nutritious, unprocessed foods which I enjoy eating, it's been fairly easy to maintain. The most difficult thing for me has been getting myself organised enough to ensure I always had the fresh foods available. It's made me realise how often I would just 'make do' with whatever I could find in my cupboards, fridge or freezer without really thinking about the nutritional value. I was essentially not fully taking care of myself & my body. The last few weeks have made me more aware of the importance of making appropriate food choices, knowing that the food I eat will have an impact on both my physical body, my mental functioning & my general sense of well-being.  All things which I knew already and talk to clients about, but this experience has enabled me to embody this knowledge at a much deeper experiential level.

The other big difference has been that it hasn't been a prescriptive diet & I haven't had to think about things like counting calories, fat or anything else. I've still been able to listen to my body (& therefore myself) & feed it (me) when it's (I've) been hungry. I've recognised at a deeper level how significant hunger is to me. For the years of my eating disorders, I essentially over-rode my hunger ... either following excessively restrictive eating plans in an attempt to control or lose weight, or over-eating & bingeing in a way that paid no attention to physiological hunger. I now more fully appreciate hunger as 
an essential bodily need. Being able to ensure my physical needs were met ensured I've not felt hungry; therefore I've not felt deprived in any way. Rather, as the foods I've been eating have been highly satiating, I've experienced a sense of more fully satisfying my body's physical needs.

As a result of this, I've also become more fully aware of some of the other things I hunger for & the feelings I still sometimes use food to manage.  I now see more clearly how much I've been 'using' that bar of chocolate or glass of red wine to dull some of those emotional hungers & feelings. Yesterday for example, I spent most of the day sat at my computer working on my thesis. At those times when I felt confused or frustrated with how it was going, my mind turned to eating 'something nice.' Those are the times when I might have eaten that bar of chocolate in an attempt to soothe myself & my feelings.  And yes, it would have temporarily given me a boost (psychologically & physically), but it wouldn't have solved my frustration. It would probably have distracted me too much & I'd have ended up leaving my computer & possibly not going back to it. Whereas yesterday, I recognised the 'craving' for 'something nice' for what it was ... & instead of running away from my feelings, I sat with them, allowed them to be there & just kept going. And ended up having a much more productive day than I would have done had I given in to the temptation for chocolate!

It's okay to 'use' food at times to help us manage feelings or to comfort or reward ourselves; most people do, consciously or not.  The important thing is to learn to discriminate between physiological hunger & emotional hunger so that we can make more informed decisions about whether we need to satisfy a bodily need or an emotional need. 

All in all, it's been the positive experience I'd hoped it would have been, enabling me to think more carefully about the foods I put into my body and to connect more fully with my body and the satisfaction of its nutritional needs.  

I would never condone anyone still experiencing an eating disorder to embark on such a plan or to follow yet another set of externally imposed rules.  

I embarked on this from a very different place and for me, it's been about getting even more fully connected with myself and my body; allowing me to listen more closely to my body and its needs ...

A snack sized hole ...

Since embarking on my new way of eating, I've been thinking about the role ritual and habit play in our food choices.

I began writing this post during my mid-morning break; a time when I would usually be eating a snack.  I've always eaten breakfast and tended to eat 'stereotypical' breakfast foods such as cereal, porridge or toast, and yet by around 10.30am I'd be feeling really hungry and my stomach would be rumbling.

Over the last couple of weeks I've changed what I eat for breakfast and have been having higher protein foods like meat, fish or eggs alongside some fat and a vegetable like spinach.  

Some people have turned their noses up when I've told them because they can't imagine eating these kinds of food for breakfast. And yet, it's not that far off the continental style breakfast of meats, cheeses and salad stuff that people readily accept.  I think my breakfast transition was made easier by my having been abroad just before I began my plan and eating this kind of breakfast whilst there.  And also, the experience of being somewhere different and presented with a buffet-style breakfast with many choices led to me beginning to think more about what I wanted to eat for breakfast.

It seems that in many peoples' minds, breakfast equals cereal or toast.  Or on special occasions or as a treat, a fried breakfast.  It's interesting to notice the beliefs we hold around food and the kinds of foods which 'should' be eaten at particular times.  And yet the reality is, there are no rules!  We can choose to eat whatever we want whenever we want to!  But cultural conditioning seems to play a role here for many people.

For me, changing what I'm eating for breakfast has had a big impact.  I find that these foods satisfy my body and my mid-morning hunger pangs have vanished.  I reach my mid-morning break and I still feel satiated.  It's not that I can't have a snack, it's simply that I don't want or need one.  And that's slightly unsettling and it almost feels like something is missing!  It's interesting to experience a sense of feeling cheated of something that I no longer need or want.  And I can only assume that it's the ritual and habit of eating something at that time that I'm missing.  

Having to think about what I'm going to eat for breakfast has had an impact too.  Up until recently, I would simply reach for the toast or cereal without thought and mindlessly drift into my day.  Now, I have to put more thought into what I'm going to eat and it takes more time to prepare.  But by connecting to my breakfast and thinking about what I'm going to put into my body, I'm encouraged to connect more to myself and therefore to my day.  And I enter my day feeling satiated and aware of the feeling of the food inside me and the nourishment it's providing, rather than just engaging in a mindless habit.

And yet despite all of these positives, I still feel like I'm left with a snack sized hole in my morning ...

Feeling adrift and at sea ...

Entering week 3 of my eating plan, I'm recognising just how strongly how one eats and thinks about food / eating provides a foundation for how one feels about oneself in the world.  I already knew this intellectually, but my experience over the last week has enabled me to embody this and experience it at depth.


Over the last week, there have been times when I've felt very ungrounded and uncertain about myself and things I was doing.  It felt like a loss of confidence.  Not completely, in that I still had a firm hold on, and confidence in, my counselling skills and academic work; they were my only internal anchors.  But outside of these two parts of myself, I felt on very shaky ground.  I carried an image in my head for a good few days of me being a little boat adrift on the sea.  

I began doubting things about my experience and tapping into a fear of "getting it wrong."  At first I couldn't work out where this 'fear' was coming from, but then it came to me ... because I've been eating in a different way with 'rules' to remember, I had a sense of uncertainty around this.  The 'good little girl' part of me desperately wanted to get it right and make no mistakes ... both for myself and also for the person who's supporting me.  For myself, I want to ensure I receive maximum benefit from the experience and hence have a strong sense of 'wanting to get it right.'  Having made a commitment to another person, I have a sense of not want to disappoint or let them down.  

Highlighting the importance of ensuring external support for oneself through times of change, it also helped me to know that this person was always there, available via a text message, which helped keep me anchored to the eating plan.  If I was unsure about anything I was going to eat, I knew I could always check it out. Trusting that someone else has the answers is hugely reassuring; knowing that someone is there takes away any sense of isolation and provides a sense of security in which to ground oneself.

I hadn't appreciated just how strongly I felt these pressures until I dreamed last night about disappointing, and letting down, someone I love.  On waking this morning, my shaky self-experiences of last week suddenly made complete sense ...

Because food is so central to life and living, having a 'fear' of getting things wrong with my eating left me with that same fear of getting things wrong across my life and how I was living it.

Another reminder of just how intimately our relationship with food / eating entwines with our sense of self and way-of-being in the world ...

Eating reflecting subjective experiencing ...

Over a week into my new eating plan, and I've found it relatively easy to stick with.  The most difficult thing for me was getting myself organised enough to buy the 'right' foods; planning ahead, and thinking differently about the food choices I made.

It helps that I like all of the natural and unprocessed foods I'm eating and I'm feeling satisfied by them  I can also honestly say that I've not missed red wine or chocolate; the two things which created panic in me the day before I embarked on the plan.  A couple of times, I thought about a glass of wine, but what I've recognised is that each of those times were following stressful situations.  My default mode had become to have a glass of wine to relax or reward myself.  And yet each time, I knew I couldn't have that glass of wine, and I was okay with it.  The thought entered my head, I turned it away, and got on with other things ... not even thinking about that wine again.

I've had an interesting experience over the last few days though.  I attended a workshop over the weekend which was outside of my comfort zone and left me feeling unsettled.  My cat has also needed to have treatment at the vets which has added stress and upheaval in my home.  And although I've continued to stick to the plan easily, what I realised is that I'd stopped planning ahead.  I got to Monday morning, and realised I had nothing 'proper' in for breakfast.  I got up this morning & realised I didn't have anything to go with my salad to take to work.  

Feeling unsettled and out of my comfort zone had left me feeling disorganised and out of control.  And because I felt this way within myself,  I let go of the control around my eating plan and gave no thought to the organisation it requires.

For me this has parallels to eating disordered experiences.  An individual feeling unsettled and out of control within themselves and their lives, often turns to food as a way to feel in control of something.  When we can't control our external circumstances or inner feelings, we can control the food we allow into our bodies, & consequently control our bodies.  Alternatively, feeling out of control can be mirrored in out of control eating behaviours; resorting to unhealthy foods, bingeing, purging, etc.  

And although I no longer resort to eating disordered behaviours, I see that I still experience connections between how I feel within / about myself and my eating practices.  Feeling unsettled within myself led to me letting go of the organisation and forethought needed for my plan.  And although I've still been able to stick with it, I recognise that previously, times like the last few days would have been the times when I reached for the comfort foods, for the easy, quick options, giving no real thought to the foods I was eating.

Subjective experiencing of self can be mirrored in eating practices ...

Auschwitz as a dream metaphor ...

I've always been a very prolific and vivid dreamer and have been able to harness my dreams to help me with my self awareness and personal development.  Even before I began my counselling training and all of the self-exploration work which has come with that, I used to love my dreams and would often find the answers to life or study questions in them.

The unconscious mind tends to work in metaphor or very literal meanings, so uncovering the messages in dreams can be challenging, but also fun and hugely enlightening.  I love working with dreams that clients bring to our sessions; it never ceases to amaze me the messages the unconscious can leave behind in a seemingly random dream.

Last night, I dreamt I was on a camping trip and I was sleeping in one of the male barracks at Auschwitz-Birkenhau.

I knew immediately that the dream related to my experience of my new eating plan, but I wasn't sure just how.  I thought of all of the seemingly obvious connections between an eating plan and concentration camps.  I thought about the idea of the plan instilling a sense of deprivation, hunger, terror or torture.  

But that just didn't sit comfortably with me; that's not my experience of the plan.

I smiled to myself throughout my drive to work at my unconscious connections to Auschwitz.  And then because of the positive feelings, I'd been left with following the dream, it suddenly became clear to me ...

My dream was actually about choice, freedom and relief. 

I 'm choosing to take part in this eating plan.  I'm in complete control of it and if I decide I don't like it, I can stop it at any time.  The choice of what to eat is always mine.  

I'm free in a way in which the victims of Auschwitz and other concentration camps weren't.  I have the freedom to stop and walk away at any time I choose.

And this then linked to my past eating disorders.  The relief comes from the recognition that I am not controlled by this plan in the way in which I was controlled by food when I was experiencing anorexia or bulimia.  The Auschwitz of my dream was symbolic of my relationship to my own eating disorders.  


And I've walked away, I'm free ... and that's a hugely empowering confirmation; even my unconscious agrees that my eating disorders are history ...

Which is what I believe leaves me in a good place from which to be researching the subject and working with people who are currently still experiencing the torture, deprivation, dread and hunger of their own Auschwitz ...

The food we eat becomes who we are ...

Once again, I find myself embarking on something new as a result of where my research has led me.  This time, an eating plan which has the potential to permanently change my way of eating.  I embark on this as a personal experiment to verify the conclusions I've been reaching.

As someone who works with clients with eating disorders / difficulties, I've thought long and hard about sharing this experience. I don't want it being misinterpreted as my way of returning to a way of controlling food or my body shape.  Nor do I want my clients seeing it as me condoning diets or controlled eating practices.

However, the reality is that I have embarked on a 28 day eating / nutrition plan.  Where this differs from any past diets or controlled eating behaviours is that this is in no way about controlling my eating or my body.  And I feel that I've only been able to embark on this plan because I am confident in the fact that my own eating disorders are firmly in my past.  I'm not detailing the plan here, but it does feel important to say that I am being supported by someone who has vast knowledge and experience of nutrition and foods' physiological affects on the body.  I am also being supported psychologically throughout the process.

The plan I have embarked upon is, for me, about making even deeper connections with my own body.  My research has led me to the point of understanding the idea of being more fully connected with one's body as corresponding to being more fully connected with one's Self and life.  Taking care of one's body equates to taking care of one's Self.  How we feel about, and treat, our bodies is a reflection of how we feel about, and treat, our Selves.

As a result of engaging with the plan, I aim to learn to listen ever more closely to my body; to hear its specific nutritional needs, wants and demands.  And of course, this becomes the metaphor for listening ever more closely to my own Self.  To hear more accurately, my own psychological inner needs, yearnings and wants and to find effective ways of satisfying these.  Of taking better care of my Self.

For someone with a past history of eating disorders and who works with this client group, I've given a lot of thought to the prudence of embarking on this process.  Removing food groups from my diet and having rules imposed on my eating is very reminiscent of historic disordered patterns around eating.

But what I am very clear about is that I'm approaching this eating plan from a very different perspective; one which is only possible because my eating disorders are so distant in my past.  For me this time, there is no focus on weight loss or changing body shape.  It was suggested to me before I started the plan that I take photos of myself, as a changing nutritional input may lead to a change in body composition and hence shape.  I refused though.  So sure am I that this isn't about appearance for me, and nor do I want to make it that way.  This is instead, about my own inner subjective experiencing and an experiment with the foods I feed my body and my Self.

From my research, I have an appreciation of the meanings we attach to different foods and ways of eating.  Our relationship with food can be viewed as an analogy of our relationship with our Selves and how we engage with life.

Before I committed to the plan, I was therefore aware that it would potentially tap into emotional experiences and beliefs. Indeed, part of my motivation for embarking on it was to experiment with just how much a change in diet might affect my moods, thinking and subjective experiencing.

I have no doubt that the kinds of food we eat affect us, not just nutritionally and physiologically, but also emotionally and psychologically.  I believe we all have foods which we attach emotional meanings to.  And those foods tend to be the ones which aren't necessarily nutritionally good for us.  It's interesting to me to think about the fact that we often try to nurture ourselves with foods / drinks that aren't good for our bodies.  And although in the short term, they do provide both a physiological and emotional boost, in the long term, they don't resolve things.  Quite often, they instead lead to further cravings and remorse.

So with all of this in mind, I'd given a lot of thought to the idea of changing my eating, and in the week or so leading up to its commencement, I thought I'd prepared myself psychologically for the experience.  I found myself laughing as I felt the need to eat the packet of Giant Chocolate Buttons that was in my house; that feeling of needing to eat them because I'd never be able to eat chocolate ever again in my whole entire life! Of course, I knew this wasn't the case, but it made me smile to catch myself thinking like this!  

Despite this preparation however, the day before I was due to begin, I found myself unexpectedly caught out.  Quite happily walking around my local supermarket with a trolley-full of nutritious foods, I was suddenly overwhelmed by a deep sense of sadness.  Mixed in with this was a deep sense of compassion towards myself for taking care of me and my body.  There was also a sense of loss towards all the foods which weren't in my trolley and which wouldn't be part of my life for the coming 4 weeks.  And probably most significantly, was an overwhelming sadness for my historic eating disordered self.

Later that same evening, my sadness shifted into fear.  Allowing myself to experience that fear led me into a deeper understanding of some of the meanings I've attached to particular foodstuffs.  Knowing that, for the next 28 days, I wouldn't have them in my life felt very frightening and I felt very alone with that fear.

Knowing about the emotional attachments people can have to food, especially in Western society, where we do tend to use food as a reward, a treat, a comfort, etc., I did expect to have some kind of reaction to the 'loss' of my own consumable comforts; chocolate and a glass of red wine.  However, I wasn't prepared for the intensity of my reaction simply to knowing that I wouldn't be able to rely on them for the coming 4 weeks.  And it was from this place of fear and of feeling utterly bereft that I was able to fully appreciate just how much emotional significance I'd invested in that bar of chocolate or glass of red wine.

I'm interested to see what other discoveries I make over the coming days and weeks about myself and my own relationship with food and eating.  Despite the years of self-awareness work I've engaged in, and especially over the last 5 years or so in relation to my PhD, it amazes me how much I still have to learn about myself.  My experience of this new way of eating to date has already confirmed the powerful and entwined nature of eating and subjective experiencing.  Food is, after all, the only substance which crosses our bodily boundaries; taken in, digested and used for energy and body composition.  In that sense, food literally becomes part of us, which is one of the reasons people develop such complex relationships with it.

I look forward with excitement and trepidation to the coming few weeks ... & to further deepening my understandings of the connections between our relationships with food and eating, and how we experience ourselves ...