In the comments below, please let us know: Have you given any of your power away to the belief that a certain target weight or a certain number of calories consumed can bring you ultimate happiness? And if so, how can you take your power back? We love hearing your thoughts!
Here is a transcript of this week’s video:
Hi, this is Emily Rosen, Chief Operating Officer for the Institute for the Psychology of Eating.
Today’s topic: Are Numbers Ruining Your Nutritional Health?
Numbers are amazing. Numbers are powerful. Numbers – and how they form the basis of mathematics are the hidden code of the known universe, the physics of how creation works. All technology, all science, every machine you own is based on numbers. Your bank account is based on numbers. Our biology is tightly based on a 24-hour cycle. Our brainwaves, our heartbeat, our blood pressure, and so many important functions of the human body are kept within a specific range of numbers that’s crucial for life.
So it should come as no surprise that numbers are super important in the realm of nutrition.
We’re going to take a look at the psychology of numbers. We’re going to drop underneath the obvious when it comes to numbers, and see how our relationship with certain kinds of numbers has a big impact on our emotional state, and our behaviors around food and body.
Take a moment and consider how powerful numbers are in your life. Have you noticed that when the numbers in your bank account reach a certain low – you feel disempowered or afraid? And when those same bank account numbers hit a certain high, our entire outlook can completely change. But notice that on one level, all that changed was a number, and our life was hugely impacted.
Well, that same powerful influence of numbers lives in our relationship with food and health.
Perhaps the place where we are most moved by the numbers in the nutrition universe is the number on the scale. When it goes up, we can feel like a failure. We might then choose to intensely diet, or do extreme exercise. We might binge and purge, or avoid any kind of dietary fat. The bottom line is that an upward moving number on the scale will often drain our personal power and self respect.
And of course, we will likely feel successful and victorious when the number goes down. Mission accomplished. We’re the winners, we’re nutritional and weight loss heroes. It’s a high for so many people. But that same high can come crashing down the next day if we gain even a pound.
The power of numbers in nutrition is also prominent in the concept of calories.
Because calories are deeply connected to weight loss, and weight loss is something we can covet like nothing else, it stands to reason that calories can make or break us. If we keep our calorie count to some certain number, then we’re considered successful and we have permission to like ourselves. But if we eat too many numbers – meaning calories – then our worth as a human being has plummeted.
Counting calories can be a fantastic prison of numbers for so many people. We can allow it to dehumanize us and drain us of our self-respect, and our natural connection with food.
Other places where numbers can rule us in nutrition and health in a big way include: Counting fat grams, and the intense way we give power to our blood cholesterol levels.
So here is something I’d like you to notice in all of this:
We can become deeply convinced of the importance of numbers to the point where we lose ourselves.
We often believe, with an intense fervor, in the scientific basis of the numbers that we’re aiming for.
But who says you need to lose 5 pounds, 10 pounds, 15 pounds, or whatever the number is? Where is that number etched in scientific reality? Who says we need to eat some specific amount of calories to lose a specific amount of weight? Where is the 100% irrefutable scientific proof that manipulating caloric amount in some specific way will work for any given person?
We are all biochemically unique.
And equally important, when we create a sense of stress around numbers – the scale, our food amount, our calorie counting – we literally go into stress chemistry, meaning sympathetic nervous system dominance – which translates into increased cortisol and insulin levels, which in turn will tend to signal the body to store weight, store fat, and not build muscle – just the opposite effect of what we are looking for by obsessing about numbers.
Prolonged stress chemistry also de-regulates appetite, creates inflammation, and can lead to a host of stress induced symptoms such as poor digestion, fatigue, low immunity, pain, and more.
So, consider examining your relationship with numbers.
Be honest with yourself.
How much do you give away your power and self-dignity when you stand on the scale?
How much do you imprison yourself around calories or fat grams?
It’s time to rise up.
It’s time to take back your power.
Please look at how you do numbers.
Stop being small when the numbers don’t do what you want them to do.
Grow bigger than the numbers that you’ve given so much power to.
You just might find yourself happier, better nourished, and with a more empowered metabolism.
I hope this was helpful.
To learn more about us please go to psychologyofeating.com.
The Institute for the Psychology of Eating offers the most innovative and inspiring professional trainings, public programs, conferences, online events and lots more in the exciting fields of Dynamic Eating Psychology and Mind Body Nutrition! In our premier professional offering – the Eating Psychology Coach Certification Training – you can grow a new career and help your clients in a powerful way with food, body and health. You’ll learn cutting edge skills and have the confidence to work with the most compelling eating challenges of our times: weight, body image, overeating, binge eating, digestion, fatigue, immunity, mood and much more. If you’re focused on your own eating and health, the Institute offers a great selection of one-of-a-kind opportunities to take a big leap forward in your relationship with food. We’re proud to be international leaders in online and live educational events designed to create the breakthroughs you want most. Our public programs are powerful, results oriented, and embrace all of who we are as eaters – body, mind, heart and soul.
Please email us at info@psychologyofeating.com if you have specific questions and we will be sure to get back to you.
Again that is psychologyofeating.com.
This is Emily Rosen, Chief Operating Officer for the Institute for the Psychology of Eating.
Thanks so much for your time and interest.
In the comments below, please let us know: Have you given any of your power away to the belief that a certain target weight or a certain number of calories consumed can bring you ultimate happiness? And if so, how can you take your power back? We love hearing your thoughts!
P.S. -
If you haven’t had a chance to check out our FREE information packed video series – The Dynamic Eating Psychology Breakthrough – you can sign up for it HERE. It’s a great way to get a better sense of the work we do here at the Institute for the Psychology of Eating. If you’re inspired by this work and want to learn about how you can become certified as an Eating Psychology Coach, please go HERE to learn more. And if you’re interested in working on your own personal relationship with food, check out our breakthrough 8-week program designed for the public – Transform Your Relationship with Food HERE.
To learn more about us please go to psychologyofeating.com.
The Institute for the Psychology of Eating offers the most innovative and inspiring professional trainings, public programs, conferences, online events and lots more in the exciting fields of Dynamic Eating Psychology and Mind Body Nutrition! In our premier professional offering – the Eating Psychology Coach Certification Training – you can grow a new career and help your clients in a powerful way with food, body and health. You’ll learn cutting edge skills and have the confidence to work with the most compelling eating challenges of our times: weight, body image, overeating, binge eating, digestion, fatigue, immunity, mood and much more. If you’re focused on your own eating and health, the Institute offers a great selection of one-of-a-kind opportunities to take a big leap forward in your relationship with food. We’re proud to be international leaders in online and live educational events designed to create the breakthroughs you want most. Our public programs are powerful, results oriented, and embrace all of who we are as eaters – body, mind, heart and soul.
Please email us at info@psychologyofeating.com if you have specific questions and we will be sure to get back to you.
Dr. Rose’s sick population concept may explain why many nutrition studies underestimate the role of diet in disease.
