Almost every day in my office I hear a client say that they ate a certain food because it was “good” or they try to avoid all “bad foods”.  Another frequent discussion is a client stating “I am a bad person” because I ate a cookie, pizza, cake, or another food that is often deemed “bad” by society, or they say “I was good today”. Their determination of them “being good” is based on only eating foods that day that they determine to be “good”.  My question is “When did food develop morals?”

Experiencing your feelings is an imperative part of recovery. Our feelings are just like physical pain; they are communicating something to tell us that something is okay-when we experience something that feels good, or not okay- when we experience feelings that don’t feel good.

Fitbits, Activity trackers, Smart Watches, Garmins, and Jawbones are all the rage right now. It’s rare to see someone not wearing that sleek watch looking-device on their wrist that is quietly counting steps, calories burned, calories eaten, exercise completed, and hours slept. We are a nation obsessed with these little machines that supposedly tell us about what our bodies are doing and what our bodies need. However, we are not a machine.

We live in a society that is obsessed with the shape and size of your body. There is a plethora of potent messaging that is constantly telling you through social media, advertising, television, diet promotion, the fitness industry, billboards, magazines, and many other avenues, that you are not good enough.