The book Women Food and God by Geneen Roth was a quick read this weekend. I was able to spend time with my mom, and after reading this book it reminded me of how my own relationship with food has been conditioned and influenced through growing up in my family. My approach as a health and wellness professional is to tell people to put away the scales and diet plans and to eat what they want (For more see Land of Plenty ). As a kid, there was always chocolate, ice cream, and dessert under the cake lid, so this makes sense to me. I enjoyed lattes, pumpkin donuts, waffles, and lots of chardonnay wine this weekend. We danced all night at a wedding (sweating profusely from busting so many moves on the dance floor for hours on end) and then had pizza to cap off the night because we were hungry, hours after the formal dinner was served. I have never heard one of my three sisters or my mother complain about being fat or needing to/going on a diet. As women in present- day America, I feel like this is rare.
I find this topic so interesting because almost everyone whom I speak to about working out/eating/life goals wants to lose 5, 10, or 15 lbs. If only their thighs weren’t so fat or if their stomach didn’t hang over their jeans….they would be happy. They would truly be satisfied with what they look like (many times meaning who they are). I truly appreciated Roth’s approach to eating and would encourage others to read it, mainly anyone who has ever felt guilty/worried/obsessed about weight/eating/body image (Did I cover everyone yet?). She comes from the experience of gaining and losing over 1000 lbs since adolescence.
For over 30 years, Roth has lead workshops focusing on women and their relationship with food, and her experiences are what her eight books are written from. She includes God in the title of this book stating that “Our personality and its defenses, one of which is our emotionally charged relationship with food are a direct link to our spirituality. They are the bread crumbs that lead us home.” The part of her own personal experience that surprises people the most is not that she quit dieting, but that she quit trying to fix herself. In her book she asks the reader to quit trying to fix their bodies. She states how common it is for women to be brainwashed by the sixty-billion dollar a year diet industry.
I found a lot of similarities in between the yogic frame of mind and her theory, including staying in the present moment, being fully aware of how your body feels, listening to your inner teacher/quieting your inner critic, and loving yourself for who you are at your core. She talks about how risk aversive our minds are and how we become afraid of change and love, not just in eating but in life decisions. Below are some of my favorite quotes from her advice to stop dieting, start listening to your body/heart/mind by practicing what she calls inquiry, and follow her simple Eating Guidelines (basic things like eating when you are hungry/eating until satisfied/eating with no distraction, enjoying your food, etc).
“Ask yourself what you love. Without fear of consequences, without force or shame or guilt. What motivates you to be kind, to take care of your body, your spirit, others, the earth? Trust the longing, trust the love that can be translated into action without the threat of punishment. Trust that you will not destroy what matters most. Give yourself that much.”
“We think we are miserable because of what we weigh, and to the extent that our joints hurt and our knees ache and we can’t walk three blocks without losing our breath, we probably are physically miserable because of extra weight. But if we’ve spent the last five, twenty, fifty years obsessing about the same ten or twenty pounds, something else is going on.”
“The bottom line, whether you weigh 340 pounds or 150 pounds, is that when you eat when you are not hungry you are using food as a drug, grappling with boredom or illness or loss or grief or emptiness or loneliness or rejection.”
“It’s called the When I Get Thin (Change Jobs, Move, Find a Relationship, Leave This Relationship, Have Money) Blues. It’s called the “If Only” refrain. It’s called postponing your life and your ability to be happy to a future date when then, oh then you will finally get what you want and life will be good.”
“It’s not about the weight. It’s not about the goal. It’s not about Being Thin or Being Someone Special or Getting There. Those are fantasies in your mind– and they are all in the future, a future that never comes. Because when your goals are reached, they will be reached in the ‘right now.’”
“I believed there was an end goal, a place at which I would arrive and forevermore be at peace…The promise of a diet is not only that you will have a different body; it is that in having a different body, you will have a different life.”
“We treat ourselves and the rest of the world as if deprivation, punishment and shame lead to change…To change your body, you must first understand that which is shaping it. Not fight it. Not force it. Not deprive it. Not shame it. Not do anything but accept and understand it.”
“If you actually listen to your what body (not your mind) wants, you’ll discover that it doesn’t want three weeks of hot fudge sundaes despite the panting and salivating that is evoked at their very mention…the moment you tell yourself you can have it, the moment the taboo is removed, hot fudge sundaes become as ordinary as sardines.”
“We want to be thin because thinness is the purported currency of happiness and peace and contentment in our time. And although that currency is a lie– the tabloids are filled with miserable skinny celebrities– most systems of weight loss fail because they don’t live up to the promise: weight loss does not make people happy.”
“You spend years, sometimes a whole life dieting, fasting, bingeing, exercising and then laying on the couch because you refuse to do one more sit up or downward dog. During this stage your main goal is to fix yourself, reach your ideal weight and rid yourself forever of the focus on food. Since the relationship with food is only a microcosm for your relationship to the rest of your life (and your beliefs about abundance, deprivation, fear, benevolence, God) any attempts to change the food part without also engaging in the beliefs it represents will end in disappointment, 100 percent of the time.”
Photo Courtesy of Indie Bound
Tagged: Book Review, Food Choices, Happiness, Nutrition, Spirituality
Bridgett,
Another great post. I cannot wait to read your book someday!
Nice photo, brings back fond memories!!
Love you, MOm
What a great review! Now I can’t wait to read this book. I love how we turn an unhealthy dessert or snack into something we can’t be without! I think we all do that!
I agree!!! I am working on eating the unhealthy dessert because I want the unhealthy dessert. It is a process that is for sure. Thanks for stopping by!
I bought Women, Food and God from Audible this weekend. I began listening to it this morning and curiousity about the author lead me to a Google Image search. For some reason I zoned in on the picture of you with your parents. I actually thought it was a picture of Laura Dern. After reading the article, I realized it was your mother! She is vibrant and I sincerely thought, if not Laura Dern, then this must be a picture of two sisters and their father (no offense meant towards your father)
I have struggled with obesity for years. About two years ago, I threw everything I’d been taught about religion to the wind and started again at ground zero. I began to love me, just for being me. I had been on the Adkins diet and lost 80 lbs only to gain 105 back. I was 5’4″ and weighed 290lbs. The only word that I could use to describe myself was “hideous”.
Over the last two years through mediatation and relaxation, I had lost 65 lbs. I had taken up cycling and felt GREAT! Then, the place I work started touting the work of a new diet. I don’t want to put the name of the diet because I don’t want to promote it. The first 40 days, the calorie limit is 800 per day and no exercise. Several co-workers started the diet and being significantly overweight still, I felt some urging coming from others to “try” the new diet.
Even though I knew I’d found peace with my slow and steady weight loss, their quick results were causing me to be envious. I gained 5 lbs. I know that I shouldn’t be counting pounds OR calories OR carbs but look at me, I’m doing it again! I’ve become stressed. I feel like a failure. I have trouble focusing on mediation and even THAT has become a failure.
I’m hoping that this book will help me to clear out the clutter in my mind caused by diet envy. Your blog has helped me to see that I might have made a good choice! I feel better at this moment than I have in several weeks!
My favorite quote from the book so far is this quote of a quote:
“So many perfect girls were raised entirely without organized religion and the majority of the rest of us experienced spirituality only in the form of mandatory holiday services with a big haired grandmother. Overlay our dearth of spiritual exploration with our excess of training and ambition and you have a generation of Godless girls raised largely without a fundamental sense of divinity.
In fact, our worth in the world has always been tied to our looks. Not the amazing miracle of mere existence.” Courney E Miller, Christian Science Monitor
Wonderful Blog, I’ll be back to read more!
Liz, thanks for your story! I love that quote, I could write a whole blog about that alone. Our relationship to diets, self image, and food culture in America are so twisted and complicated. I don’t see it as a point where we “get there” and forever stop thinking about the food we eat, what we look like, etc. I think it is a process, that ebbs and flows, so being kind to yourself during the dips and the inevitable times in our life where we struggle with these complicated issue. You are well on your way and you have everything you need. I commend you for trying, you are on the right path. Have some compassion for yourself on the way. I go back to what my yoga guru taught me about my yoga practice– that it is always about my mat. It is easy to get distracted by what other people are doing– perhaps it is easier for them, they can do more advanced poses, they aren’t sweating as much– you get the point. I have realized this mentality can be taken “off” the mat and into our lives– it is not about anyone else’s food choices/diet plans, it is what you are doing, and what is right for you is not always going to be the same for other people. I guess just getting more comfortable with your choices and path, so you can settle into them and feel confident that what you are doing is right, and what everyone else is doing doesn’t matter. Just some ideas to get you in the right mind frame, enjoy the book, I loved it and suggested it to many. Come back and visit my blog again soon, you can always sign up for emails with new posts, about once a week (on the home page it is in the top right side). Namaste!!
I have never written on a blog before and I’m glad I have posted to this one. What ever it is that caused it, I am thankful, whether it be that I’m listening to this book or that you mother’s likeness to Laura Dern caused me to click on your picture.
Your yoga guru’s “it’s always about the mat” analogy is EXACTLY what I needed. I’m going to make a little sign and hang it at my desk so I can remember to stay focused on “the” moment instead of “their” moment.
I must tell you, I subscribed to your blog before I left your page. First blog I’ve ever subscribed to!
Thanks again for sharing.
Side note: Do you pronounce your last name “blue”, I don’t want to mispronounce if I tell my friends.
Great news, Liz! My mantra that I have hung up on my ceiling is “All is coming.” Whatever works, right? My last name, Blough is pronounced like “plow.” Thanks for asking. Welcome to the blogging world, congrats!
Hi Liz,
I pronounce my last name as in “plow.” How are things going after Thanksgiving?? Hopefully well! I have been feeling off a bit lately (perhaps from the traveling and treats), so I’ve been incorporating more walks and more veggies in my diet, and I am back on track. I do not think you are signed up for the weekly emails, but for the responses to the comments. Click on the homepage again and in the top right it will say “Email Subscription.” I checked my subscriber list and you are not on it, so try that and we’ll go from there! Thanks again!
Hi Bridgett,
Yes, the holiday can be a huge emotional and physical tribulation. Not only that, I’m in the midwest and the weather is beginning to get cold, I’m an accountant so month end work plants me at a desk for long hours the last 5 days of the month and the first 10 of the next. I’m not complaining mind you but this is the time period where I also feel a bit off.
Since the weather has been close to 40, I’ve been cycling. I absolutely love riding my bike. It sounds insane to ride in 40 degree weather but it’s actually exhilarating. I live by the bike/hike trails that go thru the city so it’s nothing to ride for 15-20 miles and not leave town. We are supposed to get freezing rain tonight and snow tomorrow so it’s about time to switch to walking.
I successfully survived the holiday without feeling too crazy. I didn’t over fill my plate, didn’t overindulge and I sincerely don’t feel like I missed out on anything. My brother, two nieces and I took off Thanksgiving afternoon on a bike ride and left the overeater/nappers to do their digesting. It was nearly 60 degrees that day and we rode for almost two hours. We felt WONDERFUL!
I have to tell you a story. I was talking to a friend (she suffers from a “monkey mind”). She wants to learn to mediate and wants serenity but struggles with slowing her mind down enough to feel successful. She’s asked me for a new mantra and I gave her yours, she was the most relaxed I’ve ever seen her! That’s no lie! Then, she was having some financial woes recently and she said, “I suppose all is coming”. I just shook my head in agreement. YOU immediately came to mind.
I’m glad all is well, it was a wonderful surprise to hear from you.