So I’ve, er, lost a bit of time recently. I put my head down for a minute, looked up again, and it was July. Canada Day, to be precise, and also the first day of the month, which gives my husband the opportunity to sneak up behind me and shout, “PINCH, PUNCH, FIRST-OF-THE-MONTH, NO RETURNS!” Which always startles me and makes me swear I am going to pay closer attention to the date in the future.
Which never happens.
Anyhow. I have the follow-up post to my last thing pretty much ready to go — just needs a bit of editing. But I’ve been busy working at yet another hospital lately, and it’s been good. Lots and lots of patients to see, which is the finest part of the job, hands down.
I’ve got flowers growing on the balcony, and even though I’m pretty sure I interrupted some kind of shady transaction going on in my backyard today, it’s a lovely day and Toronto is colourful, almost beautiful in the sunlight…
…or that might just be the GIANT coffee I drank this afternoon talking. Either way, I’ll take it.
I baked some bread yesterday for the first time in eons. I stopped baking it when I moved into my current apartment, which has a kitchen the size of a Band-Aid. But with the help of my MONSTER MIXER (700 watts, baby) and its dough-hooks, I didn’t knead anything, and the bread was righteously awesome.
If I do say so myself.
I’ve also been playing with my cat’s diet lately. Because, what are pets if not your own personal biochemical experiments?
I’ve had a couple of emails about specific nutrition questions, which I love, because it gives me the chance to dig through my old clinical nutrition notes and textbooks and brush up. Or to remind myself of how, exactly we did things back in some old clinic. So keep ’em coming, if you have any questions. It’s good practice for me.
As future plans go, I’m going to let slip a little something I’m planning to do here. There’s a certain training I want to take in the fall, and said training will allow me to feel confident in offering nutrition counseling/coaching/cheerleading/hand-holding/helper-ing to people, either in person or at a distance.
I could do it right now, actually, but what can I say? I’m conscientious-beyond-conscientious, to the point where I will be the MOST RIDICULOUSLY OVER-EXPERIENCED DIETETIC INTERN EVAR!!! when I finally get there, since I insisted on working my way up the nutrition ladder by volunteering in eating disorders, and then working in food service, and then taking a (bizarre and disastrous) detour into real estate, and then doing clinical nutrition. Because I am insane and can’t just settle down and focus on getting a damn degree like you’re supposed to.
And even though I’ve got the whole nutrition care process thing down, I want more specific training. A method, to be precise.
So, I’m going to git myself some training, and then I’ll hang out my shingle, right here on this little ole website. And all six of my readers will have the chance to hire me.
Exciting, no?
Yeah, that’s what I thought you’d say.
Oh, and I discovered I’m an inch and a half taller since I last measured myself. Will wonders never cease.
Comments
11 responses to “July? What?”
Oh! I would so hire you!!! I am vegan and I have questions dang it! :P lol but once that shingles out I’m totally taking you up on that.
The sanity here is so pleasing! I made the mistake of taking a nutrition/health class at the college (what can I say – I needed 12 credits to get my student aid!) The first horribly disappointing thing is the text book reads like a full color edition of all the nutrition/health advice ever given in Cosmo magazine. Want to know what I’ve learned so far?
1. Red meat causes cancer.
2. Fat and fatty foods (all of them – don’t even question, just know ALL FATTY FOODS!) cause cancer
3. Obese people feel like they have no control over their lives and are completely dependent on other peoples opinions.
4. Voting for politicians who protect the environment is good for my health (WTF?)
Okay there’s a nice random sampling. I gave up on any hope of enjoying the class after hearing the teacher talk about how a woman last quarter had made a comment about Socialism helping the environment and he was so shocked by it he said he just “let the class put her in her place and take her down a notch for having such a bold opinion”. Omg. I can’t believe I’m paying for this.
I’m sorry I’m so off topic. This has been eating away at my brain!! I took the class with the intention of seeing if my love of nutrition and food would possibly be a good way to go as a career choice – but know I wonder if I could handle the fat hatred.
How do you cope with this in your job? How did you manage your schooling? I mean you are entering an industry known for its fat-hatred. Any tips?
OMG Carolyn, I must’ve taken the exact same nutrition course before I started my degree. I was just testing the waters…and then I found out that the class was actually not legit. It was taught by someone with a fairly shady certification, and we were taught a lot of weeeeird, not-really-science-based stuff about various “diets,” etc.
What I actually found in the world of, ahem, evidence-based nutrition — though it’s definitely FAR from perfect, and yes, there is a lot of weight bias going on — is that a lot of people have the same concerns I do. They don’t want to scare people away from food. They don’t want to demonize people for having health problems, or having nonstandard body sizes or shapes. They really want to understand how to help people eat well and be happy with it.
And I love my job, though I’ve spent a fair bit of time keeping my trap shut about fat acceptance. I look at it as though I’m a fly on the wall, or a spy (though I’m pretty much an outed spy now, with this website!) I’m observing how things are done, and thinking about how it could maybe be done better. But I’m also learning — there’s a lot to learn from the traditional paradigm, as much as I might disagree with it at times.
Thankfully, people have truly not been as judgmental about weight (at least, on a personal level) as I at first imagined they would be. I know the bias is still there, but I have been hired and praised by people who are dyed-in-the-wool BMI fanatics. And none of them ever seemed to judge me for my weight. If ever asked, I told people frankly that I wasn’t interested in weight loss, and that I was interested in Health at Every Size. And people have been incredibly polite about it.
I’d say check out a course that’s taught by a registered dietitian, if you can. Heck, the authors of the book Intuitive Eating are RDs — so they’re doing a lot of good work in the HAES field, even if the whole profession isn’t yet on board. And, of course, there’s Ellyn Satter, the RD who I am embarrassingly obsessed with, and who was the reason I wanted to go into nutrition in the first place.
Also, you can search here for HAES dietitians/nutritionists. These people are around, and they’re changing the profession.
Michelle :) Someday, I’ll have my own blog and I’ll be able to link to you as the RD I’m embarrassingly obsessed with. It is so wonderful to have such a detailed answer back! Thank you. But you know, now I’m totally encouraged to ask questions.
So right now I am at the very beginning of going to school for what I hope will be a career. I have been torn between becoming an RD and a Pharmacist. I have always had a fascination with food/health/nutrition and alternative medicine practices. As a Pharmacists I had hoped to find a career with stability and be able to help people without the pressure of being a doctor or nurse. I had shied away from RD because I am so passionate about the subject I feared that my own bias/opinion would get in the way of helping people directly.
Based on what you said, I see that you are passionate and that your opinion often differs from the “norm” of the industry at the moment. How do you handle helping people in that system? Does it ever go against the tenets of what you believe in? Can you compartmentalize it? Is it something they actually teach you?
Thank you so much for your indulgence!! I totally <3 you and would do your taxes :)
Hey, feel free to ask away. I’m totally a babbler and will respond to any and all questions. At obnoxious length.
But, oddly enough, I haven’t encountered huge conflicts between my own personal convictions and what I’m asked to do in my profession. As yet. I don’t know if this is because of how I interpret and cope with stuff, or because I’ve just been lucky. I know one thing — even in the places I’ve worked that have been most invested in trying to get people to lose weight, there was an understanding that weight loss was difficult, and very rarely permanent. And so, even though all the RDs I worked with obviously seemed to believe it would be IDEAL if it happened, they were not into pushing people into overt weight-loss gestures. Because, in their experience, it just didn’t work. Even though they still kind of believed in it. Weird, I know, but reality is complicated and nuanced like that.
And luckily, much of my own experience in directly counseling patients occurred in settings where weight loss was actively DISCOURAGED (that is, in cancer care), and people were supposed to liberalize their diet as much as possible. So that fitted well with my own underlying perspective. I think if I’d been actively expected to counsel people to restrict their diets (for instance, in diabetes care), I would have had a problem with that. And I would have sought alternatives, which do exist.
So, I’ve definitely been in environments where my own beliefs were not the norm. But I was still able to respect and learn from the people who had totally different perspectives on weight than I do. All those RDs were honestly good people, and good practitioners — just, unfortunately, caught up in a zeitgeist much larger and more powerful than they, and perhaps not exposed through personal experience, like I was, as a fat person, to what it’s really like to be on the receiving end of bias and well-intentioned-but-damaging weight loss advice.
I think if you can be empathetic to the fact that we all live in a damaging, confused, messed-up culture when it comes to food and weight, and that there is stuff to be learned even from people you disagree with, you can survive without having to compromise your own ideas.
Humility also goes a long way toward helping me — when I’m at work, I remember: I’m still learning. Many of these people have been practicing for 30+ years. Even if I disagree with them, my place is to observe, soak it in, and then figure out how I might do things differently in my own practice. If there’s an opening to discuss my perspective with people, I’ll do it, but I’m not there to proselytize or convert people.
In school, I have been exposed to some teachings on weight that I disagreed with. And my hand often popped up in my clinical nutrition lectures in order to ask pointed questions (like, “Isn’t it true that fatness doesn’t necessarily indicate nutrition status? That a fat person might also be malnourished? And what are the ethical implications of purposely underfeeding a fat patient for the sake of weight loss, without their consent?”) And, honestly, all of my professors have been awesome. I’ve even had professors that emphasized that you cannot assume anything about a person’s health based on their weight alone — that’s it’s only one factor among many. I’ve also used my time at school as an opportunity to practice writing about and speaking publicly about HAES and fat acceptance. Very nerve-wracking, but very rewarding. Though I’m sure my classmates are probably sick of it by now.
Also, it doesn’t hurt that I’m obviously, visibly fat, and I think people are afraid to be too rude about fat people in front of me :)
Great commentary! It’s so refreshing to read remarks written by someone who’s obviously well educated, passionate about their field and talented enough to put it all into the written word in such a way that keeps you coming back for more. Keep up the good work.
BTW, your deck looks “Maaarvelous” & quite colourful :)
Awwww, thanks Mom!
And I am very proud that I have not killed any plants yet this year.
Hey Jerim! You must be a great mom. Your daughter came out really, really well. If you’re ever in Toronto, you (and any other family members) are officially invited over for a barbecue.
Hi Dee, Thanks for the compliment & the invite, a BBQ sounds wonderful. Michelle really deserves most of the credit. She’s worked hard to get to where she is and it hasn’t always been easy for her. I’m very proud of her!
hey michelle, someone just posted a link from overcoming overeating forums, and I am already hooked! I am three years “recovering” from Binge Eating Disorder, using the HAES and OO approach, and it is really tough (as in impossible) to find a nutritionist that can understand. I’ve had an experience at a nutritionists office where I broke down in tears because I honestly couldn’t understand how they would tell me that I should just eat snacks and balanced meals without understanding it is not always that simple. Food involves fear, shame, socializing, & caretaking. I’ve overcome a lot, but food is not fuel. That is much too simple. For me, it helps to read more and more and more about HAES, and keep reminding myself that eating isn’t intrinsically a shameful activity. On to my actual question … Although I am doing really well (compared to three years ago), I have begun dating someone who is diabetic. My route to recovery has been to legalize everything, and his route has been to eliminate. It has actually caused a few arguments (because he is NOT willing to accept HAES when all the docs tell him to lose weight, plus restrict carbs/sugars) I get overly emotional when I feel like he can’t understand the BED when I need carbs to stay emotionally healthy! With anyone else, when they talk about their latest diet or “lifestyle change,” I can just give my pat answer, “hmmm,” and walk away, but it is not so easy in an intimate relationship. I can see exactly where he is coming from, because diabetes is no joke. And I need to cook and eat whatever/whenever unless I’d like to start triggering binges. You can imagine this part can be hugely frustrating, even though he has never suggested that *I* shouldn’t eat something, it’s just that I feel like *I* shouldn’t cook something that he can’t/won’t eat. Very fine line, no? Any suggestions? I’d appreciate any advice from a dietician to help me understand how I should/could compromise.
Oh, Cassie, that’s really tough. But I’ve heard similar experiences from other people with BED — it is hard to find people, even people trained in nutrition, who understand.
I wish I understood it better myself, because I know there is a definite lack of good answers out there. But I don’t. I am trying to learn, however, because I’m becoming more and more aware of what a major issue BED is for lots of people. I would love to figure out better treatments for it.
Trying to eat along with a partner who is eating a totally different way must be a huge challenge. And it’s true — a lot of the traditional dietary recommendations for diabetes are basically to eliminate or restrict certain foods. Which is not helpful to someone who is trying to go the OO route.
All I can tell you is that your condition (BED) is just as important as his condition (diabetes) — and vice versa. You both have conditions that require special care, and changes to diet. Neither one of you is in a position to impose dietary “stuff” (whether it be rules or actual food) on the other. I think you might need to set some boundaries here, when it comes to your diets, and 1) agree to disagree, and 2) each prepare your own meals, at least for a while. Once you’ve been together longer, you might find yourself both adapting to a way of cooking that can be shared between the two of you, but for now, I think a bit more separation is in order.
I don’t know if you live together or share kitchen space, but you might consider having separate cupboards or shelves in the fridge or whathaveyou. Both of you have the right to certain dietary practices and space. And though I do believe diabetes can be treated with a more HAES perspective than it sounds like he is currently following, it is entirely his choice to eat in the way he wants. And apparently, at least for now, he wants to be more stringent in restricting things. But he doesn’t get to impose those restrictions on you or your food.
I think if you’re cooking for yourself, even things that he feels he can’t have, that is totally legitimate. You are taking care of yourself. It’s hard, I know, especially because we’ve all been socialized to share food to a certain extent — but you’re both in a special situation here. You need to feel that you’re entitled to take care of yourself with your eating by cooking what you want to eat, whenever you’re hungry, without also feeling like you’re neglecting him. And he needs to respect that by taking care of his own food needs in his own way, and not tacitly expecting you to be the primary food-preparer or provider.
I give you these suggestions only because you’ve indicated that you are following an OO kind of recovery plan, while he is doing something that is very different (possibly restricting carbs, or other foods.) My own personal preference, were I in this situation, would be to move toward a more common ground. My bias is to prefer regular, structured meals that include multiple food groups, rather than to follow a sort of classical demand feeding pattern (like OO.) And I believe this type of structure would also work well for someone with diabetes.
At the same time, it is entirely up to YOU (and your partner) to decide what type of eating arrangement to follow. Right now, you’ve both opted to choose arrangements that are somewhat in conflict with each other — but, as I said, I think if you can manage to separate your diets from one another and maintain strong boundaries around food, it can work.
But if you and he are ever interested in eventually moving toward a more common way of eating, that can work too.
Hope this helps!
It does, thanks! I once suggested that we eat make our own meals, but that didn’t go over too well. I think he associates food with caretaking, and honestly I do too. So, I am trying to be a little more flexible. I am at the point where I can make sweet things without sugar, instead using a sugar sub, but the lowfat, nofat “lifestyle” just isn’t going to happen for me. I have been trying to focus on protein plus veggies when he is with me, but still making carbs if I need them. Its just frustrating sometimes, but he is a great guy. I go to ED meetings, and he went with me to learn more, so it is good that we are both trying to be flexible — to an extent. I appreciate the comments!
BTW, I really wanted to share that something you said in another post about intentions, if doing anything related to HAES is with underlying hatred, including yoga and intuitive eating, then it’s still a problem. I turn some of these principles into restrictions and rules, just by benefit of the disease, and it was a nice gentle reminder that eating normally isn’t about always doing everything perfectly, even OO or intuitively eating. Thanks.