• Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Dr. Kerri Fullerton ND

Intuitive Eating. Health At Every Size Doctor

  • About
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • MEMBER LOGIN

In the news

Is Food the Answer to Your Mood?

January 15, 2019 by Kerri Fullerton

“I just need to get my weight down and my food under control. Then I’d feel better.”

Have you ever thought that? It would be shocking if you said no.

I’ve seen so many books, blogs, and posts claiming that if you want to take care of your mental health you need to take care of your diet.

While I won’t disagree that food can impact mood, I’d like to talk to you about how your mood impacts your food. And more importantly, how you can take care of it.

When I was about 12 years old I told my mom that I wanted to lose weight. I truly believed that if I could change how I looked then I could change how I felt. And who could blame me? Look at the message of every weight loss or fitness commercial. The before is sad and frumpy. The after is happy and confident.

My Mom didn’t want me to do anything crazy so she took me to see the doctor. It was the best of the options that she had at her disposal. The doctor proceeded to ask me what I wanted to weigh, and then told us that I didn’t need to lose weight. But if I was determined, then Weight Watchers was the way to go. It was then, as it is now, viewed as the ‘healthy way’ to lose weight (I’ll do a rant on that another time).

Off we went to the first meeting and weigh-in. I was already within my BMI range (again, another rant for another time). But that didn’t stop them from signing me up and helping me lose weight.

That was the beginning of my dieting cycle. From age 12 to age 30 I lost and gained 15, 20, 30 lbs, over and over again. Each time I lost, I gained a few more.

Now I don’t blame my mother or my doctor. They only did what they thought was best.

If they knew then what I know now, they would’ve referred me to a psychologist. Someone who would’ve helped me understand why I thought that my happiness and confidence would be found within how I looked. Maybe they would’ve had me read More Than A Body by Lindsay and Lexi Kite.

You see, I was struggling with anxiety, but nobody knew, me included. And the repeated failures at weight loss only added to my anxiety. I developed depression as well. I couldn’t understand my lack of will power. I developed binge eating disorder that progressed to bulimia. I didn’t tell a soul.

Here’s what I know now.

Food is very powerful at affecting mood. In fact, in can raise neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine. It can also decrease the stress hormone cortisol.

Lately this has been seen as a bad thing in the media. It’s been called “addiction” when in fact it’s not at all. To create the environment for addiction-like behaviours around food, first you must restrict. That’s worth repeating. In order to create the food addiction model in mice and humans, they must first RESTRICT the food.

My dieting created more food cravings.

Then to add insult to injury, being in a state of depression, anxiety and or stress, actually limits your ability to implement lifestyle change.

Research published in Basic Clinical Neuroscience last year showed that when we are in a state of stress, depression, and anxiety that our memory is diminished, our impulse control is decreased, it’s harder for us to plan, and we aren’t able to go with the flow as easily. All skills that are required to make lifestyle changes!

What can you do?

If this feels a little depressing and frustrating, I hear ya.

The good news is that there is a way out of the endless loop of hanging your hopes on the next big thing only to be left feeling like you failed again.

Step 1: Get a proper assessment done

I get it – you want to feel better. And yet very few doctors, nurses, naturopaths, dieticians, fitness trainers or nutritionists are going to first assess your ability to make the necessary changes.

Find someone who is going to assess your stress levels, and your mental health status. These pieces need to be addressed first, from a chemical perspective.

Does that mean that you have to go on meds? Of course not. There are wonderful herbs, amino acids, and other natural solutions available. Just be sure to seek out professional help – someone who has the training necessary to support this. Someone who won’t shy away from telling you that meds might actually be the best option right now.

You can find professionals around the world who have been trained in Intuitive Eating and understand the dangers of prescribing a diet by using this link here: https://www.intuitiveeating.org/certified-counselors/.  Yep, I’m on there.

Step 2: Get Treatment

That sounds silly I know but you’d be surprised how many people don’t get treated once the problem is identified.

Whether it’s “just stress” or it’s depression and/or anxiety, it won’t go away with awareness alone.

Some don’t want treatment because they see it as a weakness. They ‘should’ be able to just figure it out. Please know that the chemistry is strong and real. Getting treatment makes you stronger not weaker.

Maybe you don’t want treatment because you think that it’s a forever thing. While sometimes that’s true, often the treatment is just a temporary thing. Like using a crutch with a broken leg. Once it’s healed, then you can start rehab and create a lifestyle that will support your healed self.

This is where the team approach can be very helpful. Maybe the psychologist identified the problem and you need the naturopath or the MD to help with the treatment side.

Step 3: Make lifestyle changes that will last

This is the step that we all want to start at. We want to exercise more and eat better.

When you have steps 1 & 2 in place, you’ll be in a position for step 3 to be successful.

Lifestyle changes need to be slow, steady and sustainable to have any lasting impact. And that’s what you really want right? You don’t a temporary solution. You’ve been there and done that.

It’s time to put the horse before the cart.

Dedicated to helping you find peace and power with your body,

Dr. Kerri

P.S. If you’d like to chat, book a connection call. It’s free and there’s no pressure. If I can’t help, I probably know someone who can.

Filed Under: About Food, Binge Eating, In the news, Research Tagged With: anxiety, binge eating disorder, depression, health at every size, healthy eating, healthy lifestyle, intuitive eating, mental health, plus size, stress, weight loss

The Body Positive Movement – Is It Healthy? A Response to The National Sunday Talk

September 13, 2016 by Kerri Fullerton

Plus size models are going mainstream. I watched “The Sunday Talk” on “The National” last night with deep interest as they discussed the growing popularity of The Body Positive Movement.

Check out the video.

Let me begin with the comments being left. This is the heart of the issue. Nasty comments about the “fat cows”, the “fat slobs”, and the “fatties taxing our health care system.” They are fat shaming without any reserve. The people commenting like this only show their ignorance on the issue at hand.

Research about health issues of being fat are consistently quoted to support this fat shaming attitude. This included many comments made by panelist Tasha Kheiriddin from The National Post. Here are my research-based rebuttals to dispute the argument that tries to put down The Body Positive Movement.

  1. Dieting Leads to Weight Gain

We know that dieting leads to weight gain in 95% of people. Only a small minority are able to maintain a weight loss without surgery and typically that weight loss is a mere 2 pounds. Traci Mann at the University of Minnesota revealed this to us through all of her research. What if we stopped telling young women to lose weight? Maybe we could prevent the weight gain in the first place since we know that we are literally dieting ourselves fat.

  1. Shame is Directly Linked to Binge Eating Behaviour

Feeling ashamed and poor body image is directly coupled with binge eating episodes according to a study published in the December issue of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy. Shaming these women and dismissing the Body Positive Movement is therefore adding to the issue. If we would like to help these people change their eating behaviour and promote health, then we can help them by stopping the fat shaming.

  1. Being Overweight Lowers Mortality Risk

Being fat does not equal being unhealthy. By itself, extra weight is not a marker for increased risk of mortality. Only the morbidly obese are excluded from this argument (class 2 and 3). In fact, being overweight is actually associated with reduced mortality compared to normal weight individuals.

These are only a few of the evidence-based arguments to stop the fat shaming “in the name of health.” This approach is not working. There are many more.

The Body Positive Movement has the potential to change lives!

Having women of all sizes modeling clothes is practical. As a consumer, it is very frustrating to not be able to see yourself represented. I wear a size 14 for the most part. When I online shop I can rarely find a model close to my size displaying the clothes that I would like to purchase. It results in a lot of returns since a shirt and skirt look very different on a size 0 model than they do on my body.

As I made mention above, the possibilities for the teens and 20 year olds are exciting. If I had not believed that my size 6 body was fat back when I was a teenager, I would not have dieted myself into a size 14.

I watched my Mom diet and speak poorly about her body. We know that this increases the likelihood of disordered eating. By stopping the fat talk and learning to appreciate and celebrate all sizes, we can make a serious difference in the next generation.

When acceptance and self-love are implemented as a treatment strategy, people stop hurting themselves with food. Sure, there may be a quick pendulum swing to overeating when women first stop dieting and body shaming, but it will swing back. People who love themselves, take care of themselves.

So thank you Scaachi Koul at Buzzfeed for supporting this movement and “The National” for bringing it to a larger audience. Women of all ages are deeply affected by this in many positive ways.

Yours in Health,

Live Life. Love Food. Be Free.

Kerri

Filed Under: Blog Post, Body Image, In the news

Footer

As seen on...

Inner Dominatrix with Dana Pharant Cindy Uncorked Blog Talk Radio The Ultimate Perimenopause
Copyright © 2023 Dr. Kerri Fullerton ND · All Rights Reserved
Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions

Copyright © 2023 · Kerri Fullerton on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in