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| Photo Courtesy From NYU Local |
"Clear eyes, full hearts, can't
lose." It's a line from one of my favorite shows, Friday
Night Lights. Until yesterday, it was just a line that football players
said. Today it means a whole lot more.
Saturday I just finished
celebrating Yom Kippur. For those of you who don't know, Yom Kippur is the most
significant day on the Jewish calendar. It is the day when we atone for
sins committed over the past year and ask for forgiveness from those we have
wronged. Depending on your level of observance, it is customary for most
people to fast and it is the one day of the year when almost all Jews attend
services at their local synagogue.
Before I talk about my experience
this Yom Kippur I need to give a little back story to some realizations I've
made as a dietitian these past few months. Through different readings and
lectures, I've come to learn that I am a firm believer in intuitive eating and the idea of Health at Every Size® (HAES®). To learn more about
each of these ideas I would recommend you read the following books, Intuitive
Eating and Health at Every Size®. What I like about both of these approaches to eating
is:
- They reject the dieting approach to weight loss
- They honor our hunger
- There is a focus on healthy behaviors rather than what a scale says
- They improve our relationship with food.
If you want to read a great recap of
HAES vs. conventional weight loss ideas, read these two blog posts here
and here
from a debate at this year's Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo
(FNCE). It will make you think about how our society thinks about weight loss.
Let's get back to Yom Kippur.
I have been wrestling with the
question, "What do these High Holy days mean to me?" As the sun
set on Friday night my wife and I asked each other our yearly question,
"Are you going to fast this year?" Based on my experience with
Intuitive Eating and HAES, I thought I gave my wife some great advice.
"If you are going to focus all of your thoughts on food, you will lose the
meaning of the day. How will you be able to think about forgiveness and
atonement if you are obsessing about when the fast will end?" I was proud
of my advice and my wife for deciding not to fast.
I myself, though, didn't take my own
advice. I was convinced that I could fast and be open to inspiration. I woke up in
the morning and prepared to go to temple. During services, our Rabbi gave a very
thought-provoking and inspirational sermon. I was listening, but not really
listening. I was thinking about food. I was not receptive to my own
inspiration because I was thinking about food. So I channeled my
Intuitive Eating gurus and thought, "Reject the diet mentality. Honor your
hunger!" I came home and ate. There was no guilt, no shame, no
negative self-talk. The hunger was gone and believe it or not, the
inspiration that was planted by the Rabbi and by my experiences from FNCE
grew.
After lunch, my wife and I walked with our kids
to a family service near our house and inspiration continued to grow.
I remembered something my wife said to me during our discussion the night before, "I
fast and I feel so bad that by the afternoon, I eat. I spend the whole
morning fasting and waiting to fail." What a horrible feeling as a Jew to fail on the holiest of days. I thought to myself, reject the diet mentality because for my wife and I, the fast is not meaningful, it is a diet! A diet that we are destined to fail.
How can we truly atone, reflect and look inward if we are
fasting? My expertise is with food, nutrition and not with Jewish
law. I know that this notion of not fasting will offend some who are more
observant, but for me, I've learned that if I honor my hunger and reject my
diet mentality, I will be open to the inspiration of the day. I will be
able to really look inside and atone my sins of the past year and make amends
to do better the next year. Next year there will be no discussion with my wife. We will not fast and we will not feel guilty for that choice.
"Clear eyes, full hearts, can't
lose." By avoiding the fast, my eyes were clear, my heart is now
full and I know that this year, I can't lose! Shana tovah, u'metukah. A
sweet and happy new year.
I welcome your comments!
