Gaining Control over Eating Disorders
Presenter: Neal Howard
Guest: Mindy Gorman-Plutzer
Guest Bio: Mindy Gorman CHC, CEPC. AADP/THE FREEDOM PROMISE – Certified Health Coach, Certified Eating Psychology Coach and Nutritional Consultant in private practice. She provides insights and practical tips to transform disordered eating.
Segment Overview
Mindy Gorman-Plutzer discusses ways to gain control over a patient that suffers obsessive eating disorders and negatively affect self-esteem, relationships, and productivity.
Transcription
Health Professional Radio
Neal: Hello, you’re listening to Health Professional Radio. I’m your Host Neal Howard, so glad that you could join us today. For more than twenty years, our Guest in studio today, Mindy Gorman-Plutzer, and for twenty years she’s helped men and women, well hundreds of them, to achieve their happy and healthy weight by custom designing for each of them a system of strategies that emphasizes “Choice rather than Willpower.” And in that way, she says that she empowers her clients to transform their bodies, their health and their lives for the better. How are you doing today Mindy?
Mindy: I’m doing very well Neal, thank you. How are you?
N: I’m doing good. I’m really glad that you could return and talk with us. You’re the author of “The Freedom Promise: 7 Steps To Stop Fearing What Food Will Do To You and Embrace What It Can Do For You.” It’s available at your website thefreedompromise.com as well as the book outlets out there Amazon, Barnes and Noble and what not. Now in your book, you talk about “Eating Mindfully.” Mindful eating as opposed to dieting or using your will power or to try and control your Weight. Not only your weight but the way that food affects you psychologically, spiritually and in many other ways. In deciding to write this book, you gleaned a lot of the information from your personal experiences with disordered eating.
M: Yes.
N: Could you tell out listener a little bit about your experience and how it led you to get the word out and help and empower others.
M: Of course. I embarked on my history with dieting starting in my early teens. And what happen from me was I’m more or less became addicted to the power that I was feeling over being able to control my weight/my body and the image that I had of it that really wasn’t very healthy. The behaviors started with restricting and serious calorie counting. You know, I will also say that it was a time was back in the 60’s and 70’s when we weren’t a savvy as lay people when it came to nutrition. You know, it was basically about calories in and calories out. So for me, it was about counting calories which escalated into a routine or a game where I played with myself to see how few calories I can ingest each day. I was weighing myself several times a day and this behavior continued well into my 20’s and I became a mom. And into my 30’s when I was becoming a pillar in my community, my daughters were teenagers and I was just more or less “talking the talk of being healthy but certainly not walking the walk.” By the time my 40’s came, the behaviors had really started to take over my life and my health was beginning to be seriously impacted because I was so nutritionally deprived. And even when I was resorting to periods of overeating, because I was so nutritionally deprived, my choices were not healthy.
N: Now, if I can interrupt?
M: Please.
N: You were young girl now right? When this was going on?
M: Yes. Well as I said, it started in my early teens and it escalated into my early 40’s. You know…
N: Now what type of response did you get from your parents? Did they notice that you were losing weight, eating weird or anything like that?
M: Well when I was a teenager and I was at home with my parents, the “Weight Loss Piece” was applauded. You know, it was something that was looked at as very goal-oriented and very positive. When my behaviors started to escalate down the unhealthy path, I was married and a mother already. So it was a question then of how it impacted my husband and my daughters.
N: Okay. Were you ever actually diagnosed with one of the clinical eating disorders or by any physician or in your search for a solution?
M: Yes. I was diagnosed as anorexic at one point with tendencies for bulimia because what happened was I would restrict and then counter-intuitively, I would binge. But then I would purge in an effort to get rid of the food that I had taken in.
N: Okay.
M: So, you know, I lie. I say with love – you name it I did it – which is why I can be so empathetic as a coach because I have been where so many of my clients are. You know, I understand the fear of getting on the scale and seeing a number, whether it be too little or too much. In my book that when I sat down to write it, I realized that I spent most of my life either trying to gain weight or lose weight, never really happy with where I was.
N: Did you ever find yourself in periods, either short term or over an extended period of time, just giving up and letting the food and your body do what is going to do? And then finding, “Hey! It’s time to reverse this process” and then find yourself on a long term binge or something?
M: No. For me, it was all about control. You know, the periods of binging I would undo that letting go with the purge. That was my control.
N: I’d like to ask you about, in your search for a sand some help, you did say that you were diagnosed by a physician. Were you ever seen by a mental healthcare professional?
M: Yeah.
N: What were their findings?
M: Well, I had a treatment team with three people. I had an internist who prescribed anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication. I had a therapist who blamed my husband and my mother and I had a registered dietician on the team who wanted me to eat food that was so out of the realm of reality for me. That, what I said in my book and what I believe to this day, is what I really need was an exorcist. Because you know, these are demonic feelings that overtake us when were caught up in that dark hole of addiction and I do put disordered eating behaviors in the same scope of as addiction.
N: Just like any like cocaine or cigarettes.
M: Yeah, or alcohol.
N: Or alcohol, yeah.
M: In fact, you know, dual addiction is very common in the eating disorder world. So yes, I definitely did seek treatment. What turned around for me was realizing that it was not about what professionals could tell me I needed to do. I needed to find that space within myself where I felt safe and loved.
N: Okay.
M: A space that I knew that I could always come home to. And until I learn to be comfortable with myself and comfortable with my uncomfortable feelings, there really was no chance of recovery. Yes –soul searching – spiritually searching – to find the spot within me that I needed to depend on.
N: Great, great. You’ve been listening to Health Professional Radio. I’m your host, Neal Howard. We’ve been talking in studio today with Mindy Gorman-Plutzer, a Certified Eating Psychology Coach. And her specialty is finding key issues relating to her clients’ relationship with food most especially as it relates to their health and their overall wellbeing. She’s also the author of “The Freedom Promise: 7 Steps To Stop Fearing What Food Will Do To You and Embrace What It Can Do For You.” We’ve been here talking a little bit about her personal experience and what led her to write the book that’s getting absolutely a great reviews and helping lots and lots of people continue their journey to a better eating and a healthier lifestyle. It’s been great having you here with us Mindy.
M: Thank you so much Neal.
N: Thank you. Audio of this program is available at hpr.fm and also at healthprofessionalradio.com.au and don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes.