I have been working since the mid-'80s in graduate school on issues related to women, especially related to body image and on various forms of stress. And a couple of years ago I began serving on the Council for Women's Nutrition with Dayle Hayes and several other women experts in nutrition, exercise, and medicine. Our intention is to try a new recipe for women's health, especially in regard to eating and food and stress. We feel that in so many ways women tend to provide the food for families, so eating and preparing food often becomes a stressful and guilt-ridden experience, unfortunately in part because women have been told for so long what they should and should not eat. And many of those messages are contradictory.
Stress often causes eating to go out of whack.
So I like to help women figure out how to eat to reduce stress and to have the energy needed for a busy life. That's what I recommend to clients and groups I speak to. Basically, I encourage you to not focus on weight and weight loss. Listen to your body and spirit, and what they want. Whether those are numbers on a scale, dress sizes, whatever, and instead focus on what works best and what our bodies want.