Secrets of Happy Eaters

For many of us, sumptuous meals translate to a guilt-ridden reach for the gym pass, a seven-day juice fast or panic about being able to zip up our jeans.

Fully 75 percent of women eat, think and behave abnormally around food, according to a one-of-a-kind survey of 4,000 women SELF conducted with Cynthia M. Bulik, Ph.D., director of the eating disorders program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A minority has full-blown eating disorders such as anorexia or bulimia. But most are disordered eaters with less severe—but definitely unhealthy—hang-ups.

It's all an understandable reaction to our cult of thin and feast of fat. "Americans are bombarded by food cues. The profusion of cheap, high-calorie food is too often a prescription for weight gain," says Michael R. Lowe, Ph.D., professor of psychology at Drexel University in Philadelphia.

Yet if you look at our survey another way, 25 percent of women have a positive relationship to food. And plenty of these women—SELF calls them "happy eaters"—are not effortlessly slim. Many of them watch their weight; they judge themselves in the mirror. Yet they also keep food in perspective. Happy eaters manage the tricky balance of self-control without obsession.

Here's how to join them.

Happy eaters go on fewer diets

Of the disordered eaters in SELF's survey, 69 percent have spent at least a quarter of their adult life on a diet. But among women the survey classified as nondisordered eaters, 81 percent have spent little or no time dieting since age 18. "Losing weight and eating healthy are different things," Bulik notes. The survey's happy eaters are also much less likely to have started dieting before age 20. "If you start early, dieting can become a lifestyle," she says. Yet calorie-restricting diets aren't proven to lead to lasting weight loss or better health, an analysis by the University of California at Los Angeles notes.

The happy way to diet is for health, Lowe says—"not based on the idea that you can't be a worthwhile person unless you lose weight." Survey participant Julie Waldrop, 40, the owner of an eBay store in Crestwood, Kentucky, is 5 feet 6 inches and makes choices daily to maintain her 130 pounds. "I plan to have protein, veggies and fruit at meals. I avoid anything fried; I have irritable bowel syndrome, and junk food makes it worse," she says. "I don't know if it's a diet, or just healthy living."

"Weight loss should be the result of a goal, not the goal itself," adds Suzanne Farrell, R.D., of Cherry Creek Nutrition in Denver. Rather than a target weight, set a goal such as training for a race or eating a breakfast that gives you more energy at work. By redefining success, you'll stick with healthy habits even if you don't see immediate results on the scale.

Happy eaters have breakfast, lunch and dinner

Lisa Dolan, a 44-year-old mother of five from Cazenovia, New York, organizes three moderate meals a day for her entire brood. "I take a few extra steps: TV off, music on, the table set," says Dolan, who is 5 feet 2 inches and weighs 114 pounds. "We sit down instead of standing at the kitchen counter. I take my time—I've actually gone on yoga retreats where I wasn't allowed to talk while I was eating." The rest of the day, Dolan says, "I don't focus on food too much. I enjoy it, but I don't ritualize it."

Dolan is a happy eater who keeps food top of mind at meals and out of mind between them. And like 9 out of 10 happy eaters in the survey, she doesn't skip meals for weight loss—almost half of disordered eaters have. Regularly skipping meals makes you more prone to belly fat, heart disease and diabetes, reports a study from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. Happy eaters are also much less likely to fast or smoke to lose weight. A mere 3 percent of them have eaten less than 1,000 calories a day, whereas 21 percent of disordered eaters have. "It's human to look for a quick fix," Bulik says. "But extreme dieting behavior backfires. Slow and steady wins the race."

Happy eaters can feel full all day by having a breakfast that's roughly 350 calories, lunch that's 500, dinner that's 600 and one or two 200-calorie treats, say SELF contributors Stephanie Clarke, R.D., and Willow Jarosh, R.D., of New York City. Plan menus and snack bags with a mix of dried fruit, nuts and whole-grain cereal. "Just as skipping meals is a habit, so is eating regular meals," Clarke says. "Stick with it, and soon skipping meals will feel strange."

Happy eaters use a scale, but not daily

"Patients tell me, 'Getting on the scale tells me how my day will go,'" says Ellen Astrachan-Fletcher, Ph.D., director of the eating disorders clinic at the University of Illinois in Chicago. "That's a lot of power for one little number." Happy eaters, she says, know that weight fluctuates daily and that weighing each morning doesn't give you an accurate measure.

Normal- and underweight women often don't need a scale. For people who are prone to weight gain, checking in occasionally "makes them aware of when they need to cut back," Astrachan-Fletcher says. But happy eaters don't define themselves by the number they see or put off things they want to do because they haven't reached the right number. Nearly two thirds of disordered eaters say that a 5-pound weight gain would make them moderately or extremely upset, whereas about one third of nondisordered eaters feel that way.

Waldrop gained almost 10 pounds last year. "But I wasn't stressed about it," she says. She hit the scale a little more often, every few days, and asked herself what had led to the gain: being busy with two kids and a home business. She adjusted her calories and gradually dropped the weight. "I understand I'm going to gain a little, and I also know I can get it off," she says.

Happy eaters splurge with no regrets

In the SELF survey, 92 percent of disordered eaters said they categorize foods as "good" and "bad," defining bad foods as ones that are high in fat, calories and carbs. "We shouldn't look at foods as good or bad," Astrachan-Fletcher urges. "Foods don't carry judgment; they carry nutritional value. Think of food as just food—fuel for your body and something one can enjoy within reason."

We could all benefit from redefining what "good" food is, argues Kelly Brownell, Ph.D., director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Food choices have consequences beyond ourselves, he says. "For example, food production is a huge contributor to global warming. Instead of eating something with 50 ingredients, eat one ingredient from a farmers' market." In his view, happy eating means valuing organic and local food, not just low-cal fare.

When happy eaters do splurge, they told SELF, they don't beat themselves up. "If I want a bag of chips, I'll have it. I don't deny myself," Dolan says. "Everyone needs Dairy Queen once in a while, right?" Waldrop reasons. Eve Metlis, a 33-year-old real estate agent from Orlando, Florida, builds splurges into her regular meal plans. Metlis is 5 foot 4 and weighs 140 pounds—a number she's proud of, as she lost 70 pounds to get there. At a party, she says, she'll choose a glass of wine over cake. "I might take a forkful of icing," she says. And she knows when going whole hog is the happy choice. "On holidays like Thanksgiving, I indulge. I can enjoy it because it's about being with my family," she says.

Farrell encourages her clients to have a weekly splurge. Six days a week, stick to low-calorie treats. One day, go for the full banana split. "Have a real-deal dessert without looking at the fat or sugar content," she says. "Savor and eat with pleasure."

Happy eaters know women come in all sizes

Danielle Trentacosti, 32, is 5 foot 7 and a size 0 and freely admits she has a blessed metabolism. "I thank my mother for that," says the stay-at-home mom in Toms River, New Jersey. Food and body image are not her issues—except to the extent that other women single her out. "I was at the beach with my friends, and someone hopped up to take a photo," Trentacosti recalls. "All the women scrambled to move away from me, saying they didn't want to be next to the 'skinny mom.' I was embarrassed and uncomfortable. I would never comment on what other women weigh or eat."

How can women who are not as effortlessly slender as Trentacosti be as nonjudgmental? For disordered eaters, it's a struggle: They are five times more likely than happy eaters to start a diet as a result of having slim friends. The difference is equally stark when it comes to feeling pressure from media images of slender women. And these unrealistic comparisons feed dangerous eating habits. "I hear women saying to each other, 'Oh, my God, you got so thin!'" says Sondra Kronberg, R.D., codirector of the Eating Disorder Treatment Collaborative in Westbury, New York. "It's normal in this culture to do that, but to me, it promotes something unhealthy. We can't all be 6 feet 2 inches and weigh 104 pounds."

Simply being aware of the body assessments you make throughout the day can help end the negative ones, notes Mary E. Connors, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist in Chicago, who specializes in mindful eating. Take a day to track how much you are body checking—looking in mirrors, fussing with the fit of your clothes, touching areas such as your tummy or collarbone. "If your first thought is something like, Compared to that model's, my thighs are gross," Connors says, then try to shift your thinking to a happier frame of mind. "Focus on what your legs do for you and all that they add to your life."

Happy eaters exercise without anxiety

Among the women we surveyed, one group was most likely to work out more than once a week: nondisordered eaters who are watching their weight. Many disordered eaters exercise frequently, too. But for happy eaters, "exercise is a means to have a healthy body and cope with stress. It doesn't define them," says Graham Thomas, Ph.D., assistant professor of behavioral medicine at Brown University Medical School in Providence, Rhode Island, and coinvestigator for the National Weight Control Registry. "For some eating-disordered women, exercise does define them. They might decide how they feel about themselves based on how much they work out."

Gregory Florez, CEO of FitAdvisor.com, a corporate health-coaching service in Salt Lake City and spokesman for the American Council on Exercise, says two thirds of his clients are exercise addicts. "Some women have low self-esteem or anxiety that they are pouring into body image. Because they exercise from a place of fear, they can feel frantic if they miss a workout and stick to their routine even when ill or injured." Happy eaters, in contrast, "listen to their body and rest when they need to," Florez says. "Give your body time to recover and your next workout will be of a higher quality."

For happy eater April Grimm, a 36-year-old day care center owner from Little Cedar, Iowa, making a mix of activities part of her daily play has helped her decouple exercise from weight loss worries. And by testing her muscles in new ways, she gets better results than she would with a set routine. Grimm, 5 foot 9 and about 135 pounds, lifts weights and gets creative to stay active with her kids. "I do sit-ups while my youngest crawls around me," she says. "We take bike rides or run in circles in the yard." Learning to feel satisfied with this kind of "unworkout" is a happy approach. "The worst thing you can do is say, It's not going to count if I don't do 60 minutes at the gym," Florez says. "Any movement counts, even if it's only for 10 minutes."