From an Intern's Perspective: A message from Jeff as an Intern

Today, I thought it'd be fun to revisit a post from Jeff Ford from when he was an intern in the "From an Intern's Perspective" series. This post discusses eating from bordem and not from hunger, and how to distinguish between the two. I've found myself in this situation a few times...

 

Boredom strikes … What do you do? Quick! Think! … Are you tying up the tennis shoes to hit the streets for a thermal walk or are you reaching into the freezer for a delicious indulgence?

We’ve all been there – victims of eating when were not hungry, so how can we avoid this appetite ambush? Underneath are 3 of the most common surefire signals to help you recognize when your head is doing the eating and not your stomach.

Sudden: Emotional eating (a.k.a. Head Hunger) always comes on suddenly. One second you’re watching your favorite television show and the next you’re craving something sweet. It’s really a spur of the moment kind of feeling that can be sparked or paired with any emotion.

 

Specific: According to psychologists, emotional eating cravings are usually very specific. People seem to desire that one particular comfort food and won’t be satisfied with just any type of chow, especially not fruits and vegetables.

 

Shameful: If you happened to eat by listening to the head, then there will usually be feelings of guilt and you’ll promise to make up for the eating in some other way. Feelings of guilt should never be left behind after a meal (we eat to live right?). So if you are bumming out and saying to yourself “Oh, I’ll skip a meal tomorrow to make up for it,” your hunger was certainly not physical.



Now that you know how to distinguish between emotional hunger and physical hunger, you may be thinking how can I not only recognize these signals, but overcome them.  The biggest thing for me personally is not keeping these so called “trigger or comfort foods” in the house.  Consequently, I do not keep ice cream in the apartment because I have realized that this is a food I can’t control. 

The good thing is I am not alone, ice cream happens to be the number one comfort food for Americans.  To put it simply, I like to think of the phrase “out of sight, out of stomach.”  By not making the frozen treat readily available and having viable substitutes, I am more apt to reach for an apple or a yogurt when I need a pick me up.

Here at Hilton Head Health, Dr. Beth Leermakers, our Wellness Counselor provides noteworthy lectures on Stress Eating and Overcoming Emotional Eating, which give our Guests a larger scope on this topic. Moreover, the H3 program has been proud to host specialty weeks featuring Johanna Smith-Ellis, a certified psychologist, whose experience has led her to be very knowledgeable on the subject. Since you may have missed them on your last visit, or have not yet stayed at H3, below is a quick glimpse to what I’ve picked up in lectures on how to evade emotional eating.

¨       Write down your trigger foods 

¨       Create a list of alternatives (Use the alphabet!)

¨       Find a comfort food that’s healthy  

¨       Go for a signature H3 thermal walk!   

¨       Call a friend or take a nap

¨       Check out some resources on emotional eating (*)

 

There are a few tricks that work for most people, but strive to find what is ideal for you personally. Remember, we all over eat sometimes and there is no reason to feel guilty about it! I am by no means an expert, thus I’ll leave you with a few resources to peruse at your leisure.

Nevertheless, keep in mind the 3 S’s to recognize head hunger, and think of this quote when the appetite ambush arises:

“If hunger is not the problem, then eating is not the solution.”
~ Anonymous

 

Check it out:

WebMD; http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/emotional-eating-feeding-your-feelings

Mayo Clinic; http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/weight-loss/MH00025

From an Intern's Perspective: My Story

As many of you know, I was an intern at Hilton Head Health this past spring. One of the best parts of being an intern is having the opportunity to meet people from all over the world and from all walks of life! I met people from Germany, Canada, Barbados; I met someone who used to work for the Carters, a couple that lives on a cruise ship, and a stay at home mom who volunteers at her local library. I learned countless lessons from everyone I met. I feel I learned more from them than they learned from me.

It’s funny because no matter where everyone was from, I was always asked the same three questions while talking over the Sunrise Beach Walk: One, what’s your major? Two, what are your plans after school? And three, do you have a boyfriend. (Yes, this is the honest truth! :-)) I’m not sure if it was my own insecurities, but one question that no one asked during my internship was had I ever struggled with weight loss. The answer to this question is yes, I most certainly have. Today, I’d like to share my story with you.

Growing up I was always the sibling who was more interested in singing and movies than going outside to play. I hit my growth spurt early and was the tallest and heaviest kid in class grades 3 - 5. I had a gap in my teeth and was jealous of all the pretty, thin girls in class who could wear shorts while I would only wear pants. It was this way all the way through middle school, minus the gapped teeth because three years of braces fixed that.

I gained some confidence in high school and started to take better care of myself. I was finally out of those size 20+ jeans but still never considered myself to be one of those pretty, thin girls. My confidence continued to build, however, when I started to take on leadership roles in school organizations. Going into college, I just stopped caring about the numbers on the scale and only focused on school, voluneering and making friends my freshman year. This is when I had my wake up call.

From an Intern’s Perspective: You’ll never believe what H3 guests love to do

When the other interns and I first arrived to H3, Wii Sport was a new class being offered as a fitness option. If you have never played on a Wii before, it is a gaming system by Nintendo that doesn’t require your typical joint-stick remote, but requires a wireless remote that moves according to your movement.  It usually comes with Wii Sport, which can be a really fun game but gets a little boring after awhile. The interns and I decided H3 needed a game that would keep people interested for the whole hour time period, get people moving, and get people excited… that’s when we decided to purchase Just Dance.

Just Dance is a game in which players learn (follow along to) dance moves to popular songs. There is a wide range of music from the 80’s and 90’s featured on the game. It only took one class before word spread the Wii Dance was a must attend fitness class. After dancing to all the songs on Just Dance about 4 to 5 times, a guest graciously donated Just Dance 2, which features even more songs and an even wider variety of music. Just Dance 2 has songs such as “It’s Raining Men” by Weather Girls (which I saw Adam dance to a few times…hehe), “Tik Tok” by Ke$ha, and another guest favorite, “Proud Mary” by Tina Turner. But the song that took the cake, the all time guest favorite was none other than “Jump” by Kris Kross!!

From an Intern’s Perspective: I'm not as tough as I look

It’s Wednesday, so that means it’s time for my second H3Daily post “From an Intern’s Perspective.” Today, I would like to share with you my first impression of H3.

First, here’s a little background information. As you may know from my last post, I grew up in Georgia and attended the University of Georgia. Although I was never an athlete, I have always had an interest in living and promoting an overall, healthy lifestyle. During my freshman year in college, some friends and I thought it would be fun to take a cardio-boxing class at our student fitness center. Little did we know, this boxing class was led by competitive boxers and focused on technique and truly taught you how to take someone down in the ring. This is when my love for boxing began.

I was an all-star during my first semester of boxing; I didn’t miss a single class (and it was at 6 am every Friday morning for about four months). Seeing myself build strength and endurance just motivated me to do more during the week. I was off to a great start. You probably already know what’s coming next though… Over the course of the next 4 years, I am ashamed to admit that I never once had perfect attendance in my boxing class again. The good news, however, is that once I realized how much I enjoyed boxing, I started to try new fitness activities and started visiting the gym when I could. The semester before I came to H3, I knew I would be going through the program for the first two weeks of my internship so I decided to prepare by getting into the routine again. I signed up for boxing, but this time I dropped the class only about one month in. Even still, I thought, “You know what, how bad could it be? I’ve been working out off and on for about 5 years now. I’ll be fine.”

From an Intern’s Perspective: My first blog post

[caption id="attachment_5426" align="alignleft" width="400" caption="The dish on my experiecne as an H3 intern"][/caption]

Hello, H3Daily Readers! Thank you for welcoming me to the H3Daily blog! For those of you who do not know me, I was recently interning with Hilton Head Health as a fitness/program intern. Since the internship ended about three weeks ago, things have changed drastically in my life. I was offered a position within H3 as marketing coordinator, started looking for my first apartment, and for the first time in my life am living as a permanent resident in a new state—which to me is a very big deal because I am filled with Georgia pride, Go Dawgs!! (I couldn’t help myself; I had to plug the Dawgs in here somewhere. :-)) I hope that you will enjoy my blog posts and I look forward to getting to know many of you via Facebook, Twitter and right here on H3Daily!

 

 As an intern for Hilton Head Health, I really got to know the ins and outs of the company. I have met so many guests and can honestly say that I have been touched by them all! I have been so inspired by everyone and would like to thank all those I have met for the words of advice, moment of laughter, and true friendships. The guests contributed to making my experience as an intern unforgettable. But at those of you who have been here before know, it’s not just the guests who make H3 such a fun place. There is no staff like H3 staff. Never have I worked in an environment where staff was so energetic, truly happy to be at work, and honestly practiced what they preached. The combination of an all star staff and determined guests truly made my internship PERFECT!

 

 As an intern, I was commonly asked, “What’s it really like to intern for Hilton Head Health?” Well, ladies and gentlemen, I’m ready to dish! Every Wednesday I will post “From an Intern’s Perspective,” sharing things like what my favorite fitness classes were to teach, what it was like to have Adam Martin as a boss, and what you’ll never believe is a guest favorite activity (I’ll just say it has something to do with a popular Kris Kross song.)

 

 I can’t wait to share my experience with you because it was truly one worth sharing. I am very excited to be a permanent member of the team and thank you for welcoming me. If you have any questions for me about my internship experience or ideas you’d like for me to post, please feel free to e-mail me at aglover@hhhealth.com!