I’m getting super excited to head to Philadelphia in March for the Binge Eating Disorder Association National Conference. (You should join us!) I’m starting to organize my thoughts and plan out the two talks that I will be taking part in. One is on the how social media can be part of the recovery process from binge eating, and the other is about whether binge eating is an addictive process and what the answer might mean for treatment. Fun stuff, right?!

Since BEDA and binge eating has been on my mind a lot lately – and, fortunately, on the minds of many of those working on the newest edition of the diagnostic manual for mental health (BED will soon be officially recognized!) – I’m focusing this week’s Five for Friday on this insidious issue. With almost 3% of the population experiencing this disorder at some point in their lifetime (that’s over nine million people!), we cannot continue to ignore the suffering that it creates for individuals, families, and even communities.

These amazing writers have covered the topic eloquently, so take a few moments to learn more:

• @ Medicinal Marzipan (via Marsha Hudnall) :: Binge Eating: You Know You Need Help, So Now What?
• @ Thick Dumpling Skin (via Amy Pershing) :: Myths About Binge Eating & Recovery Challenges
• @ Best Body Fitness :: Stuffed with Emptiness: Full Fledged Addiction
• @ Health at Every Size Blog :: Fat Stigma – Not Fat – Is the Real Enemy
• @ Oh She Glows :: Binge Eating: Why You Shouldn’t Feel Ashamed

Do you have a post to share on binge eating? Include it below!

{image credit :: opensourceway}

Nourishing the Soul is about exploring the ways in which we can nourish our minds, bodies, and souls. One means of doing so is to help others nourish themselves. In fact, a Harvard study showed that people who gave to charity were 43% more likely to say they were “very happy” about their lives.

So, this week’s Five for Friday is dedicated to creative ways of giving. With over 35 millions of Americans living in homes without enough food to eat, and hunger killing more people each year than AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined (U.N. World Food Programme, 2011), we have a lot of work to do in making sure that no one goes hungry. And since food – in both the literal and figurative sense – is the most frequently discussed topic on this site, it’s only appropriate to focus these charitable giving ideas on my favorite subject.

So go on, dig in…

• With holiday parties, family gatherings, and date nights abounding, dining out is a regular event around the holidays. If you’re heading out for a meal someone else has to clean up, check out GoodDining.com first. The website works with over 10,000 restaurants to give up to 6% of you spend to a charity of your choice. The restaurants range from major chains to local mom and pop spots, and the charity list is impressive. I dare you not to find a good fit.
• If you’re looking to get your hands a bit more dirty, Feeding America offers lots of ways to support their mission of feeding the hungry in the United States. Through their nationwide network of food banks, the organization will feed over 25 million low-income Americans this year. And you can be a part of it. Find your local food bank here.
• Taking their mission outside of the U.S. borders, Food Not Bombs lives out the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” The organization provides free vegetarian meals with the hungry in over 1,000 cities around the world (including the U.S.)  to protest war, poverty and the destruction of the environment. Even if you cannot donate, you can stay informed by joining the listserv.
• Want to combine gift-giving with philanthropy – and throw a little chocolate on top? Dancing Deer offers a Sweet Home Medley of delectable cookies, cakes, brownies and more, and gives 35% of the cost to homeless mothers and their children fund education, find jobs, and move into homes of their own. Yet another good reason to eat chocolate!
• And if you want a little non-edible nourishment, pick up a copy (or several) of Aimee Liu’s Restoring Our Bodies, Reclaiming Our Lives, a book full of first-person accounts of recovery interwoven with a roadmap to healing. Aimee, a tireless advocate for those who struggle with eating disorders, is generously donating all of the royalties from the book to the Academy of Eating Disorders to support the organization’s pioneering research and educational efforts.

Now I’d love to hear if you do decide to support these causes, or if you have ones of your own to share. How will you give back this season?

{image credit :: ash-s}

‘Tis the season for remembering all of the gifts with which we are blessed. If you think that doesn’t come quite so naturally, you’re not alone. Cultivating a spirit of gratitude takes work and loads of practice. You know those people who seem to just be happy and grateful for everything right? Even the painful stuff? Yeah, they annoy me too. But once I can get past my irritation (which is actually just jealousy in disguise), I realize that I can learn from them. In fact, I didn’t realize just how much I had to learn about gratitude until I started blogging. In that vein, I thought I would share some really great posts on gratitude this season. And in the spirit of giving, I’m not going to stop at just five (there’s a first for everything!).

• Anna Guest-Jelly beautifully explores how one can be grateful even in the wake of grief at Curvy Yoga.
• Cultivating gratitude is all about focusing on what truly matters. Try this exercise over on Owning Pink to discover more.
• You know I couldn’t get through a post without throwing Brene Brown in there somewhere, right? On Ordinary Courage, she shares what she’s learned about gratitude and fear.
• Kate at Eat the Damn Cake sorta has a way with words, and her take on thankfulness is no exception. Love it.
• Every month at A Beautiful Ripple Effect Carolyn Rubenstein hosts Hope Wallace Karney on her site to explore journaling in a new way. This month’s post focused on gratitude with a cool exercise.
• At Weightless, Margarita shares her own thankfulness list, and some cool gratitude resources.
• On Blisstree, Hannah Brooks Olsen remembers to be thankful for a healthy body. Do you?

Any other great gratitude posts you’ve read or written this year? I’d love to check ‘em out!

{image credit :: kevincollins123}

For those of you who celebrate American Thanksgiving, I hope that you had a day full of family, festivities, and feasting. As the holiday calls for, I was thinking this week about all of the many blessings in my life for which I am grateful. But instead of rattling off the standards (you know – parents who love me, a warm place to rest my head, my running shoes, blah, blah, blah, I thought I’d share with you a few (five, to be exact) things that I often overlook – things that, thanks to technology, make my life just a little bit easier and sweeter.

• Rice Cooker :: If this were a cooking blog, well, you’d probably stop reading it because you’d realize that every recipe starts with this magic little device. I got mine last year and it’s quickly become my most used item. You can make literally any grain seemlessly and to perfection, but you can also cook up fun things like frittatas, risotto, vegetables, and even cake! Seriously, it’s my favorite thing ever…
• Except my Pilot G-2 Gel Pens :: Despite doing most of my writing by typing, I am a huge note-taker. And I am also a total pen snob. Just as the feel of a bad pen can make me grumpy, a smooth experience can make my day. I’m not kidding here. My extensive research tells me that the Pilot G-2 is the best there is.
• Google Reader :: To be honest, I have a love/hate relationship with Google Reader. The love part is how completely awesome it is that a nifty a little web-based aggregator can let me catch up with all of the latest and greatest in body image, food, self-improvement, and psychology. The hate is that feeling of being totally overwhelmed when I’ve been out of touch for a bit and my Reader is bursting with hundreds of posts. Enter “Make All as Read.”
• Hair Dryer :: Okay, so this isn’t the most recent innovation, but it’s certainly something I couldn’t live without (easily). Born in the 1920s, the hand-held blow dryer now serves double duty as a hair styling tool and a winter-morning skin warmer. That little shot of hot air is seriously heaven after stepping out of the shower.
• Amazon Wish Lists :: My family discovered this last year and it made holiday shopping for a small army a bit easier. Each person on your to-buy-for list can create a list of their coveted items, specifying details like color, size, new vs. used, and more. Now you can even add a button to your tool bar that you can click when on a page where you find something you want to add to list. It takes the surprise out of it, but it sure cuts down on debating whether your brother in law would wear paisley.

As lovely as these inventions have been, sometimes it’s nice to get back to basics. You know, read a real-live book or boil rice. But when time is precious and our lives are stressful, I’m grateful for the brilliant minds who make my days just a bit easier.

What little things in your life make it easier?