Today, we’re going to talk about what the dieting mindset is, how it affects us, and how we can break up with the diet mentality and turn our daily nutrition into a lifestyle. I want to talk about breaking the unhealthy relationships revolved around food that has been engrained in our brain within society these days. My goal is to help you create a healthier relationship with food, make this a lifestyle, and break up with all the strict dieting nonsense.
Podcast on Break Up with Diet Mentality:
I want to go through the steps I have experienced and have helped my clients take to break up with the dieting mindset.
How to Break Up with the Dieting Mindset and make it a lifestyle.
1. Getting Mad at Dieting
The biggest piece of advice I can give you: Do NOT fall back into the short term fix.
Don’t fall back into the strict dieting and the things that will only give you short term results and don’t actually turn your nutrition into a lifestyle. Think about what it’s done in the past for you. Every time you’re tempted to go back into the quick-fix, but-not-really-fixed-at-all style of diet, whether it’s a new or old diet, really think about it and ask yourself “Did it really give me long term results and success? Did it get me to where I truly want to be?” Sure, it might give you some quick weight loss, but at the end of the day, did it make you end back up at square one, even more frustrated than before? Remember that, and remind yourself of that every time you’re tempted to go back to that “cleanse”, “short-term diet” or “magic pill.”
2. Writing a Letter to Dieting
Really. Write a letter that starts with “Dear Diet,” and write down all the reasons why you are so angry at dieting, what it’s done to you mentally, physically, and emotionally. Because until you’re angry enough at what dieting has really done to you body, mind, and soul, you will probably give in to your temptations and go back to dieting because of how good society is at promoting the next new thing in such a sexy and tempting way.
3. Figure Out the Root Cause of your Dieting Attempts
Why are you truly going back to all of these diets? And no, not “oh, I want to lose weight- that’s why.” But, what is the underlying cause? For me back in the day, it was because I had no control in anything else going on in my life and so I wanted to control something. And honestly, dieting gave me control over my food intake- and I realized I had to give up the need for control. Once I actually gave up the need of control, I truly gained back my life.
Think about what the root is for you. Is it because people made comments about you way back when? Do you feel like your only solution is to turn to a diet and lose that weight in an unhealthy and unsustainable way? Is it because you’re like me and just have that need for control and you don’t feel like you may have that in other areas of your life? Or is it just because you’re kind of impatient and you’re turning to the short term fix? Think about that root and break up with it.
4. Say GOODBYE to the Food Police
Stop linking food with your morality. When we break up with the dieting mindset, we need to get that food police out of our minds. The food police is that police in our heads that constantly telling us “no, don’t eat that, it’s bad.” or, “yes, eat that! It’s good.” Don’t let that voice in your head link with your morality and convince you that you’re good for having that green juice, or bad for eating that slice of cake. All of those are lies, and we need to get that food police out of our heads. The only way I’ve really seen success when doing this is to really expose the lies behind it.
When a lie is coming in to my head, “you’re bad for not getting that workout in” ask why? Why am I bad a person? Because I’m a normal person that sometimes misses a workout? And remind yourself that never ever ever should our eating and our lifestyle be linked to our morality. We are not good or bad based on what we eat or don’t eat, the movement we do or don’t do. Our healthy lifestyles are here to empower us and enable us, not strict us and make us feel unworthy. So say goodbye to that food police and linking our healthy lifestyles to our morality.
5. Make Peace with ALL Food.
Say goodbye to the “bad foods” and “good foods.” This can actually be so so hard because our society is constantly telling us that this or that food is bad or good, and we are mentally taking notes in our minds and labeling these foods as good or bad. The second we put foods on the bad list, we are subconsciously wanting it even more. Not only that, but it’s messing with our emotions, our mindset, and how we look at food.
Now, are there foods that have more nutritional value to them than others? Absolutely. As a dietitian, I can truly say that food is our medicine and we should be fueling our bodies with nutrition- not because something is good or bad, but because of how it makes us feel. We should definitely opt for the healthiest choicest we can, but it’s okay to have foods of all types. It’s all about moderation and enjoying foods in regular, good amounts. And remember, we want to feel empowered by foods and feel the best we can so we can live out our best lives. Make a list of those foods we label as bad and realize that they might not actually be terrible for you.
6. Honor Both your Hunger and your Fullness.
Honoring your hunger has to come with honoring your fullness- it’s a two part step. Often times, we delay eating until we’re fatigued or tell ourselves we can’t stop eating even though we’re stuffed. Not eating when we’re truly still hungry can lead to overeating later on, and give yourself freedom to honor your hunger and know that it will always depend on the day. At the same time, honoring our fullness is huge too.
So what I tell my clients is to just slow down and stay mindful around our eating. Give yourself permission to eat at any given time. Because guess what? In turn, you’ll have more willingness to just stop when you’re satisfied if you know you don’t have any weird food rules that tells you you can’t eat for hours. Be mindful, slow down, don’t eat mindlessly in the kitchen while you’re preparing your real meal, and truly be fully present while you’re eating, savoring all the flavors and enjoying it.
7. Gentle Nutrition
Breaking up with dieting does not mean throwing our nutrition out the door. It means mending our relationship with it. Food is our medicine and we need to create a healthy relationship with it, throwing out any strict measurements, counting or anything like that. Mending our relationship with food and getting back to a place of honoring our bodies with gentle nutrition includes making it a lifestyle, changing our habits slowly, creating that solid nutrition foundation such as balancing our macros, pairing foods wisely, and understanding that this will make us feel our best and avoid any crazy hunger feelings or fatigue.
Create that healthy and sustainable lifestyle that fits you and your life, and don’t feel like you can’t have your favorite foods because they CAN fit in to your healthy lifestyle. Use gentle nutrition to honor your body and stay mentally healthy through it all, because that “healthy” lifestyle should not feel like it’s taking over everything else.
8. Practice Self-Love Daily
This is a huge one for us women because we are our biggest inner critics, and often we have that critic in our mind that is telling us all of our flaws and focus on that one flaw instead of celebrating all the amazing things about us.
Whether you feel like you struggle with self love or not, one thing I recommend everyone to do is to really stand in the mirror and speak positively about yourself, say positive things out loud about your body and your life everyday, especially when negative things come into our minds. This is the time to push those negative thoughts out and say great things about yourself. Because whether you can fully believe it in that moment or not, as you continue to speak life into yourself and positive words and affirmations, you will begin believing it. Sometimes it takes action before the feeling comes.
9. Use Other Ways to Cope with Negative Emotions
We are going to have negative emotions and feelings come up. One thing to do, like I just talked about, is to push the negative out with the positive. But it’s important to find other ways to deal with any negative things like stress and sadness that don’t involve food. What can you do instead of drowning in those negative emotions? Find healthy ways to cope with those feelings when they arise, not just saying that they don’t exist- be real, say that they’re there, get it out, and find healthy ways to cope with them.
Whether it’s going out in nature, going on a walk, calling a friend, prayer, journaling, turning on the diffuser and diffusing some oils that really help ground and balance you out, anything that will get you back to your positive and best version of you. Find what that looks like for you, and stick to it next time you’re not feeling so great.
10. Use Other Measures of Progress
A lot of times, all we want to do is get on that scale and look at the number. While this can definitely be a form of measuring your progress, it definitely shouldn’t be the only one, and honestly, it shouldn’t even be one of the main ones. Think about other forms of progress to show that you are making progress, making this a lifestyle and working on a better version of you.
Maybe setting goals and monitoring how you’re reaching those goals. Maybe by noticing the gym has been getting easier or accomplishing a race. Are your clothes just fitting better? Maybe you’re feeling more positive and emotionally balanced? Are you finally speaking life into yourself and believing it? Are you having better relationships with the people around you? Or maybe you’re balancing all your meals and snacks with the FreshFitnFive that are making you feel good and full. Find other ways to measure your success and progress other than just weight. Because even if you are measuring your success on body composition, you might be gaining muscle and still feeling and looking better, and the number not have changed. Don’t get bogged down with the numbers, and realize your success is happening!
So those are the main steps when it comes to really learning how to break up with dieting, making this a lifestyle, and staying mentally healthy while you’re doing it.
If you loved these tips, I also have a Break Up with Dieting E-Course that walks through each of these steps in a whole module for each one and helps you implement every single one of these steps. So that you can really break up with dieting and make healthy living something that comes to your naturally and intuitively. To get to that E-course, click here!
Want to learn more about oils and all the ways they can help you? Click here to learn more!
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