Is this you?
Does anyone else feel like they start over their diet every single Monday?
Or is this you?
I tell you. This quarantine has really messed me up. My boyfriend said all I do is binge and pig out on food and that I never will succeed. I feel so fat and down. I just cry and cry. I am so sick of the struggle.
Or -
I think I know the knowledge of how to lose weight. I don't have the taking action side of things or how to change my habits. The getting started is hard and so is the sticking with it.
It's not your fault for having tried to lose weight and not being successful.
Dieting to lose weight just doesn't work.
Diets don't work because they:
Require a lot of willpower and effort to "stay on them."
Create cravings and deprivation by labeling foods as "good" or "bad"
Make you obsess over food
Cause you to judge yourself. You are successful when you stick with the diet. A failure and a disappointment when you don't.
Cause your body to slow down the way it burns calories.
Let's talk about the willpower and the effort it takes to "stay" on a diet.
It is like you are constantly having to flex your muscles. Staying on a diet requires a lot of attention to details such as calorie amounts in food and portion sizes.
if you think of dieting as a way to lose weight. You focus very hard on only eating "the healthy foods." It takes a lot of energy to do that. It is difficult to sustain the effort to stay on diets.
The Judge - You engage in negative self talk and judge your ability to stay on your diet and to lose weight.
Our thoughts are extremely powerful. We all have the "inner critic voice" inside. The critic encourages us to indulge when we diet, and then beats us up when we eat the food we are craving. We spend most of our time listening to the criticism as we attempt to only eat healthy "good" food while dieting to lose weight, feeling inadequate, helpless, frustrated, and not making progress with weight loss.
It is difficult to get away from the negative self-talk that comes from trying to follow a diet. We ate too much at one meal. We ate the wrong food. Or perhaps the weight loss is not happening as fast as we think it should.
You beat yourself up because this diet is difficult to follow. Pretty soon, you have slipped back into old habits, and feel like a failure, still hearing the voice of the critic pointing out how imperfect you are.
Dieting can cause feelings of deprivation and increase cravings.
We look at foods and assign labels. Some foods are healthy and good foods. Some foods are unhealthy and are bad for use. On a diet, a person should eat healthy foods and stay away from the bad foods.
Doing this creates rules to follow. It also causes a person to think a lot about food, especially the food that is forbidden to eat while on the diet.
Following food rules and feeling deprived from the food you really want to eat makes it difficult to stick to diets for an extended amount of time.
Your body slows down it's metabolism when you diet
When you dramatically cut your calories, your body thinks food is scarce. It lowers the rate it burns calories. Which means it is more difficult to lose weight.
If you are sick of the struggle trying to lose weight by following a diet, undiet instead!
I am talking about mindful/intuitive eating instead.
The transformations:
Gain awareness of your body
Be more in tune with hunger and fullness
Recognize your external cues to eat
Gain self-compassion
Decrease food cravings
Decrease problematic eating and eating behaviors
Enjoy your food as never before
Are you ready for the change?
Let's talk.
Juanita
Your dietitian in your pocket