How to Break Up With Your Diet
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HOW TO BREAK UP WITH YOUR DIET!
It’s not you, it’s the diet…It might be time for a break-up.
I remember telling this to one of my clients as she came to me feeling defeated and said: “I’ve tried EVERYTHING!”
Everything meaning she was:
- Reaching the point where she was done with dieting.
- Tired of the weighing, the tracking, the lists of foods she shouldn’t or should be eating.
- Sick of feeling like she wasn’t measuring up every time another diet failed.
I told her again…It’s not you, it’s the diet!! It might be time for a break-up!!
Making that courageous decision to give up dieting for good was such a powerful choice that changed her life for the better.
So how exactly did she break up with her dieting?
Here are my steps on breaking up with your diet
- It’s not you, it’s the diet…the diet doesn’t deserve you!
You know the whole “it’s not you, it’s me” line we may have heard a time or two the lead to a breakup? Well, we’re using it with diets.
If you’ve lost weight in the past with a diet only to gain it back or to endlessly plateau, you didn’t fail at your diet–your diet failed you. About 95% of dieters gain back all of the weight they lost (often plus more) within 3 to 5 years. So obviously, diets are total crap and they don’t deserve you.
- Remember WHY you’re breaking up
Remember all the reasons why you’re breaking up with your diet. I have a feeling that you’ll have more reasons to break up than to stay together. Think of all the emotions that came with each cycle of your diet.
All those times you would weigh yourself after being so careful sticking to your diet all week and your weight went up and you felt like crap about yourself for days. The guilt and stress you felt any time you had to decide what to eat when you weren’t sure how the food fits into your diet.
When you remember the reasons you are running the other direction from this “relationship” it’s easier to say BUH-BYE to the whole thing!
- Watch your mouth
As we sit here and talk crap about our diets, we need to be careful not to do the same about our bodies.
How do you speak to yourself about your body? I know being in a bad relationship long enough with a diet that, your thoughts and beliefs about yourself have undoubtedly been influenced ( by the diet culture) to make you feel like you are not good enough.
This is probably my biggest and most important tip right here. Our thoughts become our lives and we have been lead to believe the following, and more, about the diet relationship…
- We can’t be successful until we lose weight
- Happiness only comes when I lose weight
- I’m worthless and unlovable the way I am
- I don’t deserve to eat the foods I like
LIES, all lies! We need to stop thinking this way and be kind to ourselves and our bodies.
- Make friends with food & your body
Another one that I cannot stress enough. The diet relationship has caused many eating disorders along with body image issues. We seem to think our bodies should be punished with extreme exercising for eating “bad” or going outside of the diet “rules”.
Breaking up with your diet means you are free to trust your body as the ultimate guide to what you need to eat. You are no longer a slave to diet rules that tell you what you can or cannot eat, nor do you need to feel guilty or ashamed when those diet rules are broken. AHHHH! What a freeing feeling!
Food is not the enemy! Nourish your body well. Food is fuel.
- Shift your mindset
I probably should have put this one first BUT I wanted to get the others out in order for you to open up your mind to the possibility of REALLY breaking up with your diet.
The single most effective way to break up with your diet is by completely shifting your mindset. This is probably one of the most difficult things to do, but it is so necessary.
Heck! Some of us have been thinking about these thoughts around dieting for over 20 years!! It will definitely take time to completely change your thoughts and mindset, but it is possible. Take it one day at a time.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
It might be scary at first to think that YOU actually have more control over your weight loss experience than a “diet” does. But remember, it’s not always about losing weight. It’s about feeling better about yourself and having a happy healthy relationship with food, your body, and exercise!
Most of my clients (once they really open up to this possibility) find it totally liberating and start to feel empowered instead of fearful. YES!
So today, right now, I urge you not to engage in the diet cycle. This means breaking up with your diet! I promise that when you do this you will feel EMPOWERED! You will begin to take care of yourself. You will begin to see value in you. You will begin to place your well-being and health over a number.
Choosing to fully break up with your diet doesn’t mean that you give up or let yourself go. It means that you choose your health over a number on the scale or a clothing size. There is a difference.
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