Reclaiming your freedom from the food police, the demons that keep you in body shame and the never-ending self-attacks requires you to give up certain things.
After all, you need to create space for the new, the bold, the happy, the liberty and the bountiful energy of eating what you want when you want without fear, guilt or shame.
Getting to that place doesn’t happen when you continue to hold on to habits, beliefs and people who are keeping you down, pulling you back over and over again into your own worst nightmare.
Here are 13 of the most important things to give up TODAY in order to live that life without calorie counting, food demonizing and body hurting.
1. Give up fat shaming yourself in the mirror
Whenever you notice that you’re standing in front of the mirror for too long and releasing all kinds of negative thoughts and words about your body, take a step back from the mirror to stop.
Break the pattern by making yourself look away.
There is NO use in body-bashing. There is nothing to be gained by comparing your body to a body you used to have or the body of someone you admire.
2. Give up being disconnected from your body
Healing your negative body image means reconnecting with your body.
Do you feel what your body feels like or do you see your body as just a thing that you don’t want to live in?
The more you embody your body, ground yourself in your body and perceive all sensations that are floating through your body, the more you’ll be able to let go of the belief that your body’s worthiness lies in being thin.
3. Give up the belief in good and bad foods
There are no good or bad foods. Food is not moral. Period.
Food is necessary for life, for our survival, our wellbeing.
Yes, you may talk about food in terms of it having gone bad or being rotten, but that’s it. Other than throwing out moldy onions, there’s no sense in talking about food in terms of being good or bad.
Consider this: every time you tell yourself that you’ve eaten bad foods, you hear ‘I am bad’, ‘I am a bad, bad, disgusting, weak person’, ‘I am going to die fat and I’ll never be able to heal my insane relationship with food‘, ‘I am baaad.’
Doesn’t help your self-confidence a lot, does it?
4. Give up wanting to be anyone but yourself
You are YOU and that is glorious. There’s a reason you are who you are. There’s a reason you have the body you have.
Don’t darken your own light by wishing to be someone you will never be. Don’t take away from your own glory by trying to fit into someone else’s jeans. You are wonderful just the way you are – even if you’re a work in progress.
5. Give up seeking perfection
Perfection doesn’t exist. So you can stop trying to be the one who will nail the state of being flawless.
Instead, revel in your beautiful imperfections and play with the infinite freedom that comes with knowing that no matter what you do, you will never ever reach perfection.
6. Give up being around people who are always on a diet and constantly engage in fat-talk
You know who I’m talking about.
The more you hang out with the diet addicts and the fat-shamers, the more you’ll stay stuck in this miserable world. Is it really worth your time and energy to talk about your or other people’s body, thighs, meal plan or weight gain?
Don’t you have more rewarding things to do with your life?
If you can’t change the conversation when you’re around dieters and body-shamers, then walk away. You are totally allowed to choose who you hang out with and why.
7. Give up reading diet books
It seems quite logical to get rid of diet books and – even more logical – to not buy even more of those. But there’s this temptation to get just ooooone more book (and another and another) because this might actually be the one.
It won’t be. So, give your diet books away (yes, all of them, they will trigger your diet mentality at some point) and make space for more nourishing books, more soul-filling items or simply more space.
8. Give up following fitspiration accounts
The constant reminders on social media to be thinner, better, fitter, more toned, leaner, stronger, healthier or whatever else you need to be is messing with your thoughts and hurting your heart. Not to mention the awful influence these pictures have on your psyche and your body image.
If you haven’t done so, it’s time to unfollow every single account that talks about you needing to change your body and reduce your weight. You don’t need to be part of this shaming world anymore and you will not miss those accounts once they’re gone.
9. Give up the constant barrage of “shoulds”
How often do you tell yourself that you should eat healthier, that you should move more, that you should not eat candy or enjoy your food?
The more you should yourself, the more pressure you create, which always backfires in some shape or form. Let go of “shoulding” yourself and instead adopt a kinder, more loving language that’ll uplift you and empower you to be the person you truly are.
10. Give up desiring approval from others
We often want to be thinner because we believe that it’ll give us his/her approval. We believe that life will be so much better and that others will accept us so much more easily if we only have a body that appeals to their sense of beauty.
That’s a bunch of bullshit.
If others can’t deal with your weight or your body, it’s their issue, not yours.
Don’t shrink to make them feel better.
Don’t shrink to make them keep their power.
Don’t hurt yourself to get the approval you really don’t need.
11. Give up wanting to manage your weight
Freedom from food will not happen if you continue to try to manage your weight. You have to learn to completely let go of the need to have a certain weight and size in order to break out of diet prison.
Your body will find her balance and you will learn to accept her at the weight she chooses to be. It may take time and it will not always be easy, but the more you hold on to a certain weight, the more miserable you’ll be.
12. Give up portion control
Gosh, portion control is a nightmare. How does a plan, your scale, a dietitian or whoever controls your portions know how hungry your body is and how much nourishment she needs on any given day?
The moment you decide to “only eat this much”, you are working against your body (and are training your mind for a future binge).
Stop weighing your food. Stop trying to limit your portions to an arbitrary rule of yours. Instead, feel into your body and begin to be in communication with yourself. How much do you need? How much do you want? When do you have enough? You can only find out by eating, never ever before the actual act.
13. Give up diet products
The “real deal” is always better than diet products as you are still strengthening the message that “dieting” is better and that you shouldn’t / don’t deserve to experience real pleasure from food.
If your taste buds are used to the artificial taste, give them time to readjust. If food fears come up. work with them in order to move to a new level of healing. If you still have diet products in your fridge, throw them out – you can’t have them if they’re not there. You’ll soon see that non-diet products aren’t the devil they’re made out to be.
If you’d like to let go of certain thoughts, behaviors or things that keep you stuck in diet prison, book an initial Deep Dive Session with me and we’ll get to the bottom of what’s really going on and how you can – once and for all – break free.
