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Are you in the space where you know that diets don’t serve you any longer?
Have you been dieting for 10, 15, 30 years and are still feeling miserable in your skin?
Have you read this post and thought: well, that’s great, but how in the world can I finally stop dieting?
In this podcast, I’ll tell you exactly what you need to do in order to stop the guilt-shame-eating-restricting cycle that runs and ruins your life.
Make the Commitment
Living a life without diets – you have to really, really want it. If you don’t, you’ll relapse in no time. So, make the commitment to be done with diets once and for all. Proclaim that you’re going to change and that you won’t go back to dieting – no matter what happens.
You can even hold a beautiful ceremony celebrating the start of something new to come.
Setbacks happen, sure, but if you’re truly committed, you can always get back up and start again. Remember that this is not a diet and there’s no “hard work” or “gruelling workout” needed. This is about leaning in and giving in to your body’s true signals. You can always go back to touching base with your vessel.
However, if you’re not committed 100%, you’ll give up because as much as I’d like to say that giving up dieting is easy, it isn’t. You’ll challenge yourself every day, you’ll run up against fears and judgments and you’ll likely get insecure every now and then. If that happens, go back to your sacred commitment and strengthen your heart.
Trust your Body
Believe it or not, your body will rejoice knowing that you’re finally ready to stop making it suffer.
It’ll need some time to recalibrate, but then it’ll get back to balance. Give your body this time to readjust and rebalance and do not freak out.
You may end up binging, you may end up gaining some weight, you may end up craving fatty and salty foods.
Chances are that you’ll still restrict mentally even if you’re eating all foods. That’ll lead to more binges, which will lead to more restriction. That’s where going back to your commitment comes in. Review it and see why you’re taking this path.
Despite everything you’ve been told, your body’s got this.
Challenge yourself
When you notice that you’re still restricting mentally and following certain rules, ask yourself why and what the fears are behind all of that. Challenge yourself over and over and over again.
You are venturing out into a new world and that does take courage and boldness. You can muster up the courage by constantly stretching yourself beyond your current beliefs.
Get the End Result Now
We usually diet because we want something: a better job, a husband, more self-esteem, a dress, etc.
We believe that we cannot have what we really, really, really want until we have a certain size. It’s the same belief as not living life until you’ve made a million dollars. It’s a little bit crazy.
So, dig deep and ask yourself what you really, really, really want. What are your soul’s desires? Your wildest dreams? Those that you haven’t spoken to to anyone?
Write them down and then make them all come true. One after the other.
Go on a date – with the body you have NOW.
Book that paragliding session today.
Dance in the rain – just because it makes you happy.
Wear the dress of your dreams for work tomorrow.
Write that novel.
Apply for the job you believe you’re not worthy of.
Put on that very red lipstick.
Do yoga teacher training.
Apply to be part of that art show.
Do what your heart wants you to do.
You’ll see that the more fully you live, the less important your diets will be.
Work on your Beliefs
Fat in food = food on my body
Being “overweight” is unhealthy
Carbs are bad
If you host a number of unhealthy, limiting and painful beliefs about food and your body, it’s time to question them and look at them from different sides.
The best way to work on your thoughts in a loving and revolutionary matter is to check out The Work by Byron Katie.
I’ve written about Byron Katie’s The Work many times and you can check out detailed instructions here.
Reclaim your Body
Do you know that your body and all it’s functions and looks are all yours?
Society, the media, fashion labels, designers don’t own your body! They don’t even own your self-worth. It’s all yours and you can choose to feel good about the body you have.
You can choose to dance in your underwear with the cellulite on your butt and sport a bikini with the stretch marks on your tummy.
You can choose to love your body even if you don’t find it particularly beautiful (you don’t have to think something is beautiful to love it, BTW).
You can choose to wear clothes that are only reserved for skinny bitches and you can choose to say f**k it and do whatever it is you want to do.
It’s your body. Reclaim it.
Welcome your Emotions
We diet because we’re scared of emotions. And then we’re being told over and over again how bad emotional eating is and that we have to STOP it immediately. Another shaming diet culture crap.
The truth is that eating is inherently emotional. Think about it: when your an infant, you cry and cry and cry until you get your mother’s breast. From that moment on, food is love.
And that is perfect the way it is.
What you have to learn now is not to let your emotions overrun your pleasure of eating. At the same time though, you have to learn to welcome your emotions all of them without eating to numb yourself in the process.
It’s a skill you can learn by beginning to practice mindfulness.
Find your Tribe
I strongly believe that you cannot stop dieting when you isolate yourself and try to do it on your won. The temptations to go back to old habits are just too big.
Here’s a great group you can join and share your fears, victories and thoughts about dieting, loving your body and more.
Eat
In order to heal your dieting heart, you need to learn to eat everything without feeling guilty or ashamed. If you continue to cut out food groups for weight loss or weight mantainace reasons, you’ll continue to binge/restrict.If you look at what it is you eat and you notice that you really don’t eat carbs (because you believe they’ll make you gain weight, because you believe you are gluten intolerant, because you follow a new-age diet, etc.), you may have an intense and constant hunger, crave carbs (obviously) and other foods, are moody, irritated and constipated.
Address your Core Wounds
90% of those who begin a diet don’t do it because they dislike their weight. They do it out of much deeper issues.
If you don’t address those core wounds, you’ll never learn to be a gentle, grateful eater and a wholly confident person.
Those core wounds could be a complete lack of confidence (where does it come from?), it could be a feeling of pure inadequacy (when did it start?), it could be the fear of money (what happens when you get into that space?) or a very bad relationship (what can you change about it?). Our core wounds go deep and they need to be looked on, kissed and healed with love.
You can recover without addressing those wounds, but you’ll never recover fully.
Find your Spirituality
I’ve come to learn that you cannot recover without finding spirituality.
You need something bigger than yourself, something grander, something to believe in – not out of a false sense of hope and wanting to be saved, but out of the knowing and the appreciation that there is more in the world than what you see.
Many of my clients find their own spirituality in the process of re-gaining life. They find it in the universe, love, nature, God, yoga, ancient traditions or in the simpleness of friendship.
No matter what your spirituality is, use it to get back on track.
Lean into Uncertainty
All of life is uncertain. That’s often why we try to control our weight.
We all would like to know when we’re getting married, when we’ll get a raise, how this terrible situation will turn out, if our friend will get better after this surgery, if we’ll be hit by a rock tomorrow and die or if we’ll live a life happier ever ever.
But the fact is that we will never ever have certainty and that’s the beauty of life.
All possibilities or open for everyone.
Lean into this uncertainty when it comes to recovering from a diet mentality too. Maybe your journey to a “normal” relationship with your appetite and your body will take a few weeks, maybe a few months, maybe a few years or even a decade. You don’t know and you’ll never know. Plus, your body is changing every day, so there’ll never be the certain that “this is it”.
If you can be OK with this truth of life, you’ll be much better off.
Enjoy this episode of Escape Diet Prison and do share it if it helped or inspired you.
Love and light,
