This is probably the biggest limiting diet belief there is.
“I need to watch what I eat.”
This belief will always come back to bite you in the butt and it’ll keep you in diet prison for the rest of your life.
“I need to watch what I eat” leads to binges, which leads to dieting, which will lead to binging, which will lead to more dieting.
If you believe that you must watch what you eat, you are not listening to your body. You are not out of the diet mentality at all.
Instead, you are completely, fully engaged in it.
If you believe that you must watch what you eat, you are telling yourself that you cannot be trusted. You are telling your body that it cannot be trusted. If you believe this thought, you have not done the work, you are not feeling your feelings, you haven’t gotten to the core of what makes you turn to food (or away from it).
Of course it is scary to let go of the believe that you truly can eat what you want all the time.
Of course letting go of this particular belief will challenge all of your believes. This one goes deep and asks you to alter your behavior, which is never an easy thing to do.
Plus, this belief also asks you to let go of your wish to binge when you want to as you then have to/can go back to watching what you eat.
Binging can be fun, of course.
Stuffing your mouth with everything in sight is a great way to escape. Binging when there’s company – on Christmas or other holidays – can be fun too. However, if you engage in blind binging, you are further fondling the believe that you must watch what you eat.
Here’s the thing though: you do not have to binge in order to enjoy food. You do not have to eat gallons of something particular in order to experience it to the fullest. And you also don’t have to diet in order to be allowed to eat on particular days.
If you let go of the belief that you must watch what you eat, the desire to binge will fade as you always just eat. Over time, you will listen to your body and you will stop when your full. There’s no need to be watchful. There’s no need to tell yourself that you always have to deprive yourself. There’s no need to go out and binge on certain days as these days are also just days when you listen to your body and eat.
If you feel that taking away your hope for certain binge days is taking away hope in general, then again, you are not healed. The prospect of a future binge does not make a great life. Instead, begin to live your life to the fullest. Add more lightness and pleasure to your daily experience. Allow for joy to happen in all areas of your life instead of only on your tongue.
No watching needed. No binging needed. Ever.
All you need is to simply tune in. Plus, unbelieving a lot of crap and going back to what you did before you began believing all those lies.
