So, you wanna scream at me and tell me it’s not working.
You want to take my words and throw them back in my face because you’ve tried to surrender, you’ve tried to eat what you want when you want, have given yourself full permission to go on a No Diet Diet and yet, you’re still caught in diet prison.
Your thoughts are still circling around your weight every second of every day.
You are still eating uncontrollably and despite your body begging you to stop, you just can’t.
You still skip meals, weigh your food and feel as though you’re going insane.
How is this any different, any better, any more freeing?
So, scream at me. Tell me I’m wrong. Criticise me and laugh at my words.
But after you do, think about this:
Have you really begun to communicate with your body?
Have you started to explore what’s underneath your obsession? What’s underneath your pain?
Have you added awareness practices to your life and begun to eat in a calm environment?
Have you let go of the people who always put you down?
Have you allowed your body to have a say?
Have you started to make those changes in your daily life that – deep down – you know you cannot avoid?
Have you thrown away your scale or put it somewhere you don’t see it every time you need to pee?
Have you started to un-believe your thoughts and examine your beliefs?
Have you stopped following all the thinspiration boards and started to listen to uplifting role models?
Have you taken action, tuned in, gone the extra step?
Because if there is one thing I can tell you it’s that escaping diet prison doesn’t happen without some effort.
You have to allow yourself to change your mind.
You have to allow yourself to see food with different eyes.
You have to allow your body to trust you again.
I know how this sounds: Oh God, more effort, more changing, more learning, more digging, more healing. It’s just too much.
It’s not though.
It’s not because the alternative is going on another diet, starting all over again with the same thing you’ve been doing for years and coming back to this post 3 years from now with more pain in your heart and a more messed up relationship with food than you already have.
So, go ahead and scream at my words.
Go ahead and roll your eyes.
Go ahead and tell me it doesn’t work.
But at least do the work. At least use the tools. At least give it a try –
for more than 5 minutes of your life.
I promise you that it works – if applied.
Ditching the diet, letting go of the need to be thin is not solely about looking at the food you put in your mouth, it’s about a wholesome transformation of everything in your life that doesn’t serve you and tears you down.
This may not be what you want to hear. It may not sound convenient.
And yet it is the truth. It’s the way out. It’s the road to freedom and living the life you desperately want to live.
So, ask yourself, what will it be?
Avoiding your issues and going back to a weight loss diet or leaning in and – slowly but surely – unraveling to build a life of freedom and peace of mind?
