Last week I shared a post on Why Cookie Cutter Diets Don’t Work and today I am diving into how to break the chain of food rules, deprivation and restriction. When people decided to “go on a diet” they usually tell themselves how things should go on said diet. Some of these things are:
- In order to loose weight/be healthy I need to eat less
- I need to be very strict and stick to the rules
- If I fall off track for a short while, I am bad and should just throw in the towel
- If I fall off track for a short while I need to restrict and deprive myself more
- I can eat whatever I want once this diet is over
And they continue to tell themselves these stories until they are so miserable that they give up and go back to the way they were eating and exercising before. You’d think that food rules, caloric restriction and deprivation should work, but news flash, it doesn’t.
Diets go a lot like this:
- strict diet of deprivation and food rules
- carb craving
- bingeing
- weight gain
- feeling of guilt
- increase restriction and deprivation
- unhappiness
- quite diet
If you view certain foods as forbidden or bad and never allow yourself to have them you will most likely deprive yourself to the point of bingeing on those foods. If you tell yourself you can never eat carbs or that all carbs are bad you will more than likely find yourself at the bottom of an ice cream bucket and having no idea how you got there.
Luckily, things don’t have to be this way and there is a way to enjoy all foods, eat what and when you want and still be healthy and even lose some unwanted weight.
If you find yourself in the dreaded diet cycle, it is time to start paying attention to your behaviors and becoming more aware of your body. If you can break the chain of dieting, depriving and restricting, have a much better chance of not bingeing and going through the full cycle of “dieting”.
Most people have patterns when it comes to overeating. It may be a type of food, time of day, situational, emotional, stress factors. If you find yourself on the verge of overeating (behavior) ask yourself these simple questions (becoming aware):
- What am I doing?
- What am I thinking?
- What am I feeling emotionally and physically?
- Where am I?
- What time is it?
- Who am I with?
Be honest. Be real. Becoming aware of these behaviors and what causes you to make unhealthy choices will allow for you to break free of food rules, enjoy all varieties of food without any guilt and never have to follow a diet again.