Just say NO to Diets!
1. Acceptance: Diets don’t work. I know more than anyone how hard that can be to accept. They may work for a time – but eventually they stop working. Why, with all of that evidence do we think WE are the problem? If any other product we paid money for failed us like that – we’d demand our money back, tell everyone we knew not to buy it, and we certainly wouldn’t keep buying it! It’s NOT you; it is the diet that fails.
2. Patience: Don’t worry if you don’t make a decision that letting go of diets is right for you, and then you feel scared, unsure, panic, confusion, doubt, etc. It is a process of letting go! If dieting has been a part of your life for a long time, don’t expect to let go of that belief over night!
3. Open Mind: If you have tried every diet under the sun, and keep coming back to the same place – or worse than where you started (i.e. feelings of failure, body image distortion, food shame, binge eating, food control issues, etc.) then don’t you think it’s possible dieting is the problem and not the solution? Keep an open mind that there might be something wrong with the diet-industry, and that your answers are actually inside you.
4. Willingness: You’ve been willing to trust a number of professionals whose sole purpose is to sell you products, and keep you dependent on those products. (How many of you have been on Weight Watchers more times than you can count?) Do you think it’s coincidence that the majority of people in those rooms have been coming since childhood? Time to try:
- Trusting your own body’s signals and yes, even cravings.
- Accepting and loving yourself right now – not holding off until you see a certain number on the scale.
- Moving with joy, letting go of the “no pain no gain” approach.
- Nourishing your body with whole foods (say good-bye to sugar-free fat free for GOOD) Franken-foods are toxic and harmful, period.
- Finding gratitude for your body just as it is, every day.
5. Education: We are bombarded with statistics and “studies” every day funded by the diet industry that are intended to induce fear and shame about obesity. Stop taking these messages for granted. Start to see how the diet industry and the food industry are actually working together to keep you believing that you are sick and in need of their products. Seek out the other side of the story. Make a commitment to read one blog a day, or one news site a day, that disputes the “obesity = death” B.S. You don’t have to buy in, just make a commitment to look at all of the evidence. Watch a documentary, read a book, find body positive folks in the health industry – other information is out there. It is harder to find because the missions are usually ones of kindness, love, acceptance, empathy, and empowerment, not greed.
