Love Your Body Without Dieting

Are you ready to swap dieting and strict food rules for sustainable healthy eating habits? Wouldn’t you love to restore the abusive relationship you have with your own body? I want everyone to live a life free of diets, and hating your body. You deserve to feel safe in your body.

Health and wellness is not “one size fits all”. Stop telling yourself you will be happier if you lose that last 5, 10 or 50 pounds. No more sacrificing happiness and mental and emotional well-being. We are going to shatter all of those rules and learn how to love your body without dieting.

Societies Rules

In Western society, weight loss and body image consume the media. For decades we have been conditioned to believe our size is equivalent to our worth. A study in 2015 showed that nearly 80% of teenage girls reported being unhappy with their bodies (source).

I’ve been there. I hated my body and didn’t respect it. In my teens and twenties, I remember hiding Hydroxycut pills from friends and family. I went to the gym to lose weight, not to build strength or feel healthy. I’ve even had plastic surgery. Negative body image plagues men as well, however, the statistics for women are astounding.

I told you health and wellness is not “one size fits all”. You know this is true, but society, the media, even family and friends make this hard to believe. Think about your body, your health, history, environment, even genes. My mantra is to embrace your unique wellness, because that’s the only way to make any sense of it.

Our bodies have their own wisdom. You are the expert of your body. It is really smart and self-regulating. The problem becomes shifting those negative thoughts and beliefs which are extremely difficult to unlearn.

Mindset Shift

Many of us battle a persistent inner critic. You have to stop letting food obsession consume your thoughts. More important than the food, is how we think and feel about food. Our mindset, stress, and emotions towards how we approach food needs to shift. We are going to mend the wounded relationship you have with food.

Everyone is looking for a quick fix or a magic pill. For years you’ve been in programs, trying detoxes, cleanses and calorie counting to no avail. Often, no matter what you do, the weight comes back. Where has your focus on weight loss gotten you at this point in life? Diets and focusing on body size are a set up for failure. The problem is people, life is a marathon and not a sprint. If you want to change how you feel, you need to shift your mindset.

Life Without Dieting

Those three words sound refreshing and liberating don’t they. Read them over and over if you’d like. I have three more words, DIETS DON’T WORK. Not the fad diets, the diet your friend is on, or the diet your trainer tells you about (source). Most diets fail because they are restrictive, confusing and leave you feeling guilt and shame if you fall off the wagon. Everything you believe and say about food keeps you from feeling at ease. Today you can start living a life without dieting.

When you go on a diet, you are depriving your body of food. In turn you put your body in a state of famine. Your metabolism slows down, which is an evolutionary mechanism to prevent starvation (source). Remember that life is a marathon and not a sprint. Don’t be extreme, just be consistent.

Letting the scale determine your mood, is not only unhealthy for your physical health, but also your mental and emotional well-being. The chronic dieting, yo-yo dieting and overall stress of it can lead to perpetual depression and anxiety (source).

Investigate Intuitive Eating

I’ve told you to shift your mindset and stop dieting, but now what? You still need to learn how to respect your body. You desperately want to lose weight and feel better about yourself. How do you build a healthier relationship with food? The answer is intuitive eating.

Babies and young children instinctively know when and how much to eat. Intuitive eating is based on innate hunger and fullness cues. Some days children eat a ton of food, and other days they may eat like a bird. As we grow older and rules and restrictions are set around food, we lose our natural intuitive eater. We learn to finish our plate and that dessert is a reward that can be taken away if we misbehave.

The good news is that intuitive eating is a skill we can relearn. Intuitive eating is a self-care eating framework developed by dieticians Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch in 1995. Their evidence-based model honors both physical and mental health. Intuitive eating is about allowing our bodies to follow their own natural wisdom. The goal is to build trust between you and your body and mend that abusive relationship. It is not a diet; it is quite the opposite in fact. Multiple books have been written to guide you on your journey to learning intuitive eating.

Make Peace With Food

Food is vital to survival. Food is part of our cultures. The food you eat should be appetizing and appeal to your senses. Intuitive eating allows all foods into your diet. When you choose to categorize foods as “good” or “bad”, eating becomes stressful. You end up feeling either guilty or deprived. As a result, you have uncontrollable cravings and overeat as a result. Say it with me now, FOOD IS NOT THE ENEMY.

It can be really difficult to view eating as a normal, pleasurable activity when your negative thoughts govern food decisions. Challenging these thoughts is an important step towards making peace with food. You might be thinking, if I listen to my body, I will just eat crap all day.

The truth is, your body craves different things depending on your mood, stress levels, and nutritional needs. When you start building a harmonious relationship with food. Then you will discover that you can eat healthy foods, nourishing foods and tasty foods as your brain and body see the need for them.

Love Your Body

Think about your best relationships in life. Maybe those relationships are with a spouse or partner, a parent, siblings, friends or pets. The best relationships are built on trust, respect, compassion and unconditional love. Do you treat your relationship with your body the same way?

Instead you might hate your body, and abuse yourself emotionally, mentally and physically. You think you can’t respect yourself if you don’t love your body. You think you cannot love it if it doesn’t look perfect.

Respect and love are not the same. Respect means that you listen to your body, care for it physically and mentally, be kind and appreciate your body as it is right now. You don’t have to love the way your body looks to recognize you are deserving of care and kindness. When you diet, you are trying to make changes from a place of body hatred. Weighing less is not the path to happiness.

No more believing you’ll be happy when those last 10 pounds come off. When you work on making changes, do it from a place of body respect and acceptance. Go to the gym because it feels good and honor your body. Stop going to punish yourself because you partied all weekend.

“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”
Buddha

Practice Self-Compassion

Self-compassion is acting from a place of love and treating yourself the way you would treat someone you love. We’re so quick to judge ourselves and criticize our bodies. Have compassion for yourself and patience as you start learning something new. It may be a struggle to shift your focus from physical “imperfections” to how incredible your body is and all of the powerful things it has accomplished. Self-compassion involves being supportive and understanding.

You love and care deeply for your family. Think about how you nurture them. All the hard work you put into making sure they are clothed and fed and live a fulfilling life. Hopefully you never tell your loved ones that they are worthless, a failure, or never good enough.

Self-compassion is accepting ourselves as we are, imperfections and all. Nobody is perfect, it doesn’t exist. Stop comparing yourself to others, especially strangers on free social media apps. Right now, imagine how kindness and self-compassion will feel and how it can change your life.

Focus On Wellness, Not Weight

Embrace new habits. Being healthy doesn’t mean eating “perfectly”. Wellness includes how much we move, how you practice self-care, and how much sleep you get. Remarkable improvements in health happen when nutrition and exercise are incorporated into your life. Transform your beliefs first, then new behaviors and loving your body will be a by-product.

Feel The Difference With Movement

Many people approach exercise as something they need to check off your to-do list. We know it’s good for our health, yet it becomes something we either dread, force ourselves to do, or struggle to do at all. Exercise seems intimidating. Maintaining a consistent exercise program is difficult for so many people because it becomes something you “have to” or “should” do. Instead, focus on movement that makes you feel energized, helps you sleep better, and allows you to connect to your body. Forget about the calorie burning effect of exercise and think about how you feel after working out.

Honor Your Health

Wellness isn’t solely nutrition and exercise. Treating your body with respect also means taking supplements, checking in on your stress levels, and being conscientious about what products you put on your skin or use in your home. How connected do you feel in your relationships, including the one you have with yourself? I’m not perfect, and I don’t expect anyone else to be either. We all have families, social events, parties where you want to enjoy margaritas and a slice of cake. We can feed ourselves well, take care of our bodies, and enjoy life’s pleasures.

What has your experience with dieting been? Share in comments what you imagine a life without dieting would be like.

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Love Your Body Without Dieting