Oh wow this is a big topic to talk about. It seems every day there is some new diet or meal plan offering that promises results to lose weight. It’s as if losing weight is the only issue we should worry about when it comes to a solid reason for eating better. Then there are the number of diets we have all tried but failed to see real progress on so we quickly give up on them and return to our normal way of life, feeling defeated about the whole experience. This of course impacts not only our physical health but also our mental health now but alas we are still fat and overweight so who cares right? Somehow we have disconnected our diets with dieting and health from what makes up a healthy weight.
There is enough blame to go around for why our food system isn’t helping our health or weight loss goals. There are problems end to end in our food system that all add up to us not getting quality foods despite paying premium for them in the grocery stores. From ingredients, processing, profit margins, distribution, shelf life and more every one of us is impacted by the problems in our food system that result in us not getting solid nutritionally food. Some would claim this is cause for raw diets or vegan lifestyles but even here we find problems with toxicity, nutritional value and long term viable means to support our needs. No diet is safe from these problems.
The concept of dieting has also become in my humble opinion toxic. We are marketed to that we should be eating this or that to maintain a healthy lifestyle. We are advertised to that certain foods are better for you when you want to lose weight. There are even advertisements for programs to teach us how to eat, how much and when. I’m not sure about you but I learned at a young age how to eat. The problem isn’t that but rather what we are eating, how we discern hunger and how much we are eating…. according to the marketers at least.
Let’s start with sugar. We are a nation addicted to sweetness. Sugar in and of itself is not a negative ingredient but it is the proverbial bad guy in the healthy eating scene. We blame sugar for it all but is that really true? Sugar is added to every single thing we eat and used in flavoring, coloring and preservatives we have created addictions equivalent to that of illicit drugs. We added it to our foods and not just the special birthday cake but in everything we open to eat. Coming off of sugar in our diets is incredibly challenging and often one of the major ways we fail to keep up with healthy eating changes. Dealing with headaches, shakiness, irritability, fake hunger, cravings, and emotional problems as a result of the withdrawal from sugar is incredibly courageous and life altering. A lot of us give up at the first sign of the pain encountered with defeating sugar.
When you cut sugar you find a lot of the normal foods you ate on the go, prepared at home and enjoyed in restaurants are no longer things you should eat. This makes modern day eating a challenge in our on-the-go, convenience, no one likes to cool all the time lifestyles. We also find upfront the food we’re left to eat after cutting out those things with sugar doesn’t taste good. We force it down and tell ourselves we’ll learn to like it, over time, maybe. Our brains and taste buds have literally been robbed of their ability to taste food that is not laden with sugar or salt and most of the time both. Look I’ve been on enough diets in my life to know if you don’t like it, you’re not going to enjoy it. If you don’t enjoy it the first chance you get at cheating on it you will.
If you’re successful with defeating and controlling the added sugars then you are faced with food that is filled with other preservatives, chemicals, and other added ingredients that are the furthest thing from food. Again, we face similar issues with taste, flavor and other things that make food taste like we know it does. Breaking up with many of these ingredients also leaves us feeling like we’ve been hit with a train and is the point where many of us give up early. We haven’t even gotten started with changing our lifestyle, building up to a consistent exercise and workout routine or doing more than eating a couple salads before we’re waddling back to the old ways feeling worse than when we began!
So is it true that the only way to win at your diet is to undergo physical withdrawals that leave us as an emotional wreck?
Is the only way to do it cold unprocessed turkey meat minus the bread?
Is all life’s sweetness the enemy of our health?
No…but.
Most of us have a trail of failed diets that have led us to this point. We have tried the meal plans, meal prepping, shake and smoothies, fastings, low carb, Weight Watchers, starvation, cabbage diet, and anything else that has come out under the label of diet. If it worked we wouldn’t be a fat nation that we are. Here’s the deal, I believe there are some diets better than others but we will always be faced with the problems we face now with a broken food system and ongoing onslaught of marketers telling us there’s a better way. The best way is the way that works for you and that has ongoing easy to maintain results.
I won’t claim to be an expert at achieving long term results yet but I can tell you a few things that have shown me progress. Once we see a little progress it is easier to stay motivated and focused to continue. These are vital elements to success that we must claim and protect like the last doughnut that has the special sprinkles. So to me it starts with acknowledgement and genuine interest in changing because that is the basis for getting motivated.
Acknowledging we want to change and being serious about it with more than just a passing wish or hopeful glance is truly step one. There is work involved and if we’re only haphazardly interested we may make matters worse. This of course leads to the defeated feelings and told you so negative self talk that prevents us from trying again. My recommendation is before we even consider what type of diet to try we need to do some mind work on why this is important, preferably before our doctors are threatening insulin, cholesterol medicine, high blood pressure medicine or some other health condition issue.
Most of us want to lose weight to fit into a smaller size but I challenge you to think bigger (or smaller). It’s great to be smaller but what about your health? What about energy, better sleep, feeling sexier, having confidence, feeling mentally lighter? What about goals you have that are beyond just fitting into a dictated cute sizes marketers and designers created to make us all feel bad about ourselves? What do you really want by losing weight? Sort through the junk you’ve been told and visually pleasing perfection of what the a woman should look like to be considered pretty and get down to the real you. What’s inside you that you really want by achieving this?
Then and only then can you get the tools, programs, structure and support you need for those specific goals. See where most diets fail is not because they don’t work but rather because we’re not deep into our reason for wanting it. We want it until we are so tempted by a sweet treat or limited in choices so we revert back to how we were before we started this challenge.
We want it until the cravings threaten our very sanity and we’re hungry. We’re so hungry we’ll eat anything and we almost do until we are faced with our real reason for pursuing this goal.
Losing weight is not easy. Gaining weight wasn’t easy either. We probably scolded and negative self-talked to ourselves while we were eating what we did to get here and we’ll do the same when we stumble in losing it. If we can’t win inside our own head with how we talk to ourselves and be real with our reasons then nothing we will ever do will be good enough to us, including losing weight and keeping it off.
Here’s what I’m using to help improve my own negative self talk so when I start to apply changes to my diet, cutting back sugar and getting to real food that’s good for me I’m not resisting it (as much).
DDR Prime for healthy cell regeneration and support of the work I’m doing
Lemongrass for emotional release of negative self talk. When I start doing it smelling Lemongrass reminds me I’m better than that and capable of achieving it
Grapefruit oil for my water as a detoxifying physical and mental support on the go
Jasmine because no matter my size I am enough. I am beautiful.
Instead of jumping into a weight loss diet head first expecting my body to do all the work and like it, I’m starting with my mind. It is the pre work that will help me be successful with the physical changes I want to achieve. It will make those withdrawals a little easier and a lot more effective. It will guide me in making choices that are right for me including picking the diet that best serves my needs.
Are you ready to finally win at your diet?
Take the free Lifestyle & Wellness Questionnaire to learn where it may make sense for you to start and get the support you need to achieve it naturally. https://forms.gle/G4e36G1naxYW1Qxf6
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