10 ways to win the psychological battle against the diet culture.

Calorie deficit

Eat less move more.

We know its the only and best way to lose weight…

We’ve been told enough now.

Calorie deficit is easy right?

So why do more people than ever struggle to lose weight?

Why, if it’s that easy, are more and more people becoming frustrated that they can’t lose weight when it should be easy.

A lot of it comes down to whats going on in that space behind your ears…

Your brain.

your thoughts, the language you use, they way you talk to yourself, your outlook…

Its a bigger factor than ever when it comes to achieving results, not just weight loss.

So, here are 10 steps you can take to start changing the game when it comes to your psychology and mindset when it comes to achieving a goal…

1. REJECT THE DIET MENTALITY. Throw out the diet books and magazine articles that offer you the false hope of losing weight quickly, easily and permanently. 

Get angry at diet culture that promotes weight loss and the lies that have led you to feel as if you were a failure every time you gained back all of he weight. 

If you allow even one small hope to linger that a new and better diet or food plan might be lurking around the corner, it will prevent you from being free to rediscover intuitive eating.

2. HONOUR YOUR HUNGER: Keep your body biologically fed with adequate energy and carbs. Otherwise you can trigger a primal drive to over eat.

Once you reach the moment of excessive hunger, all intentions of moderate, conscious eating are fleeting and irrelevant.

Learning to honour this first biological signal sets the stage for rebuilding trust in yourself and in food.

3. MAKE PEACE WITH FOOD: Call a truce; stop the food fight! Give yourself unconditional permission to eat. If you tell yourself that you can’t or shouldn’t have a particular food, it can lead to intense feelings of deprivation that builds into uncontrollable cravings and, often, bingeing.

When you finally “give in” to your forbidden foods, eating will be experienced with such intensity it usually results in Last Supper overeating and overwhelming guilt.

4. CHALLENGE TO FOOD POLICE. Scream loud NO to thoughts in your head that declare you’re “good” for eating minimum calories or “bad” because you ate a piece of chocolate cake.

The food police monitor the unreasonable rules that diet culture has created. The police station is housed deep in your psyche, and its loudspeaker shouts negative barbs, hopeless phrases, and guilt-provoking punishments.

Chasing the food police away is a critical step in returning to intuitive eating.

5. DISCOVER THE SATISFACTION FACTOR. The Japanese have the wisdom to keep pleasure as one of their goals of healthy living. In our compulsion to comply with the diet culture, we often overlook one of the most basic gifts of existence – the pleasure and satisfaction that can be found in the eating experience.

When you eat what you really want, the pleasure you derive will be a powerful force in helping you feel satisfied and content.

By providing this experience for yourself, you will find that it takes just the right amount of food for you to decided you’ve had “enough.”

6. FEEL YOUR FULLNESS. In order to honour your fullness, you need to trust that you will give yourself the foods that you desire.

Listen for the body signals that tell you that you are no longer hungry.

Observe the signs that show that you are comfortably full.

Pause in the middle of eating and ask yourself how the food tastes and that your current hunger level is.

7. COPE WITH YOUR EMOTIONS WITH KINDNESS. First, recognise that food restriction, both physically and mentally, can, in and of itself, trigger loss of control, which can feel like emotional eating.

Find kind ways to comfort, nurture, distract and resolve your issues.

Anxiety, loneliness, boredom, and anger are emotions we all experience throughout life.

Each has its on trigger, and each has it’s own appeasement. 

Food won’t fix any of these feeling. It may comfort for the short term, distract you from the pain, or even numb you.

But food won’t solve the problem.

If anything, eating for an emotional hunger may only make you fell worse in the long run.

You’ll ultimately have to deal with the source of emotions.

8. RESPECT YOUR BODY. Accept your genetic blueprint. Just as a person with a shoe size of eight would not expect to realistically squeeze into a size 6, it is equally futile and uncomfortable to have a similar expectation about body size.

But mostly, respect your body so you can feel better about who you are.

It’s hard to reject the diet mentally if you are unrealistic and overly critical of your body she or shape.

All bodies deserve dignity.

9. MOVEMENT-FEEL THE DIFFERENCE. Forget militant exercise. Just get active and feel the difference..

Shift your focus to how it feels to move your body, rather than the calorie burning effect of exercise.

If you focus on how you feel from working out, such as energised, it can make the difference between rolling out of bed for a brisk morning walk or hitting the snooze button.

10. HONOUR YOUR HEALTH-GENTLE NUTRITION. Make food choices that honour your health and taste buds while making you feel good.

Remember that you don’t have to eat perfectly to be healthy. You will not suddenly get a nutrient deficiency or become unhealthy, from one snack, one meal, or one day of eating.

It’s what you eat consistently over time that matters.

Progress, not perfection, its what counts.

Always here to help.

Phil