Have you ever started a diet, made out your shopping list, purchased all the needed foods from the store and went for it. I mean went for it with all your heart and all your might. And for a few weeks, maybe even a few months and maybe even a year…things were going soooo well. You were losing the weight you expected to lose, you were dropping pant sizes and you thought “FINALLY I FOUND THE SOLUTION!!” Only to have it slip away. And it was like water running through your fingers. As hard as you try you can’t hold onto it. And you go from feeling like you are on the top of the world to beating yourself up as you see the needle on the scale get higher and higher and you are back to the heavy clothes side of your closet once again. Does this sound familiar?
Then what happens? You make the decision that it had to be you not the diet that failed, so you start looking for a better/different one. And you survey the diet choices based upon the foods that you are allowed to eat. Do any of these sound familiar?
Low carb – South Beach and many others
No Carb – Atkins Diet
Low Fat
Zero Sugar
Whole 30
Plant Based
Paleo
Keto
And the list goes on and on. You may have done some or all of these. You go back and forth between diets and your closet of skinny clothes/heavy clothes wondering why none of these work for you.
The truth is that food is neutral. For example, in Sally Sue’s body moderate amounts of sugar is uplifting and nurturing and doesn’t lead to weight gain; yet in Betty Lou it drains her energy, leads to joint pain and is just flat out wrong. But the same goes for lettuce! In Sally Sue’s body lettuce leads to poor digestion and feeling drained while in Betty Lou’s body lettuce is nurturing and makes her feel satisfied and full of energy. I hope as you read this you catch the excitement that it’s not the food and you haven’t failed on any diet – that diet has failed you! But, you may also be thinking “Yeah Right?! NO WAY” weight loss is just easy it’s calories in/calories out of course it has to do with the food!
Why wouldn’t you think that? The programming and opinions on food are everywhere you look and are likely present in your own family. Everywhere you look you are reminded that food is the start of thin. TV shows that depict the thin man or woman eating celery and carrots where the heavier character is the one having the ice cream, pizza and spaghetti.
I am happy to see magazines like “Shape” Magazine are getting on the bandwagon of declaring that restrictive diets play a negative role on the body both physically and mentally. While I still feel they are missing one key ingredient to fully bring the mind and body to peace in this area it is a good start. Here is just a small sample of how Food Restrictive Diets impact the body:
Lead to Food Trigger overeating – the body actually begins craving the very food that is cut out. Similar to anything that is forbidden. And we all know how that ended with the forbidden fruit. A better choice would be to have that food in moderation. If you don’t “trust yourself” with that food then maybe only buy it once a week and encourage your body that it is available at the store if you really want to eat it to start.
When I first agreed to stop food restrictions and allowed my body to choose, I was worried that even buying a big bag of potato chips or Doritos would be super dangerous. But in reality, it isn’t. Chip bags can stay in my house for months and I will grab a few here and there. Full disclosure that wasn’t just from the decision to stop restricting. I paired that with internal healing practices at the same time.
Damage Hormone levels that help the body regulate food – the body produces hormones to help regulate itself. When there is restriction,
especially with food groups or times you allow yourself to eat, the body gets confused. The hormone receptors get all wonky and your body starts to produce less of the hormones needed to read the fat stores properly. This can trigger the body to hold onto more fat instead of using it’s own energy stores from the fat cells. The exact opposite effect you are going for. And you don’t even know it’s happening until it’s too late.
o But don’t lose hope – these hormones can be rebalanced. And yes, there are supplements or treatments to add these hormones back into the body. I do recommend checking in with your body (I use several methods with my clients) to ensure that is what the body wants. If there are other ways your body wants to heal first, then you will be throwing good money after those solutions because they still will not yield the results you are looking for. Once your body heals the internal then it may be ready for a solution like that was well.
Restricting food stimulates a starvation script for your body – YIKES! So, restricting food is telling your body it is starving which leads to it doing exactly what it is designed to do…protect. This goes hand in hand with the hormone regulation and so much more. The more you restrict the more it protects, and the cycle goes. The stats are staggering:
o 85% of dieters gain weight or inches WHILE ON A DIET
o 96% of dieters don’t lose any weight WHILE ON THE DIET
Food is never the only reason that your body is heavier than you think it should be. And perhaps your body isn’t heavier than what it is supposed to be, you just think it is. When did you start your first restricting diet? Was it in school when you compared yourself to the images of what society considers “right” and “good” for a body. There you were, the teen or young adult, comparing yourself to the women on the big screen, the TV screen, the magazines and knowing you didn’t look like they did. But what your mind was not focusing on was that it was only one body type that was depicted as “right”. They don’t ever show you the other amazing body types that God designed. They only show the straight size 0,2,4. And don’t get me wrong there are people that are designed to be that body type and they don’t have to work hard to maintain it. For them it is perfectly perfect! But, making that body type right for them doesn’t make the more curvy size wrong for you! And when you are young you trust the information around you. You believed that the only way was to restrict your food intake to get “right.”
And by that time the damage was done. You woke something within your body that had the opposite affect than desired – it’s too late you are now get bigger then smaller (yo-yo dieting) or just bigger and bigger. And not knowing what is going on inside as you move from one restrictive diet to the other thinking you just chose incorrectly the first or last time. It’s time to stop that cycle to heal from the inside out. When I work with the clients we get to the root cause of those feelings of guilt, shame, frustration, anger. And you may have very little outside trauma in your life. But the diet cycles feel like trauma to your body. All of that self-talk of being so stupid and not being able to make a simple diet work. And until that is fully cleared it will resist letting the weight go. The body uses weight as protection. It is doing its job. It’s just not yielding the result you desire.
If you are ready to make peace with your body, to stop the war within then head over here to see what it could be like working 1:1 with me. This is not just another cookie cutter program. Working 1:1 with me allows us to get to the unique root(s) and clear the ones that are keeping you from achieving what you desire in life. What are you waiting for? It doesn’t take anything to fill out the application and schedule an exploration call 😊
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