It’s time to enjoy yourself & ditch dieting forever!
When it comes to making changes to reach your health goals – enjoying what you do is essential.
Otherwise, it just won’t last!
Whether you’re trying to lose weight, eat better or get fitter… or all 3! You need to enjoy the changes you make to get there. Or you’ll find it hard to stick to any of it.
Whatever you do to get to your goals, you have to keep doing FOREVER. When it comes to your weight & your health, it’s all about your habits. It’s not about what you do for a week or two.
Any changes you make to reach your goals, need to become new habits for life.
Building new habits is bloody hard because human beings are creatures of habit. We like to do what’s easy; what we’re used to doing.
There’s no point forcing yourself to do something you hate or it’s always going to be an uphill battle.
This is why I always recommend tweaking your current habits. If you’re only changing what you normally do by a small amount, it feels easier. It doesn’t feel like such a big thing that you have to work up to do. None of that clearing out all your cupboards and having that ‘last supper’ before you’re ‘not allowed’ to eat any of your favourite things ever again – stuff that bollocks!
You need to enjoy what you do because life is too damn short not to!
Are you trying to eat better?
I know you think you don’t deserve to enjoy your food!
Years of slimming-clubs making you feel guilty for even thinking about eating the full-fat/full-sugar goodies!
“You’re not allowed those, you stick to the DIET ones coz you’re on a DIET!”
Well, I call bullshit on that crap!
Enjoying your food – including the goodies like cake & chocolate – is an important part of healthy eating! If you love chocolate, then you have to keep having it or else you’ll feel deprived and crave it. Then you’re more likely to go down the ‘guilt-binge’ cycle.
Really enjoying your food can make a big difference to your appetite.
Forcing down tasteless diet/low-Calorie food leaves you feeling anything but satisfied. You’re more likely to end up over-eating… then binge-eating to try and cover up the guilt from overdoing it!
Wouldn’t you rather learn to enjoy well-balanced meals made up of normal foods instead?
And of course, that includes the full-fat, full-sugar, diet-free goodies – coz life without cake & chocolate is just a bit shit really, isn’t it?!
Instead of trying to cut out all the things you love, just aim to have the treats occasionally. If you know you’re having the chocolate too often, just try to reduce it by a little bit to start with. Make changes gradually.
Turn your attention towards nourishing your body. Ask yourself what you need to eat instead of reminding yourself what you’re trying to limit.
There’s no need to force yourself to eat stuff you hate either. If you don’t like lettuce don’t eat it – there’s plenty of other veg you could have instead. Sometimes you just need to try new ways of cooking things.
You can still cook your favourite recipes, just think about whether they need to be tweaked a bit to make them healthier. Do you need to add more veg or swap the added salt for more herbs & spices? Could you stir-fry or grill something instead of frying or roasting it?
Make your food tasty and you’re more likely to feel satisfied after eating it. When you feel satisfied, you’re less likely to snack between meals and have cravings.
Need to move more?
Stop thinking of exercise as a form of punishment. Instead see it as a way of celebrating your body. Celebrate the ways you can move your body and how amazing it is.
Move your body to keep it healthy and have fun. Rather than torturing your body coz it’s ‘not good enough’ or you think you have to earn the right to eat! Focus on all the benefits of exercising, like sleeping better, feeling stronger & building flexibility.
Think about what activities you enjoy doing. Exercise doesn’t have to be about slogging it out at the gym if you hate that like me.
What ways do you like to move? If you enjoy it, you’re more likely to keep doing it. Whereas if you hate the exercise, it’ll feel harder to do it. Then you’ll find any excuse to let yourself off doing it. So, find something you look forward to doing. Or at least something that makes you feel good afterwards, so you can use that good feeling to motivate you to do it!
Exercise is something you have to do regularly to get all the amazing benefits. Remember it’s like a current bank account, where you have to keep putting money in and out for it to stay active. It’s not like a savings account where you can deposit a load of money then leave it for years. That month long bootcamp might help you feel fit, but the fitness will drop off if you do nothing else for the rest of the year!
Is there something else you need to sort out to enjoy your life?
You know when it comes to getting control of your weight once and for all. Sometimes it’s got nothing to do with food.
There’s ‘other stuff’ going on.
You just need to tackle that and then the rest slots into place.
Like my client Rachel (not her real name), who was frustrated after trying ALL the diets to lose weight & ended up 4 sizes bigger than when she started.
She already ate regular, balanced meals throughout the day; that wasn’t the issue.
Her problem was turning to chocolate & wine to unwind every evening. She also admitted that whenever things got tough, she turned to chocolate/biscuits to feel better. It never helped.
No diet-plan was ever going to address these problems. In fact, by demonising the chocolate, biscuits & wine — labelling them as bad/naughty/banned — dieting made it worse.
Every diet she failed, left her reaching for choc/wine more & more. The bigger she got the less exercise she did. She was embarrassed of her body. It all seemed too much for her to get control of.
We started small; looking at more helpful ways she could relax & unwind. I taught her ways to cope & deal with her issues instead of using food as a crutch. Of course, she could enjoy the wine & chocolate, but she learnt she didn’t need to have it all the time.
Does this sound familiar? Is it time for you to make that difficult decision or have that difficult conversation? Maybe you need to look for a solution to that problem you’re having rather than comfort eating?
How can you enjoy your life more?
If you feel more fulfilled and satisfied in your life, then you’re less likely to comfort eat or turn to food as a crutch.
Sorting out what’s ‘wrong’ in your life will help you way more than going on yet another shitty diet.
Time to ditch dieting forever and learn how to enjoy yourself.
You deserve better.
Need help to ditch dieting forever? Want to eat normally again AND lose weight healthily ..? While still enjoying the cake & chocolate? Hell yes!
I can help you ditch dieting forever, either with my 1-2-1 support. Or if you prefer to work independently, you can learn all the skills I teach my 1-2-1 clients, on my ‘No More Diets’ online course.
My Weekly Round-up! AKA; what I’ve been up to recently…
- This week’s blog has been powered by Vanilla Chai Tea – coz it was feeling really autumnal, until I realised loads of buds were popping up! Spring is in the air… bit early though isn’t it?!
- I had fun being a Supporting Artiste, filming for a TV programme. The scene I’m in is set in the 70s, but I may only be visible very briefly. I have so much I could share, but I’m not allowed to yet!
- Really enjoying my morning walks along the brook after the school run. Loads of signs that spring is on it’s way. I could even smell the wild garlic this morning!
- I was pretty gutted as my first Aerial Hoop class last week was cancelled last minute. But I went tonight and it was amazing. Sooooo hard, but good fun. I’ve woken up muscles that have never been used before and I’m going to hurt so much tomorrow. But can’t wait to have another go next week!
- We didn’t go up any hills at the weekend as we decided to go litter picking down by the brook. Plus we had a few bits n bobs sorted round the house. We’ve been in this house for over 4 years now and it was a real ‘fixer-upper’! We stripped out pretty much everything when we first got the keys and we’ve been slowly doing the place up since then. This week we had some new lights put in the kitchen and a heated towel rail installed in the bathroom.
- Bird Nerd Report: this week has been all about the woodpeckers! Every time I go out I either see at least one or I hear them hammering away in the trees. The ones round here are the red, black & white ones. I saw three grey wagtails flitting around the brook at one point. I also saw a kingfisher yesterday, practically doing a loop-the-loop! I’ll never get bored of seeing that streak of electric blue whizzing past!
