What the slimming-clubs won’t teach you!
There’s something those big commercial slimming-clubs won’t teach you. You certainly won’t learn it from going on the latest faddy diet either. But it’s essential if you want to build healthy habits and feel good about yourself.
This week I wanted to talk about how it’s time to be kind to yourself. I want to talk about how actually being kind to yourself can help you get control of your eating.
You can watch the video I made on this below or keep scrolling if you prefer to read.
Time to be kind to yourself!
First of all, how does it help you when you guilt-trip yourself about the way you eat, or about food? When you look at food as something that’s bad – whether that’s specific foods or maybe you look at all food as ‘bad’. When you tell yourself that food is naughty or it’s wrong, or it should be banned, you feel bad when you eat it don’t you? Then you start calling yourself a bad person so you feel rubbish. When you feel rubbish you’re more likely to eat more to try and feel better.
Then before you know it you’re stuck in this guilt-binge cycle.
You overeat then you feel guilty, so then you eat more to try and feel better. But then you feel even more guilty and you end up going round and round in circles. You just feel miserable and frustrated, and food feels like this big stress. You end up with a horrible relationship with food, where you love it, but you hate it!
It’s time for a completely different perspective on food.
It’s time to take a different perspective about food that is so much kinder to yourself. Because let’s face it food is just food and nothing else. Time to ditch that morality that we attach to food, because it doesn’t make any sense. You’re not a good or a bad person depending on how you’ve eaten. You’re not good, because you’ve been eating right and you’re not bad because you’ve been eating things that you don’t think you should be eating.
Food is fuel and nourishment.
It’s time to focus on food as fuel, because that’s what it’s there for. Food is there to give you energy and to give your body nutrients. It’s not something to be focusing on restricting and you definitely don’t need to cut out your favourite things. There’s always stuff on the Internet about ‘the number one food that you should cut out to lose weight’. I hear all the time people promote diets where it’s all about a specific food you need to avoid to lose the weight. This isn’t what nutrition and healthy eating is about. We need to flip the focus away from restricting food or punishing ourselves with food and all of that crap! Instead focus on food as fuel and nourishment, because it’s much kinder to aim to nourish your body.
Look after yourself by giving your body what it needs. If you give your body the energy and the nutrients it needs you’re more likely to feel good. Then you’re more likely to do other things that help you feel good, like you’re more likely to sleep better. You’re more likely to feel like doing exercise. All of that then helps you to feel better and it’s like a positive cycle.
Self-care leads to more self-care.
When you’re kind to yourself and you look after your body you feel better, then you do more things that help you to be healthier. Then you feel better overall so you’re less likely to overeat and less likely to feel guilty about food. So it’s much better & kinder to yourself to focus on looking at food as a form of self care. Ask yourself “how can I look after my body? How can I feed & fuel my body?”
What to do if you’re stuck in a cycle of overeating.
If you’re stuck in a cycle of overeating and you end up feeling guilty about how you’ve eaten. You end up eating more and you just go round and round in circles. Here is something I want you to have a think about; just press the metaphorical pause button on everything. Instead of trying to change what you’re doing, start with self-awareness.
Be aware of yourself, how you feel and what you’re doing. Notice the situations where you overeat. Sometimes this can be hard, it takes practise just to recognise what’s going on. Ask yourself “when do I tend to overeat?” It’s all about observing what’s going on in that situation. So what’s actually happening or what’s just happened – spend some time exploring. How did you feel physically? How did you feel emotionally?
Notice without attaching judgement to those feelings, just notice and observe what’s going on. What were you saying to yourself? What was going through your mind? Do you recognise any beliefs that were popping up about that situation or stories that you were telling yourself? What kind of perspective were you taking on the situation?
Be curious and explore what’s going on with zero self-judgement
At this point it’s about exploring your thoughts and feelings without stressing about changing the situation or changing your reaction. This is really about pressing the pause button to learn self awareness, because it takes practise to be self-aware. Sometimes this can be the hardest part, recognising what’s going before you even get to changing habits. It can take time and practise to actually recognise what is going on and why you’re doing certain things.
So for now just get curious with zero judgement. Take a step back to pay attention to your feelings and thoughts. Be aware of what’s going on in the situation and how you responded. Trying to find out why you respond in that way so you can start questioning what you’re thinking and doing. Questioning what’s going on can sometimes be the first step to actually start the shift in your perspective.
Remember it takes practice
Simply asking yourself “why am I doing that?” Can sometimes be enough to help you start making some changes. Just remember that it all takes practice, it’s not something that’s going to change overnight. And obviously you know one big thing I would always say is allow yourself the treats, with zero guilt or self-punishment. No beating yourself up, you’re allowed to enjoy those treats.
Be kind to yourself, because life is just too damn short not to be kind to yourself.
And life is too short not to enjoy the cake and chocolate.
It is time to ditch dieting forever, because 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 will help you ditch dieting forever, either with my 1-2-1 support. Or if you prefer to work independently, you will learn all the skills I teach my 1-2-1 clients, on my ‘No More Diets’ online course.
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My Weekly Round-up! AKA; what I’ve been up to recently…
- Tea of the week has been vanilla chai tea. I always think it’s more of an Autumnal tea, but I’ve really fancied it this week. Although to be honest I’ve mostly been drinking loads of water as it’s been so hot again here.
- On Friday we went to our first wedding in about 5 years! Genevieve was so excited and she absolutely loved it – getting dressed up and dancing loads. She said we looked like princesses and daddy looked like the butler… oops! He looked very smart though, but that made us both laugh, don’t you love the funny things that kids come out with?!
- We ticked off another hill this weekend for our ’22 Hills in 2022′ challenge. Hill number 14 was Callow Hill with Flounder’s Folly at the top. It was a bit of a mistake to go to Shropshire Hills Discovery Centre first though. Genevieve was tired so there was a lot more whingeing than any other hill. She decided we should go up the short, but steep route which she enjoyed – it made my calves burn it was so steep! But then she wanted to go back that way too – nope too steep – she wasn’t happy that we went the longer, more gentle route down. She did really well though and walked all the way up and down.
- The rest of the weekend was about getting the wisteria in the back garden under control. I’m pleased with how it is now, but no sign of flowers yet. We’ve been in this house 5 years and I’ve only seen one bloom… fingers crossed there might still be time this year…
- The morning exercise routine is still going well, however we’ve not been doing much else this week as it’s been so hot. We did manage to get out for a few walks in the evening and the park wasn’t too bad after 4pm… in the shade anyway!
- Update on my ’22 New Books in 2022′ reading challenge: I think the last time I wrote that I’d been reading a few H. G. Wells novels. I finally finished ‘The First Men in the Moon’, which I wasn’t keen on to be honest – just a bit too weird… I’ve also just finished ‘The Island of Doctor Moreau’, which I preferred. So that brings me up to 14 books so far – 8 to go.
- Bird Nerd Report: Not seen many interesting birds at all this week. There’s been loads of gulls flying around Shrewsbury, which is weird to hear them calling as it feels like we’re by the sea and we’re a long way from the coast! We did see a heron fly out of a tree very close to us at one of the ponds at the Shropshire Hills Discovery Centre though – that made up for not seeing many dragonflies like I was hoping (the first time we went there, there were so many it was amazing!).
