Diets are addicting. A quick fix promising fast results. It is very easy to get caught up in a cycle of diets. Somehow, it is satisfying to know that being on a “diet” puts parameters on your life leaving no room for uncertainty of what and when you will eat. But yet somehow, this wears off + you end up looking for the next best thing. If this is you, keep reading. The Vegetarian’s Guide to Stop Dieting will help you stop dieting. Forever.
Tara’s Tuesday Tips:
The Vegetarian’s Guide to Stop Dieting. Forever.
When you “diet” you put yourself in a cycle that can end up leaving you feeling frustrated. More often than not, as you near the last day of your rigorous set of rules + regulations, you can go back to normal, but instead of feeling like a new person, you are right back where you started. Let’s ditch this mindset for good + find some balance.
Tara’s Top 5 Tips to Stop Dieting Forever
1. Ditch the Food Rules
Food rules are proclamations you have made about food, often negative, allowing or denying permission around a certain food or food group. For example, “I am not allowed to eat carbohydrates”. Often, food rules start out with good intentions with a goal of health, disease prevention, or longevity in mind. However, they end up being restrictive and stripping you of the joy of eating the things that you ultimately need or want in your life. Coupled with this, when a food rule is broken, it puts you in the yo-yo cycle of breaking a rule with a deadline of starting it back up again.
So, what should you do?
Remove the rules. There is no other way around it. Food is food, it is nourishment + enjoyment. You might be surprised to hear, food is 100% both of these things + you MUST start treating it this way! Once you can do this, the food loses its power.
2. Remove the Good + Bad Labels
Food is food is food is food. Some foods are more nutritionally dense than others offering you more nutritional benefits than others. Alternatively, some foods are simply for enjoyment, camaraderie, or celebration. This should not and does not assign morality to foods.
So, what should you do?
Diet culture + the billions of dollars tied up in the world of dieting do not want you to find the balance between the good + bad. They want you to feel guilty about consuming “bad” foods, so you keep coming back to buy their “good” foods. Remove the labels + the morality + the stigma. Like magic, you remove the dieting. Think of foods lying on a spectrum from extremely nutritionally dense + necessary to purely providing enjoyment. All foods lie somewhere on this spectrum, not in one category or the other.
3. Know Your Signs of Hunger + Fullness
This should be the main thing that determines how much you eat + what time you eat. Many people love diets because they stick you on a rigorous schedule of what to eat + when. If you have been on one of these restrictive diets, you know all too well that eventually your body revolts or life gets in the way + the rules no longer work for you. You are left confused with no ability to understand your own hunger and fullness cues because you have ignored them for too long.
So, what should you do?
This one takes time. Take it from me. It isn’t easy to get back into a trust relationship with hunger and fullness and your body. The good news is, the more you tap into your own personal cues and not rely on external rules + counters + calendars, the closer you will be to ditching dieting forever.
4. Commit to Stop
Marketing is genius, and its sister – social media, together make you believe this one is it. This is the real deal. This one is going to solve all the problems. If you learn one thing from The Vegetarian’s Guide to Stop Dieting, learn this: if you jump on the newest and shiniest + most promising diet train every time one comes into the station, you will never be able to get off. You will just continue to jump from one to another to another and your confidence and your money will be lost on the many many trains.
So, what should you do?
Be wary of marketing of the latest fad diet. The all or nothing mentality is just going to keep you onto the train. There is plenty of evidence-based nutrition science to tell us that there is no magic diet. Pause + listen to what your body needs. Look for the confidence in yourself to understand what a balanced relationship with food looks like for YOU, not what you see scrolling through your phone.
5. Set Realistic Goals
Why diet? What is the goal? Health, improved biomarkers, endurance, longevity? You have to have a reason why you keep getting on every diet train that passes through the diet fad station. Know what it is + write it down. Reasonable, achievable goals are easier to achieve. The brand-new-me mentality you get into with a diet can leave you feeling like a failure + looking for the next best thing.
So, what should you do?
Find your why, write it down. Next, identify what labels and restrictions you have placed on foods from my list above. Then, start leaning into figuring out your hunger and fullness when the diet parameters are taken away. Finally, pay careful attention to how different foods make you feel. Above all, make sure one of your goals is to get off the never-ending diet cycle + find balance the between nourishment and enjoyment of food. This is the only way to stop dieting.
Food For Thought
Diets are created to keep you coming back for more. With these tips, I hope you can find the confidence to never say “I am going on a diet” again. As the new year is rolling in, remember, you don’t need a new you. What you might need is a you that has found the balance that food offers between nourishment + enjoyment, and the ability to understand the way food makes you feel. Remember, being vegetarian is not a diet! Being vegetarian is a choice that you make for yourself, your ethics, the planet, animals, or your health. Find your why. When you do, keep popping back here for more tips on how to enjoy good food in the company of good people and never go on a diet again!
A few other tips you might enjoy …
New Year’s Resolutions Worth Fighting For
10 Tips To Help You Stick To Your New Year’s Resolution
The Vegetarian’s Guide To Mindful Snacking
The Vegetarian’s Guide to Volume Eating
⭐Did you learn how to stop dieting forever? Leave a comment below!
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