I don’t know about you, but I certainly ate more sweets in the last three days than I normally do.
How do you feel today?
I know how I used to feel after an ‘indulgent’ weekend. Crappy.
Tired, bloated, and ‘fat’. Easter Monday was time to get back on track; clean up my diet; take control.
Even just writing that leaves me feeling a little anxious. I remember how determined I would get and the pressure that I would put on myself to finally get my sh*t together. It would leave me feeling with a mix of hope and fear.
Spring is here which means that shorts and t-shirts and *gasp* bathing suits are coming. I would look at my body and think – yep, not going happen like this. Add that to the lethargy left over from a weekend of family dinners and chocolate and it was the perfect storm for one last diet.
You know what stops me from doing that now?
The simple truth that diets don’t work. In fact, it’s a great way to gain weight. And yes, this includes the clean eating ‘wellness’ dieting that we’ve adopted instead.
Now, does that mean that I’m not thinking about my health and how I feel today? Heck no. I just approach it differently now.
It’s my Food Happens – Get Over It process.
RELEASE
“for there’s nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so, and so it is a prison”
– Hamlet
The first step to getting over the food is to release myself
from whatever I did with the food.
If I overate that’s all that happened. The extra narration (“I’m such a pig”, “I have no will power”, “sugar is toxic and I need to cut it from my life”) is all added by me. None of it is true.
It’s what we call The Food Police. It’s the voices and ‘truths’ that I’ve accumulated over my lifetime. Release is about forgiveness. If I punish myself for my food choices over the weekend, I only add fuel to the fire and keep the guilt alive longer. And I keep those foods emotionally charged. Every human being wants what they can’t have.
REALIGN
“Keep it simple and focus on what matters. Don’t let yourself be overwhelmed.”
– Confucius
It’s easy to get caught up in a lifestyle overhaul. As I shared in my Mindful Meal Planning webinar a couple of weeks ago, that doesn’t work.
Focus on what really matters.
I know that the reason why I’m not loving how my body looks
and feels today is because of how I feel. It’s not really about how I look.
So what matters, is coming back to respecting and caring for my body.
This leads us into step three…
RELEARN
“exercise because you love your body, not because you hate it”
In diet culture getting back on track means cutting out or cutting back (aka restriction). And/or hitting the gym to make up for my indulgences (aka punishment).
In Intuitive Eating and Body Acceptance culture getting back
on track means:
- speaking to my body as though I loved it (or at
least respected it) - honouring my hunger (not skipping or skimping)
- feeling my fullness (and stopping if I’m full or
getting more if I’m not) - respecting my likes and dislikes (not choking
down green smoothies or eliminating carbs) - meeting my basic needs of sleep and rest
- moving my body in a way that feels good (not pushing
it when it’s screaming to stop) - taking care of my emotional needs (so that I don’t
turn to food for comfort)
I chose to be a certified Intuitive Eating counsellor is because it’s how I can bridge the gap between the anti-dieting world and the health world. I’m not interested in being a part of the ‘f*ck it I’m eating whatever I want and don’t care’ approach. But I simply cannot support diet culture anymore – even in the name of health. It causes so much harm both physically and emotionally.
I hope that on this Monday, you will consider ‘getting back on track’ in a new, more respectful way.
Dedicated to helping you find peace and power with your body,
