Rebellion Eating
Sunday, March 14, 2021
You think to yourself 'thank god it's Friday.'
You've spent the entire week eating egg-white omelettes for breakfast, tasteless salads for lunch and having poached chicken and broccoli for dinner.
You're starving, feeling deprived and can't wait to go out tonight after work and have a few wines.
You tell yourself you'll just have two. That should do.
Two quickly becomes four. Then someone suggests you go get burgers. At first you think that's the last thing you want to eat. After all, you've been so good all week.
But you love burgers and rarely get the chance to have one. You decide not to be a party pooper and go along with everyone else. But you'll only get a burger, no chips and you won't eat the bun. Sorted!
The burger comes, with chips and you realise just how starving you are. You eat a few chips. They're sooo delicious then tell yourself, "oh what the hell I've blown it already, I may as well enjoy myself now" and you proceed to clean your plate.
You feel overfull. Bloated. You start justifying what you did. "I'll fix this tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll be super good. I'll skip breakfast and lunch and just have a salad for dinner. It'll be fine."
The next day you wake up and the first thing you do is get on the scales. The number has increased. You think 'I'll never get the body I want' and start to convince yourself you don’t really care, with thoughts like:
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Everyone struggles with their weight.’
‘It’s normal to gain weight after menopause.’
‘I can either be slim and restricted or fat and eat what I want.’
After all, achieving your desired body feels like such hard work and seems impossible.
I disagree.
You can have the body you desire AND enjoy what you eat. No matter what age you are.
The alternative to diet culture is not giving up and pretending you’re happy.
Or spending the rest of your life in stretchy pants.
You need to give up the restrictions. Give up the food rules. They are the problem, because they give you something to rebel against. Without them, there's no need to rebel!
People who don't diet don't have this "all or nothing," "black and white" approach.
The boom vs bust.
Where you're using massive amounts of willpower to eat smaller portions of "allowed" foods, only for the willpower to be broken, the floodgates open and before you know it you've eaten a burger the size of you head!
Or a bowl of pasta big enough for a family.
Where you suffer all week to cut back on calories then consume three days worth of calories in one fell swoop for something you hardly even remember eating!
People who don't diet don't experience the "what the hell" effect, where once you've started, you may as well keep going.
They don't experience scarcity mentality of "I'm never going to get that again, so I have to eat it all now."
They don't moralise food so that "Well I've been so good, this is my chance to be bad."
And they don't have regular episodes where they overeat because their willpower has broken down. ...AGAIN.
People who don't diet, think differently about food.
They eat what they want, as much as they want, when they're hungry and are able to stop when they've had enough.
They don't feel the need to finish everything on their plate.
They can leave a few mouthfuls of food and not think anything of it.
They listen to their body and are able to self regulate.
People who don't diet don't have rules to push against. To rebel against.
So they just eat.
You can have the slimmer, healthier body you desire without giving up the food you love.
But first you'll need to give up the food rules.
Instead of trying to control what you're eating, get curious about what your body is telling you.
Start listening to your perfect gauge.
After all, it's already there guiding you.
Hey! I'm Caroline
Dietitian & Eating Psychology Coach
Don't waste your time, destroy your energy levels or mess with your health by going on diets, restricting carbs or counting calories.
Life it to be enjoyed.
I believe you can live life AND manage your weight.
I share my thoughts on how you can do that on this blog...
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