Until I discovered more healthy ways to lose weight, I used to be the queen of deprivation.
I remember every time I started a new diet I would pretend I was happy about it when I was really miserable. When I would be out with friends, or at work, I would look around at what everybody else was eating and despite salivating I would think to myself, no sweat, because once I get this weight off, I am going to down a whole box of cookies. Only first, I need to lose the weight so for the next few months, I will cut all my favorite foods, and then I will go back to eating them.
Looking back, I think to myself, "How much sense did that make?" I mean honestly. It is utterly insane yet I did it all the time. Sometimes as often as every few weeks! I used to come up with these crazy rules too, like I would start a diet at 1pm on Friday and I had until 1pm four Fridays from that Friday to lose ten pounds. There was no real strategy in place mind you, other than eat less exercise more, I just had to achieve the goal by that date.
Another time, in an effort to not deprive myself, I went on the all pudding diet, where the only thing I could eat was pudding, which you can imagine after so much pudding, you do not want any more pudding. That completely backfired.
(One reason it backfired other than the obvious was because I was in fact depriving myself, just in another way. I was not getting any greens or protein or good fats so my body starting sending me signals to force me to start eating other foods, which, in my mind, translated to failure because I could not stick to just eating pudding!)
I used to suffer from anxiety too and when my anxiety would peak, I could not eat, which I saw as a good thing because I would always lose weight. Sometimes my panic attacks lasted weeks or even months, and I would always drop fat, so that was one strategy I used to lose weight too, but it is not one I would recommend. In fact, none of these are! They are silly ideas we come up with when we get desperate.
Chronic dieters are commonly known for depriving themselves, which is a losing strategy because it is akin to starvation and sends the same message to your body, which is slow metabolism, shut off fat burning and store fat. Your body pretty much thinks you are on a desert island when you try to cut back or restrict, therefore, despite the most common claims and weight loss methods that involve calorie restriction, it actually induces weight gain versus loss.
I was programmed from a very young age (as most of us are) that there are certain food rules that we must follow in order to lose weight and one of them is to deprive ourselves of all the foods we love. We begin to believe that it is absolutely essential to the process and if we fail at it, then we fail at weight loss altogether, which from my own experience, has proven hardly true.
For starters, I do not know how to deprive myself. I am just not good at it. When I want something, I want it and that includes food because if I tell myself no, I will just keep thinking about whatever it is I want. In other words, my desire for it is not going to just miraculously disappear because my willpower somehow outwit it.
So I eat it, and I am not fat. I do not eat heaping handfuls of whatever it is, but I eat it, but if you want to know a secret, the truth is sometimes I do binge on it and overeat, and I am still not fat.
Because there are times when I find myself overeating or binge eating, because I have my moments like everyone else. It is not all day everyday, but it happens and I just let it go. I figure that I either did not eat a balanced meal last time I ate so I got too hungry, or it is so good that I ate beyond being satiated, or I am avoiding something - whatever the case may be. And so what? I am not perfect. None of us are. But I am in much more control than I would be if I tried to deny myself and not eat whatever it is I'm craving.
My new strategy is to look for the reasons behind my actions and determine what made me react how I do, without self-judgment, because I love food and I am not about to go through life not eating food that makes me happy. Because it does. Food is one of the greatest pleasures we have so it does not make sense to.
Ironically we have a skewed view on pleasure in our society, in that something that brings us pleasure should make us feel guilty. I would love to know who came up with that one!
One caveat I have though about what I eat is that it is the highest quality food. Organic, hormone free, gluten free, dairy free food. Low sugar and raw when possible too. Those are my food rules.
By eating this way, there is never a need for me to feel guilty and I do not feel deprived.
When you deprive yourself, you just wind up way worse off because it becomes an obsession and when you finally do give in - because let's face it, you will - your binges will last for weeks, sometimes years, so just let yourself have whatever it is you want now, and make your obsession more about the quality of your food and keeping meals balanced. That way you will never feel like you are missing anything and you will take your focus off the food on your plate and put it on non-food forms of food such as inspiring work, quality relationships, or moving your body in ways that you love and naturally feel good.
When you do that, you'll be fed in ways that food itself could never feed you.
Are you a busy entrepreneurial woman whose self-image and weight issues are holding you back from fulfilling your life's destiny? Claim your FREE audio 5 Ways Improving Your Health Will Improve Your Bottom Line at http://angelaminelli.com.
Angela Minelli is an Emotional Eating Coach and Digestive Health Expert, author, speaker and founder of Angela Minelli International, a heart-based global business serving purpose-driven women entrepreneurs whose self-image and weight issues are inhibiting their confidence and blocking them from pursuing their life's passion. She takes a stand for women who are living less than ideal lives, stopped by unnecessary fears that prevent them from stepping into their power and delivering their God-given genius to the world. Her coaching programs and products are designed for women with complex lifestyles yet allow for powerful transformation to take place within a small segment of time.
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