Breaking Free From the Dieting Roller Coaster

I'm a Harvard grad , a social worker and a coach , so today I want to empower you with information that allowed me to get off the dieting roller coaster and my free you as well . Here's a story that draws from a few different clients . Juliet came to see me for weight loss In her mid-40s .

She had tried so many diets , yet here she was stuck with a lot of extra weight , uncomfortable in her own skin . She had tried to keep a positive attitude along the way , but she'd suffered a lot . She felt unattractive and like a failure because she could not achieve her goal .

Juliet and the rest of us have been trained to think that the key to weight loss is to restrict the calories we consume . We believe that we need to have willpower to restrain the part of us that wants the freedom to indulge in quote , fattening foods For some people .

Counting calories and using willpower is an effective formula that truly allows them to drop extra weight . More power to them . But for most of us , following the rules of a diet is actually a recipe for a painful dieting and regaining cycle .

America's standard approach of dieting and calorie counting has contributed to 70% of all adults in America being overweight or obese , with any compulsive behavior like overeating , drinking or smoking . Once the pattern gets triggered , it develops a life of its own .

It can feel like we are no longer in control , as if we have a crazy craving person inside us that has power over us . I know I felt that way when I was struggling with food . It's awful this craving part of us can get us to sabotage our heartfelt goals and priorities .

Back when I struggled with terrible binge eating , I would promise myself in the morning that I would be quote good and eat healthy in light that day . Then , just hours later , I would find myself all the way through a second package of Oreos , feeling bloated , scared and ashamed . What if we could integrate the two parts of ourselves ?

Here's the two parts First , the craving part , who wants the freedom to eat whatever the hell he or she wants , whether it makes us feel sick or not , and then integrate that with the second part , the part who wants to take good care of ourselves and lose weight and feel good in our skin now and in the future .

So I have a question why do you want to lose weight ? Maybe you're motivated by the desire to feel attractive or more confident . Maybe you want to lose weight to have better health or be able to do activities you used to love .

I think what we all have in common is we want to feel attractive or confident or healthy or be active , because the end result we all crave is simply to feel good . Feeling attractive or confident feels good emotionally . The absence of weight-related health issues and being active feels so good physically .

Feeling good is a common goal most every person , and also inner part of us , can rally around . On the other hand , the goal of quote losing weight comes loaded with all kinds of cultural conditioning , shoulds and shame .

To get free of the whole struggle around food and weight , Juliet , that client I mentioned and I decided she could experiment with placing her long-held wish to be then on the back burner . I think a lot of real change in life comes from just experimenting with things . She started prioritizing her desire to feel good ahead of her desire to be thin .

Juliet focused on eating what tastes good and focused on following her body's signals to eat the amount that will make her feel good for the hours after the meal . Well , you might say , but she's going to go off the rails . What if her craving self wants an entire pint of cherry Garcia every night ? But here's what often actually happens .

When we slow down and give ourselves permission to eat whatever we sense will feel good in our bodies in the moment and also will feel good afterwards , big shifts happen . This approach isn't about control . It's about maximizing pleasure . I can get on with that . If we try to maximize pleasure , we will naturally stop when we're getting full .

Being overly full simply doesn't feel good . You know those people who aren't overweight and order whatever they feel like eating and can effortlessly stop before they're full . I spent so many years envious of that kind of freedom from obsession . I desperately wanted to be a trim person who's also free to just be themselves .

When we stop trying to diet and instead we eat like one of those trim people who don't obsess about their weight , the craving part of us starts to see that they are not going to be made to feel deprived . That part starts to feel cared for and starts to relax and become less demanding .

The part of us that wants to lose weight and the craving , addictive part of us can integrate both of those parts . There can be a ceasefire in the war over being quote good or quote bad with food . You might be asking well , how do I actually pull this off ? Well , there's two steps . The first step is to eat slowly .

Now , I don't think you have to be mindful of every single bite , but when you eat slowly , two things happen . First , you get to enjoy more minutes of eating , tasty food , more actual quantity of pleasure so you don't actually need more quantity of food to get more quantity of pleasure .

And second , you will be able to pick up on your body's first signals that you might have had enough . So the first step eat slowly . The second step I call pausing . With permission , I'll explain .

You know , when you're eating a fabulous plate of food and you get the first sensations that you might soon be getting full , but you don't want to stop because it's so good . Well , for many people , pushing your plate away and pausing for a few minutes to wait and see if you still really want to keep eating is empowering .

It can keep us in the place of being able to choose whether to eat more , rather than the place of feeling completely compelled . If , after the pause , eating still feels good , then go ahead and enjoy some more bites . You can give yourself permission to eat whatever will feel good physically .

You can continue to take more pauses , which gives you the ability to stop before you become overly full . How you feel in your body is the guideline .

The guideline is not how many calories or ounces listed in a diet , so you know how healthy kids can dive into a cookie jar and then abandon the third cookie partway through because they've had enough and another activity now looks more fun . I love to help people find that flexible freedom .

Well , you might be thinking , but I've been out of control for so long that will not work for me . Well , personally , the permission to eat what I wanted and pausing and listening for my body's input is a huge part of how I got free of the obsession with food or weight .

After 13 years of binge eating disorder , I slowly learned I could trust myself around food . It still amazes me that my issues with food have been gone for 25 years . So back to this client , juliet . Week after week , juliet kept her focus on listening to her body's signals of hunger and fullness and what she truly wanted to eat .

She ended up eating a pretty balanced diet because that is what felt best in her body . She gave herself permission to eat a sweet treat when she really wanted one . It used to be that whenever Juliet would eat ice cream and she loved ice cream she would eat it really fast with a whole lot of guilt .

With the new approach , when she wants an ice cream cone , she walks to her favorite ice cream store and sits outside in the shade and enjoys that cone slowly and completely . When savored and fully enjoyed , treats can actually help clients lose weight . If our inner craving self knows that they can have a rich dessert without guilt , then they can relax .

This part of us can relax and not feel deprived . The cravings can start to calm . So I'd like to say one caveat here Many of people can tolerate some sugar and there's some people that cannot and that it interacts with all the hormones in their bodies and fuels a addictive cycle . So you'll know if you're someone who can eat sugar or not .

If you can't , there's still tons of great desserts you can have using sugar substitutes , like monk fruit , and that's Amazon mother O-N-K and it looks like sugar and it does not taste weird and I've been using it for years . Okay , so I just wanted to mention that Juliet and I discussed whether she wanted to weigh herself or not .

She decided to experiment with proceeding without weighing herself . You see , obsessing about the numbers on the scale had been part of her old pattern and she was now cultivating a new pattern . After three weeks she noticed that her pants felt looser and going up the stairs felt a little easier . Juliet ended up losing almost all of her extra weight .

She also lost the preoccupation and shame around food .

In our last session she said I can't believe this has happened to me . I have become one of those trim , healthy people who don't stress about food . I feel free . You too can break free from the painful dieting roller coaster and become one of those healthy people who don't obsess about food and weight .

Losing weight is fabulous and losing the obsession is wonderful too . Is this episode of the Happiness Coach helpful ? Please share it on social media or with someone you know is having a rough time . To learn more about my private coaching practice , visit my website . Helping you get unstuckcom . I see clients remotely and in Boulder , colorado .

I'm sending you my care and support . You can do this .