Are you ready to give up dieting?
6 months ago I was at a crossroads - I knew that I was stick of dieting but I was scared to give it up. The cycle of restricting and binging, tracking everything I ate and over-exercising had left me tired and filled with anxiety. I knew dieting was no longer serving me or my goals - but the concept of giving up dieting seemed impossible. I was scared to take back control; taking control back from the tracking apps, my Fitbit and the scales. Taking the leap into a more intuitive lifestyle meant trusting myself, something that I was not confident doing.
I was scared what other people would think - I hadn’t reached my goal weight and I had spent the last year telling anyone who would listen about my new lifestyle. It had become part of my personality, I had even pursued health and fitness as a new career! If I wasn’t desperately trying to lose weight then would people think I was lazy, undisciplined or unmotivated? Would they think I had given up?
The term ‘letting myself go’ came up a lot in my internal musings. What I have come to realise is pursuing a more intuitive lifestyle is actually letting myself live. I can pursue all the health promoting behaviours I love - eating a wide variety of foods, exercising regularly, sleeping well and resting without worrying about my body stats. I have given myself the freedom to live my life with less fear, more presence and flexibility. I am starting to establish a more peaceful relationship with my body and declutter my brain so I have more space for the things that actually matter.
The thought that we are ‘letting ourselves go’ if we give up on intentional weight loss is promoted by the diet industry, this messaging serves them well. It creates the thought that we need to lose weight or be striving to achieve the ‘perfect body’ to prove our value. We don’t need to do that. We need to make sure that we are engaging in behaviours that make our body feel good. Our mental and physical health are the most important consideration, not our outward appearance - finding wellness without the obsession.
So how do you know if you are ready to turn away from society’s standards and let yourself actually enjoy and live your life? How do you get started?
You keep losing weight then gaining it back
Eating all the ‘healthy foods’ feels like a chore
You feel like you are obsessed with food and want some relief
You don’t trust yourself around food
You have been dieting on and off for years without success
You feel a sense of anxiety around exercise
The best way to get started is to ditch the diet tools - the tracking apps, your Fitbit and the scales. Any external measure that can determine how you feel about your body - instead shift the focus and value how you feel in your body. It’s okay if you don’t feel great all the time - you don’t have to strive for body positivity straight away, focus on body acceptance - appreciate what your body can do instead of how it looks.
Another great starting place is to actively step away from diet culture - go through your social media and unfollow anyone that makes you feel unworthy - those accounts you followed as ‘thinspiration’, the health food accounts, anything that makes you feel the need to diet. Instead, find other accounts that encourage you to accept your body as it is, those that present ways to improve health without changing your body shape.