Dieting Makes You Think Bad Things About Yourself-Like You Only Like Junk
When I was a dieter, I thought that I was a huge eater, that I craved junk, and that I was always hungry. I never thought that if given any choice, I would order fruit. I thought for sure I would order pancakes.
This perspective was reinforced every time I broke my diet. I would ravenously chow down all kinds of junk. I would eat until I felt ill. I would “binge.” And this behavior made me believe that I was hopeless and would never be able to be a naturally thin and healthy eater.
Well, guess what.
The reason I behaved like that was because all the dieting I had done. I didn’t binge because I was “bad,” I binged because I had tried to be so “good!”
When you take that restrictive, joy-sucking mentality away, your true food personality emerges. With no fear of a future diet, and with no “payback” from diet restrictions, you and your body relax. You start to realize that eating for the “hell of it,” or eating without hunger is not joyful or fabulous.
Eating when hungry is! So you begin pairing eating with hunger and that normal and healthy relationship between hunger and eating emerge. And that healthful pattern allows you to normalize both your weight, and your relationship with food.
If you don’t believe this is true, I understand. I didn’t think it could be this simple. But, it is. It truly is. Messing with your body by dieting is so much more impactful than doctors tell us. Your body does not want you to scare it by ignoring hunger.
Get your hunger/eating relationship back in order and great, no fabulous, things happen.
One day at a time, one eating occasion at a time. You CAN do this.
And remember, waiting to eat until you are hungry, is not denying, it is simply delaying.