With most diets we need to eliminate something, maybe it is sugar or perhaps it is all carbohydrates?
Think of all the diets (probably every diet you have been on!) where you have been deprived of something, how did you feel and what happened?
For me, the banned item became my most desired food.
My husband still remembers the time I bit of the end of his sandwich when the front part was in his mouth. Two weeks without my favorite food will do that to you!
Becoming a Dieter in Recovery I made a pact: No foods were banned.
I limit, but I don’t exclude food.
Did I go crazy and eat my favorite foods in a big binge?
I didn’t , because I had guidelines about bringing my trigger foods in to the house. Buy in bulk, eat in bulk, seemed to be my pattern for certain items. Instead I choose to enjoy these items in small quantities at a restaurant.
As my husband does not drink, I choose to drink wine when I go out. I don’t have bottles in the house. For me wine is something I enjoy with company and drinking alone seems sad and often I will over indulge. With too much wine, I have the munchies and I am back to old patterns of eating.
There is something about starting with denial that puts me in a negative frame of mind. My association with dieting, before I started on this new path, was about deprivation.
What a terrible way to start anything?
I knew if I wanted to change my relationship to food and my body, I needed to start on a positive note.
My new eating is based on a balanced, nutritionally nourishing and satisfying plan that gives me a healthy (physically and emotionally) relationship with food and my body.
There are no good or bad foods. I eat until I am satiated (not stuffed and uncomfortable). Eating bags of chips never satiated me, it made me feel out of control and emotionally led me on a path of shame and self abuse. Physically it made me feel nauseous and bloated.
But excluding the chips, the bread or the sugar was never the answer. Saying no did not work. I felt deprived and sad.
Once I gave myself permission to eat these foods (not when I had a big emotional hunger, but just as an enjoyable pleasure) I relaxed, as I knew I could sustain this for life.
Eliminating foods because of the affect on your body, be it an allergy or a feeling of discomfort, because of the way you process it, is a good reason for eliminate a food. But eliminating it because it is the latest fad, diet keeps you locked in the dieting cycle.
The goal for me was freedom from dieting. It was worth it. You are so worth it.
Thanks for reading,
Christina