A lot of my clients are in the midst of developmental milestones with their physiology. They are Mum’s navigating changes to their post-baby bodies or women going through perimenopause or menopause and they are struggling to make peace with weight gain.
This creates new vulnerabilities for body image distress and eating issues for women.
Young or middle aged, for many, the focus on appearance and youth intensifies as their bodies age and progress through the natural stages that include weight gain, greying hair, and wrinkled skin.
The good news is, there is another way to live. And that way is found when you stop fighting the size your body wants to be and you start working with your body.
If you’re new to the non-diet approach, intuitive eating and body image healing here’s 5 tips to help you make peace with your weight that little bit easier.
This is how you can make peace with your weight?
1. Understand that weight gain for women in their 40’s and 50’s is normal and healthy.
As much as we hate the “middle age spread”, it is thanks to hormonal changes that we go through during peri/menopause.
Essentially we have a drop in oestrogen which causes an increase in central adiposity (stomach fat), insulin sensitivity and a slower metabolism.
“When your ovaries no longer produce oestrogen, the body’s adipose tissue (fat tissue) takes over to produce and regulate oestrogen in the body. An increase in body fat is our bodies’ way of adapting in order to regulate oestrogen production as we age. Since oestrogen depletion is the main cause of many of the negative side effects associated with menopause, increased regulation of this hormone can help mitigate many of these undesirable symptoms”.
Research shows it is natural for women to gain anywhere from three to six (plus) kilograms during menopause no matter how good our diets are.
Instead of obsessing about losing the weight, we can think about it like this – as a moderate weight gain that is associated with longer life. check out the research below:
People who live in a larger body as defined by their Body Max Index (BMI) — tend to live longer than their normal-weight counterparts, according toa new Danish study.
2. Accept that your body will never be perfect (and that perfect doesn’t exist).
The first thing I want to say about this is – Victoria’s Secret models get photoshopped…full stop.
Honestly, how many YEARS have you wasted trying to lose weight and wishing your body looked differently? Where did all that body hate get you?
At some point, you need to decide that your body is okay. You may not like it or love it right now, but it is what it is – your home. Your one and ONLY body.
However, this does not mean you stop working towards being healthy. This is not about giving up!
What it does mean is you will stop punishing and hating body and yourself for not conforming to your (and societies) unrealistic views of what your body “should” look like. And instead, you begin learning to accept and surrender to the body you inherited.
When you start being kind and respectful towards yourself, eating healthier and moving more does become easier.
I inherited big saggy boobs and a double chin. My sister and I always joke around about having “the family chins”. No matter how thin I get, I always have two or three chins! I’ll never have a nice jawline.
I have more than one stomach roll when I sit down (which is normal) and cellulite all over on my thighs. I spent two decades hating my body, when that time, energy and money could have been put to much better use.
At some point, I realised that hating my body was ruining my life and getting me nowhere. When I finally accepted my natural shape, looking after my body with intuitive eating and regular enjoyable movement became so much easier.
It also gave me back my sanity, mental health, social life, and better relationships.
My body isn’t perfect but it’s healthy and strong.
There are genetic, biological, environmental, social and other non-diet related factors that determine a person’s unique ‘set point range’. The weight a person naturally tends to be without restricting food and over exercising.
And that weight will, of course, be different for everyone.
For example, height is mostly determined by genetic factors – some environmental factors may influence it a little, but for the most part, it is what it is.
Some people are shorter than average while others are taller than average. People generally accept that we can’t change our height, it’s just the way we were born.
Think of all of the thousands of different dog breeds that have different body shapes, lifespans and health risks.
Each one has evolved to use food differently for different specialities at surviving; some for staying warm, some for running fast, and some for being strong.
Dogs are meant to be different shapes, sizes and consequently, their weight will be different.
We don’t expect all dogs to weigh the same, but our modern society has brainwashed us into believing all bodies should be the same size – one size fits – thin. Stop and think critically, how realistic is that?
When you look at your great grandmother, grandmother, mother and siblings, what kind of body did or do they have?
For the most part, most people will have similar body shapes and sizes, or similar features such as bigger breasts and rounder tummies.
Also know that the research tells us weight is also influenced by socio-economic factors, trauma, social support or the lack thereof, and freedom from racism, violence, sexism, poverty, weight stigma, and so on.
Perhaps your set point weight range is higher than average, higher than you’d like it to be, or higher than others (your doctor, family, the media, etc.) have said it ‘should’ be…then what?
This is where we can return to the example of height, and remind ourselves of the idea that ‘it is what it is’.
You cannot change your genetic makeup or your natural set point weight range. Therefore, being at peace with your weight involves full acceptance of your body as it is—height, weight, shape, and all!
4. Stay off the scale and focus on healthy behaviours, not weight.
If there was someone in your life that made you feel terrible about yourself 90% of the time, a typical response would be to set your boundaries with that person and stop seeing them.
Therefore, one of your first steps to making peace with your weight, is to recognise if you have a toxic relationship with your scale?
Your weight will continue to matter more than it needs to until you stop getting on the scale. It will also keep you stuck in a cycle of dieting, obsessing about food (which often means you eat more, not less) and hating your body.
Instead, focus on how your clothes fit and feel, and if they are starting to feel a bit tight, the best thing you can do is buy yourself a couple of new pieces of clothing that fit your now body. Check out the op shops for second-hand pieces.
When you feel pretty. You feel confident.
It’s also remarkable how well-fitting clothes can actually make you appear thinner without losing a pound.
When I stopped intentioanlly trying to lose weight and started focusing on being healthy instead, I ended up stabilising my weight, naturally, and easily.
5. Know that everyone (who matters) loves you as you are.
Hey, I get it. This can sound just as cliched as someone saying to a single person, there’s plenty of fish in the sea…
However, when you get to a point in your relationship with your body and you’re at peace with your weight, you really do not care what other people think. You’re doing this for yourself.
In saying that, one of the many things I learnt in my eating and body image recovery, is that people don’t demand a perfect body from you. They love you for you.
Fat, thin, curvy or athletic. Your smile, your warmth, your dedication, your creativity, your humour, your love…you.
In all honesty, it’s what’s on the inside that matters the most. You don’t love your best friend because she’s a “good” weight, you love her for who she is.
Now, none of this will come easy. We live in a thin is best world (apparently). We can’t escape that, but we can become resilient to it.
At the end, when our bodies are changing, it’s time to hold on and not put yourself under additional stress.
Just as in previous changes: puberty, pregnancy, etc., things will settle down.
Any time you’re tempted to start another diet, I suggest to my clients to write a list of the pros and cons to starting another diet.
Think honestly about the way you would need to eat, move and live in order to achieve and maintain your ideal weight?
What would the likely outcome be?
How long would that outcome last for?
Would you be happy and healthy physically, mentally and emotionally?
I’m not against weight loss.
However, if you want to make peace with your weight, your body and food, any weight loss should be an added bonus through changing health behaviours you can sustain. Not by being stuck in a rinse and repeat cycle of dieting, eventual bingeing and body dissatisfaction.
If you feel chronically unhappy with your body and weight, this is very similar to spending your life driving around in your car with the hand brake on. It is physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually draining and damaging.
Have faith that there is another world out there waiting for you on the other side of diets and weight loss obsession.
The more you can be patient, and take the long view, the more you’ll be rewarded in the end. This all takes time. Time for you to learn how to be at ease in your body and to get to know what she can and can’t do (yet).
Nothing stays the same, ever, whether we want it to or not. Especially our bodies.
If you want more help to make peace with food and your weight, and do it right, then don’t hesitate to get in touch with me.
It can be really easy to feel stuck in a cycle of restricting and overeating. Old habits. Old beliefs. Old stories. In this blog I delve into how you can get unstuck from your unhealthy eating and stop overeating habits.
How to stop overeating habits
Over the years, through behavioural patterns you repeat, you have created a neural pathway in your brain that has created these habits with food and eating.
If you instinctively reach for a coffee the moment you wake up in the morning, you have a habit. By the same token, if you feel inclined to lace up your running shoes and go for a run as soon as you get home from work, you have a habit.
Old habits die hard, and creating healthy eating habits that last more than a couple of weeks can often be harder to develop than we would all like.
However, the good news is, through repetition, it’s possible to form—and maintain—new healthy eating habits that last and stop the overeating cycle. Even long-term habits that are detrimental to your health, wellbeing, and happiness can be tamed and stopped with enough practice and a smart approach.
Maybe you find yourself having the same conversations in your head over and over:
“It’s Monday, I’m going to be good today and start my diet”.
“It’s Monday, I better weigh myself and get back on track”.
Perhaps you retreat towards the same patterns of eating behaviour when you feel stressed, overloaded and overwhelmed:
“I know I shouldn’t eat this, but I deserve a treat!”.
“She/he made me angry. I need chocolate and/or a glass of wine!”.
But feeling stuck is just that – a feeling. No matter how many times you fall into old ruts with eating, you can change your overeating habits. Knowing that is the first step to getting “unstuck” with unhealthy and unwanted overeating habits.
Changing your overeating habits may require professional help, but understanding the basic principles of behaviour change can give you a head start on the process.
How to stop overeating habits
1. Decide if you really want to change
This might sound like a really stupid question…of course, you want to change your eating habits and behaviours, right?
But many people say that want to change their relationship with food and their bodies, and then never do what it takes to actually, permanently change it. I’m not saying it’s easy. It can be a little scary, to begin with. But you have to really want to change it. You have to hit rock bottom, be fed up and done with the restrict-binge-guilt cycle. No more dieting. Commit to trying another way.
Additionally, all psychological models of change emphasise the importance of commitment as a necessary first step. If you don’t see a problem, you won’t work on changing your behaviour. The more honest you are with yourself about the nature and destruction of your eating habits on yourself and others, the more likely you will be to start on the path toward change.
2. Gain insight into what is causing the habit
Once you figure out your inner motives and the incentives that are driving your habits, it will help you change them and stop the overeating cycle.
Slow down and take a good honest look at the situations and experiences that lead up to you acting out your habits. It’s possible (I’ve seen it with clients) that your behaviour is motivated by an unconscious, self-defeating need to sabotage yourself.
Do you unconsciously try to thwart your own success because you don’t feel you deserve to do well in life?
Do you fail to engage in healthy habits because you don’t think your body deserves to be treated well?
Everyone responds to reinforcements (the rewards that strengthen our habits). Some unwanted habits like emotional eating feel good, so we keep repeating them. Eating may also make other problems such as stress, loneliness, and boredom temporarily go away, and this instant relief becomes yet another source of reinforcement.
3. Set realistic goals
Your habits have taken years to establish themselves. So please understand, you’re not going to change them overnight. As much as we love a quick-fix, they just don’t work long-term. You want a permanent solution. Not an exhausting cycle of victory and failure.
So, decide on what you would like to achieve and HOW YOU WOULD LIKE TO FEEL (super important) and set realistic and flexible goals and a schedule that will work for you based on your values, available time and resources, etc.
Getting your body moving and overcoming a sedentary lifestyle is a great example of how you can proceed through this step.
Don’t set yourself up to fail. Saying you’re going to go to the gym five days a week when you’re currently not going at all won’t work. You will likely not achieve that and then use your failure as proof that you can’t change or the process doesn’t work.
Start off slow (two or three times a week), and gradually increase if you want to. Doing something is always better than doing nothing.
4. Be mindful of your progress and don’t be discouraged by slip-ups
Your motivation to change will be fired up in part by the rewards you get from your new behaviours.
However, even the most dedicated and determined people experience slip-ups. Lady, you’re human after all and the road to food and body peace is rarely linear. So please do not beat yourself up. If you use that slip as “proof” that you can never change, you will in indeed, never change.
It’s important to get back on the horse so-to-speak and learn from the experience. What can that experience teach you for next time? How can you approach things differently?
Additionally, sometimes the pleasure of engaging in the habit outweighs the frustration of changing the habit. This will certainly happen in the beginning. Don’t give up! Note these experiences in your journal, but if they keep happening and you just can’t make the change, you may need to adjust your reward system or move to Step 5.
5. Seek support if your habits are proving hard to change
One of the best ways to build your innerresilience is by looking outward for support. If you’re having trouble making these changes on your own consistently and long-term, reach out to your friends, family, or perhaps an eating behaviour and body image professional.
Group exercise programs may be more motivating and fun than going on your own if you’re wanting to be more active. Zumba is SO much fun (don’t worry if you’re uncoordinated, you won’t be the only one!). Having fun is the key to sustainable physical activity and making it a habit.
If you’re afraid that reaching out to an eating behaviour and body image professional will be time-consuming, expensive, or just not worth it, you may be surprised to learn that many of my clients have changed decade-long habits in as little as 4 or 5 sessions (3 months).
They were just like you when they started. Doubting they could change. Believing it would be just like another diet they would fail at. But they did it and their lives have transformed because of it.
Furthermore, needing help doesn’t mean you’ve failed.
It just means the change you desire is going to require more resources than you initially anticipated. And that’s totally normal. You’re not alone in that.
The next time you find yourself on autopilot, take a moment to (gently) knock yourself off that well-worn path you’ve walked for years and begin a new one. Step outside of unhealthy or tired routines and try something new. We create new neural pathways every time we experience something new and different.
Remember, your past might set a precedent, but it need not be your present. There are other ways to feel good about eating, body, weight, and self. They might be unconventional and require an open mind, but if you’re still reading, I think this is just the thing you need.
Open yourself up to change and get “unstuck” from an unhealthy eating mindset and stop overeating habits. I promise you it will be worth it.
If this is a problem you’re currently experiencing, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me here>>
Can’t stop emotional eating? How about stress eating, comfort eating, boredom eating? These are all forms of emotional eating and they can can sabotage your weight loss plans faster than you can close the fridge door. In fact, emotional eating is one of the main reasons for overeating and weight gain in women. Read on while I delve into why and how you can take charge of your emotional eating.
Can’t stop emotional eating?
Emotional eating is defined as: Using food to make yourself feel better, rather than eating because you’re physically hungry. You might reach for chocolate and cake when you’re feeling upset, eat a whole pizza when you’re feeling lonely, or order drive-through Maccas after a stressful day at work.
While it may seem like your core problem is that you feel out of control with food, however, emotional eating actually begins from feeling out of control over your emotions. You don’t feel capable of dealing with your feelings head on, so you distract from the situation with food.
When you understand that you’re triggered to eat because of your emotions, you then have an opportunity to do something about finding emotional eating solutions.
For example, you can get to the heart of the problem and deal with the issue that led to feeling emotional or stressed. While that might not be overly comfortable or fun to deal with, it may help you stop emotional overeating in the long-run and prevent any further weight gain.
I’ve worked with some really effective strategies with my clients in the past to tackle these issues in a sensitive and safe way.
It’s also important to note that “normal eaters” emotionally eat sometimes.
Normal eaters may have a big slice of cake to make themselves feel better after a shitty day at work. When it becomes to emotional overeating, ie: eat half the cake and a 2-liter tub of chocolate chip cookie dough ice-cream after a shitty day at work, time and time again, it starts to become a problem.
It’s a problem because it doesn’t really offer you much more than a yummy temporary distraction from the problem. Only now you also have extra unwanted calories, major post binge guilt and a crazy sugar rush on top it.
One important strategy for stopping emotional and stress eating is to know:
Emotional hunger can’t be filled with food.
Unfortunately, there will NEVER be enough food to fill that void or solve your life issues.
Eating does feel good in the moment, but the issue and feelings that triggered the eating will still there at the bottom of the ice cream tub. Often leaving you feeling worse than you did before.
The key here is, to pause and think before you jump straight to food. Stop what you’re doing and ask yourself, will this food solve the problem? How will I feel after I eat this? And sit with it for five minutes. Then you can decide what you want to do.
If you don’t have a plan that addresses these very real issues, and instead you push harder and harder to stay on your diet, you’re not only missing the point, you will also never create lasting change with food and your weight.
It’s not about the food
Emotional eating is really not about the food.
Repeat after me…
It’s not about the food.
This is about dealing with your emotions and life.
There’s an essential part of finding your happy balanced weight and without it – you’re almost guaranteed to fail. What’s the essential part? It’s having a strategy that addresses WHY you find yourself mindlessly emotionally overeating. Time and time again.
Women succeed at finding their balanced weight when they shift from a diet approach to one that truly allows them to create peace with food and this happens when you address the reasons WHY you overeat and put a plan in place stop unnecessary overeating.
The work we do together will enable you to:
>recognise what triggers your emotional eating habits >eliminate cravings >stop constantly thinking about food >eliminate self-sabotage with food >learn how to eat your favourite foods in balance (no diets and no deprivation) >stop yo-yo weight cycling and find a steady weight you can maintain for the rest of your life.
If this is a problem you’re experiencing and you’re curious about working with me, please don’t hesitate to reach out and book in an initial call with me on the link below or you can email here>>
Do you struggle with sugar cravings? A lot of women believe they’re addicted to sugar. Read on below to see how you can stop sugar cravings in a way that leaves you feeling satisfied.
Firstly, I get it. I love chocolate probably a little too much.
Does this sound familiar? You went out with friends, and everyone was eating cake. You held out for a bit, but finally gave in and grabbed a piece.
Then all of sudden, you’ve “blown your diet”, so you may as well keep eating…aka “The Stuff it Effect!!”
Then, cue the binge. Followed by the guilt. Followed by the diet. And the cycle begins.
Eating by the rules almost always leads to overeating (eventually), because once you deviate from the plan, there’s nothing left to guide you and let’s be honest: you can only deny yourself your favourite foods for so long.
Can you imagine a life where you don’t overeat and you are in control of your cravings?
For most people, “giving in” to food and cravings represents a loss of control.
Craving’s are wrongly thought of as bad and should be eliminated as soon as possible. The only thing correct about this statement is the later: cravings should be dealt with sooner rather than later.
That means: EAT! Eat what you’re craving – Mindfully.
You’re much more likely to eat less and feel satisfied quicker, when you’re present and in the moment whilst eating.
Cravings and the brain?
Cravings are a sign that your body needs something (ie: food – perhaps you’re hungry). NOT that you’re addicted to sugar or carbs.
Sweet foods are highly desirable due the powerful impact sugar has on the reward system in the brain. The neurotransmitter dopamine is released by neurons in this system in response to a rewarding event.
Drugs such as cocaine, amphetamines and nicotine activate the system that leads to intense feelings of reward that can result in cravings and addiction. So drugs and sugar both activate the same reward system in the brain, causing the release of dopamine.
Unfortunately, what many health experts fail to understand, is that while it is indeed true that drugs and sugar light up the same part of the brain, so do hugs and small puppies and smelling flowers and getting a compliment and basically anything that brings humans, pleasure.
So many of us FEEL addicted to sugar. However, it turn out though, just because we ‘feel’ addicted, doesn’t mean we are PHYSICALLY addicted.
When we’re physically addicted to drugs it’s potentially life-threatening to withdraw from. Alcohol withdraw can kill you. Heroin is a horrendous to come off.
We don’t get life-threatening symptoms when we stop eating sugar. We might get a headache and feel lethargic for a few days. That’s it.
How to handle cravings?
Cravings usually kick in because when we deny ourselves something, when we tell ourselves we’re never going to eat again or we try and detox it, we automatically can’t stop thinking about it. Food is literally on the brain.
Don’t think about a pink elephant.
Bet you thought of a pink elephant!
If you think of cravings as your body’s way of communicating with you, then indulging your cravings would mean giving your body what it’s asking for – this is intuitive eating.
In this case, indulging your cravings is something to be celebrated (yep!): it indicates that you’re in tune with your bodies cues, and that you’re able to decode your cravings and decipher what you really want and need.
You probably want (and need) food (if restricting).
You probably need self care, to stand up for yourself, rest, a holiday, setting boundaries, talk to a counselor, pleasure or getting back into a hobby, for example.
When you have a craving for something sweet for example. It’s better to allow yourself to eat one or two biscuits mindfully. Because if you ignore the craving, what could have been a couple of biscuits, often end up being the whole pack later on.
Can you relate?
If you want to stop the self-sabotage with food, you must stop the deprivation.
No deprivation = no binge!
Explore these questions:
1. Why do I overeat? 2. Would I still eat this way if it didn’t impact my weight?
Food, eating and body image are deeply entwined. Many women report to me that they would still continue to eat the way they do (especially emotional eating) if they didn’t put on weight.
So are we worried about the eating or the weight gain? Food for thought there ♥
If you’re trapped in a vicious cycle with food, weight, dieting, and you’re NOT seeing results, you may want to open your mind to the possibility that a new way of thinking (NOT a new diet) could actually change your relationship with food permanently.
Will you write me a meal plan? This is a common question I get asked when clients start working with me. The short answer is: No. Sorry. I do understand why you think you need one. However, many meal plans are one-size-fits-all prescriptions, that are rigid like diets. Moving away from dieting and towards intuitive eating will help you to make a PERMANENT change to your relationship with food. Read on to see why I don’t recommend meal plans and what to do instead.
Why meal plans don’t work
I know you love meal plans because it gives you structure and tells you exactly what to eat. It’s one less thing you have to think about and surely the Nutritionist knows what is best for you to eat to achieve your goals, right? Nope!
In theory, meal plans sound great. Pay someone (ideally a nutrition professional) tell you exactly what to eat, how much food to eat and when to eat it. Most of my clients initially believe that if they just knew what to eat, they’d be able to reach their goals. Sadly, it doesn’t work this way.
In my almost five years of being a Nutritionist and Eating Psychology Coach, I’ve given out only a handful of meal plans, because people simply do not stick to them. Way back in the beginning of my private practice, I started doing this for clients. It seemed like the perfect win-win. They wanted to lose weight, I wanted to be a good Nutritionist, so I gave them exactly what they wanted.
Spoiler alert – They still came back to me week after week with the same issues surrounding food.
When we work together one of my goals is to empower you to start making small and meaningful changes to your relationship with food and your body, that you can sustain.
A meal plan does the exact opposite.
At its worst, it encourages dependency on the Nutritionist. It’s the diet equivalent of someone else doing your homework – you learn nothing! …so what are you paying for? …how is that serving you? It tells me that you may not ready to do the hard work it takes to make meaningful change. That’s okay. You have to be ready.
It’s also important to understand that when we limit food choices and create rigid plans that require sacrifice and leads to deprivation, the likelihood of bingeing increases. Also, most people are really enthusiastic for the first few weeks but then they can’t stick to it because life gets in the way. This is totally normal.
Thinking you have ‘fallen off the meal plan wagon’ can often to lead to giving up and binge eating too.
These are all valid reasons why meal plans don’t work.
Sure, some people do benefit from meal plans
Recovery from all eating disorders requires the normalisation of regular eating patterns. This is best accomplished through flexible planned and structured eating. If you’re trying to stop binge eating or in recovery from binge eating disorder the following meal planning tips may help:
Planning helps to make eating less impulsive.
Planning takes emotions out of eating.
Planning leaves you less vulnerable to binge eating.
Planning means the eating disorder will be less likely to take control.
Planning can also help put parameters around grocery shopping, leaving you less likely to make impulse buys.
Planning a few meals a week allows for the flexibility to explore a new restaurant or to pick up some takeaway depending on your mood. This flexibility is important.
For everyone else – you don’t need a meal plan to eat normally.
What to do instead?
Ultimately if you want to stop binge eating it’s about tuning in to what you want to eat in that moment and learning to trust what you are hungry for. This takes time but with practice, it is 100% achievable. Instead of looking outwards turn inwards and ask ‘what sounds good to me right now?’ ‘How hungry am I today?’ ‘How active will I be today and how much fuel will I need to get me through my busy day?’.
I know change is hard and letting go of a plan can feel like jumping off a cliff, with great distrust about where you will land. Most people are scared about letting go of the structure that diets provide, especially when sticking to the rules was the one thing that had (mostly) ensured they were doing it right with food. Even if it was just for a week or two.
But your body is really smart and more intuitive than any plan telling you what you can and cannot eat. You have unique needs that change season by season, week by week, day by day and even hour by hour.
Instead of following external factors like diets, meal plans or food rules. Instead of me telling you what to eat next Thursday for lunch, we focus on: meal prepping (very different to a meal plan), meal timing, meal and snack options, kitchen organisation etc. (ie: the things that get you sustainable long-term results).
Trust that underneath the anxiety and distrust, you are a smart and capable woman that knows how to take good care of yourself. You have a wise inner voice. You just have to be willing to slow down and listen to her.
Meal plans don’t work. Stop wasting your time and money.
You deserve to nourish yourself with the food you love and have a relationship with food that is easy and enjoyable. And that cannot be found in a diet plan designed by someone else or a computer program.
There’s an old saying…”Give a woman a meal plan and she’ll eat for 3 weeks. Teach her how to eat intuitivelyand she’ll feed herself for a lifetime”. I have no idea who said that, but I love it.
If you would like help with this, don’t hesitate to get in touch. Email me at hello@kellyrenee.com.au or contact me here>>
Diets should come with a warning label. Warning: Dieting increases your risk of gaining MORE weight. That’s right, diets cause weight gain. Reliable, evidence-based research is proving over and over that no weight loss initiatives to date have generated long term results for the majority of participants.
I’m delving into why below.
Many people know that dieting doesn’t work long term and most are shocked to hear that the process of dieting itself, can in fact increase your body’s propensity to gain weight over time. Scientists call this “dieting-induced weight-gain”.
A 2011 study of more than 2,000 sets of twins aged 16 to 25 years old examined the weight-increasing effect of dieting. The twin who participated in intentional weight loss was nearly two to three times more likely to become overweight than their non-dieting twin.
With each additional dieting effort, their risk of becoming overweight increased even more. The researchers concluded, “It is now well established that the more people engage in dieting, the more they gain weight in the long-term.”
The Journal of Obesity review estimated that, at best, only 20% of participants maintain weight loss at one year, and the percentage of those maintaining weight loss decreases further by the second year.
The researchers suggest that these statistics would be worse if participants who dropped out of the programs and those who had diagnosed comorbidities such as mood disorders or binge eating disorder had been included.
Furthermore, research has also shown this to be true in children; and that the risk of binge eating and food preoccupation increases with the frequency of dieting.
Researchers at UCLA reviewed 31 long-term studies and concluded that dieting is a consistent predictor of weight gain, with up to two-thirds of the participants regaining more weight than they lost.
The conventional approach is ineffective.
But letting go of weight loss and dream of a thinner body is hard. I get it. I’ve been there many, many times.
We live in a world that prizes thinnes. The “thin ideal” is the concept of the ideally slim female body. The common perception of this ideal is a woman who possesses a slender, feminine physique, with a small waist and little body fat.
Oddly enough, the size that the thin ideal woman should be is decreasing while the rate of female obesity is increasing. Making this iconic body difficult for women to healthily attain, let alone maintain.
This creates a gap between the actual appearance of the average woman’s body and its expected appearance which, depending on the extent to which a woman internalises the necessity of living up to this ideal, can have serious psychological effects
The degree to which women are psychologically affected by the thin ideal depends to what extent the ideal is internalised. Research shows us that women generally relate the ideally thin body to positive life outcomes such as happiness, confidence, career and romantic success; and consequently, a majority of women value the thin ideal to some extent.
If not dieting then what?
There is the belief and fear, that quitting dieting – in whatever form that may look like – will cause you to let yourself go.
You’ll never stop eating and your weight will balloon out.
Maybe you will gain weight after quitting dieting. But, maybe you won’t.
The point is, no-one (not even those people who guarantee you will lose weight following their program) has a crystal ball and can see into the future and predict how your weight and shape will change.
I don’t know what your weight will do. I can’t and don’t promise you anything when it comes to your weight.
What IS a fact backed by science is that the pursuit of weight loss through dieting behaviours, in the majority of cases, causes people to re-gain weight and often gain more weight on top of that.
Science has shown us, that there is not one diet or ‘lifestyle change’ out there that can generate sustainable weight loss. If you look at the research, most people are followed up beyond one to two years post the diet. Diets cause weight gain.
What’s the point of putting in all the hard yards, spending hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, starving, busting your guts doing exercise you hate. To lose the weight and then put it all back on again a few years later…?
Big Investment. Little return.
That’s physically, mentally and emotionally damaging (there’s science to prove that too).
Research aside–what has your own dieting experiences shown you?
Diets cause weight gain. Eventually.
That is why there is a saying that goes along the lines of:
“The quickest way to gain weight is to try and lose weight”.
What now?
Health At Every Size (HAES) is a growing movement that “supports people in adopting healthy habits for the sake of health and well-being (rather than weight control)”.
The HAES movement focuses on research and epidemiological studies that support the idea that health is achievable at any weight, not EVERY weight. Some core findings include:
-Underweight people get the same diseases as their overweight counterparts -Overweight people live just as long, if not longer, than normal weight people -Underweight and obese people have an equally higher mortality rate -Focusing on weight loss as a tool for health has a very low success rate
It’s a trans-disciplinary movement away from restrictive, weight-focused programs toward a non-diet, weight-neutral approach to healthy lifestyles.
Simultaneously, mindfulness, which has been shown to be a viable approach to improving health in the workplace, is a promising addition to the field.
A variety of organisations, programs, and authors are advocating for a non-diet, weight-neutral, mindfulness-based approach. Evidence for this paradigm shift is accumulating with great results.
The hard truth is, a focus on weight loss as a goal is ineffective. It gets it all backwards.
You need to focus on your health and changing your relationship with food and your body first. Then let weight loss be a byproduct of that. IF there’s weight to lose.
It not sexy. But, IT WORKS!
Stepping off the diet roller coaster is hard. But I’m here to support you every step of the eay and guide you through an approach that is a lot more kinder, enjoyable, long-term, and that gets results.
Is dieting and the pursuit of weight loss holding you back from finding an easy and enjoyable relationship with food and your body? I bet it is.
That’s OK. We all have to start somewhere.
I can’t promise you weight loss, but what I can promise you – I can help you stop emotional eating and/or binge eating and feeling at ease in your body. I have a 100% success rate with my clients.
Don’t hesitate to get in touch if this is something that you need help with.
Feeling guilty for emotional eating? Please stop. Even though principle seven of intuitive eating is cope with your emotions without using food, it’s still okay to emotionally eat occasionally. Learn why emotional eating isn’t the worst thing you can do and how self-care for emotional eating, not more self-control with food, can help you to decrease the frequency and intensity of your emotional eating.
Self-care for emotional eating
Emotional eating at the end of the day is a coping mechanism. We have trained our brains that when we have a stressful day, we turn to food. It’s become our easy, quick, affordable, go-to. A habit.
And it works, albeit short-term.
But we wouldn’t keep doing it if it didn’t soothe us in the moment.
Emotional eating gets a bad rap, but consider the alternatives. You’re not drinking a bottle of vodka a night and you’re not shooting up heroin. It’s just food.
I see a lot of women who neglect their needs and end up feeling depleted, low on energy, exhausted and tired.
Consequently, they often turn to food to cope and take care of themselves. They stuff down their emotions with food. Particularly in the evening.
But it’s not about the food (unless you’re restricting, but that’s another story for another day). Our eating issues are also often a symptom of something deeper going on.
It’s often a lack of emotional self-care. Saying yes, when you mean no (boundaries). Not expressing how you feel. Not saying what you want.
This is suppressing self-care.
Lack of emotional self-care creates emotional overload, which creates emotional eating.
So, what’s the solution?
Practice new coping mechanisms, without the unrealistic expectation of “not eating” right away.
When you learn to diversify your coping mechanisms and increase your self-care skills, food naturally becomes less and less of a “go-to” over time.
Next time you’re feeling a certain emotion I invite you to step into that emotion and express how you feel and take care of yourself emotionally.
Beating yourself up for eating over feelings often sends people into a diet/restrict mindset, which often leads to binge-eating in the long run. So if you do turn to food to cope ~ eat mindfully, savour each bite, move on and don’t feel guilty about it.
Your body is trying to tell you something. Learn from the experience and grow.
This takes practice, but it’s amazing how our challenges with food start to slip away when we become comfortable at being uncomfortable and looking after ourselves.
You can do the following exercise now, or the next time you’re feeling an intense emotion. I invite you to pause and ask yourself – What am I feeling right now? (Use the Emotional Word Wheel below for clarity).
Reflect on your favourite ways to self-nurture. Perhaps it’s asking for a hug, playing with pets, meditating, reading, or taking a walk in nature? How often do you allow time for these activities?
Self-care, not self-control to help reduce emotional eating. Remember: We all eat for comfort from time-to-time. That does not make you a failure, it’s a normal part of eating.
Halloween is here and there are sweet treats EVERYWHERE! I know when I was in the midst of my overeating struggle, I’d try to control myself around sweets foods. But sooner or later I’d lose control and then tell myself…“I better finish it all now, because I’ll get back on track tomorrow.” The good news is, it doesn’t have to be this way!
How to eat sweet treats without losing control
If you’re looking for support to have it easy with food through Halloween and any time in life, then I am here for you. I once felt totally out of control with food. I binged and purged almost on a daily basis for 15 years.
But here’s what I want you to know:
You can have sweet treats without losing control.
You can eat nourishing foods without fighting to say no to sweets.
You can have any food (yes any) in the house without fearing you’ll lose control.
This can all be second nature, and it can be a part of your life without you having to force it.
The first step
Allowing yourself to eat these foods unconditionally.
Giving yourself permission to eat exactly what you’re craving and hungry for, enables you to take your power back from food. If you tell yourself you can’t have something, it can lead to intense feelings of deprivation that eventually builds into uncontrollable cravings.
What could have been one bar of chocolate enjoyed mindfully, ends up being a whole block of chocolate (plus more) later on.
I know you think you’re broken and a willpower weakling, however, it’s not you per se. It’s your avoidance and the subsequent deprivation of these foods that’s driving you cravings and constant thoughts about food, that result in you overeating.
Usually with overwhelming guilt and the promise to never eat these foods ever again. But we all know how that usually plays out, right?
I know allowing yourself to eat the foods you feel out of control with is really scary. I know you truly believe that if you let yourself eat what ever you wanted, you would sit on the couch all day and eat boxes of donuts.
I’m not setting you up to fail I promise. I’m setting you up to eventually win your fight against food.
How to do it?
It’s important to go slow. This does take practice and patience.
There will be a honeymoon phase where you may want to eat a lot of your previously forbidden foods. This is just a phase and it will pass in time. It’s a normal part of healing your relationship with food for good.
When you have permission to eat any food, you really get to ask yourself for the first time, do I really want it? Do I really want this food now? It removes the “Last Supper” mentality, wherein you eat as much of the forbidden food as you can because tomorrow you will start another diet.
There’s an area of research called habituation, which describes what happens when you have access to foods. The more you are exposed to a particular food, it diminishes the desire to eat it. This has been shown for a variety of foods, including chocolate, pizza and potato chips. However, when someone is chronically on a diet, they don’t go through this normative habituation experience.
And they continue to start their diet over every Monday. We can do better than that.
You can say goodbye to diets and deprivation, for good. It is 100% possible to eat chocolate bars, a donut or a bowl of ice cream, and not feel guilty about it. Or feel the need to keep eating them all ~ with practice.
Building trust with your body and making peace with food is an important first step to not feeling out of control around sweets (or any other food).
If you keep thinking “I can’t control myself around sweets”, please don’t hesitate to read more about my food and body image coaching program Stop Punishing Start Nourishing here>> or get in touch with me here>>
I saw this quote today: “In three months from now, you will thank yourself.” It was an advertisement for a diet. And for the most part I agreed! A person who begins a diet will likely thank themselves in three(ish) months. Unfortunately, if you have dieted before, that high won’t last long. To stop dieting and bingeing completely you need a different approach. Read on while I explain why diets don’t work and how you can stop dieting and bingeing for good.
How to stop dieting and bingeing in three months from now
On a diet you:
Feel virtuous, on a high, in control.
You’ll think – “I’ve got it this time!”
People will comment on your weight loss and you’ll feel validated, accepted.
You may even think you’ve found the answer for your joint pain, insomnia, foggy head, skin rash and fat thighs.
You probably ARE thanking yourself.
But all that will change, eventually.
A few months after that, when stress hormones skyrocket (because restrictive diets are stressful on the body).
Cortisol and fat stores increase. Mood and energy plummet. Metabolism slows down. Adrenal glands get messed up.
The same diet that made you feel on top of the world, will inevitably make you feel like lousy.
And what’s more, you’ll end up blaming yourself, not the diet, for the subsequent changes to your body. Because that’s how the diet industry makes its money.
It sells us plans designed to fail, watches us blame ourselves for the bad experience and then sells the flawed plan back to us – again and again and again…
Maybe in three months you’ll thank yourself. But in 6-12 (less if you’ve dieted before) you’ll be back at square one, blaming yourself.
That’s how diets work. Or that should that be, how they don’t work. We want results and we want them now ~ I get that. I’ve been there too.
But if you really want a certain body shape, you have to be in it for the long haul. Because that’s what is sustainable.
There’s NO quick fix.
Otherwise, you’re going to continue wasting your time, energy and money on this diet/weight loss/weight regain merry-go-round.
Not only is this incredibly unhealthy physically and mentally, you also don’t have time for this. Life’s short.
Find what works to stop dieting and bingeing for YOU and stick to it.
My clients get results that stick in three months. They stop dieting and bingeing in roughly three months. No diets. No deprivation. No weight cycling.
And they do thank themselves after working with me for three months.
Many of my clients treat their pets with more respect than their own bodies – they feed them, give them their meds and vaccinations on time, take them out on walks, and are kind to them. I choose the word RESPECT as a launching point for working through body image issues. Treating your body with respect means treating it with dignity and meeting its basic needs. Read on while I delve into how you can begin to respect your body.
Start with body respect
When my clients first come to me, they either use food as a way to cope with their emotions or because they’re caught in a cycle of restricting and bingeing. For the most part, their present body shape is partly representative of the way they take care of themselves.
True, not all overeaters will gain weight. Just like not all dieters will binge. However, most do. Only approximately five percent of people who go on a diet to lose weight will keep that weight off longer than two to five years.
But weight aside, this unhealthy relationship with food and our bodies, is well, unhealthy. Physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
It’s soul-destroying and a life thief.
So how do we look after our bodies without going on a diet?
Health at Every Size (HAES) encourages respect for all bodies, a critical awareness of ourselves and of compassionate, attuned self-care. People may – or may not – lose weight as a result of improved self-care, but their health and well-being will surely benefit. The goals and outcomes of HAES include:
Self – and societal-acceptance for every body.
Truth in health care
A fair society
A healthy relationship with food
Pleasurable movement
Trust in yourself and your body
When you respect your body, you are in partnership with it. You become grounded in your physical body and you’re able to benefit from all it has to offer you.
We are healing our relationship with food, our bodies, and ourselves. Just like when you’ve lost trust in any relationship in your life, it takes time to get it back. When it comes to body respect, this is reciprocal. Respect carries reciprocal energy. Your body will honour you when you honour it at all sizes.
However, you cannot heal your relationship with your body with a plan to make it into what the dominant culture thinks it “should” look like.
Body diversity is real. The more we try to fight it, the more anguish and struggle with food will ensue.
If you treat your body as a structure worthy of respect and it will respond in kind. Abuse or ignore it and it will break down in various ways until you learn the lesson of respect.
Keep this in mind:
You don’t have to love or even like every part of your body to respect it.
But, it is the beginning of making peace with your body and genetics.
It is a critical turning point in stopping dieting and becoming an intuitive eater.
It’s okay if you wish you were smaller.
It’s okay if you wish your tummy wasn’t so round.
It’s okay if you wish your thighs weren’t so dimpled.
These are all normal things to think and feel.
It’s important to hold space for what you wish was different and still respect and appreciate the body you have.
It doesn’t mean you aren’t doing a good enough job loving yourself and your body. It means you are human. It means you are a woman living in a world in which being thin is idolised.
With this in mind, I encourage you to think about “body love” a little differently:
You don’t need to love your body, but can you respect her? Shower and brush your teeth daily, eat some fruits and vegetables and go for a walk in the sunshine.
Can you appreciate her – for keeping you alive every single day? How many times does your heart beat each day to keep you alive?…the average person’s heart beats approx 108,000/day! Your heart works hard for you ♥
Can you show her kindness and compassion today? Take a rest when tired and tell yourself you’re doing the best you can in the moment. Stop and take a few deep breaths.
Remember ~ It’s okay to not love your body. It’s okay to wish things were different.
However, you can’t hate yourself into change (long-term), but you can respect your body into change.
I hope this helps you take the pressure off of yourself to “love your body”. Start with body respect.
Also, remember body respect is a practice. So much of what we desire to bring into our lives takes time and practice. Body respect is not a new plan, a gimmick, or a short-term solution. It’s a way to truly heal—an opportunity to focus on finding joy and pleasure again, as you turn your attention towards the parts of you that perhaps you lost sight of while dieting or trying to fix yourself.
It is an ever-evolving relationship that changes with our healing, our complicated lives, and as we age.
If you’re wanting the support and tools to begin a new relationship with your body, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me here>>
