By Shannon Hayes Buescher
When you decide to go on a diet, it may feel like there is a positive intention behind it. You’re going to change the way you eat, you’re going to be healthier and exercise more. This sounds great, doesn’t it?
But when you sit back and think about how dieting makes you feel and the true impact that is has, does it really feel good?
When you sit and think about how dieting has impacted you, you’ll find that there is a huge mental impact. You can feel frustrated, have low self-esteem, and feel unworthy or not good enough. You can be confused, hungry, feel guilty if you break the diet, and locked in a prison of calories or points. There is psychological damage that dieting leaves behind, long after the diet is over.
When you go on a diet, you often eat too little calories, cut out an entire food group and have a long list of foods that are “bad” and aren’t allowed. You have placed all these restrictions on yourself that go against what your body innately wants and needs. But on a diet, it’s all about the “willpower” to fight this,and is actually praised and applauded.
The diet industry has helped create this relationship. The multi-billion-dollar business has worked its way into these vulnerable, fragile, non-confident places, and has made you believe that you are not enough. Your body needs to be thinner, more fit, or just plain better than it is now. Whether or not your culture or social circle talks about this, there are few people who haven’t been impacted by what is fed to them by this industry.
When your thoughts are entrenched in changing your body and losing weight, you get swallowed up into a world that only revolves around never being good enough. It consumes your thoughts. This is what brings on the anxiety and depressive feelings. You feel trapped by the diet cycle, and frustrated with your body. If dieting isn’t the answer, what is?
Take the time to quiet yourself from the storm of confusion, hunger and body war.You’ll see that there is another way. It’s listening to that part of you, telling you that you cannot go on another diet. It’s listening to that part of you that reminds you of the true impact of dieting. It’s the part of you that’s willing to let go of the rules. It’s the part of you that is willing to find gratitude with your body, instead of hate. Each of us has that part inside of us. Finding that part requires work and honesty. It requires forgiveness of yourself and others. It requires the willingness to look at all those dark shadows that have covered up the true you that lies within.
When you let go of dieting and start to trust yourself, you become a little braver, a little kinder, and a little freer to see who it is you are truly meant to be.
Buescher is registered and licensed dietitian. She has over 15 years of experience with nutritional counseling in sports nutrition, eating disorders and a non-diet approach to food. Visit hayes-nutrition.com.
