Now there’s a double headed sword! - On one hand, that means you have chosen to eat the things that got you to the body you have right now. If you aren’t happy with your body, that realization can be tough to handle. But on the other hand – the fact that you have the absolutely final say in what you eat is liberating. No one will pin you down and force Dairy Milk down your throat. You have the power to choose what and how much you eat, and with the right choices you can change your body.
This may seem obvious, but people often don’t accept responsibility for their food choices. People sometimes can blame others or the situation they were in. Ever said - “I had to eat _______, it’s all that was available there/I was starving/I didn’t have time to eat lunch“, etc. The truth is, you had the option to not eat _____, to make time for a real meal, or to bring food with you and not rely on someone else to provide food for you. Accepting responsibility for every bite that goes in your mouth is a big step forward.
Ok, now to the next instruction for you…You can eat anything you want. Anything.
Are you attempting to lose weight by declaring certain foods as off-limits, or telling yourself that you “should not” or “must not” eat them? You’ll want to rethink that.
By restricting yourself, you will ignite your natural, inborn resistance.
Eating a cookie on occasion does not make someone overweight. But what makes someone overeat cookies, not stopping at one or two, several times a week? Restriction. Restrict anything and you create an environment of scarcity in your mind. That’s Economics 101. A commodity which is scarce becomes more valuable. So now the forbidden item looks even better to you. This might cause you to think about it more often and creates a bad relationship – maybe even obsessive relationship- between you and this food. In addition to inflating the perceived value of the forbidden food, there’s a little rebellious streak in all of us. It’s invigorating, exhilarating even, to break a rule, even if it’s your own.
So now you’ve doubled the prize of eating the forbidden food: it’s built up in your mind to be the Best Stuff Ever and it makes you feel a little badass for doing it. I hope you see where this is going: A restrictive mind-set will not only make you fixate on and eventually eat the very items you’re trying to reduce, but when you do eat them, you’re likely to go headfirst into a massive quantity. Because after all, it’s rare and valuable and you won’t allow yourself to have it again for a long long time so you better get a lot in…
If you’ve ever had an experience with binge eating, recall it. Did it follow a time period of restriction or sticking to a very regimented diet? For many people, it does. The more drastic the restriction, the more binge-triggering it is. And the worst thing we can do after a binge is the most common response: following it up with another period of restriction to “make up for it”. If you’d like to break this cycle, it is a worthy challenge to not view any food as off limits.
What’s the alternative if nothing is off limits? What would keep me from eating junk all day?
If you think you only want to eat chocolate and chips, it may be because you aren’t allowing yourself to eat chocolate and chips.
My advice is to experiment: allow yourself to eat whatever you want, chicken or carrots or carrot cake, just eat it mindfully, and savour it. When you know you’ll still be free tomorrow to have whatever you want, you may be shocked to find you don’t in fact want the whole tub of ice cream or cake for every meal. More than 90% of the time you’ll probably want healthy food that nourishes you and tastes good, that gives you energy and not indigestion. When you aren’t attributing an artificial value to sweets by restricting them, you can let yourself discover that you actually only want them every now and then.
Think of a food right now that you know distances you from your goals, perhaps one that you have told yourself you “must not” or “cannot” eat. Could you instead accept that you are allowed to eat that food, yet you choose not to because you want your goals more? The action (not eating the food) is exactly the same as if you had just declared it off limits and stuck to it – but the mind-set is different.
When entering a restaurant do you say to yourself “Okay, no meals with no cheese and no fried stuff, no desert and no meats that aren’t organic. You’re not allowed to have any of those.” When you look at the menu it becomes an experience of limitation and restriction. Feeling like this can make you likely to fight back in some way, and sooner or later “give in” and break all of your ‘rules’.
Reminded yourself that whatever your goal is, it is your choosing, and there is a reason you have chosen it. Check in with yourself- is this still a valuable goal for you? Or would you rather choose the deep fried fish and chocolate gateaux? Because you are free to do either. Just remember the reasons you want to do both and I think you’ll find the reasons you want your goal are much more powerful than the reasons why you want the gateaux.
So implement these two pointers into your mind-set and start loving your diet rather than restricting it.
- Take responsibility for your food choices.
- Rather than telling yourself that you “can’t” or “shouldn’t” eat certain things, acknowledge that you could in fact eat any of them, but you CHOOSE to eat more of some and less of others.
