Are you constantly yo-yo dieting? Where you always trying the newest diet or trend? Keep reading to learn how to stop dieting for good.
It’s so easy to get caught up in the diet cycle. They’re satisfying because they allow for little to no ambiguity, and they’re addicting because they give you quick, fast results. But unfortunately, the results never last. As soon as you reach the last day of your diet, you go, “back to normal”, and find yourself right back at square one.
This constant cycle can be exceptionally frustrating and feel never-ending. But thankfully, it can be stopped with balanced eating.
HOW TO STOP DIETING
To learn how to stop dieting, you need to learn sustainable, maintainable habits pertaining to food. You need to ditch the short-term, diet mindset and learn how to find balance. Keep reading to learn how you can get started.
5 STEPS TO TAKE TO STOP DIETING FOR GOOD
Take these 5 steps to stop dieting and build a balanced relationship with food. Each step will teach you how to reshape your relationship with food so you no longer need to rely on diets or detoxes. Instead, you’ll have the confidence you need to trust your own eating habits and learn how to stop dieting for good.
Prioritize Both Nourishment and Enjoyment Consistently
We need a combination of both nourishment and enjoyment in order to sustain and maintain balanced eating habits. When one is prioritized and the other is restricted, we’re left feeling imbalanced and uneasy. Diets rely on an exaggeration of nutrition information. They take one variable in the equation and zoom in, making it appear to be the only variable of importance.
For example, they may overaccentuate nourishment and completely demonize enjoyment. Will you see results quickly? Absolutely. But will you feel mentally at peace, be able to enjoy all parts of your life, and feel free around food? Absolutely not.
The same goes for the opposite end of the spectrum. If you decide to ditch diets and begin prioritizing enjoyment over nourishment, the same sentiments will return. You’ll wonder how you ended up so far away from your health and wellness goals, and crave nourishment. This leads to the start-and-stop cycle that diets want you to be in.
Instead, prioritize both from the start. Incorporate enjoyment in your nourishment, and vice versa. Do so in a way that feels right and natural to you, rather than forced and restrictive. Finding balance is one of the best ways to learn how to stop dieting.
Ditch the Food Rules
Food rules and diets go hand in hand. One cannot survive without the other. As soon as you learn to identify and negate food rules, you’re one step closer to leaving the diet cycle behind. Food rules are definitive, exaggerated statements regarding food items. Such as, “I can never eat starchy carbohydrates at night.”, or, “I’m not allowed to have any chocolate in the house.”.
These rules are almost always created with good intentions. They’re geared towards improving habits and leading a healthy lifestyle. But the problem is that they’re restrictive in nature. And they’re usually restricting things you inherently enjoy, want, or need.
Rules like these are always broken, and they can result in an, “off the bandwagon”, type of feeling. Which as we’ve learned, propels us to try again and start the diet back up on Monday. From now on, remove the rules from food, and you’ll start to feel at ease with balance so you no longer feel compelled to diet.
Stop Thinking about Food as Good or Bad
In the diet realm, food that is nourishing is considered to be good, whereas food that is enjoyment-based is considered to be bad. In reality, this isn’t the case. Food is simply food. It’s either a source of nourishment, a source of enjoyment, or a combination of both. But this type of balance pulls you away from dieting, which diets don’t want you to do.
Diets want you to view things through a black-and-white lens. They want you to feel guilty when you don’t do what they tell you to do. This is what keeps you coming back again and again! If you can learn to remove the morality from food, and therefore remove the guilt cycle, you can learn how to stop dieting.
Listen to your Hunger and Satiety Cues Consistently
Consistency is the key to this tip. Your hunger and satiety cues should be the primary tool you use to determine how much you eat and when you eat. Diets, on the other hand, will tell you that there’s a specific, strict schedule you should be following.