Warning! Dieting is bad for your weight and your health!
Sad but true. Even with diet ad over-kill, most people are awakening to the fact that diets simply do not work.
Dieting not only does not work, it actually increases your body’s propensity for weight gain and is a likely contributing factor to the obesity epidemic. Scientists even have a name for it: “dieting-induced weight-gain”.
The truth of the matter is that dieting actually enforces our preoccupation with food causing us to eat even when we are not experiencing real hunger which ultimately results in binge eating.
We must understand that our bodies are not a dumb conglomeration of cells hanging out doing nothing. Our bodies are very smart and wired for survival. When you begin to starve your body by restricting your food and calories, your body shifts into primal survival mode because the only thing it cares about is that it is experiencing a form of starvation. The metabolism slows while food cravings escalate. Not a good combination.
As your body learns to adapt to your dieting, the dreaded “rebound weight-gain” sets in.
Dieting causes a disconnect from your normal biological body clues. You learn to ignore the clues your body is giving you when it is hungry and you eat when you are not hungry. No pre-determined diet can “know” nor feel your present hunger and fullness levels…what you need to satisfy you now.
Your body talks to your now…in the moment and communicates to you what it needs. The answer is to be present in the moment and “listen” to what your body is asking of you or telling you. Only you can know your authentic thoughts, feelings and experiences, the way your body communicates…you cannot expect a predetermined diet to know that information. Bottom line is you are the expert.
What’s the answer to dieting? Obviously its lifestyle change, and in the case of dieting it would be a switch to “intuitive eating”, an approach that teaches you to develop a healthy relationship with food as well as your body and mind. You become master of your own body.
You must remove your attention and obsession from food and dieting and get in attune with your body and mind. In other words…this is an inner approach/process whereas dieting is an outer, external approach/process (counting calories etc.).
Here’s the 10 basic principles to intuitive eating:
- Reject the Diet Mentality: Quit watching the commercials and get rid of the diet magazines!
- Honor Your Hunger: Listen to your body’s cries for food and keep it fed with adequate energy and the right kinds of carbs.
- Make Peace With Food: Stop the food fight! It’s one you will never win. Don’t deprive yourself of your favorite foods…you need to give permission to yourself to eat them occasionally without the ensuing guilt. Your body will automatically crave what you are denying it.
- Challenge the Food Police: Don’t respond to “voice in your head” that want to bring you down…you know the ones I am talking about…it says you are “good” for eating under 1000 calories but calls you “bad” for eating a piece of cake.
- Respect your Fullness: Your body is giving your signals…are you listening or fixated on dieting?
- Discover the Satisfaction Factor: By eating exactly what your body wants and is asking for, you will eat much less food before you decide you’ve had enough.
- Respect your Body: Don’t try and be something you are not. Beauty is not found in only one certain type body shape. Beauty comes in health, vitality and long life.
- Honor your Feelings without dragging Food in: Life is an up and down ride and we need to find ways to nature, distract and resolve emotional issues without tuning to food. Food does not fix feelings!
- Exercise and Feel the difference: Shift your focus to how good it feels to exercise your body rather than how many calories you might be burning.
- Honor your Health: Choose foods that honor your health as well as your taste buds. What you eat consistently over time is what matters.
Intuitive eating puts you in charge. You learn how to distinguish between physical and emotional feelings gaining a real sense of body wisdom. All it takes is the ability to trust yourself!
You can be “rebound” free from your weight loss. You just need the right help and the right tools…for both your body and your mind. “Rebound Free Weight Loss”…for those who want to slim down for good.
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