Tip #9: No More Diet Rules

Many individuals trying to lose weight have followed their share of diets.  In most diets, there are rules.  Don’t eat past 8 pm, don’t eat any carbohydrates, don’t eat more than 1000 calories per day, etc.  When diet rules come in to play, there can be a tendency to have an all or nothing mentality.  In other words, if you accidently break a rule, the whole day has been blown and might as well “eat what I want” for the whole rest of the day.  In addition, negative feelings usually accompany a broken rule.  If you have followed a number of diets in your past, more than likely all of these rules can also become very confusing.  Many times I have clients who come to see me and have no idea how to eat because they’ve been given so many rules.

One of the hardest, but best things a person can do to eat healthier and ultimately lose weight is to get rid of the rules.  Does this mean you can go crazy and eat whatever you want?  No – but it encourages you to learn about what foods are good for your body, and helps you to begin listening to your body more often.  Some days you might have more hunger, other days not so much.  But when you get to know your body, you will be able to eat according to you needs.   We are all born with this ability, it’s just lost when we start eating according to what a book or diet tells us to.

How to get rid of diet rules and start listening to your body:

• Evaluate your hunger and fullness levels and eat or stop accordingly.
• Keep a food diary to help you identify which foods feel good to eat, and which foods don’t.
• Eat slowly and take breaks.
• Eat previously “forbidden” foods and savor them.  Maybe choose a smaller portion, but allow yourself to eat them.
• Fire your diet police.  If you have a particularly bad day in which you haven’t listened to your body and eaten more than you need, respond with an observation rather than a judgment.  Was it a stressful day at work?  Were you busy and not planning your meals?  Whatever it was, investigate ways to do things differently in the future rather than beat yourself up.
• Continuously check in with yourself throughout the day – feelings, hunger, fullness, cravings, etc.  With practice this will be a lot easier.

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