3 Tips to Avoid Diet Di-Stress
Are you suffering from “diet di-stress?”
Over the past week I was speaking to several women in the midst of what I call “diet di-stress.” What does this mean? These women are past the honeymoon stage of starting a “diet”, you know that stage when you are excited and have lots of energy as you tell yourself “this will be the last diet I will ever be on.”
After the fun of imagining ourselves lighter, tighter and wearing sexy clothes wears off, we enter the “reality stage.” We realize that we will have to make some changes in our choices.
We will have to let go of familiar and comforting habits; albeit even though we know they are not “healthy habits” we still derive something good from them or we wouldn’t keep doing them. No matter what we call these habits, they appear to help us cope with our crazy everyday world.
Time to go deeper …
Diet distress is often vocalized by my clients as “I don’t know what to eat, just tell me and I’ll buy it!” This is when I go into distress! This is my signal that it’s time to move the conversation into a deeper level … to discover what the client is really saying to me behind those words for me to hand her a piece of paper telling her what to eat. That piece of paper will likely end up in the circular file as the diet di-stress increases since the real cause of the distress hasn’t been addressed.
Below are the common mindsets that I often uncovered during my sessions with women in diet di-stress:
Suffering from the “perfect eater” syndrome
1. Drop trying to be a “perfect eater.” There is no definition for this even in the Dietitian’s dictionary! The energy consumed trying to fit into the perfect eater persona will likely leave you feeling frustrated, discouraged and you may even quit trying all together.
In addition, this can lead to feeling deprived of foods that you like, yet you have castigated them to the “a perfect eater would never eat that list.” We know what deprivation does – it sends you directly to that box of cookies you hid in the back of your cupboard (thought you would forget?)
My advice and what I live by, is to strive to be a B+ student. Another way to think of this is the 80/20 rule – follow your “perfect eater” diet persona 80% of the time and let the 20% represent the times when you just let your choice of foods come from an organic place (no fertilizer {aka B.S.}) is good not only for your food but for your soul.
Claim it to make it a reality – admit it’s going to be a challenge!
2. Right from the first declaration that you want to lose weight, acknowledge that this will be hard. Yes, with my knowledge of our human bodies, I know that losing and maintaining weight loss takes conscious effort.
Research shows that women who acknowledge that losing weight will be a challenge actually do lose more weight compared to the person that makes light of the endeavor. The difference between the two is that successful weight loss involves planning.
The need to plan for lunches to take to work; how to handle grandma’s urging to have a piece of pie; workplace “cake” celebration days; and “blue days” that leave you vulnerable to eat at home alone and in the dark. Having a plan puts you back in charge.
Control vs. Charge – Which one works better?
3. Let’s continue with that last thought; being in control of your choices. My suggestion is to shift your mindset from “being in control of your food” to “being in charge of your life, which includes your diet.”
The difference, being in charge gives you automatic permission to know when to bend, shape, break the rules as you deem necessary. For example, what if you had planned to go for a brisk walk around your building for your lunch break; except your boss tells you “she would like you to work through your lunch to finish that special report.”
You are no longer “in control” of your lunch break yet you are “in charge” of how you respond to this unexpected request. You can tell yourself that the walk will have to wait until you can take a break later or even decide to walk when you get home.
Acknowledging that you are in charge of your daily food and exercise choices provides no room for excuses as to why something happened or didn’t happen that day. Being in charge implies “control with built-in flexibility.”
Doesn’t reading that sentence just make you realize that you can take charge and get out of diet distress now?
In health & happiness,
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