Ditch Dieting for Good: How to Get Started
If you have been on the yo-yo diet train for a long time, it might feel really scary to decide to ditch dieting. Traditionally, a diet is an eating plan that feels super restrictive and unsustainable to you. The most common diets have been around for decades. Weight watchers, Atkins, low fat, super low calorie diets… The list goes on and on.
Recently, some extreme diets that have come out are the keto diet, the carnivore diet, Noom, optavia, and more. While some of the new trends sound really enticing, they are all just re-packaged versions of the same restrictive low calorie diets people have been attempting to follow for decades.
The research has shown time and time again that these super restrictive diets do not work. Meaning, within five years, most people are unable to maintain any weight loss that they experienced while on the diet.
Related: Catch this podcast episode I did about “How Setting Restrictions Could Do More Harm”
We’ve all seen this: you lose a significant amount of weight on a diet, only to feel like you cannot keep going with the low-calorie plan forever, and inevitably you fall off. When you’re not sticking to the diet plan, you might notice that you regained all of the weight and sometimes more that you lost originally.
If this is you, you may be at the place where you are ready to ditch dieting for good. But what does that look like, and what should you do instead? Let’s get into it!
How do you know you need to ditch dieting?
If you often feel stressed, anxious, consumed with thoughts about food, it’s probably time to think about ditching dating. Let’s be clear: dieting creates a stressful relationship with food. This is not your fault. But there is a lot that you can do to start improving it!
Making the decision to stop dieting and find a more balanced approach is a huge step toward a healthier relationship with food! It requires taking your current relationship with food, re-examining it, and making sure that you are building healthy habits instead.
If you feel like you need additional, one-on-one support, fill out an application here and let’s hop on a FREE get-to-know-me call!
First, You Need to Eat Enough
This might sound super basic, but if you have been dieting for an extended amount of time, eating enough every day may feel pretty new to you. That means, eating three meals every day with 2-3 snacks sprinkled in as needed.
Yeah, I see you if your eyes are bugging out of your head! Most diets place you on about 1200 calories a day with tons of exercise. But that’s not enough for the overwhelming majority of people! It makes complete sense that you may simply not be familiar with how much food your body needs every day.
So what should those meals look like? Let’s break it down real quick.
Protein
Protein is an essential macronutrient that plays a key role in energy production and muscle growth. Getting enough protein in your diet is important for optimal health and well-being. The average adult should aim to consume at least 0.8g of protein per kg of body weight per day. Another benefit of protein is that it can also help you feel fuller for longer periods of time and reduce cravings for snacks between meals.
Carbohydrates
Carbs are found in a variety of foods, including fruits, vegetables, grains, and dairy products. Carbs give us the fastest energy out of the three big macronutrients. They play a vital role in providing the body with energy for physical activity and are also important for proper brain and nerve functioning. Generally speaking, carbs should make up about 45-65% of an individual’s total daily caloric intake.
Fats
Healthy fats are essential for our bodies and provide energy, essential fatty acids, and important fat-soluble vitamins like A, D, E and K. Eating a balance different types of fats is important for overall health and wellness. The recommended amount of fat depends on the individual’s age, gender, activity levels and health goals. Generally speaking, adults should have 25-35% of their daily caloric intake come from fats, or 1-3 tablespoons per meal.
Fruits & Veggies
Fruits and vegetables are key to part of a healthy diet. Technically in the carb category, fruits and vegetables are loaded with vitamins and minerals that help protect against various diseases such as heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and even mental health issues. Increasing the amount of color on your plate is a great starting goal.
Second, Address Your Mental Health to Ditch Dieting
Become Aware of Your Thoughts Around Food and Eating
You might be experiencing guilt around food, struggling with a restriction mentality, wanting to skip meals, and noticing body image issues.
How to know if your mental health around food is poor? We can add this photo here from canva from a previous blog post,
Give Yourself Permission to Eat All Foods
If you have been trying to lose weight for a long time, this one is tough. This might sound counterintuitive, but it’s actually really hard to do! We’ve been taught our whole lives that we need to restrict calories, so it can be hard to let go of that mindset. But it’s important to remember that all foods are good for you and there is no such thing as a “bad” food.
One of the first steps to ditching the diet for good is releasing food restrictions and allowing yourself to be more flexible around food. Over time, you can move toward being more of an intuitive eater or someone who practices mindful eating.
Imagine being able to keep your favorite foods in the house and not over-do them!
Start Listening to Your Body
Your body knows what it needs, so start paying attention to its cues. When are you actually hungry? What sounds good? What do you feel like eating? Don’t worry about what you “should” or “shouldn’t” be eating—just go with what sounds good at the moment. These internal cues are trying to tell you something. The more we listen to them, the more “fun foods” have less of a hold over us.
If you have been only focused on weight loss for a while, you might feel totally out of touch with your body and not know how to listen to it. Intentional weight loss and years of dieting placed a huge stress on our mental and physical health.
It’s time to reconnect with your body and your hunger/fullness cues. Pick one meal or one time of day to start with and practice tuning in to what your body is telling you it needs.
Find New Coping Strategies
We all cope with food. It’s part of our culture — whether we are happy, sad, excited, stressed, celebrating, depressed, anxious. There is always a situation where food is involved for each occasion or emotion.
While this is not bad, it doesn’t always feel good either…
Third, Find Support to Ditch Dieting
Curate Your Social Media
It can be really helpful to find others who are on the same journey as you. Follow some body-positive Instagram accounts or join a Facebook group for support (there are many great ones out there!). This will help remind you that you’re not alone and that there are others who understand what you’re going through.
Social media can be a huge contributing factor to feeling like we have bad body image, or a bad relationship with food. This is because many of the images and messages that circulate through social media platforms are highly edited, often filtered or photoshopped to create an unrealistic version of beauty and health. These images can make people feel inadequate in comparison.
Curate your feed with super supportive dietitians and therapists who talk about nutrition in a non-triggering way to you. If you’re not following me over on Instagram, let’s be friends over there too!
Finding a Counselor or Dietitian in Your Area
They can provide guidance and support as you navigate this new way of eating and living.
Registered Dietitians, who are trained in mindful eating and able to work with patients with disordered eating habits or diagnosed eating disorders, is an invaluable person to have on your team. When looking for a dietitian, you’ll want to make sure that they do not have extreme beliefs around dieting, the scale, losing weight, or weight gain.
Healthprofs and Psychology Today are two extremely user-friendly resources that will help you find a dietitian or a counselor in your area. You can also check your local insurance directories to find a local RD or counselor.
Make Peace with Food to Ditch Dieting for Good
Checking out books about intuitive eating (IE) and mindful eating will help challenge the diet culture messages we’ve been spoon-fed our entire lives and provide evidence-based information about health and wellness. Here’s a list of some great titles that can help you embark on your journey towards healthier, more mindful eating:
- Mindful Eating: A Guide To Rediscovering A Healthy And Joyful Relationship With Food by Jan Chozen Bays MD
- The Intuitive Eating Workbook: Ten Principles for Nourishing a Healthy Relationship with Food by Evelyn Tribole MS & Elyse Resch RDN FAND
- Savor: Mindful Eating, Mindful Life by Thich Nhat Hanh & Lilian Cheung DSc RD
- Overcoming Overeating: How to Break the Diet/Binge Cycle and Live a Healthier/More Satisfying LIfe
- Body Image Workbook by Thomas Cash
Takeaways
Healing your relationship with food isn’t simple, but working through these steps will take you pretty far.
- Eat Enough
- Address Your Mental Health
- Find Support
Dieting is a multi-billion dollar industry—but it doesn’t have to take another penny from you. If you’re ready to make peace with food and your body, then it’s time to ditch dieting for good! These tips will help get you started on your journey towards food freedom.
If you need more support with ditching the diet, don’t be afraid to seek out a counselor or dietitian in your area that understands diet culture and food freedoms. You deserve to live a happy, healthy life—free from the chains of dieting.
Stop yo-yo dieting, start living! You can create a good relationship with food, cultivate body acceptance, and stop dieting for good! It’s time to create a healthy relationship with food that helps you feel in control, have good energy, and feel good!
