A Sunday Well Spent …
Six Tips to Breaking Free of the Diet Cycle and Gaining Back Your Sundays.
As I sit here on a Sunday morning, enjoying my coffee and thinking about the week ahead, one thing that is not on my to do list is starting or restarting another diet.
For some context, a typical Sunday for me used to be spent:
Shaming myself for having no will power and falling off track with my diet.
Obsessively meal planning following an uber strict (and often complicated) meal plan from the interwebs or from an unqualified Multi Level Marketing “coach” to correct the "damage" I had done that weekend.
Methodically plotting and planning my upcoming week, scheduling in all of the workouts that I thought would burn the most calories, but that I didn’t really enjoy or would have the energy for due to my long work schedule and lack of energy intake due to the above restrictive diet.
And then, during the week, all I would think about was food. Was calories. Was weighing and measuring every single lick, bite, and taste. Constantly thinking about the foods that I wasn’t allowing myself to eat while pretending to LOVE my kale salad with 6 almonds. Constantly weighing and body checking myself and letting those actions dictate my mood.
And then repeating the binge cycle on the weekend.
And then restriction during the week.
And so on. And forever.
Until I stopped.
And this transition to breaking up with diets ebbed and flowed and waxed and waned. With a few drunk texts and regrettable post break up hook ups and brief infatuations with various "lifestyles" thinking THIS one will be different, yet again. And even now, still falling into diet culture thoughts and self talk at times.
Perhaps some or all of this sounds familiar for you too, dear reader.
This break up is HARD as hell. It's so hard because our entire lives we've had an ideal of beauty drilled into our psyches that is largely unattainable or unsustainable for most. This ideal has been coupled with solutions to get there, to achieve that ideal simply and quickly, placing the blame on our lack of will power and motivation to achieve or maintain the body we have been led to believe is the superior one for folks to live in. It's hard because everyone is always talking about their diet and we can feel excluded from the conversations.
But why are our conversations always about food and weight and feeling not thin enough? Isn't there more to life? Isn't there more to have discussions about?
My answer is yes: there is so much more to life than trying to constantly shink ourselves down. And this is not shame or judge anyone who is seeking intentional weight loss, but to offer a different perspective on what can become a pursuit that can easliy highjack our entire lives.
Fitness and nutrition are so much more than weight loss. And I think we all deserve to have the options to explore how food and movement enhance our lives and build us up than what is typically peddled to us.
If you are trying to break up with dieting, here a a few tips from me to you to support you with this transition,
Do a social media audit. Who are you following that brings thoughts of dieting and losing weight back up to the forefront of your mind? Unfollow them or mute them! Instead, follow folks that do not preach weight loss or equate thin with healthy and fat with unhealthy.
Journal your thoughts and feelings about food and your relationship with food and your body.
Find food that you enjoy. And enjoy them. The myth that non-diet eating just means we’re eating french fries and ice cream night and day is just that, a myth. While both of those have room in a daily diet, foods such as veggies, fruits, proteins and carbs are the staples. And once you allow yourself to enjoy the fries, you’ll actually find yourself, over time, less likely to be craving them and being unable to stop eating when full.
Find movement that you enjoy. And enjoy it. Seriously. When you stop viewing exercise as punishment and exploring how movement makes you feel stronger and more mobile, you are likely going to want to do that movement consistently.
Buy clothes that fit comfortably and you love. Including underwear. Don’t keep squeezing yourself into smaller sizes that are uncomfortable and don’t make you feel like the fabulous bad ass that you are. You in a larger body deserve to feel amazing just as much as you in a smaller body. (This is a privaleged perspective and I know not everyone can afford /access new clothes. But if shopping for new clothes, buy the ones that fit the body your currently have - trust me, you will feel so much better in them!)
Give yourself grace. You have spent your entire life being bombarded with messages about how to look a certain way and that a lifetime of dieting is the way to achieve that ideal. Unpacking and transitioning away from that frame of mind is going to take time. There will be ups and downs. There will be moments when you are uncomfortable. But it is worth it.
Just think about all that time and energy you will have to spend on more important things: enjoying your friends and family on holidays and events instead of panicking about what foods fit your meal plan, enjoying a new or old hobby, starting a business, using your voice and privilege to break down systems of oppression in the workplace, any of the number of things you said you’d do when you weighed X amount of pounds.
Do it now.
Live your life free.
With love and strength,
Coach Michelle