Drop The Diet Mentality, Eat Healthy, and Lose Weight

Restrictive diets make you crave the foods you’re trying to avoid.

Why do that to yourself?

There are easier ways that don’t include feeling stressed or miserable.

You will have to get out of the dieting mindset if you ever wish to lose weight and more importantly, keep it off.

By their very nature, diets are restrictive. We must learn to look at what and how we eat in a different light. One that’s way different than most people do these days.

People are so obsessed with how a body should look rather than its health these days. This can lead to eating disorders. Severe calorie reduction will eventually lead to binge eating. Willpower will only work for brief periods.

It’s just not sustainable.

Even the Keto diet can be restrictive because you’re limiting certain foods that bodies crave. Don’t get me wrong. I love the keto diet. It can help you reduce your weight quickly. But for me, it’s only good for a couple of months.

You need a long-term plan for eating well. Something that’s not a diet but a lifestyle change. Not something for only 30 days and then back to normal. A plan that suits you and that you can stick to forever. No starvation allowed.

But of course, any plan needs to start with a mindset shift.

I read only recently that forgetfulness can lead to overeating. If you’re vague about what you ate in a previous meal, you’ll be likely to overeat in the next one. Isn’t that interesting?

Scientists found that if they got someone to take a few minutes to recall what they ate earlier in the day, they’d eat 45% less for their next meal.

There’s a good tip. You can use that way to cut down how much you eat by taking some time before each meal to remember what you’ve already eaten that day. Give it a shot and let me know if it works for you. I’ll do the same!

Don’t be so serious about restricting your diet

People get stuck in this kind of diet mentality. It’s not healthy. They’re way too serious so it’ll eventually break down and then it’s back to square one.

They’ll try to correct themselves like:

• I wonder if this is “healthy?”

• Is this something that fits into my restrictive diet?

• Will I have to sacrifice something later to make up for it?

• If I eat this cake I’ll have to do extra on the treadmill.

Or they head into an inner dialogue when faced with choosing what to eat:

• It’s past 6:00pm so I can’t eat can I?

• The only eat food I can eat before working out is carbs.

• I can’t eat anything with added sugars in it.

• Why am I still hungry? Didn’t I eat a little while ago?

• I think this roll has too many calories.

• It’s not time for a snack so I can’t eat it.

• I ate such a big dinner last night, so I have to skip breakfast.

There’s too much restrictive diet advice yapping at us and telling us why we must follow a certain way. Many contradict each other.

We get sucked into all the marketing and hop on the diet train.

Why is the current diet mentality trend all wrong?

Because they don’t work for one thing. If they did, we wouldn’t have so many overweight people in the world.

It’s ironic that we have on the one side all these companies pushing weight loss diets and supplements and on the other side food companies marketing the very products that are causing obesity. Crazy world, is it not?

We know dieting fads all fail eventually. Weight loss supplements either don’t work or only work for a short time.

Weight loss diets that encourage the type of diet mentality that we’re talking about fail because:

• They make people feel miserable.

• They require strict tracking of everything you ea

t• They limit macronutrients or calories.

• They restrict certain food items which can lead to bingeing.

• Dieting can cause you to be too preoccupied with food

• The body sees dieting as a form of starvation. They’re hardwired to fight against that.

• They disconnect you from your ability to interpret cues from the body

• We learn arbitrary rules about food that have no real basis in fact

• They make you more likely to eventually binge or fall into habits of overeating because they’re restrictive

So, what’s a real diet?

A “Diet” is the entire collection of your eating habits. Our physical health is closely linked to the food choices we make. The effects of all those food choices on our physical health are cumulative. Your diet is all your eating patterns together.

A key point to understand is that a diet isn’t a diet if it’s restrictive or punishing in any way.

All that noise that’s raving, yelling, and in your face about how low carb this, high protein that, low fat this, or no sugar that will help you lose weight, are just trying to sell you their ideas.

If you ever hear about a secret, little-known, or time-precious resource that will help you lose all the weight you want, run the other way. Just ignore it and save your money. How many of those have you followed anyway?

Follow the tip I shared earlier. It’s free.

It’s now time for you to change your diet mentality

Instead of buying into the whole diet mentality thing at your great expense, look toward changing the way you approach your overall diet and physical well-being. • Let go of all those “don’t eat rules.” Once you do, certain foods begin to lose their appeal.• Get better acquainted with your body’s food cues, and feelings so that you can better understand what your body really wants. • Give your body what it asks for, so it doesn’t kick into starvation mode and fight back• Understand that eating a wide variety of foods, not restricting nutrients, is associated with better health.

“When we reject diets and diet culture, we learn that our bodies have amazing internal wisdom. They can tell us how much to eat, when to stop, and what foods make us feel most energized.”