That Wasn't Worth the Calories. Sound Familiar?

Did you know the first principle of Intuitive Eating is “Reject the Diet Mentality”?

This step is critical because having a dieter’s mindset disconnects you from your body's wisdom, including your own internal cues that tell you when, what and how much to eat.

When you operate with a diet mentality, you eat according to external factors (e.g., food rules, good/bad foods, macros, calories, points, time restrictions, etc.) rather than honoring your body’s needs, desires and preferences.

Approaching food with a diet mentality can make eating a fraught, unsatisfying experience and lead to a disordered relationship with food.

Ultimately, having a diet mentality erodes your ability to trust yourself, your body and your instincts, and negatively impacts your physical and psychological wellbeing.

Diet vs. Non-Diet Mentality
Even if you aren’t on an official diet or have never dieted, you likely still have a diet mentality due to our pervasive, insidious diet culture.

Diet Mentality
The diet mentality is the voice in your head that sounds like this:

• I want it, but I shouldn’t have it.

• I don’t deserve to eat it.

• Will this make me gain weight?

• What am I allowed to eat?

• I feel guilty about eating this food.

• I’ll have to make up for eating this.

• I can’t be trusted with certain foods.

• No one can see me eat this.

• I had a big lunch so I should skip dinner.

• I’m hungry but I shouldn’t eat anything.

• I ate so good/clean today.

• I’ve earned the right to eat this. 

• That wasn’t worth the calories.

• Tomorrow, I’m getting back on track! 

Do any of these statements sound familiar? 

The diet mentality is so normalized in our culture that many people aren’t even aware of the role it plays in their lives and how harmful its presence can be.

Where do you stand with the diet mentality? How strong is yours? How does it impact your eating and relationship with food?

Non-Diet Mentality
In contrast, the non-diet mentality—that is, the Intuitive Eater voice—sounds like this:

• I can have it. Do I want it?

• How hungry am I?

• What am I in the mood for?

• Will this food satisfy and sustain me?

• Is this tasty? Does it hit the spot?

• How does this food feel in my body?

• I trust my body to tell me what it needs.

• I honor my hunger and cravings to the best of my ability.

• It’s totally okay to eat when I’m not hungry.

• I love how much pleasure food gives me.

• There’s no reason to feel guilty or ashamed about my eating.

• Food can be such a great source of comfort.

• I’m feeling full. I can have more later if I want.

Do any of these statements sound like you? How present is your Intuitive Eater voice compared to your diet mentality voice?

This Feels Scary!
Rejecting the diet mentality can feel pretty scary, especially if you’ve been trapped in this mindset for a long time. You may fear that if you let it go, you’ll lose control, eat “badly,” never stop eating, and completely go to pot. 

Your fears are totally understandable. 

In time, however, they will start to fade as you realize that it's the diet mentality—the rules, restriction, deprivation, good/bad foods, moralism—that prevents you from having a peaceful, pleasurable and intuitive relationship with food.

Your fears will further subside as your Intuitive Eating voice becomes stronger than your diet mentality. 

By reconnecting with your innate sense, internal cues and individual experiences—your instincts, desires, hunger, fullness, satisfaction, preferences—you’ll rediscover that you and your body can be trusted to guide your eating. 

This Always Surprises My Clients. Who Forgets About Brownies?

My clients are often surprised—if not shocked—to discover they have forgotten about a food that once felt like it had so much power over them.

Their experiences sound something like this:

• I can’t believe I forgot about the cookies in my cupboard! That’s never happened before.
   

• My favorite chips actually went stale before I finished them. Typically, I'd fixate on them and eat the entire bag right away.
   

• The chocolate in my pantry no longer calls for me all day long. I rarely think about it!
   

• Shockingly, I found a pint of ice cream in my freezer that I totally forgot about!
   

• I can’t believe the bread went moldy. It’s never lasted long enough to do that before.
   

• I was so surprised to find a half-eaten candy bar in my bag that I bought a few weeks ago. 

This doesn’t happen because my clients are just really forgetful people.

It happens because they started giving themselves unconditional permission to eat.

Food Loses Its Power
Feeling obsessed with or controlled by food is not a sign of weakness or a lack of willpower and self-discipline. It’s a natural outcome of dieting and deprivation.

When you give yourself unconditional permission to eat what you want when you want, food—especially your forbidden foods—loses its power.

The more you eat a forbidden food and trust that you can have it when you want it (assuming you have access to it and no dietary restrictions*), the more its allure and charge wears off.

The food becomes neutral. It’s no longer a big deal.

You enjoy it when you want it and forget about it when you don’t.

Mel's Brownie Story
Here's how my client Mel describes her experience...

“In the past, if my partner made a pan of brownies, I wouldn't have been able to concentrate on work knowing they were on the counter. In fact, I'd sneak into the kitchen multiple times a day to shave a little off the row hoping no one would notice. 

Now that I'm letting myself eat sweets whenever I want them and without telling myself I'm being bad or that I have to make up for it by going on a diet or working out more, I don't even think about the brownies until I'm ready to enjoy them with my family. Sometimes, I even forget we have them!

The experience is so much more satisfying because I no longer feel obsessed, powerless and out of control."

Won’t Work for Me
It’s completely understandable if you have doubts that this could ever be true for you, especially if you have a long history of dieting and a long list of forbidden foods, food rules and food fears.

My new clients look at me in disbelief when I share stories like these. They can’t imagine it for themselves.

Inevitably, as they make peace with food and trust nothing is off-limits, they are pleasantly surprised that they, too, no longer feel obsessed with, distracted by or controlled by food.

My clients don’t have any magical powers.

What they do have is a deep desire to have a more liberating, satisfying and peaceful relationship with food accompanied by a steadfast commitment to doing the often hard, messy work needed to attain it.

*Of course, a food may need to be off-limits due to a medical condition, such as a peanut allergy or celiac disease. Some people find that if this is the case, they have little to no desire to consume the food due to the potential negative health consequences. However, this isn’t always easy and if it’s something you struggle with, I recommend seeking support from an Intuitive Eating-informed counselor, therapist, registered dietitian or nutritionist.

How I Stopped Dieting. I Couldn't Stand Myself.

When I was at the grocery store the other day, I noticed the shelf was empty for a particular product, which wasn’t surprising. Over the years, I’ve observed this seems to be the case every January as many people embark on a popular diet that restricts a long list of foods. This out-of-stock product is one of the few foods allowed.

Although this diet program states it’s about wellness and not weight loss, the numerous people I know who have done it did so with the primary goal of losing weight. This is quite understandable considering the program promotes weight loss as an outcome despite lacking any sound scientific evidence to support this claim.

Nonetheless, I totally get why people do it. While I never did this specific program, I certainly jumped on the dieting bandwagon in the new year. 

As we’re bombarded with diet culture messaging, including non-stop ads featuring seductive success stories and special promotions, it’s very tempting to hop on the bandwagon. Doing so is completely understandable given the pressure we feel from our weight-obsessed culture with its unrealistic body standards and tendency to equate thinness with health and moral virtue.

Lingering Desire to Diet
It may come as a surprise to learn that even after working for a while on healing my relationship with food and my body, I was still tempted every now and then to go on a diet. 

My desire to diet didn’t just surface in the new year when it seemed like everyone else was also resolving to change their body. It would often arise whenever I was struggling with my body, including the times when I didn’t like my reflection in the mirror, how my clothes fit, how I looked in a photo or how my belly felt when I bent over.

I would immediately go into fix-it mode and think about all the ways I could correct what I believed was a problematic body. Maybe I should stop drinking wine. Perhaps I should cut out sweets, go gluten-free again, use smaller plates or count my macros. Adding more miles to my runs and doing more sit-ups might also help.  

Thankfully, over time, my weight-loss strategy sessions became shorter and shorter in duration as I became more adept with hitting the breaks whenever I started experiencing body dissatisfaction and barreling down the fix-it path.

This Helped Me Stop
What helped me the most with stopping dieting was reminding myself why it wouldn’t be a good idea to start dieting again. 

While I had come to understand that diets don’t lead to long-term weight loss for the majority of dieters, more than anything, I never again wanted to be the person I was when I was obsessed with my weight.

During that period of my life, all my time, energy and headspace were consumed by thoughts about what I ate, how I exercised and the number on the scale.

I was so preoccupied that it was hard to be fully present and engaged with my life. I neglected my relationships, my job and my social life. I avoided any situation where I was afraid I’d blow my diet or get off track with my exercise routine.

I snuck food and binged on my forbidden foods when I allowed myself to have them. I freaked out when I gained a pound or felt I ate badly then compensated by eating less and exercising more.

Naturally, since I was constantly policing my own eating, I often food policed other people’s food choices (ugh, this really makes me cringe!). 

I treated my body like crap, ignoring its hunger, its cravings, its need for nourishment and rest.

I was tired, anxious, cranky, distracted and frankly, no fun to be around.

While well-intentioned, my dieting harmed my wellbeing and, regrettably, hurt those around me.

Reflecting on my life and the person I was when I was dieting gave me the determination and strength I needed to never diet again. 

Make Peace Instead
While I've been anti-diet for many years now due to everything I've learned both personally and professionally, I completely believe in body autonomy including the right to diet. 

However, I feel it’s important to know what the diet industry, including weight-loss companies and advocates, will never tell you, namely the numerous ways dieting can harm you, so you can make informed decisions.

They will certainly never warn you that for many people like myself, dieting is a gateway to disordered eating and exercise, and for some, to actual eating disorders.

Like me, you may find it helpful to reflect on your dieting history whenever you’re tempted to try another diet. I encourage you to take a moment to consider all the ways dieting has harmed you—and how your life may change if you made peace with food and your body instead.