When you begin a new diet, you feel empowered.
“Yes!” you say, “I’ve got this. This time, I’m going to make it work.”
You shop for the foods you will eat.
You prepare dishes and meals ahead of time.
You tell your family and friends what you’re doing.
You might even build a support system to help you along.
This is all good stuff. No doubt.
You are psyched.
You follow the plan.
You lose weight.
People might even begin to notice the changes.
Yes, yes, yes, this is it.
You’re on a roll, in a flow state.
Then one day, it’s not so easy anymore. The flow has stopped.
You find that you don’t want to eat what you’ve been eating.
You want to have what everyone else is having instead.
You’re tired.
Just this once… you’ll have something else.
Then there’s just one more time, and you’ll get back on track after.
But there’s always another just this once.
You’re bewildered and panicky.
What’s going on?
You loved what you were doing… how you were eating and taking care of yourself.
It’s seemingly gone, evaporated.
This was the way things rolled out for me over and over again on my decades-long quest to overcome overeating, emotional eating, binge eating, and weight gain. I don’t even know anymore how many times I found myself confused, demoralized, and desperate to recreate what I knew (thought) was the solution to the (food, eating, me) problem.
Here’s what I discovered and want you to know:
First, it’s normal that it gets hard. There is a honeymoon phase to dieting when our motivation is strong and we seem to operate on autopilot. Things feel effortless… easy. But change is hard. We are rewiring our brains to think and act in new ways. There is going to be resistance to this change. The human brain likes patterns and predictability. It will work hard to take us back to old ways of living and being.
It’s important to be prepared for it, to know that it will happen. It doesn’t mean we’re weak or lack motivation. It certainly doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with us.
Knowing that there will be resistance to change, we can be prepared for it. We can see it for what it is and not have it mean anything about us. We can literally say, “Oh, that’s my primitive brain doing its job, thinking that it’s keeping me safe.” Then we can experience the discomfort of change, knowing that growth is there, too.
Second, it gets hard when we think that the diet is the most important piece of the puzzle. But it’s not. This is why most diets fail. We think the diet is the thing that is going to make all of the difference. But if we haven’t taken the time to build awareness of the belief and action patterns that have resulted in our problematic relationships with food and eating that lead to being overweight and uncomfortable in our bodies, we are bound to fail in our dieting efforts.
Questions to ask yourself about your relationship with food and eating, and your ability to lose weight are:
~Do I think it’s possible for me to lose weight on my own terms and keep it off?
Give yourself time and space to really sit with this question. Be honest. Chances are, if you’ve been dieting for a long time, losing weight and then regaining it over and over again, you struggle with belief.
If you think that lasting weight loss is possible for others, but not for yourself, ask, “Why not me?” What would it take for me to believe in myself?
By asking yourself these questions with a great sense of wonder and curiosity, and then answering honestly and with compassion, you’ll gain great insight into your thoughts and beliefs. And then you can work to cultivate thoughts and beliefs that serve you better.
~Am I taking beautiful care of myself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually?
I firmly believe that my growing ability to value myself enough to take care of myself on a daily and ongoing basis allowed me to lose weight on my own terms and keep it off imperfectly for years now.
Adopting a new diet without examining how you’re living your life is like building a house on a shaky, shifting foundation. Your ability to show up for yourself every day is a great predictor of whether or not you’ll be able to adapt to a new food protocol and meal plans over the long run.
Make lists of the things you do on a daily basis to take care of yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Your lists could include water intake, exercise, meditation and breathwork, journaling and other forms of writing, being in nature, social connections, alone time, a gratitude practice, prayer, sleep patterns, and so on.
Are your lists complete or lacking? Where are the gaps?
When you take care of yourself, you tell yourself that you are someone worthy of care. When you take care of yourself time and time again, you become someone who wants to keep taking care of herself. You’ll look for new ways to take care of yourself, such as cooking new foods and experimenting with recipes, taking classes in the arts or recreation, picking up a new hobby. You will find that you are more and more willing to experiment.
This is what happened to me. I had become so frustrated with my efforts to lose weight that I had just about given up. At the same time, I decided to drink more water, walk during my lunch break, and practice gratitude on a daily basis. I built up small daily practices, then expanded to include journaling, meditation, and being intentional about my time outside. At the time, I didn’t know that what I was doing was setting myself up for weight loss success. But that is exactly what I was doing. I became someone who wanted to take care of herself, and so I did.
It was sometimes hard, sometimes effortless. Always worth it.
The same is true for you.
This is my life’s work, for myself and for the women I coach.
I keep it simple because in our crazy world we spend so much time complicating things.
If this resonates with you, message me (jenny@jennyhillgercoaching.com) to set up a complimentary discovery call to see if we’re a good fit to work together.
Much love,
~Jenny ❣️