DIETING DANGER – Food Can’t Fix Feelings
Have you ever been on a diet? If you’re here at MindBodyFood, you most probably have!
In fact, there’s bound to be many of you who have never got OFF the diet wagon because you’re still struggling to feel comfortable in your body (instead of ashamed).
Have you recently committed yourself to a ‘new’ diet for the New Year?
We so often fall into the trap of believing that if we can control our food and change the way we look, we just might be able to control how we feel.
NEWS FLASH – FOOD CAN’T FIX FEELINGS!
And nor is food supposed to.
Our decision or drive to “get healthy, feel better or lose weight” is usually instigated by an emotional trigger that becomes our motivating factor in turning to food to feel differently about ourselves.
The emotional trigger causes a reaction. Then, maybe any or all of the following happens:
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You start watching what you eat, trying every new diet, following each one perfectly, becoming stricter and more rigid with your food rules.
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You turn to certain foods for comfort or distraction when life gets too overwhelming, or when something or someone triggers you again.
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You stuff yourself silly because you’re so damn hungry and panic when you can’t stop eating because something inside you needed that cake or those chips.
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You feel like a failure: weak, worthless and not strong enough when you gave in, lost control and found yourself in a food coma.
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You get overwhelmed with guilt, shame, regret and panic and try to rid yourself of every bad thing about you down the toilet OR you exercise your arse off OR you abstain from food for as long as you can to make up for it.
I’ve done all of those things and worse. Every time I put on a gram of weight, I panicked and punished myself.
I made no allowances whatsoever for being human or a woman:
no understanding of my hormones,
no consideration to my natural ebbs and flows,
and no idea why the more I restricted food, the more my body seemed to hold onto the weight.
I simply thought I was a failure and had to try harder.
Each time I felt uncomfortable, my emotions triggered the same negative reactions that merely fuelled my dieting efforts and kept me stuck in the dieting cycle.
What helped turn things around was understanding how my thoughts, feelings and behaviours were connected and what I really thought about myself and body.
In helping you to understand why food and dieting have such control over your life, you are required to be honest with yourself about what you’re really thinking.
This means tuning in and listening to the negative thoughts that are driving your dieting mindset.
Right now is the perfect time to ask:
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What do I think about myself and my body?
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Why does food scare me so much?
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Why does food have such control over me?
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Why am I afraid of letting go of that control?
Discovering your own mind can help uncover the real fears of why food has become such a focus in your life and what it represents to you.
By doing this, you bring more awareness to the table and can start to recognise unhelpful thinking patterns that are keeping you stuck.
FOR MORE INSPIRATION ABOUT FOOD AND FEELINGS, listen to a PODCAST interview I gave on this very topic HERE!
If you need help, I’m right here 🙂
