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Breaking the diet mentality
Most people have spent years creating different dieting rules that they stick to. As the years go by and the weight so often creeps……. or leaps upwards, they become glued to these rigid rules that usually end up having the reverse effect of what they are trying to achieve. So many people believe if they let go of the rules their weight will soar but I have found, and so have many of my clients, that in fact the weight drops off. |  |
If you want to break the diet mentality you will have to work on this one step at a time. There will be many things that need to be altered. Your way of thinking will automatically tune into the diet mentality so you will have to consciously break down each of these automatic thoughts.
Instead of looking at every label to find out how many calories are in each packet, try to focus on the nutritional content and whether it is a food that is healthy for your body. The more things listed on the ingredients list, the less healthy it is likely to be, as usually it is a sign that the product is full of artificial flavourings, additives and preservatives.
Do you spend hours reading diet magazines dreaming of the day you reach your target weight and how your life will begin? The best thing you can do is throw them all in the bin, stop all subscriptions and start living life today. These magazines only reinforce that feeling of failure – after all if you haven’t lost the weight by now they are unlikely to assist you in your goal. With all the media images of thin underweight and even anorexic models we seem to believe that we should be looking like them. Did you know that if Barbie dolls were real they would have a body mass index (BMI) of 12 which is close to death if it hasn’t already occurred? Oh and I forgot to say they added breasts which of course would not be there if the body had been so severely starved! And if you really believe that most people look like the models in the media, just take a few minutes out to go and sit in your local high street and look at all the “normal” people. I bet you can’t find one person who looks like they have walked off the cover of a magazine!
Do you have rules over obsessive weighing? Perhaps like most dieters the scales rule your life, dictating your mood for the day, if not for the week or even the month! Believe it or not, frequent weighing will not make the fat disappear any quicker, but it will almost certainly slow down your progress. Everybody experiences weight fluctuations which can be as much as 7lbs. These are perfectly normal but imagine the effect it has on you as you watch your weight increase.
People put all different types of food rules about what they will and won’t eat; how they will combine food groups; when and where they will eat certain foods. Of course unless I work with you on an individual basis it is difficult to generalise about what are sensible things and what are causing you to fail. There will be certain situations when trigger foods will be best removed from the house until you have built up the skills to handle these foods safely. However generally speaking no foods should be banned, just eaten in moderation!
If you want specific help to work on getting rid of your diet mentality then why not sign up for a counselling session.
By letting go of the diet mentality you can start losing those extra pounds!
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