You can live without another diet. Yes, you.

Dieting is normal eating and this makes me sad. We all have hunger, fullness, and satiety cues helping us to know how to eat. More often than not, when I bring this concept up, I see puzzled looks. Eating in accordance with body cues is considered novel, foreign, new, or strange.

Does the idea of eating without a diet sound scary or silly? If so, please come in. I want to share a different way.

Born to eat and enjoy
All of us were born knowing how to eat and enjoy food.

You were born knowing how be a competent eater including how much, when, and which foods. Even cooler, your body was born knowing this in a way to promote health. It never needed good versus bad lists or portion sizes. It didn’t and doesn’t need to be controlled. Your body was made to experience a rhythm with food looking at the bigger picture. It doesn’t get all out of sorts when calories consumed are a lot more today because of little activity or vice versa. Your body considers the bigger picture (think week or month not day) and can deal with mistakes. Sort of like viewing your town from a mountain, your body considers your total needs and communicates future needs via hunger, fullness, and satiety signals. It will adjust accordingly to promote health and keep your body at the weight it wants to be at.

Did you eat more than usual on the days around Thanksgiving? Me too. If you did, your body let you gently know it needed to eat a bit less afterwards. Don’t recall this happening? If you didn’t experience this gentle communication, I am guessing messages of “I was bad” or “I shouldn’t have eaten that” or “I am disgusting” may have been clouding your view to your innate wisdom.

Sometimes we need to get away to connect with what is already.

And your body let you know its hunger and fullness adjustments whether you were looking or not.

Here’s another way to think about it:

Have you ever gone camping or somewhere a great distance from town and been in awe of the nighttime sky? I live in a town with enough light pollution that country stargazing can take my breath away. Does this mean the stars only exist out-of-town? Of course not, but it does take intentional distancing from the chaos of town to really see what’s already there.

Your diets are the city lights, smog and skyscrapers. They are keeping you from seeing and experiencing the mechanisms your body has to provide health naturally. And, to experience this you have to distance yourself from all the pollution.

I want 2015 to be the year you take a diet detox. That means no rigid lists, no good vs bad, no limiting. Letting go of this pollution, you will be able to breathe again and heal your relationship with food. I will help you reconnect with your body’s metaphorical stars.

I am protective of what a non diet approach looks like. We will discuss this more because many different diets are Why Diet?disguised as non diet approaches yet are still diets. Not knowing the difference can hurt you and your health.

Will your 2015 be diet free? Will you take the Food Peace Challenge? Let me know in comments if you are in! While you are at it, let me know what kind of support you will need to make it happen. Can’t wait for you to experience life after dieting. Be sure to tweet your thoughts using #FoodPeaceChallenge.

 

 

 

 

 

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