Ep: #3 - Why Diets Fail, and the Real Secret to Food Freedom and Permanent Weight Loss

Diets don't work!  

There I said it.  

Apologies in advance to anyone who is actively signed up for a mainstream diet program right now. 

If you are loving it and it works for you and you are achieving permanent weight loss then this may not be wholly for you but still read on as there are many nuggets that are still applicable. 

However, if you are someone, who is not happy with your progress, sick of following the same rules, someone who wants to try a different approach and find lasting weight loss without restriction as I did then keep reading.

The problem with mainstream diets is that they typically bring about the feeling of restriction, which will only lead you to overeat down the road. 

I should know because I did it over and over again! 

They are built on rules telling you to do this and do that and rarely work on why you are eating in the first place or how to handle the thoughts and feelings that come up during the process and let's face it we have a ton! 

They rely on willpower which is like an emotional credit card, very quickly the bill mounts up and you are maxed out at which point you crash out exhausted from trying so hard and all the knocks.

The secret to permanent weight loss is you have to work on changing your relationship with food.  

I believe life and weight loss go together like a jigsaw.  Work only diet you are trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.  However, work on your relationship with food and how it fits in to your life and weight loss will naturally follow.

Once you learn to trust yourself and learn to eat in a way that fits your life and body you find food freedom.

This is what we work on in the Triple-A-Way Membership trusting our minds and body again like it was designed.

It means getting rid of old diet rules and the rules the mainstream "diet" industry has had us believing all these years and building your own system of change that fits your life not the rules of others for lasting success. 

That sure sounds sweeter to me!

I used to be in the "diet cycle" for far too long. I would try various diets but then end up gaining all of that weight back plus more, at one point I was over 220lbs and I am only 5ft 2inches!

So, what helped me lose 65lb?

• Learning that diets don't work,
• Finding a mentor/coach who showed me I could give up dieting for good,
• Learning to eat mindfully,
• Developing a system of change that works for me,
• Working through life's ups and downs that would challenge my choices around eating and movement.

Why diets don't work!

Diets are typically only a short-term solution, and the majority of people gain their weight back after the diet which leads to yo-yo dieting – I say #saynototheyoyo

If you want permanent weight loss you need to do something you are prepared to do for the rest of your life! 

So, say you are on slimming world...do you still want to be counting your syns in 5 years’ time?  If you are calorie counting, do you still want to be weighing your chicken? 

If not, why are you doing it?

What happens when you stop counting and weighing etc?  You go back to your old ways as you haven't learnt to do anything differently that you can sustain.

The other problem, I covered when talking about goals setting, is we tend to go on diets for the wrong reason and focus on the short-term and sometimes materialist things.

We focus on wanting to lose weight so we can fit into our skinny jeans or look good on the beach. But one of two things will happen. 

You will either not lose the weight and because you have told yourself you MUST else you will not look good, damaging your self-esteem as you knock your current self, or you WILL but then likely not sustain it as the motivator was a short-term matter that has now passed leading to yo-yo dieting.

In the process, you will have been on that darn diet denying yourself and relying on willpower and that only leads to frustration, misery, and ultimately quitting in the end. 

Who needs a diet that leads to feeling restricted and controlled? I sure don't!

The problem is we have been so conditioned to think that to lose weight we need to go on a diet or worse try some crazy fad diet.

If you were to go out and join any 'diet' right now they would give you a set of instructions to follow. 

Overnight you will feel you are supposed to change your eating habits in order to succeed.

This is not going to work as you are trying to knock the proverbial square peg in the round hole!

Your mind will rebel against a life of drudgery and restriction where there is no fun or creativity allowed.

For those who have been on a diet, you know this feeling as well as anyone.

Your brain is telling you how much you want to eat some chocolate or cake or ice cream. But yet it is also telling you it is "not allowed" or "bad".

It is like an age-old battle of good and evil....which one will win out you decide!

Or maybe the diet you follow claims you can eat whatever you want "as long as you count it", you then get caught up bartering in your head, constantly trying to tally points, but what if you don't have any left for the day or week?  You are back to restrict or bust and rudderless with nothing other than willpower.  Ultimately, any type of point system also just feeds into 'diet' mentality that there are 'good' and 'bad' foods.

Eventually, your mind rebels against the ‘diet’ and restriction you feel, leading you to quit, going back to your previous habits of eating so you don't feel like crap anymore and so you can be free of the complexity.

What is the real secret?

The real secret comes in 4 parts, find a coach/mentor, mindful eating, building your own system of change that fits your life, working through life's ups and downs.

The importance of having a coach/mentor

Before I found the coach/mentor I had at the time I didn't know that there was another way to lose weight other than to do some kind of restrictive diet that I didn't like or want to do. 

• I thought I had to use sheer willpower in order to succeed.

• I thought there were good and bad foods and I had to give up the bad and only have good in order to lose weight.

• I believed the reason I didn't lose weight was that I wasn't a gym bunny.

• I thought the only way to lose weight was to shame myself so badly I had to change.

• I thought I couldn't lose weight as it was in my genes!

The coaching changed all of that.

Most people find they need external support to stay 'on track' with a weight loss journey.

Sure most commercial diets have some level of external support.  

Anybody reading this who has dieted is likely to have been to 'group'.  

You will have done the 'weighing in dance' which involves going loo (essential!), practically stripping in front of a bunch of strangers (the cardi is defo worth a lb!) and hoping that if you lift a leg a little we will lose a lb.  

But then what!  

You sit in a room and listen to a mix of celebration and shame.  Some tips and recipes may be exchanged but where is the transformation?  Where is the unique support on your mindset that you really need to help you through the weeks and months?    

This is where coaching/mentoring excels as you still get a framework to work through but yet you are encouraged to make it unique to you and the coaching can help you navigate all and any roadblocks you encounter in life and weight loss not just supply tips/recipes.

What my experience with my coach taught me is that I had to commit to the long game for lasting change.  

As I covered last week this was about deciding who I wanted to be at the core and being super honest with myself about who I was now, identifying my unique gaps, and coming up with a plan.

This is a lot easier to work through with a coach and others doing similar work than on your own.

I had to commit to figuring the process out no matter and I had to learn that life matters, and that the scale, my mind, and my body were not my enemy.  This is all mindset work that can be worked on with coaching.

Learn to eat mindfully

It is likely you have habits that lead to mindless eating, we all have them, but mindful eating is when you pay attention to what's going on with your body and mind and how that impacts the food you're eating.

Eating this way can help people who have weight issues learn to listen to their bodies' natural cues instead of relying only on willpower or diet rules from others.

In mindful eating, there are no set rules about what foods are good or bad because everyone has different needs, abilities, tastes and preferences.

There are general guidelines though that can be applied e.g. Slow down your eating so you can truly taste the food and listen to your body, watch out for faux hunger, listen to your mind and body to figure out why you may be eating emotionally e.g. when you're bored, upset or anxious.

Mindful eating is not a diet it's a common-sense approach way of life where you learn to listen to your body and use your wise mind like it was designed to work. 

No more choosing foods based on whether they are 'good' or 'bad' but choosing foods you want to eat and ones that will satisfy your hunger, body and mind.

This is where freedom comes from as it allows you to say goodbye to fad diets, points, cutting out carbs, or counting calories.

It also means finding peace with food and eating rather than it continuing to feel like a hard battle all the time.

In order to lose weight you to taking responsibility for what you put into your mouth, learn to trust yourself and the process, and doing all this with kindness and compassion for self.

Developing a system of change that works for you.

When you start working on mindful eating, and mindfulness in general daily, you can begin to trust yourself and be in control of what you eat and do more.

It's truly is about building your own system instead of using someone else's rules and stereotypes. For me, eating in this way is not a diet it's a solid practice and this can then teach you to be mindful in all areas of your life.

The message I latched on to from my coach was to "start where you are and be realistic" this Ladies is the real key to losing weight. 

You need to get to know yourself and your life more and see how this impacts your weight loss.

Once you see the patterns you can start to find a way of eating that is sustainable and won't leave you feeling deprived or constantly thinking about food and that is unique to you and your life. 

The great thing about the Triple-A methodology is that it become a way of life and it will adapt to your changing life circumstances as you create the rules - its your life - your weight loss and you have to do it your way!

Working through life's ups and downs that challenge your food habits

It's easy to go "off track" if you feel like you are under too much pressure or stress, have had an argument, you are bored or just want it.

None of the traditional diet methodologies I followed ever successfully taught me how to navigate these moments as it was all about food intake and physical output not what was going on in my life and thoughts that was leading to the overeating.

If you do not identify and deal with the root cause you will not solve your weight loss problem long term.

Likewise, if you do not have tools in your toolbox to help you after an overeat you will end up in a shame spiral that will lead to more overeating.

When I started my weight loss journey I didn't think I had anything to work through.  I was generally positive and took life or so I thought in my stride but it was surprising what I found, in the end, to work on and how that made all the difference.  Some of the things I have worked on are: relationships, career, and stress and these were all unbeknown to me at the time knocking into my eating. 

As soon as I started trusting the process everything changed. 

Start today, where you are at. You will be surprised what the "Aha" moment is if you start mindful eating and identifying your own obstacles compared to what you thought it would be like.

It's okay to not be perfect!! 

Conclusion

When it comes to lasting weight loss, the key is not following a diet but developing your own system. This means starting somewhere and being realistic for some of you that may be watching what you eat, while others might be more when or how or a combo.

No matter where you start though, one thing remains true: make it simple and not restrictive.

You can find freedom through mindful eating by focusing on how you feel in mind, body and soul, recognizing when overeating happens so you don't get caught up in shame spirals, and finding peace with food through the Triple-A methodology which will adapt as life throws new challenges at you.  

The best part? Once this becomes a way of life you realise you don't have to be perfect, you learn to be mindful of “mistakes” and roll with it. 

Trust yourself that you can do this, stay positive and things begin to shift! 

Join me next week where I will start to run you through the basics of the Triple-A-Way.


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Categories: : food freedom, life coaching, mindful eating, Weight loss