The Secret to Getting Unstuck with Food
First of a four week Living Healthy Fully newsletter series about food, dieting, non-dieting as it relates to health and wellbeing.
I’m the guy that repeatedly put his health at risk dieting for weight loss, trying the latest health fad, cleanse or new “healthy diet”.
As a child I was praised for all I ate, but in junior high school my relationship with food changed to restrictions and an obsession. It all started when I had to diet and lose weight to play a sport.
As a freshman in college, I was macrobiotic for “health” reasons, refused to eat in the cafeteria, became way too thin, and always felt cold.
Over the years, I tried almost every different “healthy” eating style and diet. I was a vegetarian, mostly dairy free, gluten free, low carb, no grain, high saturated fats, no oil, vegan, or a combination of each. I also took weight loss supplements and had numerous food rules … and I even taught diet culture and my food restriction rules to my children.
While I learned a lot about food and even went back to school to study nutrition, none of these restrictive and mostly joyless ways of healthy eating were working for me and many of my clients over the long term.
I’m sharing this very personal story because I think you might relate. I hear similar frustrations from friends and clients who are failing with food or having trouble supporting their health.
I decided that there HAD to be a better way.
I needed to find a way to get unstuck with food, eating, and supporting my health with food. I didn’t want to live this way.
After years of “starting over”, I learned exactly why I was stuck. It’s called the Diet Cycle.
Here’s how the diet cycle works:
You start a new food plan/ detox/ cleanse with a feeling of excitement and motivation, like nothing will stop you. Clean out the pantry, prep the food, you are ready! It feels great!
For a few weeks, you are riding high on discipline and focus! Following the plan and feeling committed!
You find your cravings and hunger increasing. As a result, you have no more willpower and go off the plan - eating a bunch of cookies at a party or eating a whole pint of ice cream at night (that was me!).
You feel shame and guilt, about breaking the rules and overeating. You feel awful about yourself. After going off the plan, you decide you might as well enjoy yourself, so that’s what you do! Undoing all of the hard work and progress of the last few weeks. It’s so frustrating!
After a while, you feel the need to get “back in control” with food again and start another diet or clean eating plan. And the process repeats itself once again.
After learning about the diet cycle, I realized that it’s the diets (or healthy eating plans) that set me up to fail.
Here’s why…
Diets ask us to restrict how much we eat and/or make certain foods forbidden.
But food restrictions or food rules can only be sustained for a limited amount of time.
At a certain point, whether it's a lack of willpower or just feeling fatigued, we will eventually rebel against those rules - leading to overeating, binging, and eating the foods we were denied.
Research shows that when we are underfed, we will obsess about food- if it’s from lack of food or a self-imposed caloric restriction.
Strict food rules are counterproductive.
Diets and strict rules were exactly what was keeping me stuck in the “start over again diet cycle”.
I discovered that the only way to truly shift my struggles with food was to change how I thought about food……
I stopped labeling food as good and bad.
I let go of tracking and counting everything I ate.
I traded in my strict rules for a realistic plan that I could follow.
I stopped beating myself up for small mistakes.
And I had some pretty incredible results….
I learned how to eat and take care of myself in ways that felt good, not like a punishment.
I felt a new freedom and confidence with food and my body.
I even let go of my obsession with food and feel relaxed around food!
That’s when I realized I wasn’t failing, the diets were failing me all along.
It makes perfect sense to me now that I was always searching for the “perfect way of eating” after that experience in junior high school restricting food and struggling to lose weight started me on the diet cycle.
Sadly, my diets and food rules ruined many times eating with friends and other occasions, too.
There’s an Alternative
If you’ve found yourself on the diet cycle more times than you’d like, I want you to know that you can break up with dieting and finally find peace with food.
I’ll be sharing more in the coming weeks about how you can work with me in my Making Peace with Your Plate™ 14-day group coaching program.
In the meantime, if you want to dive into this more deeply, I’ll be talking about the Diet Cycle & How to Get Unstuck today on Instagram. Join me LIVE at 11:00 Am Eastern Time (10:00 AM Central time) @todwickersham.us. [While this has already happened, I will be doing another live talk on Instagram next Wednesday at the same time.]
You can always messages me privately through the message links at todwickersham.com if you have additional questions about what I’ve shared this week or anything else.
Learn More
If you want more energy, health and joy in your life or have questions about this newsletter or my services, leave me a comment here or contact me through TodWickersham.com.
Best of Health,
Tod Wickersham, CFNC, FNLP
Functional Nutrition Counselor & Lifestyle Practitioner
TodWickersham.com | Expansive Health LLC
Live Healthy to Live More Fully!
Disclaimer
THE INFORMATION TOD WICKERSHAM/EXPANSIVE HEALTH LLC PROVIDES YOU IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY AND IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE OR INTENDED TO DIAGNOSE, TREAT, PREVENT, CURE OR PRESCRIBE FOR ANY COMPLAINT, CONDITION, OR SYMPTOM. ANY PERSONAL MEDICAL OR HEALTH QUESTIONS SHOULD BE ADDRESSED TO A QUALIFIED HEALTHCARE PROVIDER.