A few weeks back, I put a question box in my Instagram stories asking how I could best serve everyone in my online community. What information can I share with you to make your life easier?
I received a ton of great feedback and gained inspiration for future blog posts and podcast topics. (soon!)
But within those suggestions and questions there was an upsetting theme, twenty or thirty responses asking for help around controlling their diet.
"Sweets are my weakness. How do you curb your sweet tooth?"
"I am always hungry! I can't stop thinking about food."
"all i want is JUNK food, feeling out of control, and binging, why does this keep happening?"
"never feel satisfied after my meals. Always want more and end up overeating most nights."
"help not eating sweets at night."
"Sugar!!! suggestions to not want sweets at night"
"overeating every weekend."
Women after women asking for advice on how NOT eat something or looking for guidance on stopping cravings and basically shutting off their desire to actually
enjoy the foods they are consuming.
Let me fill you in on a secret…
The more you try to avoid eating a food or a food group, the more off-limits you make it, the more you tell yourself you cannot have it, the more you will want it.
You are giving food power it does not deserve.
You crave sweets every night because you spend all day telling yourself you cannot have them.
You are binging and out of control around food because the diet you are aiming to keep is restrictive.
Ladies, we have it all fucked up.
We don't need more discipline with our diets.
We need to use some common sense.
Stop being your own worst enemy, and start being your own best friend.
Imagine your sister, mother, dear friend or daughter came to you and asked for help. She said she felt out of control with her diet like she was failing and was unable to eat in a manner that served both her mental and physical health.
What would you tell her?
Would you suggest she go on a restrictive diet? Rid her kitchen of all sweets, carbs, cheese, and joy? Eat clean, 100% paleo watching every calorie until she got her act together? Allow her one "cheat meal" a week, only after she has "been good," exercised, and "earned" those calories?
Not a shot unless you are a shitty person.
You understand that approach would be disastrous. If she were to eat that way she would only cause herself more shame and guilt because eating to those standards is almost impossible.
In the slight chance she could stick to that regime, she would come out the other side royally fucked up. Believing some foods were bad, and she needed to earn her sweets and treats with exercise or wait to enjoy them until the weekend because having a brownie on a Tuesday will surely put anyone into diet shame jail.
On the other extreme, would you tell her to throw in the towel and stop trying? Give in to every urge, throw any health-based behavior to the wind, and just go HAM eating whatever she wanted?
Hell No. You know what that could look like and what total trash she would
feel like.
You wouldn't suggest extremes to a person you love. You would tell the person you care about the truth. Restriction isn't workout, and
suggest they pay better attention to what they eat in ALL ways.
Help them see that aiming to eat super clean, sticking to an unrealistic caloric goal, or aiming to nail their macros isn't a sustainable option. You would also point out that no one feels great after eating an entire sleeve of cookies.
You would advise them to use moderation. Find a happy middle, one where they take care of themselves without deprivation.
It is time to follow your own advice…
Why are we telling ourselves eating for pleasure is bad? How skinny and hungry do you need to be before you earn a cookie?
Why do we trust ourselves to run businesses, classrooms, households, drive cars which could kill us at any second with a wrong move, yet we do not trust ourselves in a kitchen past 8pm?
Who told you chocolate on a Tuesday was terrible and something to be avoided at all cost?
Why is "needing something sweet after a meal" something you feel shame over?
When did eating for pleasure become off-limits?
Asking these questions seriously seeking answers. I have been a slave to these rules in the past. I know the cage they can keep you in and the pain of breaking free from them.
I am ok never knowing why we believe this bullshit. I can live the rest of my life never understand why successful, powerful, motivated women become powerless and fearful around carbohydrates.
But I am not ok LIVING trapped in that diet-based bullshit.
Back to the questions…
How do you stop binging, feel more in control around food, and curb your sweet tooth? You eat more.
You eat more of what you love. You eat more of what you enjoy. You eat like you give a shit about your FULL BODY health, mental and physical.
What do you think is going to happen if you have a cookie during the workweek? Really, ask yourself that.
What bullshit stories are you telling yourself? What are you so fearful of?
Rhetorical question because I know the answer.
I've heard hundreds of women, myself very much included in that list, answer.
We believe if we eat the cookie or have the "something sweet" after dinner, we will end up out of control, not being able to stop at just one, and will "ruin our entire day."
We hold onto that belief with every fiber of our being because we know it to be accurate.
It has happened hundreds of times in the past. Every time we eat the proverbial cookie, we binge, or in the least feel guilt over "failing" ourselves, as if eating 150 calories of white flour and sugar is the same as purposely running over a kitten.
We confirm our bullshit by constantly predicting the future. Telling ourselves repeatedly what we can and cannot eat and what calamity will happen after we fall off our "plan."
PRO TIP: if you are going to be a fortune teller at least predict an outcome you will enjoy! Stop manifesting more bullshit in your life!
My thoughts, now, on the other side of the diet-trap:
You aren't binging or overeating sweets because you lack control or discipline.
You are overeating and binging because you constantly tell yourself you can't have these things because they make you overeat and binge.
(yelling that right at ya). It is a circular statement for a reason.
You are fearful of food because you know you will binge, and you binge because you are afraid of food.
I am over the diet-based bullshit beliefs. They are serving no one. They keep us stuck, and worst of all, fearful and cut off from ourselves.
Side note, Y'all know I am a hippy, so hear me out with this: you want to trust your intuition? Want to be in tune with that sacred inner knowing we all carry, know when to go with your gut, and lean in. Be able to hear your body say, "Oh hell no," and gtfo when needed.
Then start listening to your body!!
Trust me, life is better when your channels are open. I know when I am getting a hit from the source and when to listen now because I got comfortable listening to my body and HONORING what I heard.
You will never be able to listen to your gut, aka intuition, when you do not trust it!
Does that mean you should immediately jump and eat every craving you have? No. Not at all.
It means you sit with the voices you hear, all of them, good and bad. The ones asking for cookies and the ones that scream, "no bitch you need some kale".
Get comfortable exploring your thoughts and fears around food.
Instead of trying to repress every craving, question it. What is happening at that moment, what do you need to give yourself, did you eat enough that day, can you wait five minutes to have it and see if you still want it….
Don't write off everything your body tells you because you are fearful of carbs/sugar/calories.
Totally unrelated to food, but someone completely related. If you want to level up your connection to intuition, and the collective knowledge outside of ourselves
start with leveling up your relationship to yourself.
Treat yourself like you like yourself. FEED yourself foods you enjoy AND the foods you need to maintain feeling your best. Both can exist together.
You can still reach your goals, zip into the jeans you want, feel good in your skin, AND eat sweets at night.
Learn to listen to yourself as opposed to thinking every craving is wrong.
Your body knows what it is doing and will lead you to exactly where you need to be IF
you let it.
Sure, you need to cover your nutritional bases, eat like you give a shit about your health, and eat like you love yourself. Stop thinking eating well is black and white, we live very much in the gray. Constant deprivation isn't normal. Food is pleasure you never have to earn.
You CAN reach ALL your goals and not deprive yourself through diet hell to get there.
Ask yourself what you need. Listen, honor and explore.
If overeating, not trusting yourself around food, binging, dieting, not being happy in your body, wanting to learn how to listen to your body's needs all while reaching and maintain your goals is something you need help with, I got your back.
I have a six-week program that will help you unpack, un-learn, and reset yourself into a place where food is your friend, not your enemy. Help you learn how to stop fighting your body and start working with it to meet and KEEP your goals.
You can have your cake and eat it too.
If you’re over the bullshit, sick of feeling like shit, sick of fighting yourself and ready to start honoring yourself I would love to help.
Check out the link below and let’s make some magic together.