My Transition From Diets to Living....

I have been been coming home to my body for well over 5 years now and I believe that I have gotten the great opportunity to really allow myself freedom in this personal journey.

 

When I jumped into coaching in 2003, I was on diet.  One of the many I had been on in my years.  It was weight watchers and I remember what had me go back.  I had pains in my chest( ultimately diagnosed as reflux), and it scared the bee jeebies out of me so the only way I knew how to lose weight was to go on a  restrictive diet. The year before I had lost close to 25 pounds doing the atkins diet.  That was the one diet that I absolutely loved.  I could eat anything as long as it was not carbs.  In hind sight, with all I know about the quality of meat and food products, it probably wasn’t that good for me but it was the one diet in which I was virtually always satisfied and never hungry-every other low fat diet I had ever been on left me hungry and obsessed about food.  Of course as soon as I went back to carbs, I gained 15 pounds back in about 2 months and as always , eventually gained back all that was lost.

The last diet I did was right before I started the Coaches Training Institute's Leadership in fall of 2005.  I joined a popular weight loss clinic from which you buy your food.   Although I did really well, I began to look at the foods( specifically the ingredients) I was eating and realized that they were touted as diet food but they had lots of processed ingredients in it. What was I doing? I was losing weight putting nasty food into my body.  I did, once again, manage to lose about 20-25 pounds.  

Once I started the leadership program and really began an inner journey of coming home to my body, I decided I would not go on a commercial diet again.  That I would do the inner work to learn how to listen to my body.  I spent years and years not able to hear the messages of my own body, when it was hungry, when it was satisfied, when it needed rest etc. I really began to slow down long enough to recognize what my body was saying to me.  At the same time I let go of all dieting mentalities, I also throw out my workouts.  Over the years I exercised a lot/excessively, spent a small fortune on trainers etc.  It was important for me to walk away from everything everyone told me I should be doing in order for me to find my inner voice, ,my way,  the way I wanted to honor my body and desires.  It was scary to let go because in letting go, I gained 25 pounds( the same 25 pounds I had lost many times before) but I chose to love myself no matter what.  To honor and dress the body I was in at the time rather than to wait for another weight loss to live fully.  That approach was so profound for me, to trust myself enough to know I could let go and I would not abandon myself ever, no matter if others did.  

In letting it all go, I found my freedom from food obsession.  I began to eat when I was hungry and stop when I was satisfied, profound indeed for a life time dieter.  I also began to notice that when I had a lot of refined carbs and sugars, I had tons of cravings. When I stayed away, my craving would also nearly disappear.  This was  enormous for me because there was a direct link to my  weight gains and my processed carb intake.  I also began an intensive year of studying food, nutrition, the food industry and a challenging many of the long held medical and nutritional beliefs in this country.  What I discovered has changed my life and long held beliefs forever.  Stay tuned.