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.

The New Year is Here and Dieting is the Topic de Jour for Many

Well I decided this week that I was going to begin blogging.  To start writing about my journey of coming home to my body and learning to live from a place of acceptance and love for the body I am in  today ( obese by the world's standards). 

I decided to start this blog because this week the news has been chock full of stars publicly stating that they are going to go on diets.  Do we not go through this every single year?  Many , if not all, will lose weight but at  what cost?  There are many reasons most diets do not work for the long haul.  An important issue is the place from which people start.  When you start from the place that you are bad, your body is bad and  it has to be changed and altered because you are not acceptable.....as Julia Roberts stated in Pretty Woman..... BIG MISTAKE.  It generally is already a lost cause for the long term.

Part of my journey back home to my own body ( as it is today) was about getting clear that all the many diets I have been on ( and I have been on many and lost many, many pounds) had a number of problems from the start and one of the biggest ones was my giving my power away and letting society and other's opinions about what I should look like matter more to me than my own relationship with my body( how I feel).  I did terrible damage to my body all those years I was giving my power away and starting the next diet. After reading the book " Big Fat Lies" by Glenn  Gaessar  last year, I now know that it was foolish and dangerous to be yo-yo dieting.  You can be fat and fit ( I know, I know.......take a deep breath because there is evidence for that statement).  

For most of my life,  I was so desperate to be thin.  I would always start the next diet with all the best of intentions, this was going to be the time, I was going to make it happen and all would be well.    Most times I would lose weight by counting calories , points , grams of fat or carbs, go to various diet institutions etc..  I think I have done them all except a liquid diet.  I would be diligent about exercise and I would get down but what came next sometimes happened right away but often it happened down the road but it inevitably came.  And that was the desire to eat non stop.  It was like my body was trying very hard to get something back.  At the time I had no understanding but now I know my poor body was screaming out for nutrition.  My body remained in a mini starvation mode for whatever time I was on the diet and then my body craved nutrition( healthy fats and foods) but what I had given it during dieting( and after) were horrible trans fats ( margarine was in then) and processed carbs all hidden in low cal and low fat foods.  I thought I was being healthy but all one had to do was look at the labels of most of what I was eating and it was not good.  

Of course there is more information of out there, but low fat or non fat is still in.  Does that make any sense when we knowthat our brain is made up of at least 60% fat.  We need healthy fats in our diets( that is a topic for another day) and we need to get processed foods out of our lives and I mean ALL processed foods.  They are killing us.  

So here we are in January and probably many people you know are on a diet ( again) hoping this time will be the time.  I go to a gym and it never fails at this time of year, the over weight ( most of the obese don't even try anymore) have to do something so the number of gym attendees increase but will those individuals still be coming in a couple of months?   Probably not, and you know why they won't, because they will get tired, tired of working out and not losing weight as quickly as they think they should be losing weight and  if their food plan includes less calories, less fat and less enjoyment- they will not stick to it, over time the drive to eat something they like will take over.  That is the cycle that 95% of overweight and obese people go through and each time they lose and then gain it back plus more, they unknowingly, set themselves up for the next failure down the road.

There is a way to eat healthful, move your body , enjoy every bite and get off of the "diet rollercoaster".....there is freedom it just won't be the way you think.

Until next time,

Joanne