I Can't Stick With a Diet! Why This is a Good Thing.

Have you ever rebelled against your diet? It can look something like this...

“Within a few weeks of starting a new diet, the same thing always happens,” says Gina. “I find myself rebelling against the rules. I basically just say ‘eff it!’ and go crazy with all the forbidden foods."

"Of course, I end up feeling like crap. Not only am I stuffed, I also feel angry and ashamed," she admits. 

"So, naturally, I go into fix-it mode, which means hopping online in search of a new diet while promising myself that I’ll really stick with it this time.”

Gina believes her inability to stay on a diet is due to her lack of self-control. “If only I had more willpower and discipline, then I’m sure I would finally be successful at this dieting game.”

Healthy Rebellion
What Gina doesn’t realize is that rebelling against her diet is actually very healthy behavior.

When you let a plan, program or person dictate what you eat, how much you eat and when you eat, you give your power away. It’s an assault on your personal autonomy and boundaries.

When you rebel, you’re actually restoring your autonomy and protecting your boundaries. You’re reclaiming your power. This is a good thing!

Unlike Gina, when I was dieting, I regrettably tolerated diet culture's rules for far too long before I began pushing back. 

Once I stopped restricting and started eating more intuitively, the sense of freedom I felt with food made me realize I could never turn my eating decisions over to an external force again.

You’re in Charge
Whereas dieting is disempowering, Intuitive Eating is empowering.

With Intuitive Eating, there’s no need to ever rebel because you’re always in charge. There are no rules, there's nothing to defy.

You—and only you—decide what and when to eat based on your individual needs and circumstances such as your body’s cues (e.g., hunger, fullness, desires), satisfaction level, nutritional requirements, personal preferences and values, food budget and accessibility, and daily rhythm and schedule.

Basically, to the best of your ability, you eat what feels right when it feels right.

The result: greater ease, freedom and peace in your relationship with food.

Donuts, Video Games and Ease

When I was a kid, one of my best friends lived across the street. Her name was Jennie.

A few days a week, Jennie’s mom Betty would babysit me. This basically meant getting to play with Jennie for hours on end. It also meant going wherever Betty needed to go. 

Back then, playing in a bowling league was a popular pastime for many of our parents and once a week we would go to the bowling alley with Betty. 

While she threw strikes and picked up spares, Jennie and I would have a blast running around the cigarette smoke-filled alley, yelling over the loud music and crashing pins while spending all our allowance on video games in the arcade. 

To keep us fueled up and out of her hair while she bowled, Betty would buy us both a cake donut. I loved eating those donuts, especially the ones with chocolate frosting, just as much as I loved gobbling up all those Pac-Man dots.

A Sense of Ease
Besides my joyful memories of freely roaming the bowling alley with my best friend, what I also cherish about that time is the sense of ease I had with eating.

I didn’t yet have a diet mentality and a bunch of food rules dictating what I should or shouldn’t eat. 

I hadn’t been taught yet to count calories, to fear fat grams, to worry about carbs or to question if I deserved to eat something. 

I hadn’t yet learned to not trust my body and to feel bad, guilty and ashamed about my eating. I just knew what tasted and felt satisfying. 

Before diet culture tainted my relationship with food (and because I never faced food insecurity), I had an easy, relaxed relationship with it. It didn’t dominate my time, energy and headspace.

Like best friends and video games, food was just one of many sources of pleasure in my life.

After years spent riding the dieting/restriction roller coaster with all its rigid food rules, it’s this sense of ease that I longed to reconnect with. 

Reclaimed My Ability to Just Eat
By reclaiming my ability to eat intuitively, which included ditching my diet mentality and food rules, challenging my anti-fat bias, and giving myself unconditional permission to eat with attunement to my body’s needs, I was once again able to simply eat a donut and move on. 

This reclamation wasn’t fast or easy, however, the food freedom, peace and ease I reconnected with on the other side made it so worth it.

When was the last time you experienced a sense of ease with your eating? 

What was different about that time? 

How would your life change if you felt a sense of ease with your eating again, or perhaps for the first time?