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When you’ve been painfully riding the Diet bandwagon for years and you have no clue what your body wants, what hunger and fullness really is and what it means to have a normal relationship with food, a No Diet Diet might be just what you need.
A No Diet Diet is a certain amount of time where you choose to step off the diet bandwagon and instead begin to listen to your body when it comes to hunger and satiation cues.
It’s about relearning what it’s like too live in tune with your body and discover what actually feels nourishing and grounding to your unique body.
When you decide to go on a No Diet Diet, it’s important to follow some guidelines.
Don’t weigh yourself in this time. No matter what happens, weighing is not an option.
Don’t restrict during this time. This is your time to explore and have fun with food. Let go of the restriction, let go of the need to control and relax into what happens if you enjoy life and food.
Don’t punish yourself for eating more than you wanted. When you begin your No Diet Diet, you’ll probably “overeat” at times and that is totally OK. Don’t punish yourself or go into self-blame and self-hate. Normal eaters overeat too. It is part of a living and breathing creature.
Don’t abort this process because you’re getting scared, because you’re gaining weight or because you feel it’s not working. You’ve committed to a certain time of not dieting and it matters that you do it until the end. Otherwise, you’ll never know how awesome life without diets can be.
When you feel like you’ve gained tons of weight and you have no clue how to deal with it, remember a few things:
You are probably coming out of a restrictive mindset. If you then begin to eat in a more intuitive way, you may gain weight initially. When you start to eat a sufficient amount of protein, you gain lean tissue mass faster than you lose body fat.
Look at the bigger picture – what are your bigger goals in life, love, job and relationships?
Wear different clothes during this time of transition. Don’t squeeze yourself into clothes that sit too tight and get rid of your skinny clothes once and for all. Make this transition as comfortable for yourself as possible.
Did you keep your weight artificially low by dieting? If so, of course you’ll gain weight if your body has a higher setpoint.
Do you use the No Diet Diet as a permission to overeat and indulge overly? Is your brain in a free for all place because you’ve been restricting for so long?
How have you been feeling while on the No Diet Diet? The way you feel is so so so much more important than your weight. Check in with yourself and ask if you’ve been feeling better or worse since you’ve stopped dieting.
Enjoy this episode of Escape Diet Prison and do share it if it helped or inspired you.
Love and light,
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