A few years back I decided that I was never going to diet again. I felt that dieting, especially yo-yo dieting put me in a bad place and was ultimately unproductive.
But making lifestyle changes was okay.
Unfortunately, for the perpetually fat, not "being on a diet" is actually hard. We can't seem to help it -- we have years of conditioning to overcome.
When you join a structured program like Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig, they stress that you aren't "on a diet" but that you are "making lifestyle changes". It's all PC-bull though. You're on a restricted calorie diet. That isn't making lifestyle changes -- that's trying to lose weight in a way that's not sustainable.
But I really thought I was just making lifestyle changes. I told myself that I would continue to eat when I was hungry, just make better choices. I'd work on eating slower and chewing more thoroughly. I would drink more water. But I wouldn't starve myself or fall into a Good Food/Bad Food mindset. I wouldn't try to restrict my calories or loss weight. If I lost weight or ate less calories, that would be good, but it wouldn't be my goal.
And here I am four months later trying not to eat more than an average of 1500 calories a day and telling myself at 1:30pm that I couldn't possibly be hungry as I'd just had lunch an hour ago. At least I'm not falling into the Good Food/Bad Food trap; well, at least not too much.
I guess I need more "head" work than I thought! I've been slacking off on my Food and Feelings Workbook because I was sure I was above all that. I guess just because I don't eat a pint of ice cream when I'm unhappy, it doesn't mean I don't have head issues.
If nothing else, this process is going to keep me humble.
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