Dear Tessa:

Restricting is an unreasonable practice of self discipline regarding eating, and so it often leads to overeating and bingeing (extreme overeating). Practicing reasonable self discipline regarding eating is necessary once you already experience disordered eating.

What is reasonable self discipline- you make the rules for what it means to you. You can start with certain rules and then adjust and change those rules through your experimenting and experience over time, so to come up with what works for you, individually.

The anxiety that fuels disordered eating has to be dealt with as well, at the same time that you figure those reasonable rules for your eating.

Got to say goodbye to the memories of the time when your focus was not on food, and welcome this new challenge. You can make it, Tessa. You can come out the winner in this challenge.

anita

Actually, we can eat what we want as long as with moderation. Foods are just there, you can eat them anytime! but make sure your limitations. You must have an amount of food your are eating and enjoy it.Well, tomorrow is another day! Good Luck

The words we use have power. Most people associate the word diet with restriction and privation.  If we do so the mind will likely fixate on what we are depriving ourselves and the desired goal of being healthy is over whelmed.   Not only are we more likely to binge we insure that we feel quality and deserve to be punished…. Feeding negative self talk that we aren’t good enough and deceive to be unhappy and unhealthy.   Defeated before you even got started

Instead of a diet as restrictions chose a diet of abundance the abundance of becoming.

My own experience awakening to my diet was that over 65% was grain based. Even though I lost weight by exercising and keeping the amount of food down to the needed calories after a few weeks I would just binge. I felt so hungry and craved more and more salt and sugar/grains.  It seems today’s processed grains will provide short bursts of energy and feelings of fullness for an hour or two but act like sugar in the body, triggering the body to store (weight gain) resulting in inflammation and blood-sugar imbalances.

Talking to a naturopath and nationalist he noted that my diet (as in what I was eating not what I wasn’t eating as restricting) wasn’t balanced. That I needed more fats and protein and less dairy and grain. He suggested that I avoid grains and dairy. Not as a restriction but to avoid.

After two weeks of avoiding grains and adding butter back into my diet I found I wasn’t hungry between meals and lost 8 pounds.  I used to crave, really crave, chips and pizza and when I binged that was my go to. I can say that after three months of avoiding grains and -30 pounds I don’t crave anymore. I sometimes think about buying chips and such again but it’s a muscle memory physiological thing more then a craving.

I was at a work function the other week and pretty much everything they served all the junk foods. I partook. After just a few moments I notice that my body wasn’t feeling so great and that I didn’t really enjoy those foods anymore. I didn’t feel deprived but instead grateful that my body new what it needed and didn’t need and that I could hear it.

Me personally, I use my fitness pal so that I can eat what I want but stay within a set amount of calories, so I can have a better relationship with food and not treat food as though it is the enemy, food should be enjoyed !!!