The trouble with diets
Would you believe me if I told you that calorie restriction, counting points or syns does not add up to healthy eating? If you have been a lifetime dieter, joined endless slimming groups and followed every diet trend going, choosing the ‘right food’ to eat can be scary business.
Despite our obsession with dieting and calorie counting, obesity levels are on the rise. The number of people classified as obese has doubled in the last 30 years.
Diets like Slimming World and Weightwatchers have created a system of eating that sees us trapped in a culture of yoyo dieting, food aversions and compensating for eating ‘bad food’ by skipping meals.
These diets have far too many rules (many of which just do not make any sense from a nutritional standpoint), and leave us open to feeling like a failure if our weight fluctuates by as little as a pound from one week to the next.
When foods like avocados, olive oil, brazil nuts and oily fish are considered too high calorie to be eaten regularly, but Skinny Whips, Muller Light and Jaffa cakes get the green light, something is out of balance. This ridiculous notion does not support nutritional science that clearly shows the benefits of having healthy fats in our diet, not to mention the other nutrients that these foods provide us with. There has to be a better option than the weekly weigh in and rigid diet culture of slimming groups.
That’s where healthy eating comes in. This is not the same as being ‘on a diet’. This is a lifestyle choice that adapts and changes over time. It is a healthy way of eating that is flexible, adaptable, and nutritious.
Imagine the scene…
You eat a healthy, balanced, nourishing diet all week. Pack your meals with fruit and vegetables, lean protein, some healthy fats and wholegrains. Then at the weekend you meet some friends for coffee and have a slice of cake, or go out for dinner and have a 3 course meal.
How does that make you feel?
Do these normal activities throw your head in a spin, make you feel guilty, or have you reaching for the calorie counter app on your phone?
If we can look at the bigger picture and start to view our diet from a more balanced viewpoint, allowing ourselves the chance to eat and enjoy the occasional treat, meal out or occasion where you feel hungrier or want to eat more, it is a much healthier way to eat.
Eating out, or choosing food that has more fat or sugar in it should not fill you with dread, nor make you feel like you need to calorie count on Monday.
This is very different to the diet-binge pattern that many diets trigger. It is time that we looked at food as a way of nourishing ourselves, rather than punishing ourselves.
When we connect more to how food really makes us feel, we take the battle out of our food choices and are more likely to eat unprocessed, highly nutritious food.
If you are a lifelong dieter, it can be a real challenge to trust yourself, but once you relearn your relationship with food and start making choices with good health in mind, rather than calories and fat, you will soon find that your struggle with weight loss becomes less of an issue, you will be more in tune with your hunger signs, have fewer mood swings and just feel better.