The Battle with Diet
Do you struggle with dieting?
Did you know “about 80% of people are not successful at keeping their weight off over the long-term” (Livestrong, 2021)?
And this has nothing to do with your willpower or discipline. What drives us to eat are always feelings. Dieting changes our thoughts about food – how we should eat, what we should eat, when we should eat, if we should even eat, but dieting never change the feelings behind our choice of food.
Every thought you think has a physical effect on your body and when we think we need to feel better, it is natural response for us to turn to “feel good” food such as Happy Meal, Fun sized chocolates, oh what about “have a break, have a kit-kat”?
People are encouraged to eat junk food because food companies tell us their food product makes us happy. In fact a health article in 2017 reported “Junk food companies spend 27 times more on advertising than the Government does on promoting healthy eating” (Dailymail, 2017). In addition, The fast food industry’s advertising spending has increased over $400 million in the short span of 7 years from 2012 to 2019 (Globalhealthnow, 2021).
This means while we have huge desires to maintain a healthy lifestyle, our environment isn’t helping us out. Bombarding us at every few scrolls and using our favorite influencers for advertisements of food we know we should not have a craving for. When we learn through advertising and media’s association that eating junk food gives us happiness, restricting ourselves on a diet simply won’t work.
Evolution’s role in dieting:
How our ancestors survived on this planet is by avoiding pain and loss. Hence all forms of “loss” is associated with pain and our mind is hardwired to get back everything that’s lost.
A rule of the mind is that it can never hold conflicting thoughts. This happens when we are on a diet with one thought running “I want to lose weight” while the protective mechanism in your brain going “I cannot lose weight, what I lose I must gain back.”
What should I do then?
Use empowering language:
Instead of saying “I can’t eat this” say “I’m choosing not to eat this”
Instead of saying “I shouldn’t/ I mustn’t” say “I want (healthy food) and I feel good about it”
Instead of saying “I need to resist pizzas but it taste so nice” say “yes pizza is quite nice but nothing is nicer than putting on my clothes knowing they fit and knowing I am choosing a healthy lifestyle”
Instead of saying “it’s difficult to control” say “I feel proud of the decision I’m making”
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