Healthy vs Diet
We’ve officially reached the point of the year where everyone’s equivalent to senioritis has kicked in. I’d like to call it “summeritis” for fun. We’ve all passed the first quarter of the year where our health goals have come and maybe gone and with summeritis on the horizon we’re now hearing about beach bodies. If you haven’t heard it already then let me be the first one to spoil this for you: if you have a body and you go to the beach, then by definition you have a beach body. You’re welcome :)
It's next to impossible to be a part of our world and not hear or see something that tells us how our bodies are supposed to look, what our weight should be, and what new trendy diet there is. It’s one of many reasons why I created Cease to Crave to tackle the behavioral aspects of eating, but I’m not here to talk about Cease to Crave or why you should give it a shot because it works. I’m here to talk about your DIEt. Yup, I highlighted a very specific part in the word diet. In contrast I can also highlight an important part about finding a HEALthy lifestyle. See what I did there?
Okay, maybe a little extreme but stick with me here…
Diets are like crisis management. They tell you what to eat and sometimes when to eat it. They typically place negative judgements, labels, disapproval, guilt, and shame on foods that are deemed “bad.” We’ve all done them. I’ve definitely done them. I can also tell you that, for the most part, they work. You do lose weight with diets. There is even a cookie diet where you can lose weight (sign me up for that!) by only eating cookies and one substantial meal a day. Diets work, that is until you stop. Correct me if I’m wrong here, but I’m pretty sure nobody wants to be on a diet for the rest of their life. How exhausting, draining, and boring!
Let’s contrast with finding a healthy lifestyle. Your lifestyle is about how you live your life, so if we’re looking at a healthy lifestyle regarding your eating then we’re going to look at HOW you eat. Take a minute and think back to the last time you ate. Where were you? Were you sitting? Were you doing anything else while eating? Was your phone next to you? Are you eating while reading this? With the high speed of our society, fueling our body (aka, eating) has been pushed onto the list as a task and while yes, it is something we need to do during the day, the “task mindset” has us doing it in a way that doesn’t really support a healthy lifestyle. We’re constantly on the run, shoving something into our mouth, eating on the go, eating while multitasking, eating while not really being mindful about what we’re eating.
So here we are, trying to figure out if we want that healthy lifestyle or that diet. Try, for this moment, to look into the future. What are the behaviors you can do that will help to support your goals in the long run as opposed to your beach body in the short term? Switch your focus to truly healing your body to create a HEALthy lifestyle, one that you can do today, tomorrow, and long into the future. It’s your lifestyle that will get you there, not the trendy diet.
