Is the honeymoon over?

Are you finding yourself with yet another failed diet, wondering why you just can’t stick with it, questioning your willpower, feeling stuck?

After the initial glow of the new diet or ‘lifestyle’ programme wears off, we are left with a set of restrictive rules and lots of dos and don’ts that often don’t feel so good.

At the beginning everything goes swimmingly - we are enjoying the challenge, we like the different meals, we don’t even mind feeling a bit hungry from time to time (because that’s clearly a good thing, isn’t it?). Or maybe we aren’t feeling hungry at all and have lots of energy and motivation - we just know that this time it will work and we’ll lose the weight and keep it off.

Apart from that never really happens, does it? We end up ‘failing’ the diet, gaining most or all of the weight back (or even more), and feel terrible about ourselves. THE HONEYMOON IS OVER.

And we wonder: WHY CAN’T WE F*CKING STICK WITH IT?

Here is one of the reasons, and it has nothing to do with you or your willpower: diet and so-called lifestyle programmes are not designed to work. Think about it: if they did, then everyone would do it once and we’d all look the same.

These programmes hook you in with promises of weight loss, and initially, most diets actually deliver on that. But then your body wakes up to it and slows down its metabolism and does some other pretty spectacular sh*t to keep you alive, and your weight loss plateaus. And as a consequence you think you did something wrong, or didn’t try hard enough. (Have a read of my previous blog for a little more on this.)

A lot of these plans and programmes are also pretty restrictive, giving you an allowance of calories that a toddler wouldn’t be thriving on. That’s manageable for a short while, but restriction is a powerful thing - you are soon obsessing about food, craving food, and often bingeing on food. Again, not your fault or due to lack of determination or willpower.

I have to add that some of these programmes actually make you feel pretty good at the beginning - you have more energy, your skin looks better, you sleep better, you poop more regularly. That’s fab, and probably due to the fact that you have added a ton of fruits and veg and fibre into your meals, you are drinking more water, and you are moving more. However, with some diets (hello, Keto and Paleo) you will likely feel the restriction more acutely - but for a while we plough through regardless, all for the end goal of thinness.

When people come to accept that diets don’t work, they often feel sad, anxious, disappointed, angry, even. They feel stuck and don’t really know what to do. Queue INTUITIVE EATING. Intuitive eating is the anti-dote to restriction and food rules - because you are allowed to eat what you want, when you want, and how much you want and need. And do all of this without feeling guilty or the need to earn your calories.

When you feel like the diet honeymoon is truly over, exploring intuitive eating for yourself can be a real and exciting opportunity to heal your relationship with food and your body. Just like a partnership - when the honeymoon is over, sh*t gets real! And with work and compassion, it will build the foundation to a happy and authentic life with healthy boundaries and freedom from oppressive rules.

(I love an analogy :-)