These are 7 signs you should not diet at this time and what to do instead that I'm sharing in the Dish On Ditching Diets podcast!
My weight loss clients who are women over 35 have been dieting for years, sometimes decades.
By the time they come to me, they're frustrated, feeling like failures, and hopeless that they will ever have peace with food, feel good in their bodies, have good self-worth and lose weight permanently.
They go through periods of times trying different diets that are unsustainable, restricting foods and overindulging in foods, seeing foods as good and bad, thinking weight loss will fix how they feel about themselves, losing weight and gaining weight with no solid health habits to fall back on.
These women are at war with food, their bodies and their mind. They don't feel good enough. They feel unworthy.
In fact, they often sabotage themselves to support the mental narrative of not being good enough or feeling unworthy instead of changing the narrative.
This is why your mindset, beliefs and stories you tell yourself are so important to pay attention to.
Changing habits to make them sustainable for life means you will have to do some mental work to define the person you want to be. Then practicing becoming that new version of you.
However, if you have significant diet baggage or trauma from restricting foods and dieting so much, then it's a red flag you should not be dieting.
In this Dish On Ditching Diets podcast episode, I'm sharing 7 signs you should not diet.
Many individuals pursue dieting but are not ready... yet! Learn what the 7 signs are that you should not be dieting and what to do instead in this podcast episode!
In this Dish On Ditching Diets Podcast Episode, You Will Hear:
- 7 Red Flags You Should Not Be Dieting Right Now
- Why You Need To Have The Basics Down
- What It Means If You Don't Know What To Do When You're Not Dieting
- Why Dieting As An Overreaction To The Scale Is Not What You Should Do
- Why Dieting Will Not Solve Hating Your Body
- Why You Need To Change The Narrative In Your Mind To Lose Weight Sustainably
- What To Do Instead of Dieting
Never Miss An Episode! Subscribe to the Dish On Ditching Diets Podcast on Apple, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify or Amazon Music
Related Dish On Ditching Diets Podcast Episode
- 5 Basics Of Weight Loss
- Why Weight Loss Is So Hard
- All Or Nothing Thinking
- Restricting Food Guarantees Overeating
- The Diet Mentality
7 Signs You Should Not Be Dieting Podcast Transcript
Hi Friends!
I’m recording this in December right after the Thanksgiving holiday weekend and if your holiday looked anything like mine there were multiple opportunities to enjoy a lot of good food.
It always seems like those opportunities to enjoy more good food continue into December too, am I right?
I’m feeling a little more bloated and just what I call fluffy from being out of my routine, not working out like I normally do and consuming different foods.
So, the natural tendency people have is to be like well, the scale is up – likely from retaining more water.
It’s not real fat gain – it’s just more food flowing through your body and normal up and down fluctuations on the scale.
But you’re thinking I’m feeling fat, I don’t feel great, and maybe I feel a little bit guilty about how I ate, so I should probably get the scale back down.
I should get the scale down to a normal range, I’ll enjoy the rest of the holidays then in January, I’ll really get it together. That is where most people are at mentally.
Clothes are feeling snugger. You’re not feeling like yourself. You’re feeling frustrated. There’s a natural inclination that you want to diet or restrict some of your food.
Dieting as a response to something is never a good idea. It’s never a good idea to react because you’re feeling a certain type of way.
So, today we’re talking about 7 red flags that you should not be dieting and then I’m going to tell you what to do instead.
Number One – If you’re dieting as a reaction to overindulging and this can be any time of year. If you overindulge on the weekend, on vacation, on a holiday etc. responding to that with a diet is never a good idea.
The reason it’s a bad idea is because it sets the mindset that overindulging is bad and dieting is good. It sets the precedence that you’re in an all or nothing cycle.
Where when you’re in nothing and overindulging that you must fix yourself by being perfect and going into that all or super restrictive cycle.
It setups up a poor relationship with food, your body, your mindset so, dieting as a reaction to overindulging is always a red flag you shouldn’t be dieting.
You need to learn to be okay with the times you overindulge and not react to them.
Just like I described earlier, I’m feeling a little bloated and fluffier. I’m not doing anything crazy about it.
I’m just getting back to my normal routine and I know when I do that my body will level out in a few days.
Number Two – You still think of foods as good or bad. You think you’re a bad person if you eat a certain food. You think you need to punish yourself if you ate something less nutritious or unhealthy.
You think you need to restrict your food more or exercise more if you ate something you define as a bad food or if you eat something less nutritious.
You have it in your mind that if you ate something less nutritious or something bad that this must mean you’re a failure, you’re out of control and you can never control yourself around food.
If you still think of foods as good or bad, you are not ready to be dieting.
There are a lot of studies that show the psychological impact of dieting and how it can create disordered eating patterns for individuals.
I shared one of those studies, a starvation diet study from 1944, in the last podcast episode 103 – why weight loss is so hard. The healthy men in that study were put on a highly restrictive diet and in the end, they became obsessed with food.
If you want to hear the full study, you can listen to that episode, but the message is if you are still in the mindset that there are good foods and bad foods and you can only lose weight when you eat good foods, you are not ready to diet.
You must believe you can eat anything you want, be healthy and lose weight BEFORE you diet.
Remember a calorie deficit is what creates weight loss and yes, for some getting into a calorie deficit is harder especially as we age. People move less and lose muscle mass. There is not something mysterious going on with your body.
Less daily movement aka sitting more, and less muscle mass coupled with eating the same way, results in body fat gain.
Your body is burning fewer calories, you’re eating the same way or sometimes eat more and drinking more alcohol and now you’re gaining weight.
So, yes, getting into a deficit is harder, but a calorie deficit is still how humans lose body fat. No way around that fact.
But the bottom line is as long as you believe there are bad foods or that you cannot eat anything unhealthy an lose weight, you will remain stuck.
You will constantly restrict those foods then binge on them.
The exact definition of yo-yo dieting. That mindset has to change before you attempt to lose body fat. Red flag if you think of foods as good or bad.
Number Three – You dislike your body or yourself and you think that losing weight will solve that problem.
If your motivation to change your body is coming from a place of dislike or disdain or hating yourself for the size you are, if that is your driver you won’t last. And that is not just my opinion.
That has been backed by research. Negative motivators are effective for getting people started, but they are really ineffective for keeping people motivated and sustaining habits.
I’m guessing you want to sustain this. I’m guessing you want to stay motivated.
If you do, then you need to realize you can’t hate yourself and think losing weight is going to make you like yourself.
Again, negative motivators can be helpful for getting started, but it’s ineffective for continuing and sustaining because you end up sabotaging yourself to continue the narrative of I’m not good enough, I’m not worthy, I’m a fat worthless person.
You will often sabotage your efforts to fill that narrative instead of changing the narrative.
So, if your weight loss goal is coming from a place of negativity it won’t last.
Real change comes from the mindset of I love and appreciate my body right now for what it’s helped me achieve, what it’s been through, where it’s gotten me thus far in life and I’d like to see what else I’m capable of – that is a much better mindset that is more empowering!
If you are bullying yourself to lose weight and being super negative towards yourself, this is a huge red flag you need to work on your mindset, belief systems and should not be dieting.
My bold assumption here is you want this to last. You want something sustainable. If you don’t something sustainable, don’t listen to anything I say.
Number Four - you don’t have the basics down. I spoke about the 5 basics of weight loss in podcast episode 102 I spoke to you about the habits you need to have in place BEFORE losing weight.
If you do not have these habits in place, you have no business attempting weight loss. No business!
I know I’m saying this bluntly, but you must lay the foundation of your house before you build your house, or your house is going to fall down. Your foundation are your habits and mindset.
Most individuals have what I call shiny object syndrome. They hear of a diet that proclaims to be the magical thing that you’ve been missing that’s going to get you to lose weight.
You’ve been missing this one thing they say, or they say you’re going to lose 10 pounds in 10 days, so you get really excited.
This must be the thing I’m missing and OMG losing 10 pounds in 10 days sounds amazing! I’m so uncomfortable in my body, feeling fluffy and not myself this will be perfect.
Then you do the diet, it’s too restrictive, it doesn’t teach you anything about establishing lifelong habits, so you lose weight and gain it all back.
This is shiny object syndrome. It sounds appealing and it preys on our desire for instant gratification.
Losing weight and keeping it off for good requires a different mindset. Slow is best. Fast means I’ll regain the weight.
Establishing quality habits and routines, means I will be able to do this for life.
Number Five – You think you always need to be dieting and you don’t know what to do if you’re not dieting. If you don’t know what to do when you’re not dieting, you have the wrong mindset and chances are this goes back to number four.
You don’t have the basics down because that’s what you do when you’re not dieting is practice the basics. The basics don’t stop just because you lose weight. You continue to maintain and sustain results by practicing the basics.
Dieting or being a calorie deficit should always be a short-term intervention to lose some body fat. Most individuals are treating it as a forever pursuit.
It’s not. It’s short-term. You get in and you get out.
If you believe fat loss is the only goal worth working for, you are always going to struggle. I don’t know how to say that nicely.
You have to embrace things that are not just fat loss focused.
Strength, metabolic health, quality habits, performance, flexibility, a good mindset, being a role model for others, being able to play with your children and grandchildren those are the practical things that you need to embrace that are not just fat loss focused but actually improve your overall health, mindset and lifestyle.
Quality coaching should instill these things in you, but if you want long-term sustainability you have to want these for yourself.
You can have a coach that helps you improve your health and establish quality habits for life, but fundamentally you have to have a desire to want and to achieve those things.
If you only want fat loss, then you absolutely should not be pursuing a diet.
You are taking the least stable goal and you’re trying to use that as your foundation and that foundation will fall apart and crumble. It’s flimsy.
Number Six – If you are overly stressed in other areas of your life. If you are super-duper stressed in other areas of your life – you have a ton of family stress, work stress it’s not the time to diet.
You don’t need to add another stressor on top of an already stressed environment. Your body will not respond well.
It will be more frustrating, and it will be more difficult to sustain and here’s why.
Stress is one of the biggest killers of decision making. So, if you want to make really poor decisions, be stressed all the time.
Don’t get sleep, be tired, over caffeinated and you will make bad decisions.
A good example of this is caretaking. Being a caregiver is a very difficult and stressful job.
My Mom was one to my father. If you’ve been listening for a while, you know my father had Alzheimer’s and he recently passed away in September.
I’ve seen many clients in this scenario, and I’ve always told them now is not the time to diet and pursue losing body fat which is why many of them work with me after they’re done caregiving.
Here's the thing, when you are stressed or drained mentally and physically, you will make decisions that are out of alignment with your goals and who you want to be.
And it will just be hard to maintain a calorie deficit during those timeframes.
Remember a calorie deficit is stress on the body which is why we get in and get out. We don’t stay there for too long unless we have a lot of body fat to lose.
So, when you are super stressed, it is a time to maintain your basics and do those as well as you can. It is not a time to pursue losing body fat.
Number Seven – You’ve always been dieting, you’re always dieting, you’ve been dieting since you were a teenager or most of your adult life.
You’re constantly trying to eat very little with little results to show for it. On and off diets every year or maybe a few times a year.
Dieting has become so normalized in our society, many of us have been raised thinking it was normal to diet and many of us have early memories of not being accepted unless we were dieting or a certain size.
It’s no wonder why our default mindset is to constantly restrict food and looking for the latest diet craze!
Maybe you know you have a certain number of calories you want to hit, and you know that it’s probably too low because you’re too hungry at that number. Some days you do it, some days you don’t.
That looks a lot like all or nothing, restricting or binging. But it’s always in the back of your mind.
There’s always that narrative playing in the back of your mind that you need to be losing weight, you need to be eating less, you need to be losing fat, you need the scale to go down and it’s that constant narrative that’s playing on repeat all day.
If that is where you are, then that is a red flag you should not be dieting and you need to work on a more productive mindset.
I understand the feeling and that you’re feeling a certain way about your body. Trust me I get it.
You feel frustrated, bloated, gross and unattractive. But there are things you can do that don’t require you to always be dieting and starving yourself.
There are things you can do to get out of that mindset.
A lot of my clients come to me and have been dieting on and off for 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years. Yes, I have many clients in their 70’s who come work with me and tell me they’ve been dieting since they were in their 20’s.
These clients come to me and tell me I’ve been dieting for 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years and I’m still not where I want to be.
I know how frustrating that is, and I know you think the solution is to immediately jump into dieting, but it’s not.
You may even be at your tipping point and here I am telling you that you should not pursue dieting. You’re probably thinking I should just give up.
Don’t do that. Don’t give up. Just give up the old way of doing things. Give up the old narrative in your head.
Instead, I’m going to give you one tangible thing you that will require minimal effort if you actually do it. Just pick one single habit to incorporate right now. Right now. Today.
Don’t wait until tomorrow. Don’t wait until next week. Don’t wait until Monday. Don’t wait until January.
Start right now and make it small and achievable and maybe it’s just a 10-minute walk. Maybe it’s just stretching for 10-minutes.
Maybe it’s journaling or meditating for 5-minutes. Maybe it’s 10-minutes of jumping jacks. Any tiny habit, pick one and just do it.
Another thing you can do is spend time figuring out maintenance. How much food does your body need just to maintain and learning that.
Learning maintenance is always a milestone and many don’t take the time to learn that because they’re constantly pursuing dieting.
The other thing you can do is identify one tiny habit you want to remove. I won’t scroll mindlessly on my phone before bed. I won’t drink alcohol every single night.
I won’t sit at work for more than an hour. You can also replace the I won’t with an I will.
I will get a 10-minute walk in daily. I will track my food. I will eat 30 grams of protein with breakfast. You get the jist of it.
It doesn’t matter what you pick to do, it just matters that you pick something and do it. Start building the muscle of doing things.
Keep it small and untainable. This will be so much more beneficial than constantly dieting all the time. I get it, it’s not exciting, but here’s the thing.
You can keep doing things the way you always have but if you’re listening today, you may need a different approach.
If you struggle with that negative narrative playing in the back of your head, then it might be time to invest in yourself and get a quality coach.
Someone who will help you with those old narratives, that will help you find a balanced lifestyle that allows you to feel your best, be there for your family, feel strong and healthy, improve your confidence, feel more comfortable in your body, mind and clothes and eliminate the mental roadblocks and be more at peace.
It may be time to stop avoiding doing the real work that needs to be done. The mindset work that’s getting in the way.
Because cutting calories is easy. It’s really basic. But if you don’t work on your mindset, you yo-yo even with the things that are easy and basic. How has that worked out for you so far?
I’m guessing if you’re listening to this, not so good so maybe you need a different approach. If you need help, you know where to find me.
This might be the time to change your old narrative and embrace a new narrative of the person you would like to be and to find something that is truly sustainable!
Ok friends. That’s all I have for today. I hope this episode was helpful for you. Enjoy the holiday season and I’ll chat with you soon!
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