Why Diets Don't Work: Creating a Personalized Approach to Wellness

There is no one-size-fits-all diet, lifestyle, medical treatment, article of clothing…because there is no one-size-fits-all anything! We are all dynamically unique and have different needs in all areas of our lives as individuals. Imagine that there was a survey taken of bike helmet, shoe or other article of clothing sizes. Once an average was determined, helmet, shoe and clothing makers began only making the average size and sold that ONE size to everyone.

While the helmets, shoes or clothes may fit some people just fine, for many others it may be potentially harmful and most definitely uncomfortable! There just is no one-size-fits-all! The same is true with how you care for yourself. If you try to stuff yourself into a theory, exercise routine, meditation practice or even sleep schedule that does not suit you, you will be uncomfortable and it could even be potentially harmful for you.

This same concept is true for nearly everything. However, we are bombarded with messages from media, the medical community and other sources that there is only ONE best way to eat, to live, to love and to be. Not to mention that the headlines surrounding that ONE best way to eat, lose weight, live, love and be etc… changes all the time creating constant confusion about health and wellness.

This is precisely why diets don’t work for long term weight loss and living a healthy lifestyle. Studies show that long-term and yo-yo dieting actually cause weight gain. With a diet there is always an end point, so what happens when it’s over? First there is a sense of relief that you don’t have to starve yourself any longer and your metabolic functions may be out of whack after imposing excessive restriction sending you into an overeating frenzy.

Dietary theories, which are less about being on a diet and more about eating within a specific dietary plan also don’t work long term as they tend to have a higher level of restriction. These theories also often have a dogmatic view of food—such as this food is good, this food is bad—which instills a sense of fear around certain foods and creates extremes and confusion. Living in fear is never a good thing. 

A personalized approach to nutrition and wellness may include choosing to stay away from certain foods, however, you want that decision to be because that is your choice based on how that food makes you feel rather than being fearful of that particular food. When you are free and able to make a choice based on your health and how you want to feel, you create a mindset of empowerment. The more empowered you feel, the more you will begin to develop a healthy relationship with your intuition and your choices will be guided by your ability to truly listen to your body.

So you might be wondering, how do I create a personalized wellness plan? It can be extremely useful to do this in conjunction with a (w)holistic health and wellness coach, especially if you feel confused and overwhelmed by all the conflicting information out there. I recommend finding someone who works from a mindful and intuitive eating approach and encourages YOU to be the expert on YOUR body and a uses a highly individualized perspective.

But really, the thing is, YOU are the expert on YOUR body! You can become your own coach and can learn to tune in, listen and determine for yourself what your body needs, how to feed it, how to move it and how to best care for it. You are the only one who can determine what combination of foods makes you feel your best, what portions, combination of nutrients and timing of eating allows you to feel full, satisfied as well as the ability to maintain energy and overall wellness. Only you can determine what exercise—and really what anything—is best for you because YOU are the expert on YOU!

Becoming intuitively connected to your body by understanding its needs. You will recognize intuitively how food, supplements, medications, exercise plans, meditations and so on make you feel and this will give you valuable feedback that will inform your choices. If it is recommended that you go on a high protein diet and you feel disgusted by having yet another protein whatever, that is valuable information from your body. If it is recommended that you go on a plant-based diet and you are constantly starving and have low energy, that is valuable information from your body as well.

The thing is, some people will feel amazing on a plant-based foods only lifestyle—while others will feel miserable. The same is true that some will feel amazing on a higher protein, lower carbohydrate diet and others will feel horrible. We are all dynamically unique and have needs that are very specific to our own individual make up—mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually and energetically.

The process of becoming more in tune with your body is all about mindfulness, self-awareness, emotional awareness and learning to pay close attention. The process is about truly listening to your body which often speaks in soft whispers and subtle messages. Adapting a mindful approach encourages that when you eat, eat—when you drink, drink. Notice the impact of what you are eating and drinking on your body. While you do not want to be restrictive in your dietary choices due to the tendency to over-eat after a period of restricting, understanding the difference between emotional and general food cravings allows you to intuitively check in with how your choices make you feel.

When you are truly intuitive and mindful you will be diligent and practical with your choices. Having your health become your focus will allow you to make empowered decisions. This helps take away the fear of food as well as the feeling of being deprived or restricted. The middle road is really the most sustainable, the most effective and the most realistic. The moderate path, mindful eating and tuning into your intuitive wisdom surrounding your food and lifestyle choices will help you heal your relationship with food as well as with yourself.

If you are interested in immersing yourself in a journey to heal your relationship with food using these practices and principles, Finding Freedom From Emotional Eating is designed just for you. You can read more on my courses page!

How to END Feeling DEPRIVED and START Feeling EMPOWERED by Your Food Choices

Have you recently set out on a wellness journey where you want to begin eating healthier to feel good, build energy and feel more comfortable in your body? The momentum often begins with feeling strong and empowered and you have determined your WHY! Then, you are inevitably thrown into a situation where you are around others eating the very foods you have chosen not to eat because they do not support your wellness journey to feel healthy. Even though you know those foods may leave you feeling miserable (you know, feeling bloated, have an upset stomach, they zap your energy, give you skin breakouts and experience brain fog or another obvious sign that these particular foods are JUST NO GOOD FOR YOU) and yet you now feel DEPRIVED.

When you have turned the corner from making a choice that certain foods just DO NOT serve you, and you clearly know this (uh, remember the above miserable symptoms?), it does not mean that it is easy to choose not to eat them and that you won’t feel deprived.

It takes time and effort to change our minds about those types of foods and to create the shift from feeling deprived. Just because you have made the decision to no longer eat those particular foods, that does not mean that you are not human. That does not mean that there will not be cravings. That does not mean that you won’t secretly be jealous or resentful of everyone else who seems to be eating these foods with no problem at all (at least, so it seems).

Learning to listen to your body is a journey and it is definitely not a straight-line kind of a journey. Nope, integrating mindful and intuitive eating principles into your life often comes with many twists and turns. I know this personally from my struggles with leaky gut and SIBO that there are some foods that my body really does not like. At. All. One for sure is cows milk—which sadly includes cheese. You know, like the super delicious cheddar cheese, muenster cheese, swiss cheese... I pretty much used to be pretty much a chees-a-tarian. Ahh, I do love cheese, it just does NOT love me back. Do you think I didn’t test this many, many times? Of course I did! But with time and practice I had to come to realize that feeling horrible is just not worth it! It took a long time to not feel deprived when I didn’t eat cheese and I wanted it. And there are still cravings, (which are usually more emotionally based) and I have had to practice awareness and managing those desires for comforting foods when I am stressed, tired and anxious, in other ways. 

So how do you release the feelings of being deprived when you choose NOT to eat something you want despite how it makes you feel? Just like any other feelings, you have to learn to be present with them, to accept them and to ensure yourself that you are NOT ACTUALLY deprived. You are making a choice based on your wellness goals, based on what your body needs to feel vital and healthy!

When you connect with your specific WHY driving your decision to eliminate a certain food from your meals it will help to shift how you feel about your choice. Reminding yourself of your personal WHY and ensuring you are NOT restricting foods, not basing this on actual deprivation (like a diet) in any other areas, will help you refocus. My personal mantra is, “eating that gooey cheese is not worth an upset stomach.” I worked way too hard to heal my gut, I do NOT want to destroy it again.

Deprivation mindset is not healthy. When you deprive yourself and restrict certain foods out of fear of taking in calories, fearing weight gain, or to punish yourself because of your own negative body image it will inevitably lead to either malnutrition or a binge. Restriction and dieting do NOT work long-term and will set you up for bigger struggles with food. Research shows that the majority of diets fail and DO NOT last for the long term!!! That is significant and eye opening. IF you make a choice about the food you eat based on how you want to feel, you can simplify your decision-making process.

When you make your decision based on how you want to feel you create an internal experience of empowerment, confidence and self-respect. When you make choices based on building these feelings, you create a powerful shift internally. You regain a sense of control and mastery over your choices and respect your feelings and choices. Experiencing true health and well-being is a reminder that you are making progress towards your personal wellness goals. It is a process and a practice which will take time, effort, determination and focus.

One way to decrease your feelings of deprivation is to create healthy or adapted version of the foods you love. Another way is to explore any emotional food cravings and explore how to get your emotional needs met in non-food ways. An example would be if you find you crave comfort foods when you are anxious and tend to use food to calm yourself down, try a deep breathing practice, journaling, movement or talking to someone you trust about your feelings. Notice the impact of using this non-food-based tool and continue to practice it.

Having regular self-care practice and becoming more comfortable with feeling your feelings will help you choose a different way to eat, to be and interact with food and will help you begin to shift from feeling deprived to feeling empowered! Start each day with asking yourself how you want to feel (mentally, emotionally, physically and energetically) and notice how that begins to impact your choices.

The next time you notice a sense of feeling deprived in relation to a choice you make related to food, check-in and ask yourself: what’s really going on? Why are you choosing NOT to eat that particular food? Continue to be certain that you are not restricting because of a thought that it is a “bad” or “off limits” food due to calories or fear, but because it is a food that does not serve your health and wellness goals.

Are there any foods that you are working to shift your perspective from feeling deprived to feeling confident, empowered and strong? Remember that healthy eating, intuitive eating and mindful eating are form of self-respect. Let me know how this process works for you!

If you haven’t signed up for my 7-Day Kick Your Food Cravings to Curb Challenge, you can do so here!

Creating Your OWN Personalized Emotional Cravings Protocol

When you are working to heal emotional eating, having a personalized approach is most effective. The three step cravings protocol that I recommend, Pause, Reflect, Release, is helpful for most as a guideline. However, what you do within each phase will help you make it your own. When you have a personalized approach, it feels more authentic and doable and is far more likely to be sustainable.

When you find the tools that work for you, you want to practice them consistently. Awareness builds with effort and consistency. Self-awareness will continue to grow as you become more and more comfortable understanding and accepting your internal emotional world. I emphasize the acceptance process as it is absolutely vital to healing. When you understand the inner workings of your own mind, you create a tremendous capacity to heal, grow and accept yourself and others without judgment.

As you continue to more effectively manage your emotional food cravings, you create a sense of mastery which inevitably increases your experience of internal emotional comfort. When you no longer fear your feelings but instead understand, embrace and deeply accept them, you are essentially understanding, embracing and deeply accepting yourself.

The process of making peace with food is the process of making peace with yourself. With emotional, stress and disordered eating, it is never actually about the food, it is more about a limited acceptance of yourself and a limited ability to connect with yourself in a meaningful way. When you place conditions in order to accept yourself completely, you leave yourself open to creating negative cognitions about yourself such as feeling not good enough, inadequate or as though you have to be perfect.

These negative cognitions are not useful, generally untrue and hold you back from knowing yourself and caring for yourself. When you are not caring for yourself and believing the negative cognitions as if they are true, you will most likely lack motivation. As you become more emotionally aware you build confidence, you are able to believe in yourself and your capability to feel strong and healthy. Releasing the old negative cognitions and subsequent thought patterns is essential.

As you work with your own personal emotional cravings protocol, you will feel empowered in the moment, you get to choose how to manage a specific emotional craving. As you build your determination to use your protocol consistently, you will strengthen your mindset and make the best choice possible in the moment.

When you think about the three specific steps, Pause, Reflect, Release and creating a personalized protocol that works for you, it is helpful to know the specific element of each that you find to be useful.

Within the Pause phase, what helps you Pause? Do you prefer to set a timer for 1-5 minutes in the moment of awareness that you are mindlessly or emotionally eating? What is helpful next? Have a glass of water and wait for the timer to go off? Do a deep breathing exercise? Determining the specifics of your pause that work for you will help you personalize each step into a useful, actionable tool for managing your food cravings. Once you establish the technique that works best for you, use it consistently in order to effectively utilize the Pause phase.

During the Reflection phase, what works most effectively for you to Reflect on your emotional experience? What proactive element can you incorporate to make this Reflection time useful and effective? Is it helpful for you to talk about your emotion? Do you prefer to write in a journal? Does taking a walk and pondering your emotions help? Do you need to take some space away from the emotion first and practice mindfulness or relaxation and then take time to reflect?

Find what reflective process works for you and helps you identify the why behind your emotion. Once you Reflect you can take time to make a choice on how to respond to the specific emotion. If something needs to be done, decide when you will take action on it.

As you move into the Release phase, determine what helps you Release and let go of emotions that are no longer serving you. Does deep breathing help you? You can breathe in and imagine peace and contentment flowing in, and breathe out, imagining all that is not serving you mentally, emotionally and physically releasing. Does journaling support your releasing process? Does mindfulness and/or visualization help?

To visualize the Release, you can imagine your emotions on a cloud—drifting away in the sky—or your emotions releasing with the imagery of leaves floating past you on a river. Whatever helps you internalize the experience of letting go, that is what will be most effective for you to do during this phase of Release.

Take time to write down your process and know it may be different for different emotional experiences. Write down what you will do to create a personalized Pause, Reflect and Release. Have these steps nearby so you can access them in times that it may not initially come naturally for you. The rest is practice and time, time and practice. Practice is the only way to integrate the process and make it work for you within your life.  

Did you come up with a creative Pause Reflect and Release? Let me know! I’d love to hear how you are implementing these tools. How are they working for you? Need support? Know that I am here to help support you along your journey to making peace with food as well as with yourself.