Learning to trust again.

I think one of the major reasons women refuse to stop dieting is that they don't trust themselves around food. When you've spent the majority of your life relying on dozens of rules and restrictions to regulate every aspect of every meal, simply eating "normally" often feels like stepping out into the great unknown.  Many of us can't even remember what simply eating for nourishment might consist of.

This is an interesting point to make in that, for all the time women will spend obsessing over calories, very little thought goes into actually listening to the body and using that as a gauge.  Diets have taught us to reject what our body is telling us, and instead focus on whatever diet plan we've chosen.  They have, in essence, drilled into us that whatever our body is telling us must be wrong.  You're still hungry?  Must mean the diet is working.  Feeling weak?  Your body is just adjusting to your new eating plan.  Lack of energy?  Think of how much you'll have when you've finally lost the weight!  No pain, no gain, right?

The problem with this approach is that your body is the product of thousands of years of evolution in which it learned exactly how to communicate to you what it needs and when.  That little voice telling you that you're hungry, or not, is the same voice our ancestors relied on, ancestors who had virtually none of the eating-related diseases that plague the current population.

It should go without saying, then, that one of the first and most important steps to quitting your diet is redeveloping a relationship with this voice.  As you become more acquainted with this voice and get better at distinguishing what it is trying to communicate to you, you will begin to trust yourself around food more and more. 

The key to reaching that point is restoring your trust in yourself and your body.  Dieting tells us that we cannot be trusted to be around food.  To overcome dieting, you must trust your body to tell you what it needs, and you must trust yourself to listen to your body and respond to it accordingly.  It is only through being conscious and honest about our eating behaviors that we can begin to reacquaint ourselves with our body and it's voice. #