I loathe the word diet. With all its connotations of deprivation, hunger pangs and misery.
When I talk about nutrition I can see people making the link to the dreadful D word. Nutrition conjures up similar connotations. As the picture above shows the first thought is that it’s all about your five a day and boring calorie reduced tasteless food.
The thoughts are linked to what we have been told over and over again, so it’s no wonder it’s ingrained. It’s taken me 42 years to wake up and smell the cream laden coffee.
Overweight from the age of about 6, I tried every diet going. With a lot of success I might add, because they do work in the short term, but turn out to be unsustainable long term.
But they all had the following in common:
1. I felt deprived constantly. Certain foods were always off limits which made me want them more.
2. Nearly all the diets were low fat which meant the meals I was eating had little taste, let alone leaving a satisfied feeling.
3. Willpower had to play a huge part to stick to the regime.
4. I constantly had to think about the ‘rules’ and therefore food was always on my mind making it even harder not to think about it.
5. If I was on the diet for quite some time I got bored, so the maintenance stage went out the window eventually because the goal was achieved and I couldn’t stand the thought of sticking with that way of eating for the rest of my life!
6. Whole food groups would be taken away, which left me longing for them. The low fat diets left me longing for butter and cream. The high fat diets, restricted vegetables, how can that be good?!
7. Bottom line, the food just didn’t taste that good. And so inevitably they were all unsustainable and up those numbers on the scales would go.
So, here I am today in a position to say that everything is as it should be. A healthy, consistent weight although I don’t even get on the scales because loose waistbands tell me all I need to know. Every meal I eat I enjoy. I have the freedom to eat whenever and whatever I want because I got rid of two ingredients that were fueling the cravings that led me to having to think about a diet. Gluten and fructose.
Please let me share it with you. I’m on a mission for this way of eating to become the ingrained message for everyone.
Say goodbye to diets, lets consign it to history.
Say hello to your future good health and happy eating.
