The hamster wheel you need to get off of

Weight loss is never about calories in and out, it’s always about how you think about food. When you start a “diet”, all goes well until it doesn’t.

Picture this, you’re going along fine, getting results and feeling good. Until one day, your brain rebels like a teenager against a curfew they’ve been fine with for months. Your brain says “fuck this, I want _____” insert what ever it’s been missing since you started.

It's a stage of grief. It’s the anger stage. Like when young adults get angry at the responsibility that comes with growing up. We get angry at the loss of being able to eat what we want ever again. It’s normal, and this is where most people go around and around on their hamster wheel of grief bouncing around from anger to bargaining.

The way to make permanent change is to accept that this is the new “you”. To train yourself that you prefer this new feeling over the feeling of carefreeness that comes with being “bad”. Because we all know the shame that follows being “bad”. Then we eat something bad to feel better about the shame and around we go again.

The insidious "loop of shame" is killing our results, and our productivity as we mentally flog ourselves for our poor decisions. It takes up mental energy we should invest elsewhere. We start to believe there’s something broken about us. Then we go back in time in our heads and think to all the times we fucked up, and that reinforces our belief of brokenness. It’s a fucked up cycle you don’t have to stay on.

So what do we do about it? We work toward acceptance. The acceptance that the new life we want is worth the work. I like the carrot, stick, and faith combo myself, and it’s worked well for me.

We need to accept that the new way of eating will provide much more than fat loss, but a new vitality that shit food robs us. Faith that at some point in the future, we will see that food as disgusting instead of enticing. We must RE-program our mind to view those big burgers as gross instead of yummy. To see the cookies as stuck to our bellies instead of yummy. We must allow ourselves to change our minds about those things. 

I did it about a decade ago with gluten. I discovered I had a gluten sensitivity when I stopped eating it for one month and dropped about 10 pounds. When I saw that, I thought “can a tiny amount have THAT huge of an impact?” So I’d test it. And boy did it ever have that big of an impact! I decided to stay away because I preferred my leaner, more energetic bod than that whole wheat bread or burger bun tasted.

This was before I knew how to clean up a gut, so this was 2013. Even now that I can eat gluten, I don’t. I accepted long ago that I wouldn’t eat pasta, bread, cake, cookies or anything like that again. So I don’t. And I don’t miss it because I’ve accepted that if I’m going to eat them, I have to make them myself, gluten free. Most of the time, I don’t want to make the time to do that, so I rarely eat it anymore. And when I see someone else eat it, I remember how lousy it makes me feel, so I don’t long for it.

Acceptance: It’s like hypnotizing yourself that you hate something you currently enjoy. It’s definitely a process and I did it without anyone helping me, so I know how hard it is without help. 

If this sounds like you, let’s talk about how I can help you overcome it for good. Reply to this email so we can talk.