I teach my clients that by deciding what types of food they want to eat, and putting those foods on their daily food plans, that they are giving themselves the right to choose, (taking it back from the diet industry) which will empower them to learn how to trust themselves and their bodies again.
A food protocol is just a list of foods you have decided will work for your body and your weightloss goals. A persons personal food choices are their own decisions on what they will eat in order to not only lose weight but to enjoy life on their own terms.
I have some clients who are working on the feeling of not wanting to be "restricted" as their old diets mandated that they were only allowed to eat certain foods (clean) while other foods needed to be eliminated because they were (bad) foods for their body and were the cause for why they were overweight.
I have some clients who choose a more "restrictive" food protocol because they have learned what foods feel the best in their bodies and the ones that cause them to physically and mentally feel like a bloated fish out of water. (DEAD)
There are a lot of diets out there. And if you've done enough of them, you know that it all starts to become rather confusing and you no longer have the ability to make good choices for yourself, it's as if your power has been shut off. Once we have started to rely on what "others" tell us about how we should live in order to lose weight, we lose our ability to trust the bodies that God has created. We forget that He has given us the ability to tune into our hunger signals. That we can make choices based on what would feel satisfying and enjoyable. And yes, we can learn to tune back in to when we've had enough and stop overeating, which helps our bodies to lose the extra weight.
What diets don't give you is the freedom of choice. You follow their rules, maybe lose a little weight, maybe keep it off for a little while and when the rules become too much or you want to go back to enjoying those "forbidden fruits", you put the weight back on again. Instead of seeing that the diet wasn't sustainable, too restrictive, or just not enjoyable, we tend to blame ourselves for the weight regain and hang our heads in shame telling ourselves that somehow we are broken and incapable of keeping excess weight off of our bodies.
What if I told you that you can learn how to eat in a way that is enjoyable to you and also allows you to lose weight? It's like resetting the dial on your younger years when you naturally knew when to eat and when you've had enough.
It seems simple. That's because it is. It feels hard because we've spent too much time away from our God given abilities to eat and feel satiated and too much time focusing on what all those experts were saying. Ignoring our stomach's and not allowing ourself to trust in our ability to eat when hungry and stopping at enough.
Why is it that the experts can't even agree on what we should be eating?
I teach my clients to make a list of all the foods that they personally enjoy and decide the day before what ones they want to eat during the next day's meals. Some of you may say, but what if I don't want that tomorrow when I get up and feel tired or stressed from a long day at work, or when my kids are whiney and don't want to eat what I've planned? Hang out here, another blog will be written to address your thoughts about your plan. Right now I just want to ask you to create a plan based on the protocol list you "desire" to create.
How does it feel to have a choice in what you will eat?
Does fear come up if you think "I can't eat chocolate cake, it makes me gain weight"?
Do you like the foods that you put on your protocol or has some diet mentality from one of those past diets crept in while you were making it?
Letting go of "foodfobia" happens when we learn to trust ourselves and our bodies again. The best way to build trust is to learn to say yes to your food protocol. Give it a few weeks. Watch your brain throw a fit with all of the can't haves and shouldn't eats. I've got more blog posts to help you address the mental mess that will come up. Know this-it's coming up because you've been believing a lot of advice that hasn't worked for you.
So maybe it's possible for you to decide to learn something new?
When you begin to discover what foods on that list make your body feel amazing and which foods not so much you will feel more in control of your life and begin to trust your body and your protocol list.
But what about this scripture verse? Doesn't this tell me I "shouldn't be eating whatever I want?
(You say, "I am allowed to do anything"-but not everything is good for you. You say, "I am allowed to do anything"-but not everything is beneficial. 1 Corinthians 10:23)
In an upcoming blog we will dig in to discover which foods your body feels better using and how to allow yourself the freedom of "letting go" of the ones that do not serve you without crying about it.
For now just create the list. Put all the things on it that you really enjoy. Would you believe me if I told you that I personally put cookies and candy on my protocol list? Then I decide when I will eat them. And guess what? Sometimes when I am hungry and it's on the list I enjoy them to the feeling of "I've had just enough in my body" and other times I just decide that I don't want them that day. It's not a big deal any longer. I don't tell myself that life is not fair because I "can't" have something any more. I spend more of my time not worrying about food these days.
Would you believe me if I told you that I know a woman who put chocolate cake on her list, wrote it on her daily plan every day for a year and lost over 50 pounds?
I do not put salads on my list anymore. I spent a lot of time living in diet mentality and thought that I had to eat a salad in order to lose weight. (oh, by the way, you can overeat a salad) I enjoy vegetables so I have a variety of those on my list, but no longer eat salads. I've lost over 67 pounds and am working on reaching 100 pounds of weight loss. By using my protocol and learning to trust myself and the body God has given to me, I know that I will not only continue to lose weight and reach my goal but I will be able to maintain the weight loss long term.
This is just one small step that I offer to you today. It's more fun to learn with small steps. They help us discover so many amazing things about ourselves along the way.
Let me know what you will be adding to your list. I'd love to chat with you on how to add those foods back in, learn to trust your body again and lose excess weight.
You can reach me at www.dammgirlcoaching.com
Coach Shel
DammGirl Coaching
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