25, that is the exact number of diets I’ve been on since the age of 15 can you relate? It took 25 diets to realise that dieting was the cause of my binge eating.
Gasp… that’s right I quit binge eating when I stopped dieting.
If you’re anything like me, you have probably tried the same amount of diets, maybe even more and you might feel lost in the noise out there about how to stop binge eating.
You feel confused about how to stop overeating!!
It almost feels like an out-of-body experience, like you have become a zombie and food is the only thing you can think of!!
You have been avoiding going out with your friends because you just don’t trust yourself to make the right food choices.
You feel so lonely, no one understands the pain of self-hatred and disappointment when you look down at the empty packaging,
Wondering why you just can’t stop at one?
Dieting is not the solution. You know this because it just brings out feelings of being out of control.
It took me years to realise dieting was not the solution. I realised my food issues ran much deeper than just eating and exercise.
That’s when I decided I was going to do something different. Instead of dieting and heavy exercise, I started rewiring my food thoughts and emotions. Slowly, I started seeing a shift in my behaviours and I stopped binge eating. I couldn’t believe how much control I had back!!
I took my life back, and it felt so free!! I felt empowered. I could walk past the chocolate aisle and not feel triggered at all!! I started feeling my fullness and can now eat mindfully without ever losing control.
Shifting from a diet mindset to Anti-diet can feel very confusing.
Anti-diet does not mean anti-health.
However, because of the diet culture, it has led us to believe that the only way to be healthy is to be on a diet!!
Anti-diet means anti-diet culture, and standing against the culture that promotes restrictive eating and encourages poor body image by encouraging you to pursue the perfect body.
Actually, we still get to be healthy. You still can be anti-diet and still want to eat more vegetables or drink more water, run faster or start a yoga practice.
But you reject the diet industry mentality of starving yourself to fit into a body that is unattainable. Anti-diet promotes weight-neutral approaches to health such as Intuitive Eating and the health at every size movement, which is scientifically proven to be beneficial to an individual’s wellbeing.
Because guess what, the eat less run more principle has failed and failed again. It is damaging and it’s causing you to feel out of control with food and triggering binge episodes.
We often think that we need weight loss, dieting and we need our bodies to change to be happy.
Through my personal recovery and helping other women heal their relationship with food, what I realised was that no matter how small, I made my body; I was still unhappy.
Diets truly don’t work, and it is up to us to notice how diets make us actually feel. There might be one fleeting moment where we feel amazing because we might have lost weight, but how are we feeling the rest of the time?
- we feel restrictive,
- we feel shame and guilt,
- we feel absolute disgust if we can’t stick to our plan
- we feel like failures.
And that is not a way of healing.
What we truly need is often as:
- connection,
- self-acceptance.
- self-love
- self-care,
- stress management,
- and this is where we can really start to heal our relationship with food, not by cutting it out or making it the enemy.
It’s time to say goodbye to dieting. Your mental and physical health is worth it girlfriend!!
I have a quiz to help you stop binge eating based on your binge eating personality. Figuring out your binge eating personality will help me develop more individualized strategies around food and your feelings for you so that you can build strategies against those urges in the future. You can take the quiz right here https://wholesomelifestyleproject.com/work-with-me/quiz/
Stel coombe-Heath is the #1 authority in helping busy women stop binge eating. She is on a mission to help a million women have a better relationship with food and their body.
Stel is a transformational health and life coach, cognitive behavioural therapist, podcast host and soon-to-be-published author. Her primary focus is helping women with binge and emotional eating, self-esteem, and body image.
From a background in business analytics, Stel now leads various programs on changing mindsets around life and eating.
As a holistic health coach, Stel infuses cognitive behavioural therapy mindfulness and emotional resilience into her consultations with clients. Stel’s sessions encourage clients to dive into self-transformation through self-actualisation.
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