I’ve realised as I have thought and read about my feelings over myself, my body and my weight that I was still following so many rules and setting myself up to fail yet again. The point of what I am doing and why I am writing this is that I want to give up dieting, but without being aware I was still clinging onto a few rules, justifying that it was down to health reasons rather than losing weight.
I wanted to give up dieting but I still had weight loss as my aim: I knew that dieting didn’t work for me but I still didn’t want to be overweight so how could I marry up those two things? I’ve been a very successful dieter over the years and yet I have ended up heavier than when I started. What does this tell me? Yes, diets don’t work but how can I just accept myself as I am so that my way of eating is no longer a thing in my life?
I realise I have learned a great deal about the way I eat and progressed a lot. Now I am ready to reinforce my commitment: I am never dieting again, I am fine the way I am. I am not aiming for weight loss; I am aiming to step away from the dieting madness and the rules I have continued to follow because I hadn’t, until now, totally committed myself to this. So I am giving up fasting between dinner at night and lunch the next day as that is just a form of dieting which I hoped would make me lose weight. I am giving up always leaving food on my plate as this is just a way of restricting the amount I am eating and hopefully helping me lose weight. Those are just two rules I have in my life but now they are gone.
I am going to eat what I want when I want it. I am going to eat consciously and try to be aware of when I begin to feel full. If I eat when I’m not hungry or continue eating when I have had enough that’s ok: I am learning, changing, developing. I am going to enjoy the process of what I am doing rather than try to hurtle to the end. I have learned so much and now I am going to learn more.