Did you start dieting after the holidays? Are you already discouraged? You’re not alone. It seems as if companies in the weight loss industry are banking on it. If you were watching the ball drop at midnight, you probably saw all the ads. This year, both Weight Watchers and Special K were sponsoring huge electronic billboards in Times Square, the most visible location in the world on New Year’s Eve. Those companies realize that New Year’s Eve brings the biggest moment of self-evaluation all year long, and they’re clamoring to be part of that resolution The good news is this: they realize that crash diets don’t work and are focusing on wellness as a way of life.
Let’s consider this. If diets worked, would there be that many of them around?
The meaning of the word “diet” often hits us as “restriction.” Diet really means your preferred food choices, but we’re conditioned to use it as a way to describe food choices for weight loss. Often, I’m asked how I eat. When describing my diet, I refer to it as my food choices because of the disassociation those words have with the concept of a diet. It also sounds a lot more fluid and empowering. I don’t really believe in being on a diet, since it indicates a detour from regular life and will therefore only work for the extended period of time we’re on it. If it’s a healing diet, which is meant to shift an imbalance in your body, then the effect continues if you maintain the new food choices after the period of selective eating is over.
Going on a crash diet might be the solution for people who need a quick fix after a time of overindulgence. However, this is also what gets us into the pain and struggling of yo-yo diets. After a crash diet, we’re often left with more struggling and imbalanced weight gain afterwards. Diets don’t take your health into consideration. Special K’s new products, which claim to help you lose weight post-holidays, are loaded with ingredients that don’t enhance your health or help your long-term food habits. Weight Watchers, on the other hand, is taking the “stop dieting, start living” approach. As the name indicates, you’re watching the weight instead of learning about health-promoting foods that support your body in finding its natural balance.
What is it that makes the typical diet fail? For one thing, there’s the idea of living with a list of yes and no foods in your back pocket that seems unappealing. There’s also the anti-social aspect of it. We tend to combine food, celebration, and socializing. This makes it hard for us to say no to foods since we align that with being difficult in the eyes of others.
Another reason is that a diet does not implement the wholeness of who we are, or keep in mind that our food is more to us than the physical substance we put in our mouth. If it were that easy, we could all do it. It isn’t a mind over matter issue. Willpower is great as a concept, but it does not withstand stress and emotional challenges as they come up. Neither does a diet.
Why is a healing diet different? We omit foods that might make us feel worse when eating them, but sometimes it’s not the immediate and direct impact of the foods that we notice. It’s the long-term effect. Different food choices affect our lives. Basically, the age-old line “you are what you eat” does hold true. On a crash diet, it’s hard to keep the long-term effect in mind because crash diets are very restrictive, especially when it comes to portion control. When we engage in a healing diet, it allows our body to regain its balance and reset its functions. This can seem like a very strict diet for a while, but it has a greater purpose than weight loss; its entire focus is on health. Weight loss is just a side effect and an indication of how our body will always try to rid itself of excess when allowed to.
