SHOULD I DIET? Tips for a Healthy Diet Mentality
SHOULD I DIET?
Yes! And no... It depends what you mean by "diet".
A diet is just a pattern of eating, so you already follow a diet (whether you knew it or not).
However, our culture has distorted dieting by reducing health to weight loss.
DIET IS MORE THAN WEIGHT
The diet industry tells us to eat less, exercise more, and count every calorie so we can be thin.
These destructive messages promote a restrictive mentality and a disordered relationship with food.
Not to mention that yo-yo dieting often leaves you with more fatigue, gut issues, hormone imbalances, and unhealthy weight than you began with (learn why)!
A HEALING TOOL
On the flip side, diets can be incredibly healing!
The food (and way) you eat should nourish your body so you can have minimal disease, mental clarity, joyful confidence, and the energy and freedom to live fully alive!
Think of a diet like a moving truck: both help you reach a destination.
Your diet (or moving truck) is not serving you if:
you want to live there forever
you don't know your destination
it prevents you from living to the fullest
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References
Tribole, E., & Resch, E. (2019). Intuitive Eating. Retrieved from https://www.intuitiveeating.org.
Benton, D., & Young, H. A. (2017). Reducing Calorie Intake May Not Help You Lose Body Weight. Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, 12(5), 703–714. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691617690878
Center for Nutritional Pyschology. Retrieved from https://www.nutritional-psychology.org/research-studies/
Hazzard, V. M., Telke, S. E., Simone, M., Anderson, L. M., Larson, N. I., & Neumark-Sztainer, D. (2021). Intuitive eating longitudinally predicts better psychological health and lower use of disordered eating behaviors: findings from EAT 2010-2018. Eating and weight disorders : EWD, 26(1), 287–294. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40519-020-00852-4
Brewer, J. A., Ruf, A., Beccia, A. L., Essien, G. I., Finn, L. M., van Lutterveld, R., & Mason, A. E. (2018). Can Mindfulness Address Maladaptive Eating Behaviors? Why Traditional Diet Plans Fail and How New Mechanistic Insights May Lead to Novel Interventions. Frontiers in psychology, 9, 1418. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01418
Fuentes Artiles, R., Staub, K., Aldakak, L., Eppenberger, P., Rühli, F., & Bender, N. (2019). Mindful eating and common diet programs lower body weight similarly: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity, 20(11), 1619–1627. https://doi.org/10.1111/obr.12918