I want to lose weight – your “familiar” New Year’s resolution?

It’s that time of the year again where many decide that they want or need to lose weight – it is the time of a NEW DIET. But wait – do you want to lose weight to gain it back again or do you want to heal your relationship with food?

Etymologically speaking, the word „DIET“ comes from the Greek „diaita” which means manner of living or way of life. In this context, DIET can be the answer to healing your relationship with food and emotional eating. As a therapist who specializes in Emotional Eating and Addictions I do not endorse diets where diet means restricting food types and quantities for the purpose of weight loss. In my experience, as soon as you attach yourself to a set of strict dietary rules you’re detaching yourself from the connection to your body and from your ability to tune in and ascertain what your body wants. Unless there are specific contributing factors such as certain health issues or side effects to medication, anyone who has a weight problem has most likely some sort of emotional connection to food and a disconnect from their body. Whenever we overeat we’re not connected to our body. When you’re on a diet, you’re forced to override the hunger signals of the body in order to follow the prescribed quantities and types of food to be consumed. Furthermore, diets activate a deprivation mentality. Instead of connecting to what one is really hungry for, all one often thinks about is the food that is “off limits”. Returning to the concept of mindfulness, becoming present and connected to your body is the first step to addressing emotional eating and the consequences of excess weight. A diet prevents that from happening. When food and eating have become a way to get grounded, fill a sense of emptiness or longing or a way of swallowing one’s feelings, a diet becomes a temporary diversion from the current underlying issue. Some individuals enjoy the rules and structure a diet gives them. They experience a sense of control. Others get even more stressed by diets. Going on a diet is really a way of saying, “I don’t trust myself. I cannot trust myself. If I don’t have rules, I will not be able to control what I do with food.” Ironically, often so much time and effort is spent on implementing controls, that the underlying issues are effectively – if momentarily- lost. What would happen if instead of struggling with dietary rules and senses of failure or victory, the underlying discomfort was actually felt and experienced? What if one could come to a place of trusting oneself to sit with and experience feelings such as fear, grief or anger? What if diet could stand for a compassionate dialogue with self? Many yo-yo dieters struggle with poor body image. The diet mindset only reinforces the notion that there is something wrong. That one’s worth is somehow tied to a number on a scale!! After years of dieting, this rollercoaster of gathering hope as some of the weight comes off and then being plunged back into an abyss of failure as the weight creeps back on, again perpetuates a disconnect from the underlying issues and needs that are being deflected in this merry-go-round. If we connect diet and nutrition, where diet is a way of life and of connecting to self and the environment with mindfulness, more of us could rediscover the benefits of eating local and seasonal produce. Not only would this “diet” reduce our ecological footprint, our bodies would benefit as well. In this day and age of busy schedules, and particularly as urban dwellers, these might be lofty or unrealistic goals. But tuning in and learning what “diet” our particular body thrives on…with the emphasis on “our body” and not on “our head” would certainly be a step towards health and healing from the diet mindset.