Breaking Free from the Dieting Cycle: Part Three

Well, hello there! I see you’ve stuck around for the end of the trilogy.

In part one we looked at the first steps in breaking free from the dieting cycle – accepting that a desire for weight loss is at this vicious cycle’s core, and working on establishing alternative, non-weight-centric goals.

In part two we looked at some difficulties that can arise when breaking the cycle, along with the importance of getting to know your body and trusting yourself.

Here, in part three, we turn our attention to making small, sustainable changes that align with those non-weight-centric goals – and resisting the urge for diet overhauls!

So, I’ve spent some time understanding my body’s cues, listening for the feelings that tell me how things are going. I’ve noticed I feel great physically and mentally on the days I eat regularly… but those days are few and far between! I tried eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day, but I could only keep up with cooking three times a day for a couple of days. How am I supposed to feel good if I can’t keep up?

Firstly, well done for putting in the work! Listening for those cues can be tricky when you’ve spent a great deal of your life not noticing them. What you’re describing is classic dieting-recovery thinking. When we move away from a dieting framework, we try to make sense of things by fitting them into what we already know. And diet culture has taught us that if there is a “better” way of doing things, we really should be doing it ASAP. But realistically, this is where it is easy for things to fall apart.

While we have the best of intentions, when we try to overhaul our diet, we change multiple things at once. Now, if this was absolutely the only thing going on in your life, and you didn’t have ANYTHING ELSE taking up your time, maybe, just maybe, an overhaul would be doable. But even then, only maybe. Why?

Because habit formation involves practicing something specific, and it is very difficult to practice multiple new specific things all at once.¹

Check out this article for an in-depth look at habit formation and starting with smaller changes. Once you’ve got something more manageable, you can help yourself to make the healthy choice, the easy choice.

I like easy! how to I do that?

Let’s look at the situation above. Rather than aiming to consistently eat breakfast, lunch and dinner, something more manageable could be having lunch daily. Of course, your change might be a different one, but the underlying principles will stay the same.

Firstly, you can do this by making your environment supportive of change:

Write a shopping list that includes items for lunch, so that you have the ingredients to put it together.
Block out time in your calendar to ensure you get a timely lunch break.
Put reminders around the place to help you succeed. E.g., a sticky note on your keys that says “take lunch!”

You can also make your thinking supportive of change:

“I don’t have time to make my lunch each morning” becomes “I’ll plan to make my lunch the night before.”
“I don’t always feel like a full meal in the middle of the day” becomes “I will check in with myself and eat accordingly.”
“Sometimes I have a meeting I can’t move at lunchtime” becomes “I can have non-perishable snacks on hand to have right before a meeting.”
“I didn’t get time to eat today, I’ve blown it” becomes “it’s not the end of the world, I can try again tomorrow.”

By doing the above you put yourself in a great position to roll with the punches, avoid all-or-nothing thinking and work towards your goal in a sustainable way, one that takes into account the nuances of being human!

But I’m still so far away from eating a full breakfast, lunch and dinner!

Perhaps, but you are also a lot closer than you were before you started out. And this time around, you have consistently eaten something in the middle of the day and felt the benefits of doing so. This makes you better equipped to add another change in when you feel ready, as you avoid the state of overwhelm that comes with juggling too much. Here are some things you can try:

Notice those thoughts that tell you things aren’t moving fast enough; remind them that good things take time. You are not on a diet that will end, leaving you to go back to doing what you were doing before – you are on a path to long-term change, and this will take time.
Remind yourself of your progress.
Remind yourself of your progress again!
Cut yourself some slack! You are recovering from a diet culture that pushes perfectionism. By breaking free from the dieting cycle, you are also afforded the opportunity to break free from the perfectionist ideal that goes along with it.

Feeling ready to make some small, sustainable changes that over time become healthy habits? Need someone to guide you through the process? We are here to help!

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