Guess what?! May 6th is International No Diet Day! INDD was founded in 1992 to celebrate the diversity of bodies and body acceptance. Blogger, Anna Guest-Jelley, has some great ideas on how we can all benefit and celebrate over on her Curvy Yoga blog.
News flash beauties, diets don't work. Usually the decision to diet means eating a bunch of foods that you don't like and preparing recipes that are unfamiliar and time consuming. Diets lack the necessary education and information about food and lifestyle habits that people need to actually achieve their goals. Diets rarely teach the individual about grocery shopping, cooking and generally encourage health-threatening restrictions like imposing extremely low calorie meals. People, we NEED calories for energy! Diets don't teach about exercise, they tell you to exercise but how is that really helpful.
The scientific side why diets don’t work for most people is because when you go on a low-calorie diet, your body thinks you are starving; it actually becomes more efficient at storing fat by slowing down your metabolism. When you stop this unrealistic eating plan, your metabolism is still slow and inefficient which causes you to gain the weight back faster, even though you may still be eating less than you were before you went on the diet.
What we really need to do is wipe the slate. Stop letting the media impose body ideals on us. Accept where we are on our path in life. Celebrate ourselves and cultivate some self love. If we are truly unhappy with the way we feel inside and want to live a healthier lifestyle...make that decision, educate ourselves on how to follow a path towards wellness and try.
And when things don't work out the way we plan, be okay with it. Easier said than done I know. I also know that there is so much more to this, but if we begin at this very basic level of acceptance, self-compassion and self-love we have strong foundation from which to find out what makes us truly happy. Everybody's bliss looks different. For me, I lead a path of non-restrictiveness, daily movement (yoga, stretching, playing), and lots of love. If I want a chocolate I eat it damn it! Nobody is taking that bliss away from me ♥
For a far more compelling and not so disjointedly written argument on why happiness does not equal weight loss go here. She's rad.
News flash beauties, diets don't work. Usually the decision to diet means eating a bunch of foods that you don't like and preparing recipes that are unfamiliar and time consuming. Diets lack the necessary education and information about food and lifestyle habits that people need to actually achieve their goals. Diets rarely teach the individual about grocery shopping, cooking and generally encourage health-threatening restrictions like imposing extremely low calorie meals. People, we NEED calories for energy! Diets don't teach about exercise, they tell you to exercise but how is that really helpful.
The scientific side why diets don’t work for most people is because when you go on a low-calorie diet, your body thinks you are starving; it actually becomes more efficient at storing fat by slowing down your metabolism. When you stop this unrealistic eating plan, your metabolism is still slow and inefficient which causes you to gain the weight back faster, even though you may still be eating less than you were before you went on the diet.
What we really need to do is wipe the slate. Stop letting the media impose body ideals on us. Accept where we are on our path in life. Celebrate ourselves and cultivate some self love. If we are truly unhappy with the way we feel inside and want to live a healthier lifestyle...make that decision, educate ourselves on how to follow a path towards wellness and try.
And when things don't work out the way we plan, be okay with it. Easier said than done I know. I also know that there is so much more to this, but if we begin at this very basic level of acceptance, self-compassion and self-love we have strong foundation from which to find out what makes us truly happy. Everybody's bliss looks different. For me, I lead a path of non-restrictiveness, daily movement (yoga, stretching, playing), and lots of love. If I want a chocolate I eat it damn it! Nobody is taking that bliss away from me ♥
For a far more compelling and not so disjointedly written argument on why happiness does not equal weight loss go here. She's rad.
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