Healthy Weight Week: Think Evolve, Not Solve to End Eating and Weight Struggles

Some of us just know how to diet. Even though we fall off diets time and again, we don’t know what else to do. Maybe Healthy Weight Week is the time to start trying something new?

It was a cold morning here at Green Mountain at Fox Run so my early discussion group was packed full of fabulous smart women who wanted to sit by the fire and hash things out awhile before the sun came up to warm things enough to get out and snowshoe.

I cut right to the chase – diets.

This is nothing new, I talk about diets all the time.  My favorite ones to discuss are the restrictive type that create a hyper focus on a particular thing within food (calories, fat grams, sugar, wheat or the simple fact that it’s white).

The diets that draw our attention away from important stuff like recognizing we’re human therefore we eat for lots of reasons.  Intellectual reasons, cultural reasons, religious reasons, emotional reasons and for just plain fun reasons.

We talked about this and it made sense.  Enough sense that women in the room decided that they wanted to do this, wanted to think this way and eat this way but didn’t know HOW to do this.

Even If Dieting Doesn’t Work, It Can Become A Comfortable Habit

They didn’t know how to let go of what they know, what they have always known and therefore what they are most comfortable with…dieting.  This was a group of women who recognized, some for the first time ever, that the path that they have always taken…going on a diet…is not only not working but it’s the only approach that they have ever known.  The thing is this, we’re human and we love ritual, habitual patterns.  It’s primal.  It’s safe.  It’s comfortable.

Things can become so habitual and comfortable for us that we seem to almost pay no attention to the fact that they might not even be helpful, maybe they never have been helpful, and maybe they’ve even been harmful.

How To Evolve Beyond Dieting

So what does dieting SOLVE?  Maybe the real work is to EVOLVE.  To evolve beyond dieting.

So what would evolution beyond dieting look like?  If it’s all we know and all we’ve ever known…is there an alternative?

I think so.  I think it’s scary for some at first since were giving up on something huge here, a path we’ve always taken.  It might feel like I’m saying something completely off the wall like, “Hey!  You should start walking on your hands instead of your feet!  Really, trust me on this!”

Start By Looking Within For Answers

Evolving beyond diets begins by looking within yourself for some information (this too is primal).  Looking within you for the answers you’ve always gone outside of yourself for.  No more books that tell you what to eat more of and what to eat less of.  No more emails that promise to solve weight issues by simply complying with their amazing food plan.  Just you.  Looking within and asking yourself questions like –

“Am I hungry?”

“How hungry?”

“What do I want?”

“How come?”

“How is my hunger changing as I eat?”

“When am I satisfied or satiated?”

“What does that feel like?”

Build Self-Trust, Eat Mindfully To Manage Your Healthy Weight

By beginning a dialogue with yourself around food, you begin the process of evolution.

Those who begin to look within themselves for information and guidance begin to trust themselves and it no longer makes sense to gather up information from external places.

You’ve got the information you need.

Once the process of mindful eating becomes second nature, a simple part of who you are, you’ve evolved.

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Learn More About Healthy Weight Week

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