What is a
Diet Survivor™?
Are you a diet survivor?
One way to explain a Diet Survivor is they are smart people who avail themselves of tons of free reading materials, just for the clicking. See the links above. They're all subscribable.
Diet Survivors™ include everyone who is tired of the dieting life and the dieting mentality. Some still want to lose weight, while others would like to accept their bodies as they are. They may have suddenly realized that diets aren't the answer, or perhaps they're not there yet, but they're discouraged.
The keys to recovery for Diet Survivors appeal to men as well as women, as they are more about present-day rational thinking, and less about emotions. Are you a Diet Survivor? If you have suffered from any of these and are fed up, you can consider yourself a Diet Survivor:
- Have you felt insane from all the dieting?
- Do you hide just how bad your habits have become, even from trusted friends and counselors?
- Do you secretly binge?
- Have you lost and gained weight several times?
- Have you become underweight? (See your physician immediately and contact Renfrew.)
- Are you in the habit of blaming your childhood for your problems?
- Was food used as a device or weapon in the home where you were raised?
- Are you concerned about what your children are learning from you about food?
- Is food your friend?
- Do you numb your feelings with food? (similar to an addict or alcoholic)
- Have you counted calories or carbs or points or miles and you're sick of it all?
- Do you wonder if you're better off quitting, but you still want to lose weight?
- Do you rebel against portion control?
- Does portion control make no sense to you because, after all, you would just eat small bowls of ice cream all day long?
- Are you addicted to dieting?
Diet Survivors™ want to find their own "food wisdom" again. They want to take charge of their bodies, instead of enslaving them to the rules of a food plan or diet. They realize that they have placed too much focus on technical changes, which are external changes such as reducing calorie intake. They learn to shift their focus instead to adaptive changes, which are the internal changes in our world view, attitudes, and beliefs. Tis shift in mental focus enables the dieter to lose weight permanently.
Diet Survivors™ do not throw away the idea of eating healthy food. Rather, they learn how to eat small portions and feel good about what they are eating. We offer some food guidelines, but no rules. Diet Survivors™ are people who would like to take their own judgment back from the diet world they sold it to, and prefer to think for themselves. They learn to enjoy only delicious food, rather than diet food. The technical side of permanent weight loss is entirely about eating small amounts of perfect, delicious, fat-laden, carb-laden, well-balanced food. This kind of eating has come to be known as Normal eating.
What do Diet Survivors™ do about their eating problems?
Diet Survivors™ follow these basic ideas:
- Wait until you are hungry before having a meal. You might get a stomach growl, fatigue, a headache, or irritability. Experiment to find out what your signals are.
- Eat small bites of small amounts of delicious foods, and stop just as soon as you don't feel hungry anymore.
- This may seem counterintuitive, but avoid altering your food by reducing your carbs or your fats, or anything else. Instead, aim for delicious and balanced. Perhaps picture how your grandmother ate—for example, a fist-size portion of ham, a little scoop of candied yams, a small salad with real dressing, one tiny delicious roll (yours will be whole grain), and a glass of milk. Aim for perfect taste in a small amount. Don't skimp on anything.
- Find a balance at each meal of carbohydrates, fats, proteins, a fruit or vegetable, and something sweet. Each meal will be small and perfect, according to your taste buds.
- Learn to be a picky eater whenever it's practical.
- Learn to tune in to your body's signals of hunger and satiety. Stomach fullness is often not a good measure, so we refer to "satiety." It happens when your blood sugar is restored. You might feel this when your stomach growl goes away, or when you are no longer fatigued or irritable.
- Embrace stress as a part of your life that you don't need to chase away. Tell yourself, "Stress is tolerable."
- Resist overeating out of greed, pleasure or consolation. But you don't have to straighten out all your emotional problems to do it. Just think of greed as a character flaw (not a value judgment), and decide that you'd really like to overcome your greed. Keep it simple.
- Become generally aware of the difference between whole grains and refined carbohydrates, such as white flour. Whole grains are preferable for keeping you satisfied.
- Most important, examine your faulty beliefs about you, your success, and food. Do you believe, for example, that you can't
go ahead and make your dreams come true until you've lost the weight? Examine this belief closely. What evidence do you find to
support this claim? There is none. So change your self-talk. Diet Survivors™ include anybody who would like to deprogram
themselves from the diet mentality. Diet Survivors™ know that the most important ingredient for success is to learn to take
ten minutes a day to meditate on some new beliefs and discard some old ones.
Diet Survivors™ teach themselves to meditate on their new, more rational beliefs and self-talk. You don't have to call it meditation if you don't want to. Just call it thought-time or contemplation-time. It's easy. It only takes a few minutes a day with no distractions. How about when you first wake up? It's best if you have some written words to meditate on. You can write them down yourself, or you can meditate on some new thoughts contained within a back issue of the Diet Survivors™ newsletter. Click on a back issue from your current newsletter for more information about Diet Survivors.
Can Diet Survivors™ recover?
Recovery is possible, no matter what your eating problem.
It goes without saying that if you engage in any activities that could threaten your health, such as undereating, vomiting your food, or chronically ingesting laxatives, you need to see your doctor immediately. Even bingeing without purging can raise your blood pressure. Once you have seen your physician, you can also be helped by these Web site pages.
If you have an eating disorder, some of the above steps won't be easy. People who binge, for example, are hooked on the euphoria of binges. Surrendering the euphoria requires some mental effort and time. But it can be done with some help from the principles of cognitive therapy. Cognitive therapy is simply a choice to examine our distorted beliefs and irrational self-talk and replace them, every day. The advice you find in the Diet Survivors™ materials and message board is based on principles of cognitive therapy and good, sound nutrition.
And if you'd like to read the book written by the author of all the Diet Survivors materials, it's called How to Survive Your Diet and Conquer Your Food Issues Forever by Linda Moran. Read a summary.
Tired of dieting?
How to Survive Your Diet and Conquer Your Food Issues Forever
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Betterway
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Last Modified: Wednesday, 06-Feb-2008 07:03:27 PST Betterway Press
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These Web pages provide sensible advice on healthy diets, nutrition, and weight loss. However, no advice given here is intended as a substitute for professional medical advice. Always consult your doctor when deciding to make significant dietary or lifestyle changes.
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