Can’t I Just… Eat?

Diets make me feel bad. I dread them from the moment I even think about starting them. I miss the brownies I won’t be eating and fear the anxiety I will feel if I am even near a piece of cake. Then, when I am on the diet I will hate every healthy bite of food that I take, even if it’s something I would normally love. I eagerly await the second I am done with that diet and can go back to enjoying my favorite foods. But yet, I keep trying diet after diet and just feeling worse and worse. Can’t I just… eat?

I started my first diet as a Freshman in high school. I wasn’t really overweight but I also wasn’t skinny. I don’t remember feeling fat or like I needed to lose weight, I just saw that everyone else was doing it and followed suit. I simply thought it was what you were supposed to do. Certain foods became “bad” and I started thinking eating them made me a bad person. I cut out carbs, I counted calories, I drank superfoods shakes; I tried every diet I could. All I ended up with at the end was a big heaping pile of failure and guilt.

So. much. food. guilt. Why do we let it make us feel this way? Diets require us to stick to such strict rules and we so often find ourselves breaking from them. We break them because they can be incredibly unrealistic to maintain. They are temporary. I mean were you really planning on never eating another carb ever again? I hope not because that sounds absolutely miserable. When we break the diet rules, we feel like we are failing. If I eat a “bad” food I start to think I am a bad person. Failure after failure can quickly spiral into a crushing load of guilt and shame. If you can’t simply stick to a diet for a few weeks, you start to wonder what else will you fail at in life?

Guess what guys, we don’t have to diet! We just need to eat a balanced diet.

It is important to make sure you are eating a variety of protein, carbs, fat, fruits, vegetables, vitamins and minerals. But it’s also important not to beat yourself up because you occasionally eat a cupcake (or two). Isn’t it ironic how denying ourselves certain foods makes us only want them more? And foods that we normally would enjoy suddenly don’t taste as good because we feel like we’re being forced to eat them? Diets can really mess with our minds and our tastebuds. So I decided to dump diets for good!

I stopped dieting a while ago and I feel so much more freedom. Not only did I stop holding myself to unrealistic expectations, I no longer dread parties or secretly eat. I eat when my body tells me I’m hungry and enjoy all of my favorite foods in moderation. I try my best to trust myself and my body to tell me what it needs. So if you’re a chronic dieter like I was, stop stressing over which diet to dread next. Find what works for you and start enjoying food that fuels your body.