Tweet

Five Steps to Get out Of Diet Prison

Written by: Lenore Miller

Article Overview: Every now and again you come across someone who seems to be speaking to you in a language you understand, maybe reminding you of some forgotten truth you’ve buried deep inside. Gillian Hood-Gabrielson is one of those people, awakening your inner connection to your natural appetite, that intuitive knowing that has been buried underneath all the silly diet rules and conditioning of your life to date. You know the ones, ‘eat everything on your plate or you can’t have dessert’, ‘think of all the starving children in (insert the country here)’ or maybe rules like no carbs after lunch time, never let yourself get hungry, and on it goes.

Five Steps to Get out Of Diet Prison

Every now and again you come across someone who seems to be speaking to you in a language you understand, maybe reminding you of some forgotten truth you’ve buried deep inside. Gillian Hood-Gabrielson is one of those people, awakening your inner connection to your natural appetite, that intuitive knowing that has been buried underneath all the silly diet rules and conditioning of your life to date. You know the ones, ‘eat everything on your plate or you can’t have dessert’, ‘think of all the starving children in (insert the country here)’ or maybe rules like no carbs after lunch time, never let yourself get hungry, and on it goes.

Gillian is an expert in intuitive eating and author of Five Steps To Break Out Of Diet Prison. She has a Masters Degree in Exercise Physiology and certification as a Wellness Coach from the American College Of Sports Medicine and Well Coaches.
Even though she was fitness professional Gillian battled with disordered eating and chronic dieting. She struggled to give dieting advice to her clients because she knew it wasn’t working for her. Gillian had become obsessed with her weight and body image. Then she met a dietician who taught intuitive eating and was finally able to make her peace with food and rid herself of her obsession, lose the weight and keep it off whilst eating the food she wanted. Gillian then re-designed her business to focus on teaching other how to eat intuitively.
One of Gillian’s programs is call ‘Five Steps to Break out of Diet Prison’ I had the privilege of interviewing Gillian recently and she shared these steps with me.

Step one is recognising that diets do not work. Over time the number of people able to maintain weight loss after dieting is decreasing, in fact the vast majority of dieters not only gain the weight shed but actually gain that and more. One reason for this is “diet deprivation backlash.” Most diets restrict certain foods and the more you deprive yourself the stronger your cravings become, this perpetuates the cycle of overeating leading to guilt, shame and weight gain thus more guilt and more dieting.

Another reason is that chronic dieting increases the body’s efficiency at storing fat, to the point where clients who had, had liposuction (where fat cells are removed from areas of the body like thighs, hips and abdomen) found that when they regained the weight they put it on in the places where fat cells still existed like around their neck and throat. Gillian believes that you have to move on from the diet mentality, trust your body to know when you are full and when to stop eating, realise that all foods are permissible because no food is evil. Dieting is all about control, making the choice to eat intuitively is about being in charge rather than in control.

Step two is rejecting the diet mentality. Dieting has become an accepted and encouraged part of western society. A dieter eats according to calorie count or points or grams of protein, fat or carbohydrates, exercise is used to burn calories and is often used by the dieter as a form of self punishment for overeating. People think that they fail on diets because of a lack of willpower but really it is the diet that is failing. The dieter is encouraged to ignore the natural cravings of the body. Gillian refers to this as black and white thinking; beliefs such as we are good when on a diet and bad when we come off it, need to be rejected. Striving for perfection is another diet mentality trait.

Not placing too much emphasis on scales, measuring cups etc is Step three. If possible be rid of them altogether and measure yourself in terms of hunger and feelings of fullness. This is the basis of intuitive eating and once mastered puts the individual firmly in charge on their eating and their weight.

The recognition of diets in disguise, pseudo diets, is step four. The diet mentality can crop up even when you think you are not on a diet. For example deciding to just eating healthily can constitute a diet because it will restrict certain foods and engenders feelings of being good or bad, right or wrong. Diets in disguise include counting grams of fat and sugar and counting carbs, eating only at specific times of day, not eating breakfast, not eating after a certain time at night and overexercising.

Finally step five is learning to eat intuitively like babies do. Babies usually scream when they are hungry and stop eating when they are full. We have forgotten those instincts and have been influenced in childhood by such phrases as “you can’t be hungry it isn’t dinnertime yet”, “eat it all up or you can’t have dessert.”

Intuitive eating, a term coined by dieticians Evelyn Tribole MS RD and Elyse Resch MS RD FADA addresses the physical disconnection with the body and helps to overcome emotional overeating and other disordered eating patterns.

Make the decision to stop dieting, give yourself permission to eat any food you like guilt free. Some who read this might immediately feel fearful that they would then be out of control, gain lots of weight and perhaps live on all their favourite foods (formally non diet foods). However the reality is your body will demand the foods that help you to feel healthy and energetic, sometimes these will be treat foods but for the most part intuitively your body will chose nutritious foods that feel good and fuel your body.

Over time you will learn to ask yourself “Am I hungry?” and you will instinctively know the answer. You will also be able to discern when it is time to stop eating, naturally knowing that you are full and satisfied. In this context satisfied means you have eaten enough of what you wanted to eat and you know that you are satisfied and can now stop. You also know that when you are physically hungry again you can again eat whatever you want. This eating style allows you to give up the preoccupation with food and use that mental energy for other aspects of your life.

Learning to eat intuitively by reconnecting with your natural hunger enables you to cease being susceptible to the next fad diet, enables you to let go of the guilt you associate with food in general and certain foods in particular and ultimately to arrive at and maintain your natural healthy body weight.
So perhaps it’s time to ignore the diet industry hype and reconnect with your body’s natural weight and energy management system.

Related Articles
  The Biggest Loser- Key Areas On Which The Stress Is Laid Upon To Shed Fat
  The Slow-Carb Diet™ Cookbooks - Available for 72 Hours
  Martha Stewarts brand research
  Myths and truths about low carb beers
  3 Things Michael Vick Can Teach You About Online Marketing

Article Tags: carbs, diet rules, five steps, lunch time, natural appetite



Related Forum Posts
Re: Drop out Billionaire - I reveived Bill Bartmann's DVD "9 Steps To Achieve Any Goal" as part of my monthly pack from Success University a few months back. It is a great presentation. I've watched it several times but not for a while so I'll view it again in the coming week. He is one of the greats. Like the best success mentors, he speaks with authority because he has come through much tribulation. His program sounds like a great bargain at $100 a year.
New Guy Here - Automobile Industry - Hi Everyone, My name is Ray and I work as a sales trainer in the automobile industry. I have just completed a new training curriculum for automobile salespeople in the industry. It is called The Baby Steps of Selling Automobiles. I am beginning my marketing efforts through press releases and seminar formats. I joined the community due to my continued desire to work independently creating my own happiness and growth. Thank you for having me and I look forward to more correspondence in the future.
Re: Success - I study success intently, and would like to share: Here's two excellent and nearly identical success-formulas from a couple of the world's masters. FIRST FORMULA: 1. Passionate Desire 2. Clear, Definite Purpose 3. Committed Decision 4. Take Action In Faith (Bonus Secret Sauce: 5. Repeat Consistently) I made a video about this, but am not allowed to link it yet. Google "Ryze Success Steps" for it. Oh, and this is Napoleon Hill's (Master Of Success Laws)'s Formula. SECOND FORMULA: 1. Passionate Desire 2. Understand It Is Already Done (Faith) 3. Relax & Allow It To Unfold (Go about your life calmly) This one is courtesy of Abraham-Hicks (inspiration for the movie The Secret). Hope that helps!
Success Strategies - How to get the results you want now? Success Strategies and Action Steps I have used are: The Power of Choice Where you are at this present moment, is exactly perfect from the choices you have made. If you want to be somewhere else, you have to decide clearly what that is (your goal/outcome) and create action steps to achieve this. The Power of Focus The book "The Power of Focus" by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Les Hewitt, is one of my treasures in my Entrepreneur Library. If you focus on what you want versus what you do not want, your conscious and sub-conscious mind will direct attention to this. The movie, What the Bleep, Down the Rabbit Hole, explains this in detail about quantum physics and what we create in our lives. The Power of Commitment This is not about commitment to others. The first step is the commitment, your word, you make to yourself. Accountability and responsibility are additional success strategies and ingredients to creating the success, defined by you, that you want. The commitment to others reflects your integrity, your word and the team you work with. Co-workers, clients, yoru family, friends and community. My Success Acronyn in Success Breakthroughs(c) is: S pecific & self-directed U nlimited opportunities & possibilities C reate powerful outcomes C onsistent measureable results E xperience pwoerful transformation S olution and action-oriented S uccessful habits and outcomes Break Through to Powerful LIfestyle & Performance Choices Moira
Web Pro News' "Mom's Top 10 Reasons to Social (Web)Mark - I belong to WebProNews, a weekly eletter which provides lots of good info. I reproduce their whole article below on "Mom's Guide To Social Marketing" (No intent on violating copyright - if you think this is good info you too should subscribe to Web Pro News too.) Your mother, if she did her job right, taught you everything you need to know about how to get along in the world and how to get ahead in it. When we were kids, we thought these rules were silly, but later we learned her advice was pretty valuable. In honor of Mother's Day (May 13), we've put her wisdom to work in online marketing. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Editor's Note: Social marketing is quickly becoming an integral part of generating business online. While search is the on-ramp, social networks are the destination. And just like any social setting, your rep is important. Mom's Guide to Life, we thought, was a great Guide to Everything. Did we forget some valuable tip? Let us know in the comments section. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mom's Top 10 Steps To A Good Online Reputation 1. Put Your Best Foot Forward: As recently as a year ago, when things were newer, more experimental, a presence on MySpace only was fine. Not so anymore. You have to be everywhere, treating branding in the online world the way you would in the real world. Most social networks allow you to set up a profile page for free (the ones that matter most do anyway). Create your online persona (a polite one), then clone it as necessary. 2. Make Eye Contact: Just like in the real world, wallflowers don't get noticed. The wallflower is most likely an incredible resource – it's just that nobody knows her because she doesn't put herself out there. Be a participant by commenting, inviting, giving. Show up at your new neighbor's door with a gift. It always goes over well – just remember to button your blouse. 3. You Are a Reflection of Your Mother (Company): Nobody likes a poorly kept lawn except the lazy bum that lives behind it. Maintain your public face on the social networks, shine your shoes, crease your pants, embrace your OCD. It may not be your homepage, but it is a home away from home. Maintaining several of these online presences is work, but so is business. 4. Keep An Open Mind: There's an appropriate cliché for every situation – all your eggs in one basket comes to mind here – but I prefer my grandfather's chestnut: "You drove your ducks to a damn poor market." Poetic, that man was. For a long time it was search, search, search. Before that it was email, email, email. But now you need to integrate your campaign. Search is a staple, a pillar of your online campaign, but we also know that Wikipedia ranks consistently number one in the SERPs. That means you need a Wikipedia page, too. Note: YouTube also ranks well. 5. Become Necessary: Viral marketing is tricky, difficult business. But maybe it doesn't have to be. Maybe if you realign your approach to reflect what you, as an individual enjoy, instead of being a salesperson, you can find a more intuitive connection with what the public wants to see. It's often been said that a salesman sells himself more than the product. So if you want to make linkbait, think about what would cause you to bite first. If you look at your viral attempt and see more corporate talking points than linkable material, it's time for a do-over. 6. Like the People that Like You (Even If You Think They're Annoying): Barack Obama's campaign people did something brilliant, and followed up with something not so brilliant. That makes it a great case study. An Obama fan set up a MySpace page and soon attracted thousands of friends. Instead of competing with his biggest fan, Obama endorsed the site as the official MySpace campaign headquarters. That was the brilliant part. After the page "got too big" for the original operator, the campaign crew took staged a coup to wrest control of the page from their biggest fan. That was the not so brilliant part, even if politics is mean by nature. 7. Watch Your Mouth: Again with the clichés that still hold true – if you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all. Steve Rubel learned the hard way that stream-of-consciousness blogging can have you saying something you wish you hadn’t. Transparency doesn't mean total access. 8. Don't Be a Fake: Who do we dislike most in civilized society (aside from the violent)? Liars, cheats, and thieves. We don't like them because we view them as betrayers. That principle applies online, too, when your network discovers you're not what you say you are. And the mob's wrath is one that is hard to endure. Ask Edelman PR about their Wal-Marting Across America campaign. 9. Mind Your Manners: Mom's favorite Bible verse still applies: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Commonly referred to as the Golden Rule on Earth, in Cyberspace, manners and etiquette are becoming increasingly more important. People are getting angry about anonymous drive-by (rude) commentary, salesy and useless comment spam (spam in general constitutes harassment in some form)…the list of ethics and etiquette violations is a long one, so it's probably best to ask yourself: Would I appreciate this if it were done to me? 10. Stay Hip. Right now, MySpace, Facebook, Wikipedia, and YouTube are essential, but they're still relatively new. Few really saw SecondLife coming as a virtual marketplace. Still yet, only the early adopters are talking about Twitter. But change online is swift, and the smart marketer keeps up with what's hot. The last thing you want to do is look outdated. Just don't sell out your core identity in the process. While that's just ten guidelines out of many, Mom always had one rule that ruled them all: Use your head, dodo bird! This is a thinking man's game. Indeed it is. Good luck with your campaigns.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Online Business Ideas: A Look At Various Options

Here's a great ROI

Emotional Energy is Our Engine

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.