When you first start dieting, you’ve got a huge advantage: It’s called novelty. When something is new, different and very black and white in its rules and regulations we find ourselves high on motivation and keen to start our new healthy lifestyle.
Unfortunately, novelty rarely lasts, especially when it comes to dieting!
Can you relate to this story below?
You’re a few days or weeks into a new diet.
You’re hungry. Tired. Bored. The meals are bland.
The cooking of endless new recipes and high grocery bills are really starting to bug you. What the heck is kefir and where the hell do you buy it from? Surely gut health can be achieved without copious amounts of bone broth and why are you still craving sugar at 4pm in the afternoon? Will you ever be able to have chocolate and wine again?
You’ve avoided four family gatherings, two dinners with friends and a work lunch so far. Best to just not go to these things and avoid the temptation. Right?
Then it happens. One Friday afternoon after a week of strict dieting and brutal sessions at the gym you find yourself at a work morning tea. There are cakes, slices, crackers and cheese, sausages rolls, chips and some epic sour cream and cheese layered dip that looks like it’s out of a 1980s-era cookbook. The lady in the cubicle next to you made her signature fudge brownie and as you wander past the table of snacks you swear you can hear it calling your name.
A work colleague makes an insensitive comment about being unsociable and you snap. It’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back and you grab a piece of brownie. Fireworks and rainbows appear with the first mouthful and before you know it, you’re onto your third piece followed by some jam and cream scones, bickies and brie plus a reasonably average tasting party pie which you gulp down before realising that you didn’t even enjoy it.
Oh dang. Now your diet is ruined! Stuff it! You write the rest of the day off and it’s chocolate, wine, pasta and bread galore. All the things you’ve been restricting. Now your stomach hurts, you’re even more convinced that gluten must be evil (even though it’s not) and you think to yourself, I may as well write the week off and start again next Monday.
Monday comes around but this time it all seems harder. And harder it is. The more times you go around this mountain the more the novelty wears off and the less motivation you have each time you start. Dieting becomes harder and harder.
Novelty aside, there are a number of key problems that occur from constantly restricting yourself with a diet:
- weight loss is a stressor on the body
- restriction greatly increases the likelihood of binge eating
- dieting damages your relationship with food creating unnecessary stress and anxiety
- restriction and dieting impairs your ability to trust and listen to your body
- periods of restriction increase your risk of nutrient deficiency and poor health
- periods of restriction are followed by periods of increased appetite driving you to regain any weight that is lost
We know it sounds counter-intuitive to what you’ve been taught all your life, but the path to true health and happiness does not lie in starting another diet.
The Ayla Health method is different.
There’s no diet. No strict plan to follow. No rules. No restriction. No food guilt. No confusion. No ‘all or nothing’ approach. Just high quality information, non-judgemental support and guidance for applying healthy eating principles to your everyday life in a way that suits you best!
Download our app now and feel the food confidence you’ve always wanted to have!
