Starting A New Year’s Diet? Please Read This First

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If you’re planning a new diet for January, please take a moment and read this first.

I understand the deep desire to start a new diet - the hope that THIS one is the one that works.

The promise of quick weight loss is almost irresistible!

And, I wish dieting worked. I really do. It would make things so easy.

Follow the rules.

Lose the weight.

Move on.

If only!

​But eighty years of research (and our own experience) make it painfully clear. There are long-term consequences to dieting.

Before you click on one of the many diet ads popping up right now, please, take three minutes and read what they will not tell you…

Physiologically and psychologically, the science is clear…

Restrictive Dieting:

  • leads to binge behavior

  • leads to food and body obsession

  • slows metabolism so your body holds on to weight

  • damages your innate relationship with your food, your self, and your body

  • makes food a BIG HAIRY DEAL

I could go on.

There are reams of research we could cover; this is just the short list.

The consequences are not immediate, but they are serious.

And the longer we diet, the more deeply we’re affected.

I know… dieting feels really good - at first.

It’s exciting! We lose weight. We feel in control. Our clothes start to fit better…

YESSS!

We may even reach our “goal weight.” [Have you ever hit yours? I hit mine once, for about a day.]

But eventually we just can’t do it anymore.

And as we know too well, the crazy-eating begins. Again.

I care about you and the vibrant life you want to live, so here at the beginning of a new year, when diet ads are coming at us like a tsunami, I hope you don't mind me shooting straight with you.

I don’t enjoy sharing disappointing information.

But I absolutely DO enjoy sharing this…

The crazy can be over.​

You, and your food, and your body can be friends.

 

Here’s what I believe for you:

  • I believe you can feel peaceful around food.

  • I believe you can nourish and care well for yourself.

  • I believe you can enjoy living in a comfortably-sized body.

  • I believe you can enjoy meals with friends and family, without food-anxiety going on secretly in your head.

  • I believe you can spend your days living instead of obsessing about food or weight.

I believe these things are your birthright – the way you were born to live.

And, I believe in YOU.

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The quick fixes and “magic” answers are screaming for our money and attention. It’s soooo tempting.

But please take the long-term consequences of another diet seriously.

​Here’s the thing…

There is a real solution.

You CAN have what you want - the energy, the comfortable weight, and your food-sanity.

You absolutely can.

It won’t be a quick-fix, like “21-pounds-in-21-days!” [Has that ever actually happened?]

It will be a rich journey of resurrecting the resilient relationship with your body, yourself and your food that you were always meant to enjoy.

This is possible. This is real. This will last.


Here’s to a brand-new year. Here’s to life-sized solutions.

Boy, are we ready for both of them!

 

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Cindy Landham