by Deniz Sidali, M.A.
Hundreds of books, magazine articles, and talk show segments have been dedicated to unlocking the secrets behind the nasty “D” word. No not death. Dieting. For years, I have reveled in the joy of immunity from dieting by being blessed with good genes and a healthy metabolism, until father time aka the aging process kicked in and added some pounds to my physique. I often wonder whether it is harder for former skinny girls to diet, because we still imagine ourselves to be our old skinny selves. It is harder to change our mind set from once skinny to now over my BMI, which may serve as an impediment to losing weight. These are some of the things I realized along my journey in dieting:
First, I prefer the French word regime instead of diet because the former lends itself more readily to a change in your lifestyle and mind set rather than the latter word “diet”, which means basically restricting what and how much you eat. Changing what and how much you eat means actively working to change your perception of not just what you eat but why you eat. I discovered that I was an emotional eater. In other words, if I was depressed, stressed out or happy, I would placate or reward myself by eating high calorie foods. So I recalled what my grandmother would preach to me, “Eat to survive (or live), don’t live to eat”. Meaning eat to survive, but enjoy what you eat. Sometimes I have to fake it until I make it, when I eat a celery stick and wish it was a brownie a la mode. If we eat the wrong things such as high caloric, fatty foods in mass quantities, we may actually curtail our lives. So now I ask myself, “Are you really hungry or are you thirsty, bored, or stressed out?” Once I acknowledge that I am either thirsty, or ate food to cope with stress from graduate school it was easier for me to stop eating.
Second, being a practitioner of REBT, I realized that I would oftentimes catastrophize when I started a diet by saying, “The first three letters of the word diet say “Die”. And I would think negative thoughts while dieting, “This is going to be awful”, “It sucks that I have to diet, and life isn’t fair and should be.” Well, I realized that what I was doing was setting myself up for failure by lowering my frustration tolerance while dieting. And this resulted in me failing at dieting. After taking a hard look at myself, I realized that I failed because I wasn’t ready to change or commit to dieting. But the good news is, that after many failed attempts, I am finding that I’m finally willing to commit to losing weight not just for physical reasons but to become healthier physically, mentally and emotionally. There is a strong mind-body relationship and how we look and feel in our bodies impacts our thoughts and emotions, and vice versa. So now I tell myself:
“Dieting is a hassle not a horror.”
“Dieting won’t be easy, but it doesn’t have to be a struggle”
“Cutting down calories and watching what I eat does not mean that I must starve myself.”
“I can either not diet and feel and look the same, or I can diet and look and feel better and healthier.”
Finally, I learned that consistency is important both in terms of my behaviors and thoughts. This can be achieved by eating regular, balanced meals, setting short-term attainable goals and adhering to them, and not thinking badly about myself if I experience a set back.
