fad diets Archives - Diet Free Radiant Me | Intuitive Eating | Emotional Eating

3 MUST HAVE Intuitive Eating Ingredients for 2022

It is almost New Year which means that my inbox (and probably yours too!) is being flooded with dozens of emails about the next latest diet. While all these diets are comprised of different rules, they all promise the same thing, quick weight loss.

When you see the before and after pictures attached to these emails you may be tempted to give in and try whatever diet they are promoting. You may even find success in your pursuit of losing weight in the first few weeks. Then a month or so later you notice your weight has plateaued and you stop following the dieting rules. Before you know it you say, “forget it” and drop the diet completely. Eventually, you regain all the weight you immediately lost and go back to your old eating habits.

If you have found yourself in this cycle, you are not alone. Most people who are chronic dieters find themselves in this never-ending loop. Studies have shown that this constant weight fluctuation that your body goes through is not good for your overall health. It is healthier for you to stay at the weight you’re at and practice healthier habits.

There are 3 essential ingredients I believe you need to have an overall healthier lifestyle:

1. Create a healthy mindset.

Do not listen to all of those around you telling you what to do. Instead, focus on your body’s needs and wants. What makes YOU happy? What makes YOU feel good? What eases your mind and fills your stomach? Don’t let dieting books, relatives, and friends dictate what you need or what you should eat. Only you know how to make yourself the best you can be. Re-learn to trust your body. You may be surprised what you get out of it.

>> Join me today on Bonnie.Tube to learn how you can spot a diet a mile away!

2. Find caring love and support.

Being on this journey alone can feel impossible, especially when your closest friends have all decided to diet. So, what are your options? There are plenty of support groups online full of people who have had a similar experience to you. Having a proper support system can help you stay on this journey and provide the help you may need along the way.

>> I’m personally inviting you to join a private group of women working towards creating a healthier relationship with food through Intuitive Eating. Accept your invite here.

3. Be open to learning about nutrition from a reputable source.

While the internet can be a great resource for many things, it does not replace the information provided by an expert. It’s key to connect with a reputable nutrition source such as a registered dietitian nutritionist to learn about nutrition. Get to know what you’re putting into your body. The more you know, the more you will find yourself being more conscious about what you’re eating.

This year, focus on your health, not your weight. Say no to dieting and yes to body empowerment.

>> Get started with Intuitive Eating here.

When Eating is a Non-Issue and Food Decisions Just Happen

When you want to get into a routine and build something new into your life, one way to do so is to schedule and plan. As a chronic dieter, this was (or maybe still is) also true for you when it comes to eating for weight loss (a.k.a. dieting).

You schedule the number of meals you’ll eat that day based on when the plan tells you to, and you restructure your life around that plan. You find that you’re constantly thinking about what you’re supposed to be eating next, will you be eating it “on time” and if you didn’t pack it with you, will you be able to find something comparable. You find the only thing you are thinking about is food.

I want you to remember a time where you weren’t worrying about your weight or your food. You lived your life and when you were hungry you ate, you stopped when you were full and you weren’t frantically wondering if a food fell into your plan if you wanted to have it. For many of you trying to get back to this memory, it might take you all the way back to your childhood days—and that’s OK.

When you were younger and there’s less to worry about, that carefree attitude translated easier to food. Eating was just something you did in between all the other fun things you did each day. And you enjoyed every bite you took.

This is intuitive eating at its finest….when

…..Eating is a Non-Issue and Food Decisions Just Happen

Now that you are older and have been influenced by the diet culture that surrounds you, well, it hasn’t been so easy for you to return to the way you were born.

I know you have this deep desire to become an intuitive eater again. I know this because I have spoken to hundreds of you wishing it were easier. I know how easy it is to fall back into diet mentality, and I also know how important support is for you on this journey.

Free Training

Join me tomorrow, Thursday September 7 at 8 pm EST for a Facebook Live training where I will discuss how you can make intuitive eating second nature again.

I’m going live in my private Facebook group, so if you aren’t yet a member of our group, click here now to join us for free.

Here’s what you’ll learn during our Facebook Live training:

The #1 reason you struggle with implementing the intuitive eating principles
What it really takes to make intuitive eating a part of your being
How you can be at peace with food and yourself so you can enjoy life to the fullest

Oh, and if you are not on Facebook and want to watch the replay, just send me an email to Bonnie@DietFreeRadiantMe.com and I’ll send you the recording.

Just One More Diet…Promise!

Have you ever heard yourself say “let me just lose twenty pounds and then I’ll deal with my emotional eating”?

You go through the cycle of dieting and losing the weight and then gradually gain it back again and again. It’s a treacherous cycle that never ends. You get sucked into the latest diet claim and think to yourself “this is what’s finally going to help me lose the weight for good”.

What you don’t realize is it’s a trap.

I’d like you to consider the possibility that it’s not so much the FOOD that you’re eating that’s the problem, it’s the underlying reason WHY you are eating.

Even if you don’t follow a “fad diet”- even if you follow a healthy-well balanced, structured meal plan – there is only so long that this will “work” for you. It’s imperative to face head on the emotional reasons that trigger your eating. These structured rules and standards of even a healthy eating plan will not continue to work for you until you dig deep into your relationship with food.

This means for some of you revisiting issues from your past. What were the food and body image messages that you were “fed” growing up? I know it’s easier to avoid going to these places, but it’s imperative if you are going to finally feel good about yourself and your body.

I ask you to step out of your comfort zone. Don’t let yourself fall into that trap again. Take a risk and trust a professional who is telling you to forget about the diets, and dare I say, your healthy eating plan (for now).

Ask yourself what you really want to accomplish? Is it to lose 20 pounds but deep in your heart know that you will regain them and continue on this dizzying diet cycle?

Or, do you want to finally come to peace with food?

I understand that you feel safe when you’re following a diet. But right now it’s important to be true to yourself.

If you are an emotional eater and you aren’t using your inner body wisdom to make your food decisions each and every day, AND you see food as your enemy instead of the fuel and nourishment it’s meant to be, it’s time to make a change.

Figure out what is standing in the way of you finally losing the weight for good; because that next diet won’t be your last.

Take action in ONE or ALL of several ways:

1) Download your Free e-book: 5 Steps to a Body You Love Without Dieting and get started on your journey.

2) Join other women on the same journey in our Free Online Community.

3) Set up a Break Free of Dieting Strategy Session with me (complementary) and see how I can best support you.

Top 5 Dieting Mistakes are NOT the Real Reason You Can’t Lose Weight

Every morning I check my email before I start seeing clients. And, without fail, there are at least 2, if not more, emails promoting some “diet miracle”.

Here are some recent examples:

– Rachael’s Guarantee – Down 2 Sizes by Valentine’s Day. Free Trial.

– Oprah’s Quick, Easy Way to Get Thinner in 4 Weeks. Free Shipping.

– Dr. Oz Promise – 7lbs Thinner by Valentine’s Day. No Shipping

– Oprah shares her step-by-step diet for dropping 15lbs in 2 weeks

– Get Skinny Now – Shed Pounds Fast without Diet and Exercise

Ugh! It makes me downright furious that these types of emails with tantalizing subject lines will end up in the inboxes of those chronic dieters who are willing to try anything to get the weight off.

Especially when celebrities and celebrity doctors put their name on these products that can bring more harm than good to innocent people.

Shame on them, and shame on the diet industry.

In my years of counseling clients in weight loss, I have discovered that there are many mistakes that people who are struggling to lose weight make on a daily basis.

Let me share some of them below:

Skipping meals (particularly breakfast)
Not getting enough sleep
Restricting calories during the day and overeating at night
Not balancing your meals
Going too long in between eating

Now while these are definitely mistakes that might be holding you back from achieving lifelong weight loss, I believe that for the majority of chronic dieters, they are not the REAL reasons.

I have discovered the 3 biggest mistakes that people make that keep them yo-yo dieting and they have nothing to do with food.

Join me for a FREE webinar on February 17, “The 3 Biggest Mistakes that Keep You Yo-Yo Dieting Without Achieving the Body You Love” where I will reveal these 3 big mistakes and what you could do now to finally get off the diet roller coaster. Register for this free training HERE.

After the Party Detox Diets and Cleanses

It’s 7 days into the New Year and I’ve already received several emails from people asking me for a detox diet, cleansing system or quick fix method to jumpstart their weight loss for 2015.

If you’ve been following me for a while and are in tuned with my philosophy, I don’t advocate any of these quick fix methods. Many times these detox diets, cleansing programs and quick fixes are more harmful than good.

Let’s not start the New Year off on that foot. Instead, let’s figure out what you really need and want and how to get there.

Ask yourself the following questions:

1) How do I currently feel in my body?

2) How would I like to feel?

3) What do I think is causing me to feel this way?

You may answer these questions by describing your current feeling as sluggish, tired, bloated and/or heavy. And you would prefer to feel energetic, light on your feet, lively and strong.

Now take a look at your answer to question number 3. If you are being truthful to yourself, you will take a closer look at your eating habits and how they relate to the answers in question number 1. For example, maybe you overate on holiday cookies, drank a few too many alcoholic beverages when ringing in the New Year, and still have leftovers staring you down in the refrigerator. These are likely some of the reasons you feel sluggish, tired, bloated and heavy.

So, let me ask you a question. Will starting a detox diet or a 7 day cleanse help you get to the root cause of the problem? Or, will it just put a Band-Aid on it?

I’ll give you the answer. It will just put a Band-Aid on a problem that’s been slowly smoldering and finally tipped over during the holiday season.

Instead of a quick fix method, here are some solutions for you to try.

1) Set up your environment for success. Deal with holiday leftovers immediately. Give them to a neighbor, freeze them or throw them out. You don’t need them sitting out tempting you.

2) Take the time to plan and prepare meals so you don’t have to stop at the drive-thru on the way home from work for a quick dinner.

3) Lay off the alcoholic beverages for a while. They are empty calories, meaning they provide zero nutrients to your body.

4) Increase your intake of fruits and veggies. Try to include veggies at each meal, and at least 3 fruits throughout your day. And don’t forget about whole grains. They are important and will keep your digestive tract running smoothly.

5) Commit to a diet-free lifestyle in the New Year.

There are many more tips I can give you, but I don’t want to overwhelm you. Progress happens when you take small steps one at a time. Let’s start with these 5 steps above.

Do you need help setting up a diet-free lifestyle? No problem. Just click here and request to speak with me (my treat). Don’t waste any more of your precious time with detoxes and cleanses that ultimately are not your long-term answer.

What Does it Feel Like to Eat Without “Food Worry”?

Fantastic, terrific, freeing, amazing….I could go on and on.

If you recently attended my free webinar, or watched the replay, you heard my story, the highlight of which (in my opinion) is that for many years I was “on” a “healthy meal plan” (notice the quotation marks) that I created for myself and “followed” diligently day in and day out. I never looked at this as a diet, until I discovered intuitive eating.

If you haven’t listened to my webinar, you can still catch it here for a few more days.

What I realized through my research and training in intuitive eating is that the “healthy meal plan” I was “following” was just another diet. There were definitely foods that I didn’t give myself permission to eat, and when I did eat them, even if it was a small piece, there was a tinge of food worry that came over me. That food worry led to body worry….would that bite of cake cause me to gain weight?

When I implemented the steps toward learning to be an intuitive eater into my life, I achieved a feeling of freedom. These are the steps I spoke of in my recent webinar.

Let me give you an example of how I no longer have this “food worry”.

The only beverages I drink throughout the day are water and a morning cup of coffee. I don’t drink any other beverages because I happen to love water and how it makes my body feel. Last night I sat down to eat dinner and I had my tall glass of water on the table. I saw the orange juice container (my son was having a glass of orange juice) and at that moment, my body said to me “Bonnie, have some orange juice”. I can’t remember the last time I had orange juice, or any juice for that matter. But yet there was a feeling that is hard to describe that my body just knew that a small glass of orange juice would be right for me at that moment.

I honored my body’s inner wisdom and had a glass of orange juice. It was delicious. I enjoyed every sip.

What’s the big deal about this story? Well, four years ago while I was still on my “healthy meal plan”, I would not have allowed myself to have that small glass of OJ. I would hear my inner voice saying “don’t drink your calories”, “juice will make you gain weight”, etc….

But not last night! The only inner voice that I heard was the voice of nurturer, saying “yes, Bonnie, honor what your body is telling you”. And, that small glass filled my needs.

And, it’s not just with juice. It’s with pizza, ice cream and all foods.

This was a wonderful feeling. No more food worry, no more body worry.

Would you like to feel this feeling too? You CAN! I promise!

Take this moment and listen to the webinar replay “How to Break Free from the Pain of Dieting and Get the Body You Love Without Feeling Deprived”.

And if you’d like, consider taking it further and join me and those who already said YES to the Freedom to Eat Forever™ Program where you will get the training, action and support you need to eat without food worry.

Hope to see you there!

If you have any questions at all, feel free to email me at bonnie@brghealth.com . I am here to support you all the way!

The 3 Pieces of the Chronic Dieting Puzzle, Why it Doesn’t Work and the Puzzle that Does

Obedience, willpower, and failure are three connecting pieces to a chronic dieters puzzle. Once you have one set in stone, the other two follow. I call this a “puzzle” because as a chronic dieter you believe that you need all three pieces to feel good about yourself and to get to a satisfying weight.

What if I told you that this is not the case? What if I told you that these three components are actually lethal to your health, and cause you to get trapped in the dieting cycle over and over again?

Let’s start with “obedience”. Say for example you have a new pet (how about a dog) and you are training your dog. You teach the dog what he can and cannot do (a set of rules if you will) and when the dog is not obedient, you punish the dog for bad behavior. For example, you tell the dog he cannot enter the living room when you are not home. You arrive home and your couch is all chewed up. Now you punish the dog by putting up a gate at the living room entrance because the dog was not obedient, the dog was “a bad dog”.

Now relate this to yourself. You are following a particular diet this month which lists for you foods that you can and cannot eat. You are following a list of rules with do’s and don’ts. Yet, you eat the very food you are told not to eat (let’s say, pizza) and you tell yourself you’ve been “bad”, you weren’t obedient to the rules. You vow never to do this again. Guess what? That’s not going to happen. You will absolutely eat that pizza again at some point in time. No one or thing can tell you how you feel and what you should eat. You are the expert of your body! You should be responsible for when, what, and how much you eat. So, let’s forget about obedience.

The second piece of the chronic dieter’s puzzle is “willpower”. Let’s take the party scene for example. Whenever you go to a party do you find yourself staring at the dessert table, drooling over everything that you love but have vowed to never eat again? You keep telling yourself you don’t need all the calories, just have willpower. You try and walk away but end up overindulging because you have starved your body from those desserts for a few weeks or even longer. Willpower is not a component of intuitive eating. You have natural desires, we all do. And to try and will yourself away from them just ends in disaster. Forget the willpower and listen to your own body’s signals because that will bring you back to your natural instincts, which you have lost through the dieting schemes.

The final piece of the chronic dieter’s puzzle is “failure”. This is what you feel once obedience and willpower have once again failed you through this dieting process. So you in turn overindulge and gain back all the weight that you lost, and sometimes even more. Newsflash: you are not the one that failed; the diets are what have failed.

Should I say that again? You are not a failure, nor will you ever be with intuitive eating.

You need to start working on a NEW PUZZLE.

THE INTUITIVE EATING PUZZLE. There are only three pieces to this puzzle.

Puzzle piece #1: A Healthy Non-Diet Mindset

Puzzle piece #2: Nutrition Education

Puzzle piece #3: Caring Support

Does it sound difficult? Well, nothing in life comes easy. But it is truly your solution if you want to finally break free of the pain of dieting and achieve the body that you love.

Now it’s your turn to take action: Contact me for your FREE Break Free of Dieting Strategy Session so you can put your INTUITIVE EATING Puzzle together effortlessly.

A Healthy Lifestyle is Not One Size Fits All

Over the many years I have been counseling clients, I have come across those who simply want me to give them a menu to follow, be it a 7 day, 14 day or a month of menus. Or when I am giving a presentation, someone will raise their hand and ask, “how many calories should I be eating”. These people want answers, but the point they are missing is that nutrition is not one size fits all.

When you have an ailment, you go to the doctor and the doctor gives you an examination to help diagnosis what is wrong. He hears about your specific symptoms and reviews your past medical history. From there, you set up a course of action for how you will treat and hopefully cure the problem. Your treatment plan is unique to you, your history, and your symptoms. Just like you wouldn’t want a doctor to streamline your specific case to be like everyone else, why would you want to do that for your nutrition needs?

This concept is the reason why the diet books out there can be so dangerous and can also be so depressing. Many times people who create these fad diets aren’t remembering that no two people are the same. They write out a diet plan and make nutrition recommendations without regard to any one person’s specific needs, and expect you to follow it in order to lose weight, or achieve a certain body type. Meanwhile you could be depriving yourself of so many calories that you’ll actually hinder weight loss, or perhaps the plan has eliminated an entire food group that results in you missing out on important nutrients such as vitamins, minerals and dietary fiber. These diet gurus don’t know your schedule, your activity level, your medical history, and all the things that can affect your nutrition and how much you should be eating. That is why it is so important to pay attention to how you feel before and after eating meals. It is why you need to be sensitive to how certain foods affect you so that you can determine which foods make you feel your best, and which ones you would prefer to avoid.

Throughout these blogs I am constantly reminding you that you are on your own journey. There is no need for you to rely on some celebrity health professional to tell you what is going to help you along your path to wellness. The more ownership you take over your journey to health and a body you love, the more likely you are to succeed. You will become more in tune to the things that work and don’t work, and because you know what helps you succeed, it won’t be as difficult as the struggles you may have felt trying to follow a generalized diet.

You are the master of your own body!

And remember, I am always here for you to help guide you in your journey!

Your turn to take action: If you’ve been struggling on this journey, take advantage of a my offer for a Break Free of Dieting Strategy Session so you can get clear on your path to making peace with food in 2014. Just click here and I’ll get you set up for your free session.

Here We Go Again-Another Fad Diet

Just a mere couple of months into 2013 and Americans have latched on to a new “magic bullet” called “The Fast Diet.” To summarize, the “Fast Diet” recommends limiting your calories on two, non-consecutive days during the week to 500 calories for women and 600 calories for men. The other five days you are free to eat whatever you want. The creator of the diet, a doctor from Britain, claimed that following this plan resulted in his own 20 pound weight loss in two months, as well as reduction in his blood sugars and abdominal fat.

However many experts are skeptical due to the lack of human testing. Without proper research, it is unethical to make a statement to the public that this diet is safe. Any diet restricting calories to under 1000 is suspect because no human being, no matter what their weight, should be consuming that little energy if they want to maintain a healthy lifestyle. The up and down caloric patterns that occur on a day to day basis also throws off your metabolism and keeps it from working in a regular rhythm, something that could actually cause weight gain. Another issue is it encourages erratic, mindless eating on the 5 days of the week that you are not fasting by telling people to “eat however they want.”

Wouldn’t it be nice to always eat “however you want”? Well, that is what the iEat Mindfully™ program is all about, minus restricting calories and having to follow any rules! Unlike the type of mindless eating the “Fast Diet” encourages five days a week, the iEat Mindfully™ program encourages you to eat whatever you want by honoring your true hunger and respecting your fullness. It is not a diet, but rather a way of life. There are no unhealthy restrictions on any day of the week. You simply learn what your body needs, and have a mutual respect for it and the food that you consume.

Like fashion, diets are nothing more than trends. They come and go with the season. However knowing your body and living a healthfully is always in style.

Your turn to take action: What are some diet trends that have let you down? Have you made a commitment to give up dieting?

Tag Archive for: fad diets