Tag Archive for: help

5 Tips to Get Your Spouse on Board Your Intuitive Eating Journey

There are many women that I coach in my 5 Step Intuitive Eating Program who complain to me that their spouse is not supportive of their journey. This is either because they just don’t get it or they think that you should be able to “do it on your own”.

 

They may say to you, “just stop eating”, and don’t understand it often isn’t even about the food.

 

Do you find this to be true about your spouse?

 

Let’s explore this further…..

 

Perhaps your spouse himself is a dieter and isn’t ready to stop dieting.

 

Or, he doesn’t see an issue with your eating and doesn’t understand your need to make changes.

 

If we go even deeper, he may fear that your relationship will change once your relationship with food changes. After all, who will he binge eat at night with while watching TV?

 

Whatever the reason, there are ways to get your spouse on board with your intuitive eating journey. And, there are ways you can approach the topic of support with him without him getting defensive.

 

5 Tips to Get Your Spouse on Board:

 

1. Share your BIG WHY with him – This will help him understand why you’ve made the decision to no longer diet and why you are making changes in the house. If you explain to him your desire to be more in tune with your body and why this is important to you, he’ll know more of what you need, i.e. no T.V. while you eat dinner.

 

2. Be open with your struggles – Sometimes your spouse can be threatened by your new way of living because as we said, he may be a yo-yo dieter and is not ready to stop dieting.  It can be helpful to show him that it’s not that you’re better than him; it’s that you are ready to end your struggle as you’ve come to the realization that diets don’t work for you. And, you need help. Explain to him that you are struggling with your relationship with food and need to make changes in your own life to help form a stronger, and healthier relationship with food.

 

3. Be specific with the support you need from him – Remember that your spouse isn’t a mind reader!       If you want help from him, you need to specifically ask him for it. The more specific you are, the more support and help he will be able to give. If he always suggest to go out to dinner for happy and sad occasions, ask him if you guys can do something else together that doesn’t revolve around food for those same occasions.   Whatever it is, just be specific!

 

4. Understand it’s not about you, it’s often about him – Unfortunately, your spouse may not understand what you are going through and won’t want to make changes in his own life, even if they are better for you. If that’s the case, remember it’s about him and has nothing to do with you. You can still change your relationship with food and look for support from friends and others on the same journey as you. Hopefully once he sees how happy you are with your changes, he’ll get on board too! (If you are looking for support on your intuitive eating journey, join us in my Intuitive Eating Mastery Circle. Find out more here!)

 

5. Don’t try to change him, that will never work – You can’t force your spouse to change his lifestyle just because you want him too. Although it would be nice and better for you, he doesn’t need to change.  You are still able to change your own relationship with food, even if he doesn’t change his.

 

If you are looking for more help on how to get your spouse on board, please reach out to me. I can help you. Answer a few questions at TalkWithBonnie.com and I’ll be in touch to set up a time to talk.

 

Your Turn to Take Action: What steps will you take this week to get your spouse on board with your intuitive eating journey? Let me know in the comments below!

 

Please Tell Me What to Eat!

“Can you give me a meal plan WHILE we work on intuitive eating?”

 

This is a question I hear often from clients who are contemplating starting the intuitive eating journey!

 

The answer is NO! Giving you a meal plan goes against the core beliefs of intuitive eating which is eating based on YOUR inner body wisdom, not a pre-printed meal plan. Even if this meal plan is “calculated” and customized for you.

 

Let me explain.

 

You have been on many diets over the years. Perhaps these were formal diets such as Weight Watchers (you can have x points per day), Jenny Craig (you can only eat our prepackaged meals), Atkins (no carbs!) etc.

 

Or, you were on what I call a “Self-Designed Diet”, meaning you created rules that you told yourself you’d follow. Example:
• I can only eat carbs for lunch, never with dinner.

• I must stop eating by 7 pm every night.

• If I snack, it can only be on a fruit or veggie sticks

 

You get the picture, right?

 

Point is, these diets or your own self-designed diets gave you the rules of eating. You followed them like the good girl you are. But these diets don’t take into account what your internal body cues are telling you about when to start eating and when to stop. You eat when, what and how much the diet tells you to.

 

So, what’s the big deal?
This only “works” for as long as you “follow” it. Then when you have a bad day or an uncomfortable emotion surfaces that you’d just rather not feel, BAM….off the diet you go.

 

This cycle continues until you realize that you need off this merry-go-round. There is no joy in eating anymore. So, you hear me talking about intuitive eating and you’re like, “wow, this sounds amazing. Let’s do it. But, can you give me a meal plan too?’

 

I hope you now see why my answer is “no”. Not because I don’t want to help you. But because on the contrary, a meal plan will keep you dieting by telling you when to eat, how much to eat and what to eat. It does not allow you to relearn how to let your body guide your eating decisions.

 

Having said this, I will also say that at a certain point on the intuitive eating journey when my clients raise their hand and say “YES, the intuitive eater within me has woken up”, then we start talking about nutrition. And guess what? You are now able to make the best choices for yourself with my guidance based on what feels awesome in your body!

 

Sounds intriguing? Want in on this journey? Just reach out to me at www.TalkWithBonnie.com and let me know you want to Break Free of Dieting for good! I’m here to support you!

 

 

Dieting Information Overload – When To Start Taking Action

to-do-listI’ve been a registered dietitian nutritionist in private practice for over 28 years now. Wow, hard to believe. And a lot has changed in the industry in the last 28 years. When I first got out of school and opened my business, I was mostly treating patients for medical conditions using nutrition therapy. These conditions included uncontrolled diabetes, cardiovascular disease, high cholesterol, hypertension, gastrointestinal conditions, to name a few.

 

In most of these cases, except for some of the gastrointestinal conditions, weight loss was always a part of the treatment plan. I created a nutrition plan that included a meal plan tailored to the patients’ medical condition and weight loss goals. My patients were getting better and losing weight. It all seemed so perfect.

 

At some point, I asked myself what can I do to help prevent these illnesses or the complications from occurring due to their diseases. Again, weight loss was usually part of the prevention plan and my patients wanted a meal plan to follow, which I obliged to.

 

Yet, at some point about 5-6 years ago, I realized that these meal plans are actually doing a disservice to many of these patients. The meal plan turned into a diet for them to follow and they just didn’t know how to navigate certain situations in their lives when they couldn’t “follow” the meal plan I created. These included vacations, weddings, deaths, job loss and other events and circumstances. They then felt guilty, ashamed and upset that they just couldn’t “do it”. They lost total confidence and trust in themselves.

 

Can you relate?

 

This is when I turned my attention to helping people break free of dieting to learn how to re-trust themselves and their bodies again to make the food choices that feel right for them. Yes, this is where my intuitive eating work comes in.

 

But here is what I have found.

 

As I started talking about and spreading my message about giving up dieting, all of a sudden the internet was swarming with coaches doing the same thing. It caught on like wildfire! It seems like every other day there is another summit with ‘expert interviews’ telling you how to give up dieting.

 

I’ve been on these summits, and I do believe they can be very helpful. But I also believe that there comes a point where you need to stop collecting information and start taking action. That’s when the real change happens.

 

So, in theory, yes, giving up dieting is your answer to finally achieving the body and life you want without food restriction, deprivation and feelings of guilt after you eat. But, if you don’t begin to practice this, you will continue to struggle.

 

3 Tips to Help You Start Taking Action

 

  • Stop signing up for every “end dieting” summit that pops up in your newsfeed. Choose 1 or 2 experts that you resonate most with and follow them (hint…I hope I’m one of them).

 

  • Pick one action step and focus on that for one week. Self-assess each evening to see how you feel with your progress. When you are ready, add a second action step and so on. Don’t take on too many changes at once.

 

  • See support to help you on your journey. These changes are tough! Anyone who tells you otherwise is not being truthful! There is no reason to go this alone. An RDN coach can walk the journey with you and support you. If you’d like to see how I can help you, just contact me here.

 

I am excited for you that you have made the commitment to give up dieting forever. I also know how scary that thought is. Please don’t let that fear keep you in the “gathering information” phase. Start taking action today. I am here to support you.