self talk Archives - Diet Free Radiant Me | Intuitive Eating | Emotional Eating

3 Ways to Reframe “I Can’t”

When it comes to making changes in your life, your self-talk makes all the difference. And learning to stop dieting is no different.

Do the words “I can’t” sound in your head?

You probably developed this mindset following years of dieting. Diets are full of rules and restrictions that set you up for failure. When it comes to eating intuitively, you may also feel like you “can’t” do it because programs have not worked for you in the past. However, intuitive eating is not a diet, and those restrictive rules do not apply.

While you are on your intuitive eating journey, you are working on reframing your mindset. You are changing the way you think about your body, food, and the way you eat.

You can get rid of your “I can’t” by reframing your mindset.

Change your “I can’t” to “I am”, “I can”, and “I will”.

I am

When you’re working towards stopping the binge eating, your gut reaction may be “I can’t do it.”

Change this thought to, “I am no longer binge eating!”

Even if you still have an occasional binge, repeat this statement to help rewire your neural pathways in the brain.

I can

Incorporating gentle movement into your life can bring up fear if you’re used to exercise bootcamps for the purpose of burning calories and losing weight. Moving to more gentle, joyful movement might bring up worries such as “will I gain weight?” This will keep you stuck in diet mentality.

Instead, acknowledge the challenge and reframe the “I can’t just do gentle movement” into “I can do gentle movement and feel great”.

By changing your self-talk, you will see how easy it is to progress forward.

I will

Taking action is key! When you say, “I can’t”, that stops you in your tracks.

Instead, acknowledge that learning to become an intuitive eater is a process and it takes time. Do yourself a favor and reframe this thought into a more realistic self-talk.

I will be an intuitive eater again, just like I was born!

Simply reframing your mindset will help you get “I can’t” out of your vocabulary and you will feel great doing it!!

Shutting Down the Food Police

Do you have a set of unreasonable rules that dieting has created? Is your head constantly filled with chanting words that promote or demote you from eating food that you love?

This is the “food police” voice that is constantly telling you what you should and shouldn’t eat. It’s sort of like the angel and the devil sitting on your shoulders, one telling you it’s okay to eat the chocolate cake, but the other yelling “NO” don’t do it.

Let’s say you decided to have that chocolate cake and the “devil” is sitting on your shoulder beaming with pride because you followed her advice. But, as soon as you eat that cake you feel guilty about the amount of calories and fat that you just consumed. Even though you enjoyed the chocolate cake, you still feel guilty.

Most chronic dieters have this sense of guilt each and every time they eat something that the “food police’ is saying they shouldn’t.

This is the voice that can make it hard to choose foods your body is really asking for.

The media and various companies place thoughts in your head related to nutrition and ways to “cheat” and make yourself feel guiltless because of the way these food items are advertised. The slogans and jingles are created to convince you that this cookie will prevent you from being “bad” on your diet, and will keep you on track.

These are the advertisements that cause you to have negative food thoughts and judgments towards food.

You are not born with these food judgments; you develop them over the years of dieting and being influenced by the media (or friends/family) penetrating these images of good vs. bad in your head.

The next time you pick up a food item that you enjoy and you contemplate “should I or shouldn’t I”, take a moment to listen to your body and the food talk going on in your head.

Push away the negative thoughts and change the tape that plays in your head. If this is a food that you truly desire, go ahead and enjoy it without guilt in a very mindful way. Eat the food slowly, truly savoring each bite. Put your fork down between each bite and let the food settle in your body. Describe the texture of the food? How does it taste? Are you enjoying each bite?

When you start to eat food mindfully, you’ll learn your true food preferences and be able to identify fullness more easily because you are giving your body the time to talk to you.

It is important to realize that this one food eaten in this one moment will not make you gain weight. You may actually find that you don’t love the chocolate cake as much as you thought you did.

Are you stuck in a dieter’s mindset due to your “food police” and negative self-talk? I can help you reframe that negative talk and turn it into something powerful. You can change your thoughts and get rid of the guilt around food!

Head over to TalkWithBonnie.com and answer a few questions – we’ll pick a time to talk that works best for you.

Trash the Scale

This week’s Intuitive Eating Wednesday Question comes from Kay, a woman who has been working on overcoming emotional eating. I received an email from her that said the following:

“Sometimes eating healthy is easy. But sometimes eating healthy and losing weight feels like a struggle. I had to stop weighing myself recently. The scale was showing that I am going up and down around a pound per day. I was getting worried, and it seemed like all of a sudden, I was struggling more (emotionally.)

This early morning, I went out to the backyard to water my lawn on my watering day, and my pajama bottoms almost fell off me. I wanted to go back inside and weigh. But if I did, and the scale didn’t show less, I knew that I would be upset. How can I give up worries about how much I weigh?

This is such a great question and I know it’s something you are thinking as well. As a chronic dieter, you’ve used the scale to measure your success. Each day you’d get on the scale to see how you did the day before and to determine your plan of action for the day ahead. And, if we are being real, you probably go on the scale more than one time per day.

Let’s look at a few scenarios.

Scenario #1: You get on the scale in the morning and the number is a “good” number. Your mood for the day is happy.

Scenario #2: You get on the scale in the morning and the number is a “bad” number. Your mood for the day is depressed, even angry.

Both scenarios can trigger overeating, whether it be celebration eating (“I lost weight, I can have a treat”) or consolation eating (“I was so good and didn’t lose any weight. Why bother trying”.)

Other self-talk around the result of your morning weigh-in might sound like:

“I ate horribly yesterday, and I still lost weight. Thank goodness, I don’t have to starve today”.

“I only lost ¼ pound, it wasn’t worth it”.

This self-talk is the talk of a dieter. Without a doubt, weighing yourself keeps you in diet mentality. It fuels the body worry>food worry vicious cycle of emotional eating and dieting. If you truly want to be break free of this cycle, you must start with throwing away the scale.

Do you let the scale dictate your mood? Are you ready to throw it away?

Watch this video (click image) as I discuss this topic further and comment below with your commitment to stop weighing yourself.

Your Emotional Health, Self-Talk and Weight Loss

I have many clients that come to me with the frustration of not meeting their weight loss goals. They come to me wondering what they can do to reach their “goals”. I usually sit down with them and go over what they are eating and if they are exercising; the typical conversation I have when a client comes to me for weight loss.

But their eating pattern isn’t the only thing we discuss.

My clients and I may also discuss how they feel about themselves after not reaching their “goals”. Where is their mindset at? How are they feeling on their journey to a healthier lifestyle?

Often they might see not reaching their weight loss goal as a failure and a reflection of who they are as a person. They may then develop a negative internal monologue with themselves that tends to only perpetuate weight gain or the inability to lose weight.

Does this resonate with you?

Bullying yourself is not the way to long lasting weight loss, nor is it part of a healthy lifestyle.

Many times the roadblocks in the journey to weight loss are not a lack of nutrition education or even support, but rather they are barriers you put up in your own psyche that prevents you from moving forward.

Your emotional health is key to your physical health, and talking yourself down will not lead to success.

How many times have you eaten what you consider “poorly” or not in keeping with your “diet plan” throughout the first half of the day, and your inner voice starts bullying you saying, “You can’t even make it a few hours without eating unhealthy” or “Can’t you stick to anything? You’re such a failure! You’ll never lose weight!” The disappoint that accompanies these thoughts almost always leads to more unhealthy choices throughout the rest of the day.

Instead of criticizing yourself, be your own cheerleader.

The day is not ruined if you chose to eat a bagel for breakfast instead of oatmeal. Tell yourself it is OK and move on.

There are so many more things to the day than what you eat.

Food should only be a part of your life, not what controls it.

The more you can shift your mind from the negative to focusing on all the great things about what you do in a day, the more success you will have with living a healthy lifestyle.

Support from others is great and is a key piece in a healthy mindset (and intuitive eating), but the support you give yourself is equally if not more important. After all, you are on this journey for you and nobody else, and while weight loss is great, achieving happiness and a sense of peace with the way you maintain a healthy lifestyle is even better.

Intuitive eating can help you change your mindset and help you overcome body bashing. You will develop a better relationship with food and no longer have feelings of remorse or anger if you go off your “diet plan”.

If you would like to learn more about intuitive eating and how it can help you, contact me here.

5 Steps to STOP Dieting Once and For All

You know how to eat healthfully. You have heard it time and time again.

Eat whole foods, lean proteins, whole grains, plenty of fruits and veggies (the colors of the rainbow) and healthy fats. And, yes, avoid highly processed foods!

You don’t need a “Food Revolution” to tell you this! You know this already.

You actually have eaten like this. Then stopped eating like this. Then started eating like this again, then stopped again! Yikes, I’m getting dizzy!

Why do you NOT do what you know is good for you?

Well, there might be several reasons. For starters, it’s easy to fall back into old habits. Change is hard, there’s no doubt about that. And change takes time, patience and perseverance. You can do it as long as life cooperates. But once life throws you a curve ball, you haven’t learned how to juggle that curve ball while maintaining your newfound healthy habits. So, you fall back into old familiar habits that feel safe, even if they aren’t healthy for you.

Now, don’t feel bad about this. It happens to the best of us. What you should feel bad about is if you don’t keep trying. If you just throw in the towel and say and do one of the two following statements:

“It doesn’t matter, I’m destined to be fat, and so I might as well just forget trying. I’m going to enjoy my food and I’ll show them (by the way, who is “them”)?”

“I’m going to try the Atkins diet again, or Weight Watchers for the umpteenth time”.

Now, let’s discuss each of the above statements.

In statement number one, you are engaging in pessimistic thinking (the cup is half empty). This type of self-talk is negative messaging that only leads to more unhappiness and self-destructive thoughts and behaviors.

In statement number two, you know full well that diets don’t work. I don’t care what diet it is. Diets just don’t work as a ‘forever’.

Again, you know this. So, why do you fall for the fad diet’s false advertising time and time again?

I am going to explain why in full detail AND I am going to give away my 5 Step System to Break Free of Dieting so you can get the body and life you love on my upcoming Free Online Webinar.

Here are the deets:

Monday May 16, 2016 at 8 pm EST/5 pm PST.

Join HERE.

This is a Pitch-Free Webinar. I am not selling any home study or group program.

In honor of my birthday month (May), I am giving back to you by teaching you my system at no cost to you.

There is no reason not to show up live.

Register here. I can’t wait to speak to you!

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