Don't Should on Yourself
Copyright (c) 2008 At Peace With Food
Many years ago, my wonderful friend Jan was explaining to me how she counsels patients on making small changes in their diets in order to lose weight. She told me that one of the major stumbling blocks people experience with weight loss is guilt. Not that they can't follow a specific plan for eating, nor that they don't like to exercise. Well, that's certainly part of it-but the main factor is that, as a result of not being able to meet their goals, they feel they have failed, because they didn't do what they "should" have been doing.
Because her clients were constantly telling her "I should eat better," I should exercise more," "I should not have had those cookies, because now I am a bad person," she came up with this wonderful phrase: don't SHOULD on yourself.
Isn't that a wonderful piece of advice? Well, you absolutely must watch how you say it, and who you are with when you say it; but-when said correctly, it covers a lot of feelings.
Think about it for a moment. How do you feel when you feel you have done things you shouldn't have done? How do you feel when you didn't meet your exercise goal? When you didn't lose all the weight you thought you should lose in a week? Probably not good. Why do you think this is true? Usually it’s because you’ve set yourself a goal (run 5 miles every day OR never eat chocolate again) that is impossible to meet. And, when you are unable to meet your goal, you feel terrible. For some reason, while we often say "patience is a virtue", we are unable to apply it to very personal situations, such as improving our health by losing weight and beginning to exercise. We set amazingly unrealistic goals (lose 25 pounds, run the marathon) and expect to be able to accomplish these goals-yesterday. We set high expectations for ourselves, goals that are impossible to meet. Then, when we realize we cannot possibly live up to these expectations, we conclude we have failed; never having seen that failure was the only outcome we could have expected.
Becoming "at peace with food" is a journey involving the development of a new relationship with food. Instead of being marked by frustration and disappointment, by fear and competition between you and the food you eat, food eventually takes its place as one of the many activities in your life, along with family, friend, working and being active.
When you are at peace with food, and at peace with yourself, you find that the decisions you make about your health are more realistic. You learn to move more slowly, realizing that you are not in a race to become healthy. Rather, you are developing a new relationship with yourself, and new relationships, if they are to be good ones, take time. You learn to set realistic goals, starting off slowly and building up. For example, you start by walking an extra five minutes three times/week, and build it up to 25-30 minutes three times a week. You realize that you are full after eating 2 cookies, so you don't have to eat five. You learn to appreciate smaller portions, because you know you are allowed to eat more if you want.
Finally, you learn how to change behaviors because you realize you want to, not because you should.
About the Author
If you would like more information on becoming At Peace With Food™, as well as access to interesting articles and links to nutritional resource websites, visit=> http://www.AtPeaceWithFood.com/freetips.html
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