Why you don't need to reset your diet this New Year

Does it feel like everyone around you is going on a new diet or reset for the New Year? Have you been feeling the pressure to cut out foods or strip away the fun from eating in order to try and drop some weight to kick off the year on the right foot? We can guess that if either of these are the case, you’re probably feeling the pressure right now to eat perfectly. With that pressure comes a lot of guilt.

Based on that, we challenge you to ask yourself the following questions:

•  Has a diet or meal plan like this ever really worked for you before?
•  Did you truly feel good after you finished it and went back to eating normally again?
•  If these previous diets worked, then why would you need to be going on one again?

The truth

The hard truth is that 95% of diets fail. Note that we said the diet fails, not the individual. The reason our bodies gain all the weight back is because we have a predetermined setpoint weight. Setpoint weight is just a fancy way of saying that our bodies have a predetermined weight that we’re meant to stay at. That’s why you gain all the weight back when you stop dieting or restricting—because your body is programmed to do what it has to do to get you back to your set weight.

 Is all that dieting worth it?

To further prove weight loss is not sustainable, studies show two-thirds of weight regain happens within two years, and at five years, all the weight has been regained (NIH, 1992). So we ask you, is all that time, stress and effort really worth it? Can you imagine if all that time was spent enjoying food without all the shame and guilt? We know as busy moms, you carry around the mental load of getting everything done for all the people in your family all the time. That’s why we want to help you remove the stress of food and what you should and shouldn’t be eating from your mental to-do list. We want you to genuinely believe it for yourself when you tell your kids the least important thing about them is the size of their bodies.  

What’s the alternative?

Instead of starting another year with a diet that will leave you trusting your body even less and feeling more food guilt than you did before, we’d like you to focus on these three steps instead:

1) Focus on what you can add in.

We get told we need to cut out or restrict in order to be healthy, but we’d like you to reframe this belief to what you can add into your life. You can try adding in one new veggie side dish a week (if you need some inspiration, you can check out this lentil dip or crispy cauliflower). You can buy yourself a new water bottle and try to drink one extra bottle than you normally would. Or, you can eat one meal a week free of distractions and just focus on enjoying your meal. This simple reframing helps us remember our health is what we do over time, not in a single meal, day, week or even month.

2) Find movement that you enjoy

Most of us can remember a time we started a new workout plan at the same time we started a new diet. What usually follows is eventually giving up on it altogether. We want you to shift your focus on movement to something that you enjoy, rather than using it as a tool for weight loss. Movement has so many positive impacts, like releasing endorphins that help improve our mood, and can be accomplished in short bouts like choosing to walk to a different floor to use the bathroom at work, or taking a 10 minute call with a friend on a walk instead of sitting.

It’s also important to mention that exercise is actually a really lousy form of weight loss. The Women’s Health Study, which studied 40,000 women, determined the difference in weight between those women at the highest level of exercise and the lowest was about three pounds for a woman with a height of 5’4″ (Lee et al., 2001). What has been proven is active people are much healthier than sedentary ones, regardless of their weight (Blair et al., 1993).

3) Give yourself unconditional permission to eat

Although that may sound oversimplified, the reality is that the source of bingeing and overeating is restriction. We’ve been told that in order to control ourselves, we should eliminate “bad” foods and that these foods are what leave us feeling poorly about our bodies. The truth is that viewing these foods with these moralistic labels is what leaves us feeling shame, and including these foods in our lives is equally as important as foods that are more nutrient-dense (you can read more on our thoughts on these food labels here).

The ask above can feel really daunting—we know because we’ve been there before. However, this is a reality you can have for yourself. A reality where you can eat what makes you happy and feel content in the body you are in. We believe life is too short to be dieting, and that’s why we created our program, Get back in the flo. When you leave our program, you’ll be able to eat without any guilt. Our new cohort is launching at the end of January and we’re offering a free extra session to Mom Halo readers who mention this article. That means you’ll be getting six sessions with us plus a bonus seventh session for $599. You can book a free discovery call here to secure your spot.

About ebb & flo nutrition

We are Carly Rodness and Laila Peterson-Tannis, two certified Nutritional Practitioners and the owners of ebb & flo nutrition. In our program, we guide our clients through the Principles of Intuitive Eating, with the goal of helping women ditch diets once and for all and live healthfully enjoying all foods (yes, all foods).

We were inspired to start ebb & flo nutrition because of the common shared experience women have when it comes to their bodies and food. The consistent stories we heard from women (and experienced ourselves) were about constantly trying to change the size of their bodies and feeling overwhelmed with stress and guilt when eating. That's why we decided to build a program that helps women feel empowered in their bodies to make the best food choices for themselves. We're on a mission to build a community of women to reconnect with their intuition and kick diet culture in the butt!

Sources

Blair, Steven N., et al., “Body Weight Change, All-Cause Mortality, and Cause-Specific Mortality in the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial,” Annals of Internal Medicine 1993 (1993): 749-57.

Lee, I-Min, et al., “Physical Activity and Coronary Heart Disease in Women: Is ‘No Pain, No Gain’ Passé?” Journal of the American Medical Association 285 (2001): 1447-54.

National Institutes of Health (NIH), “Methods for Voluntary Weight Loss and Control (Technology Assessment Conference Panel),” Annals of Internal Medicine 116, no. 11 (1992): 942-49.