Is Your Diet Stressing You Out?

If your diet is stressing you out, it’s not doing you any favours. Even stress coming from the healthiest diet in the world isn’t healthy.

I get it. My life used to be about restrictions, being as compliant and ridged as possible. Every moment, every thought, revolved around my eating schedule. I would say “no” to everything because I had to train or eat or sleep. I’d chug water just before bed to meet my requirement despite it waking me up several times in the night. I’d go to bed hungry because it was a badge of honour to resist. My partner could eat whatever he wanted… and I secretly hated him for it. The desperation of eating dry Ezekiel bread and water with my cereal to avoid calories. And the scale, it lived on my counter.

From Monday to Friday, I was in control and then would lose all discipline on Saturday. I suspect you know what it feels like to jump on the scale on Sunday only to feel defeated.

When I was in my 20s, I was all about supplements, pills, and restrictive diets so I could be as small as my friends. All the girls went to Cuba, where I totally missed out because I was restricting food and spent most of the time loathing my body. When I did my first photoshoot, it was about control. Life was falling apart around me and this was going to fix everything. Once I had the body I wanted, everything else would fall into place.

Compare that to this past year where I did a fitness competition. This one was about being the smallest, the lightest on the scale but with the most amount of muscle. This was all so I could step on stage in a tiny bikini. Of course, the nature of the competition is restriction, rules, and willpower. The difference between now and then was I knew this going in and had spent five years in a different head space. This competition was a short term goal and not where I would find happiness.

All this reinforced that restrictions aren't sustainable and, at my core, are not who I am as a person. They zapped my energy and made me disconnect from what makes me happy. Food was no longer fun, nourishing, or enjoyable, but a way to manipulate the scale. Workouts were a way maximum number of calories burned and to be as small as possible. But…

I like being social.

I like food. I like it so much that I need to say it again. I really like food.

I want to workout to be strong, not to be small.

All those years ago, I was chasing one goal: to be small. Yet I didn’t realize how single focussed I had become… or how bitchy. I was further from the self loving, positive person I once was and now am. I was living everyone else’s vision of myself instead of my own.

It is so easy to be consumed by trying to reach the same goal over and over. But maybe you’re chasing the wrong goal? Maybe you’re actually seeking validation, acknowledgment, connection, fulfillment, and joy. We can do that through nourishing our body and by working out to build our best bodies. But the reason is never just for physical appearance. Changing my workout motivation, my “why", helped me stop self sabotaging. Changing my why allowed me to do super cool things with my body in every day life and with great ease. Changing my why allowed me to live my best life in my best body which means adventure, meaningful relationships, and fulfillment.

If your diet is stressing you out, consider if it’s worth that stress. Consider if it’s really a physical change that will lead you to happiness, validation, acknowledgment, connection, fulfillment, and joy.

Or maybe there is another way to achieve those feelings?

If your answer is “yes” than I invite you to book a discovery call with me, Coach Cindy, to learn about our online coaching programs and discover there is another way.

Prefer to listen?