From Restrictive Diet To Healthy Habits

Do you live in the continuous polarity of dieting or not? Feel like you live a half-life and can’t feel good? Do you start a restrictive diet and soon find that negative feelings like guilt and frustration flood you?

Here are some tools to understand what’s behind the diet culture and how to distinguish popular miracle diets from healthy lifestyle habits. Saying goodbye to restrictive diets and choosing to take care of yourself is the first step in breaking this never-ending cycle.

What’s behind the restrictive diet culture?

Etymologically, the meaning of the word “diet” comes from the Greek dayta and can be defined as “the set of foods that a person regularly eats”.

Over the years, this word has gone much further : it has become a concept not only linked to our diet, but to a way of life that sometimes distances us from a healthy life and negatively impacts both physical and mental health. .

It’s easy to see how the word “diet” directly influences our emotional state. Culturally, its meaning was constructed in the form of polarity: “if I’m on a diet, I control myself, if not, as I like”.

This polarity, although imposed by the media and diet culture, can have a negative impact on our emotions and quality of life, preventing us from changing and maintaining good eating habits as well as a healthy lifestyle. But why?

Taking care of yourself is much more than choosing healthy foods

Taking care of yourself is not just about choosing healthy foods, but it also implies integrity, harmony and the impossibility of separating physical and emotional aspects as independent elements, both in general and in changing eating habits.

For example, when a person is overweight and wants to lose weight, instinctively, the first thing he does is restrict his diet, because he believes that the smaller the amount, the faster he will reach his goal.

However, following a restrictive diet, in addition to being harmful to health, does not take into account important aspects of oneself, such as emotions.

Several current studies show that, in cases of weight loss, better results are obtained when psychological elements are integrated into a dietary pattern than when working solely and exclusively with a restrictive diet.

Thus, the combined programs show an improvement not only in self-esteem, but also in the perception of body image and self-efficacy  (Villalba, 2016), also improving motivation levels and adherence to the change process.

Characteristics of the Diet Mindset

To end this mistaken belief that reduces weight loss to dietary restriction, the first thing we need to know is how diet culture works, as well as the set of negative thoughts and emotions it can cause, that is, what are the characteristics of the diet mindset. Here are the more general ones:

• Displays start and end dates.
• It implies restricting, eliminating or prohibiting the consumption of certain foods, which generates states of anxiety and negative feelings, such as guilt or frustration.
• Incompatibility with social events: the human being is a social being. Any food plan that is not compatible with social life will only be temporary and cannot be maintained in the long term.

• Promotes rapid weight loss, not equivalent to body fat, but other bodily aspects, such as muscle mass.
• It has short-term effectiveness.
• On many occasions, the diet followed has a rebound effect.
• Body weight is the only indicator of progress.
• It provokes negative feelings and low self-efficacy when it is not possible to reach the imposed goal, usually a certain weight in a short period of time.

From restrictive diet to healthy habits

The concept of health is no longer considered the absence of disease and has become a global state of well-being, both physical and psychological. Following this line, we can define a healthy habit as a pattern of behavior that we assume as our own.

Also, if repeated over time, it has a positive effect on our health. Thus, the main characteristics that define healthy habits in the food field are as follows:

• They are guided by real goals that help assess small achievements.
• They involve gradual changes in diet and lifestyle.
• They imply a progressive loss of weight, being an extra consequence and not the only objective.
• There are no restrictions or impositions on food, but it is through learning itself that, little by little, the criteria for choosing food are increased.
• They allow you to achieve beneficial health goals that will be maintained over time.
• Levels of physical and psychological well-being increase.
• Feelings of guilt or frustration are not prevalent.
• Are compatible with social life.

Conclusion

Once the main differences between the characteristics of the diet culture and the change in eating habits are reviewed, it is common that doubts arise about timing and immediacy. It’s important to keep in mind that changing habits takes time.

For this reason, before the rush picks up and the person restarts any restrictive diet, it’s helpful to reflect on how many years we’ve invested in this cycle of starting, stopping, and starting again.

Is it possible to take care of ourselves, focusing only on what we see, punishing ourselves with prohibitions and endless cycles of restrictive diets that cannot be maintained over time and affect our self-esteem? The answer is clear: no, at least not in a healthy way.

Now, how about we change the focus? And if we invest in something different, how can we learn to take care of ourselves without dieting?