How to Make the Scary Act of Breaking up with Dieting Feel Safe and Regulating

Have you felt that intense urge that going back on a diet would just solve everything? It may have felt that your needs, physically and emotionally, became too big and dieting would keep everything in check.

So you go on a diet, and for a while, you feel in control. All your needs can get shoved aside to only focus on the need to feel successful at this diet. And the moment that you crave something off the diet, when you've spent several days or weeks eating all those foods that have been labeled as bad, you might hear an internal voice say, "F this" and you eat and eat and eat to try to satiate all those needs that were put aside.

Breaking up with dieting means that you will come into closer contact with your needs and that they change constantly. If those around you growing up couldn't meet your needs and taught you to believe you shouldn't have them, your body's changing needs can feel dangerous to your sense of safety and well-being.

When I talk about needs,

• What do you notice come up for you?

• When you had a need as a child, how were you met?

• Did you feel like it was alright to ask for what you needed?

• How did others respond to you?

• Did you receive messages like just get over it, or was no one there at all to say anything?

Feeling like it's not safe to attend to your body's shifting and changing needs started potentially before you were even verbal in how your needs were met as a baby. Dieting, of course, would then feel safe to do as it maybe felt familiar. If you weren't used to your needs being met, then dieting could feel like home.

Breaking up with dieting won't feel safe at first. It might feel scary and overwhelming and messy. That's why it will also feel so alluring to go back on one just to feel a moment of safety and security.

So what do you do? What's the first step?

Every time you want to engage in a dieting behavior and these can include labeling a food as good or bad, restricting your intake, compensating for what you've eaten, eating what you think you should instead of what you want, choosing the low fat version because that's what you're supposed to do, notice the urge to engage in these behaviors without acting on them. It's completely fine that these impulses are arising. They're letting you know that something doesn't feel safe. That you potentially have a need that feels too much to look at. You don't have to attend to that need yet. You also don't need to engage in your dieting behavior either.

You can hang out in this in between space of no longer dieting and also not addressing your needs either. You have to take the next step that simply feels safe to do. You may feel ready to stop dieting and any further step might feel like too much. That's not a problem. That is you honoring where you're at. And while this may sound simple, yet in the moment, it can feel very hard to do. When you eat the foods that have been labeled as bad, notice how nothing bad happens. You're still here and everything is alright.

If you're looking for more support on this journey, email me at support@stephaniemara.com. I know this healing adventure as I've been through it and am here for you in every stage and phase.