I recently asked all of you (or at least the ones who follow me on Instagram), if you classified yourself as “on a diet” and over half of you said yes.

This was a really interesting result to me.

I know a lot of you feel like you are constantly on or off a “diet”, mostly with the aim of weight loss or looking “better”.

And honestly I used to be the same.

But here are some reasons why you may want to reframe your thinking, without feeling like the only other option is to give up completely.

Btw I’ll be taking a small group of you through this exact process in the next round of my program in August.

Firstly, if you put yourself on a diet in this way, you inevitably give yourself bandwagon to fall off. And so you are much more likely to “fail” at said diet.

Many times I’ve been asked how many cheat meals is ok. I almost couldn’t despise a term more… What are we cheating on?

I eat in a way that serves my highest and best self (most of the time). Is this what I’m cheating on? Myself? That is called self sabotage, and a big part of my teachings in my sessions with clients is based on preventing self sabotage. We aren’t perfect, slip ups happen to all of us, but there is always a deeper cause.

Woah woah woah… If you think I’m trying to claim that I eat perfectly healthy every day, I most certainly don’t!

But there is a wildly large difference between slowly enjoying sourdough Italian pizza and wine out with friends, compared with standing at the pantry shovelling chips and crackers into your mouth when you aren’t even hungry nor do you feel like chips or crackers… I know this feeling…

This is often called boredom eating, but it’s more than that. It’s eating from a place of desire to escape from your negative thoughts, or distract yourself from something that worries you.

Do you see how different these two scenarios are? The one at the restaurant with pizza and friends and the one at the pantry stuffing your face.

Often it’s nothing to do with the actual food, but rather the intention behind eating it.

This is why cheat meals are bogus. Do I advise a certain number of times people should self sabotage and cheat on themselves? No, I don’t advise this at all. Rather I help people eat with good intentions, intentions of love for their mind and body, instead of intentions of escapism which only ever leave you with feelings of guilt and failure.

A different approach to “diet”, one that doesn’t involve a diet in it’s commonly known sense, will allow you to prevent any cheating, because there won’t be any diet to cheat on.

If you are choosing food and food experiences based on eating in alignment with your best self, there is no bandwagon to fall off.

Doesn’t that sound blissful?

So how do you get there?

How do you get out of the cycle of feeling like you are on a diet all the time?

Habits my friends!

Let me put my old wise lady hat on for a second and tell you a story.

I used to be one of those people that when I felt great, had time and life was running smoothly, I ate really well.

The second something would drop, which was either something external that was out of my control or often it was just me dropping the ball, my eating would go out the window. It was like from one day to the next all of a sudden I was so lost with what to eat, why I would even eat well in the first place and I’d feel down about myself (which only ever leads to poor food choices because if you feel low vibe, you eat low vibe foods).

What followed would be weeks of eating “badly”, inevitable physical outcomes (cough weight gain) and it would land me right back to square one, down on myself for falling off the wagon, and plotting my next diet or whatever new thing I told myself I was going to do on Monday.

Major face palm!

Until I learnt about habits and how to create or change them.

You see, despite the fact that I can’t control the outcomes of the world and I often drop the ball in life (I’m not perfect) and sometimes I feel down too (hello PMS), my eating habits and food choices remain the same all the time.

It means I can have three weeks of being distracted from what I’m eating, not having much time to focus on it, and still I eat well the whole time anyway and don’t end up in a spiral weeks or months or years later wondering how to get back “on track”. When you train yourself to be always on the track you don’t ever need to get back on it.

Are you nodding your head in agreement?

Is the on track/ off track diet cycle exhausting you?

Come join me in my signature 4 week program and finally discover what it means to eat well without having to try or think to hard, and be one of those people that eats well with ease!

We’ve still got a little while til we start, but have a read here about the program if you are interested.

Liv xx