133. The 10 commandments of dieting

Today, for a bit of fun, I’m bringing you my 10 commandments of dieting. Let’s break some rules of dieting. From ‘thou shalt worship the scale’ to ‘Thou shalt find salvation in achieving the 'ideal' weight’, and all the commandments in between.

I'm talking about carbs and calories, trends and exercise, social media and food validation, body acceptance and comparison. So much to talk about, so many rules to break!

I also couldn’t let this episode pass by without a mention of Bridgerton. No spoilers though I promise. And we have a new family member. The Tales From The Cat Diaries may be coming back!

Get 'Eat From Within - The 3 Steps To Food Freedom' course totally free!

Transcript

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Hello, hello, hello. What has been going on? What has been going on? Loads have been going on. Have you been watching Bridgerton? Oh my days. I have watched Bridgerton this week. It's so good. So good. Have you seen it yet? I won't spoil it for you. No plot spoilers, but I've seen it all now. I've seen it all. I mean, I've seen it all. I've seen all of it, all of the episodes. Not, I've seen it all now. Like there was some major surprise, but so good. I love it so much. So much. If you do not know what Bridgerton is if you have not watched it yet we cannot be friends until you've gone and watched it okay just saying it's so good but I can't say any more than that because I might spoil it for you if you haven't watched it yet and I'm not going to do that what else has been going on oh I've got a new family member got a new family member I can't show you her because she's hiding away in a little box at the moment, but we have got a lovely new cat. We rescued her. We went and we rescued a cat. We did think about a kitten. We looked at some kittens, you know, looked around for some kittens. And then on this pet rescue place on their Facebook page was this beautiful gray and white three-year-old cat and she just looked like the sweetest thing and we were like oh she has to come and live with us so we picked her up this weekend and she is just so so sweet she's so gentle and she's so loving and she's all about the fuss right so you know when cats want their heads rubbed all the time this is Luna this is this is her she's all about the head fuss so so happy that she's here. She's so lovely. I can't wait for you to see her. I did put a little photo on, how do I put it? Instagram, because she spent the first long time down the side of a chest of drawers. She didn't want to come out, but that's what cats do, isn't it? When you first bring them home. Yeah. So she's settling in. She's starting to much around. She's ventured out of the room that we've given her. Well, actually given her a room. She's got my office. So this is where I am. I'm sat in here and she is tucked away down in a little box, hiding and trying to feel safe. So you just got to give a cat time, haven't you, when they come to a new home. And I think because she's a rescue, then it means she probably might be a little bit more nervous of things so just giving her time but oh can't can't wait till she wants to come and play and I think Mabel will be happy because she will have a playmate back and That's what she's been missing since Tilly's gone. So fingers crossed, fingers crossed. It all works out for the best, but this means that for the podcast, I get to re resurrect the tales from the cat diaries. Do you remember those? Oh my God. Do you remember when Tilly did her, did her foot in? Oh my God. If you haven't listened to that far back in the podcast, then go and listen because wow, was that ever a journey? It was a nightmare. Yeah, it was hard work. And so you've got all the updates then. Well, they may be about to start again. Tell you what, I'll put a photo of Luna on my Instagram tonight and then you'll be able to see her if you if you get this podcast obviously at the time that it gets released. What else has been going on I don't know I think that's it I think that's it I think that's enough though right All of the Bridgerton and a new cat. Lovely Luna. Yeah, so I think that's it. I think That's my updates for the week. But how are you? Are you good? I hope so. But we'd have a little bit of fun this week. This week, I'm bringing you the 10 commandments of dieting. The 10 commandments of dieting that we love to break. I was just thinking about all the crazy, stupid rules that diets give us. We've talked about lots of different things in the membership sessions lately, and there's so much that comes up and you're like, why? Why did I even do that? It was bloody barmy. But we do because it's dieting and it sucks us in And it makes us believe that we can be better, you know, different to what we are now, that sort of thing. So I want to bring you the 10 commandments of dieting that we love to break. And you can just have a little lull along with me this week. Commandment 1 Thou shalt worship thy scale. It just teaches you doesn't it to always worship the scales That's what you do when you're on a diet. These scales are everything. Scales are life when you're on a diet. They are the thing that you live and breathe by. They dictate what you eat. They dictate what you do exercise wise. They dictate how much water you drink, what you eat before you go and stand on the scales, all that sort of thing. And then whatever happens on the scales determines what happens the rest of the day and the rest of the week, maybe. And maybe that also creates this excuses generator in you. So while I stood on the scales and I've put on X amount of weight, but it's okay because I had a pizza last night and you know, that's a lot of food and I've had a bottle of water this morning and blah, blah, blah. It just makes you generate excuses for what has happened when you stood on the scales. And You're expected to give these excuses in front of a class full of people. You have to explain yourself. You have to say what happened. You have to tell people what went wrong this week. What went wrong this week, Terry? Well, the diet was wrong, that's what went wrong this week. I think should just be the solid answer to that question. What went wrong? Well, I was on a diet, And then I decided to not be on a diet anymore. So that's what went wrong. I lived my life, Maggie. Okay, I lived my life. That's what I did this week. Nothing went wrong. I just decided not to stick to this rubbish anymore. So we're gonna break this commandment, right? No more stepping on scales. We don't need to stand on the scales anymore absolute nonsense commandment 2 thou shalt treat carbs as the devil yep You are expected to not eat bread more than once a day. You are told that well actually carbs are the devil if you're doing a plan that doesn't like carbs. That's what this boils down to. So if you go to a slimming club, then carbs might be okay, but only certain types of carbs. So you can't have bread more than twice a day. You can have things that are high in fiber. You can have as many vegetables as you want and we know there are carbs in vegetables, right? In fact, on the big diet plans, you can usually have as much of certain carbs as you want. So potato, pasta, rice, that sort of thing. They say you can have as much of that as you want. So what's the difference? I can have carbs then, but I can't have carbs then. I can have carbs as long as it's potato or rice or pasta. I can have carbs as long as it's bread but once I've had 1 lot of bread then I can't have any more carbs that are bread. Yes? Correct? And breakfast cereal. Let's not even get into breakfast cereal. No, let's get into breakfast cereal. You can have breakfast cereal. You can have that form of carbs, but you can only have a very teeny tiny amount. Ain't nobody surviving on tiny little 30 gram serving or whatever it is of a decent cereal. That's just a fact. So you can have carbs in the form of breakfast cereal but only a little bit and only if you don't have bread because if you have bread then you can't have cereal but you can still have the rice, the potato, the pasta. Isn't it confusing? It's no wonder we don't know what we're doing when we're on a diet when there's stupid rules like that all the time. So you can have carbs but you can't have carbs. But if you do something like Atkins, you absolutely cannot have carbs. No carbs. Now that's really difficult to do. Really really difficult. Keto, same thing, same diet, different name. You cannot have carbs. Carbs are indeed the devil there. But then you can still have some vegetables. So you can have some carbs. But yes, carbs are the devil there. So you can only live on fat and protein. Yeah. I mean, it's not like our body lives for carbs though, right? It's not like 20% of our energy intake, primarily carbs, fuels our brain or anything. It's not like our body's preferred source of fuel is carbs. Oh no wait, those things are true. You can't function without carbs. Not long term, your body needs them. So these diets that demonize carbs, what a load of rubbish. What a load of rubbish. So go forth and break that commandment my friend. Thou shalt count every calorie religiously. Yeah, can we just pass on that? Can we just enjoy our food, please? Can we just think about what we're eating, what our body wants, how much we want, you know, how hungry are we when we sit down to eat? I want to eat the amount of food that satisfies my hunger, my fullness, and actually what I'm looking for in a meal. I do not want my meal size dictated by the calories in the portions. And a prime example of this is today. So today I took in my lunchbox, in my lunchbox, I took a slice of frittata and a salad. I did plan on taking a few crackers, but I completely forgot them. So I left them behind. That was an accident. But I had this salad and this frittata and I ate it and I ate the other bits and pieces that I had with me. And by the time I was ready to come home

at 05: 12:49

00 I was so hungry and you know that horrible hunger feeling where you feel a bit sick and it's verging on real discomfort that's how I felt and I

started to feel hungry probably 03: 13:03

00 ish and I didn't have any more food with me. So I was then in this position where I'd not eaten enough food to see me through. And I was really, really hungry. Now I know that that lunch was not big enough for me. That lunch on a diet would have been perfect. Absolutely perfect. Bang on, that would have been a free lunch. But for me, that was not enough. I needed something bulkier. I needed something more substantial. I should probably have put some carbs in there. I didn't have any and I should have put some in there. And for me, it wasn't enough. So to calorie count, to restrict calories in the day is, is not the way forward. It's much, much healthier to be governed by what you want to eat, how much you want to eat, how much you need to eat. Because also, don't forget that what you need to eat 1 day will be completely different to another day. Today I might be starving hungry, tomorrow that might satisfy me. Who knows? And never mind the fact that you can't have the nice stuff around it. So if you're counting calories, you're probably having to restrict the lovely stuff that you enjoy. A glass of wine at the weekend or maybe 2 or 3. The ice cream in the evening. I love my ice cream in the evening. I couldn't have that if I was calorie counting because by the time I got to the evening I would have eaten all my calories. So absolute nonsense calorie counting. I don't like it, don't want to do it. Let's break that commandment too. What's next? Thou shalt obey the latest diet trend like it is the gospel. People follow diet trends because they've seen them on social media and they think that is the done thing. And it is the best of the best because they see people on social media and they see them doing well at them. And that is because people don't show you anything, but the highlights real. Right. So they don't show you the weeks where they've gained weight. They don't show you the weeks where no weight has moved. They don't show you the days where they are absolutely starving, hungry, or not satisfied by food. They don't show you the binges that happen because of the restriction. They just show you this diet that is working. I say that in, you know, speech marks, in vertige, air quote things. Because it's only working temporarily, that weight loss might be there, but it's only gonna be temporary. So the working thing in the short term is what creates the hype about these diets. But once people have stopped doing them, Then the weight comes back on. And these trends often don't last very long. They, they last a while. People get excited by them. They get some results and before you know it, flash in the pan that's gone and something else is hit. And it's not just diets, it's all the health and wellness kicks. You know, stupid drinks with all this concoction of herbs and spices in first thing in the morning or totally restricting 1 type of food group. Well, that's very much dieting, but you know what I mean. There's... Oh, I'm just trying to think. Oh, there was a cayenne pepper. 1 wasn't there at 1 point. People were all about cayenne pepper. Celery juice. Remember the celery juice diet? That was massive, massive. And these things come and go like, where is the celery diet now? Where is the celery juice diet now? I haven't heard of it for a very long time now and that's because these things come and go because they're not sustainable, they don't stick around, people start to see through them, they start to see the nonsense that is behind them and yeah they come and go. So we don't need to follow the latest diet that is floating around social media, right? Why don't we just follow what our body wants? Would that be nice? That'd be nicer wouldn't it? Yeah, trends, let them go, Just let them come, let them go. I don't think there's anything wrong with taking aspects of these things and trying them to see how they feel for you. For example, juicing. I'm not an advocate for juicing, but for example, if you struggle to have breakfast because you're never hungry at that time of the morning and for you to have a fruit juice or a smoothie or something like that works because you can have something. It's a bit of energy. It's some nutrients. It's something to get your body going without having to physically eat too much. Then go for it. But do things for that reason. Do things because they feel right in your body and because that's what you feel like you want in the moment. Don't do these trends because they're the latest fad. Thou shall repent for desert sins at the gym immediately. That is commandment number 5. How many times have you thought, Oh God, I ate that food and now I need to burn it off. I need to go to the gym because I had a really heavy day today. I ate more than my calorie allowance. Or I had foods that weren't on my plan. Therefore I need to go and exercise. Or, oh, what about the plans that tell you, you can eat more if you go exercise. So if you go to the gym, you can have an extra amount of points. You can eat more. And so you have this really bad relationship with exercise because you go, oh, I do, I do want to eat more. So therefore I must go and go to the gym and burn some energy. Or I must go for this grueling run. I saw something on Instagram actually, that's doing the rounds about this woman who was talking about a Punisher day. She said that she had had a bit of a heavy week or few days or whatever it was. She didn't feel very good. And so she was going to do a Punisher day. And I won't tell you what was in that day, but she was basically going to give herself a good hiding for the day. And it was going to be miserable. And she was saying, do I want to do it? No. Should I do it? Yes. Have I got the motivation? No. Do I need to? Yes. It was, it's not pleasant watching. That is because for that person, exercise is linked to food. She thought she'd had a few bad days food wise, therefore she needed to do more exercise. That is not the case. You never have to earn your food. You never have to burn your food. You can separate those things. You are entitled to eat dessert without thinking that you have to go and burn it off at the gym. You do not have to go and do a spin class because you're going for a night out. You do not have to go into a circuits class and a hundred burpees. Oh, no, thank you. Not doing burpees. You do not have to do that because you've been out for dinner with some friends. No, you just do not have to. You completely need to detach those 2 things. Food and exercise, they're not interlinked. They really are not and they shouldn't be so thou shalt repent for desert sins at the gym immediately let's smash that commandment let's not bother thank you how about we just have a slice of cake guilt-free and we see movement as something joyful, something we enjoy and not a punishment. Thank you. Yes. Commandment 6, thou shalt rejoice only when thy clothes size shrinks. This is what diet clubs teach us, right? And this is what diets as a whole teach us. You celebrate losing dress sizes. You celebrate the inches dropping off. You celebrate your body shrinking. You celebrate the numbers on the tape measure, you celebrate dropping clothes sizes And everything about that says you were not good enough when you were in a higher clothes size or you were not good enough when you had those extra inches on you, you were not good enough when your body was that size. We're taught only to celebrate when our bodies get smaller and when we can fit into smaller dress sizes. God, what was that program? Drop a dress size in... Hang on I'm gonna Google it, be right back. No, pointless exercise because I googled TV show drop address size and I just got this massive list of all these different things that were drop address size, drop address size, drop address size. So I'm sure there was a TV program at some point that was all about dropping X amount of dress sizes in a very, very small amount of time. Look at the biggest loser. That's a very good example. The weight is coming off, the clothes are getting smaller and at the end of these TV shows, isn't it always the case where they glam up the person, they have a makeover, they wear these tight fitted clothes, bodycon dresses or very tight dresses, gym kit maybe, that's a good example isn't it, the before and after that's always gym kit and we're always celebrating the smaller dress size but Can't we celebrate who we are now? Can't we be happy about who we are now? Can't we just rejoice in all the things that the body can do right now? Like, it's amazing what the body can do. I am still doing my yoga, by the way, really pleased with myself. But I'm still doing my yoga and every day I feel a little bit stronger. Every day I move a little bit differently. Every day I'm able to hold something a little bit more. And I am celebrating my body for that because my body's not a skinny body. My body is definitely big girl size and it's still able to do amazing things. So why do we not rejoice in ourselves right now, not instead of waiting for, you know, the clothes to be smaller? That's a much better idea, right? Number 7, commandment number 7. Thou shalt ensure that every meal is Instagrammable and healthy. Right, so if you're sharing food on Instagram is generally gonna be 1 of 2 camps. It is either going to be the most delicious, luxurious, plated, styled, oh I don't know, all the descriptors, meal that you've ever eaten and you're like everybody needs to see this the world needs to see this glorious thing on the plate in front of me or or it's going to be a diet meal and it's probably gonna form something like what I eat in a day. What I eat today, what I eat in a day on my diet. Hate what I eat in a day posts because again, highlights real. Nobody ever shares everything that they eat. Nobody shares the half a chicken nugget that they've picked up off the kids plate because they finished eating. Nobody shows the extra couple of chips they put in their mouth when they were plating up the kids dinner. Nobody shows you the piece of cheese that they put in their mouth because they live by the rule that 1 for the diet food plate, 1 for my mouth. I used to do that, I used to weigh my cheese and then I cut another slice just for me to eat right there and then. So, everything you see on social media is styled food and that works for the really, really good food. And I mean, the, you know, when I say good food, I mean the stuff that you want to see, the stuff that makes you drool when you look at it and the typically Instagrammable, diety, healthy meals. What if we lived in a world where food didn't need social validation? Now I'm all about sharing something that looks lovely, right? I really am. I want to see your food, if it looks gorgeous on a plate, I want to see it. If it's colorful, if it's varied, if it's something different, if it's gooey and chocolatey, If there is just ice cream oozing out of something, I want to see that. I want to see it because I want to draw with you. I don't want to see anything that isn't being celebrated for that reason. So the diet food, the healthy meals, the oh look what I ate today and it's only X amount of sins or X amount of points. Don't want to see it. Not interested love, no. Not interested. Oh what was I going to say then? Oh, I know there is an Instagram feed that you really have to follow. It's called slimming hurled. It is so funny. It is all these meals that somebody has posted on social media of their Slimming World meals, and they're posting it like, this is the best meal ever. And Slimming Hold is making comments about how it is definitely the grossest thing they've ever seen on a plate. Definitely 1 for your feed, honest to God. You follow that feed, you will never want to put together a Slimming World meal again as long as you live. It's really funny you've got to see it for what it is it's humor. Some of the stuff looks awful. So gross. Go give it a look up. It's funny. 8. Commandment number 8. Thou shalt covet thy neighbor's perfect body. All right, it might be your neighbor, it might be your friend, it might be a family member, it might be somebody at work, it might be just someone you see on the internet, someone you see on social media, but let's stop the comparison. All right, you don't need to compare yourself to somebody else. You do not need to decide whether you are more attractive than them or less attractive than them, whether your body is bigger or smaller than theirs, whether you've got natural cheekbones like they do and whether, you know, you're as curvaceous as they are. Yeah, whatever it is, whatever you're looking for in this person that you're admiring. That's not you. You are you. And I'm not saying don't admire somebody because you absolutely can look at another human being and appreciate what they look like. I think the problem comes when you compare somebody to what you look like. So to look at somebody, a friend, a colleague, a family member, somebody on social media. And say, they are really attractive. I find them really attractive. That's, that's fine. That's awesome. That's human nature. To compare yourself to them though, to look at them and wonder how you size up to them, let's not go down that route because all that does is make you feel bad and makes you feel like you want to change yourself. Or if it's the other way, maybe it makes you feel good because you think of yourself as better than the other person. And in which case you're actually then putting down the person that you're comparing yourself to. You're putting down their body type. You're saying that their body is not right and yours is better. And that's not what we want. We don't need body comparisons, right? That's, that's got to go. It's got to go. So yes, have appreciation for another human being, have the body type that you like the look of, but don't compare yourself. There's a very famous saying isn't there? Comparison is the thief of joy. True story. Don't compare yourself. It does no good. Commandment number 9. Thou shalt abstain from forbidden foods forevermore forbidden foods that is not something that should even be in your head anymore if you're away from dieting if you're on an intuitive eating diet diary what there we go there's 1 every episode isn't there there is something wrong with my ability to speak every single episode forbidden foods should not be in your mind that is not a thing anymore if you are on a journey if you're on the intuitive eating path, then we don't have forbidden foods. Because once you forbid something, you tell your brain you can't have that anymore and your brain goes you watch me you say I can't have it I want it I'm gonna get it it's it's so much easier to just be relaxed about it and just say if I want to have chocolate I'll have chocolate if I want to have cake I'll have cake if I want to have a whole pizza I'll have a whole pizza if I want to have 6 pizzas I'll have 6 pizzas I mean good on ya if you can eat 6 pizzas in 1 sitting fair do's but but if that's what you want go for it. No more forbidden foods. Oh good Lord. Do you know what it is? It's my my mind wants me to talk Bible speak and say forbidden fruit. Who knew that was in my head? Who knew that was ingrained? But anyway, forbidden foods. Let's just embrace all foods. Let's have balance of all foods. Let's be grateful for all foods. Let's enjoy all foods. Commandment number 10. Thou shalt find salvation in achieving the ideal weight. Here's an idea. What if you could find that salvation in self acceptance? What if you could find it in accepting your body, body neutrality, body love if you can get there right now but if you can't then just neutrality and acceptance is good. What if you found it in peace with food? What if you were able to just have the food you wanted, no guilt, no feeling bad, no making up for it, no consequences? You know, there's no need to be forever searching for this ideal weight. There is no ideal weight that is set on a scale. There is no grade for you to achieve. Your ideal weight is what your body wants it to be. And that will change over time because our bodies are living, breathing things. Your body weight, your ideal body weight is not set in stone. I am a very different body weight and type now to what I was 20, 25, 30 years ago. Well, definitely 30 years ago because I was a young teenager then. But you know what I mean. So what if we stop striving for it because it doesn't exist? What if we just let our body do what it needs to do and settle where it needs to settle. God that would be so much nicer wouldn't it? So much more relaxed. So there we go that's my 10 commandments of dieting that we are going to break. What do you think? They're good ones, right? I think. I do have an extra 1 though. Thou shalt give thanks to Wendy for supporting the podcast. I had not forgotten, Wendy. I had not forgotten. I just added it as an extra commandment. So yeah, Wendy was awesome and she supported the podcast. She dropped a little cake in my direction. And I'm really grateful for that. Really, really grateful because whenever somebody buys me a bit of cake, it's on buy me a coffee, right? But I've changed it to cake. So whenever somebody does that, whenever there's somebody supports the show, it means that I'm a little bit closer to doing this full time for you and that's what I ultimately want. I want to be able to keep the show going. I want to be able to keep talking to you and supporting you and providing things for you. So Wendy, you're awesome. Thank you. Right. Okay. I am done. I am done. I am going to get myself out of what is now a hot box of a room because I'm just in the office with everything shut because of Luna. The windows shut, the doors are shut, everything's shut and it's hot in here. And it doesn't help that I've now got a long sleeve top on on a hot day and the electronics that are kicking out the heat and stuff. So yeah, I'm going to get myself out of here. But thank you. I hope you enjoyed the episode. Just a little bit of fun in it today. Please don't get offended if you think I've taken religion too far. That is not what this is about. That's not what this is about. I'm just having a little bit of fun. All right. Right. I love you and leave you and I will speak to you really soon. See you later, bye.