Why Diet's do not work!

Your normal Diet= what you eat on an everyday basis.
Dieting=a change in the way you eat so as to lose weight
Gaining weight= is what happens when you stop dieting and go back to your normal diet!

I have seen this over and over. I have been particularly watching this phenomenon for the last 32 years because if you read my whole blog you see that I went the route of dieting until I worked myself into an eating disorder or actually what I call disordered eating. (this means out of whack, crazy, out of control eating!)
This is what I believe is true and I believe that truth can set us free.

1. Our bodies are created to eat lots of food. Not just any food, but live food. (live food is food that can sprout or food that can rot) Have you ever noticed that McDonald's French fries do not rot?
When you eat a large amount of live food you feel satisfied. Your teeth get to crunch as much as they want to. You can actually get tired of eating.

2. Processed food leaves us wanting more. It has more calories, yet it does not satisfy. So when we go on a "diet" and restrict our calories and we are eating processed foods, then our bodies start to really scream out for more.

3. In order to arrive and stay at our God given body size, we need to eat smart, not less.

4. Whether we have been overweight all of our lives, or are just starting to gain weight for the first time, the only way to get back to our God given body size and stay there is through a life style change. What change can you live with for the rest of your life? One small change can make huge impact on the rest of your life and make a big difference.

5. We need to pay attention to our metabolism, not restricting calories. When you restrict calories you slow down your metabolism. When your metabolism slows down you gain weight easier- this is why people gain weight back after dieting and often a little bit more. The way to increase your metabolism is by exercising, building muscle and eating more (of the right foods)

6. When we deny ourselves food to the point of real hunger and then tell ourselves that we can't have food, then we set ourselves for fixating on food. When we fixate on food while denying ourselves, then we can't wait to have the food that we are denying ourselves of. So when people go off diets they often eat a lot of the food that they have been missing and probably more of it than they would have before dieting. This can be a vicious cycle of defeat.

What I often see is that people say that they do not have self control. They feel really bad about themselves inside because they can not control what they eat. What I believe is that if we are eating large amounts of raw unprocessed foods, our weight will normalize and our cravings will subside. We won't need that much self control.

This all begins in our minds. The first healthy thing that I did that turned the tide for me was focusing my thoughts on what was healthy for me. I thought about how good I felt when I exercised and moved my body. Then I thought about how crummy I felt when eating donuts, or other processed goodies that have little nutrition. I thought about how good I feel when I eat raw fruits and veggies. These thoughts became my actions. With God's help, these thoughts also replaced the ones that said," I have no self control, I am so bad!" (these thoughts just let to more out of control eating! Self condemnation does not work!) The negative thoughts brought me to a downward spiral. I now tell myself the truth- God has not given us a spirit of fear. He gave us a spirit of power and love and self-control. 1 Timothy 1:7. I know this seems simplistic, but God has created our minds to be really powerful and we can change our actions with correct thinking.