It’s Not Just That Diets Don’t Work, It’s How Well You DO

It’s Not Just That Diets Don’t Work, It’s How Well You DO (aka Baby You Were Born This Way)

If you are dieting, you are getting further and further away from ending up at comfortable in your own skin.

The good news is that as soon as you understand that there is nothing that you can do to change who you are, you will start heading back in the direction of getting what you want.

(Once you know you weren’t born to slave away on the diet plantation, you’ll start looking for the door.)

No matter what you currently weigh, you came right out of the box with your naturally slim, built-in, and plugged in.

(If what you want is to eat what you like to eat, when you want to eat it, lose weight – and never find it again – you would do well to do whatever you can to accept this reality.)

As it turns out, the most promising and straightforward thing you can do – if what you want is to find your way back to your ideal and natural weight – is to put as much distance between change, and you, as you can get.

Ridiculous, you might say, to make that kind of claim, knowing what we all know about the statistics in this country regarding the number of people who are labeled as overweight or obese.

I would say – based on my personal and professional experience – and more importantly, the laws and force of nature – that what is ridiculous is believing that you should – or even can – alter who you are to change the shape of your body.

You already are who you want to be.

You were born All and naturally Ready.

And natural never goes away.

You might believe – like I did before I stopped dieting and gaining weight – that everything would be different and better, if only you could manage to be different, and better for long enough forever.

Or if you could just somehow, miraculously- because certainly it would take a miracle – turn into *one of those kind of people* – you know, those anomalies who more often than not eat when they’re hungry and stop when they’re full – then, even though it might not happen overnight, you could believe that getting to and easily maintaining your ideal weight would just be a matter of time.

As with anything, if that is what you want, focus on what the people who have what you want are doing , not on what the people who have what you don’t want, are doing.

(If you want to learn how to speak French, do you ask someone to teach you who speaks German?)

If you want to be done with dieting forever, but you also want to be comfortable in your own skin, this is the statistic you want to concern yourself with…the millions of people born and raised right here in the United States who are easily maintaining their weigh, without suffering and struggling or depriving or dieting.

How do you explain these people?

(And you know the answer is not “because all of those people exercise.”)

(If we laid out all the people from end to end who eat what they want, who don’t exercise, and who easily maintain their natural weight, we’d literally and figuratively be trippin’ over those millions of people in the world, too.)

The reality is that people who are not exactly like *those people* are few and far between, and that of course there’s no turning you into one one of those people.

The reason why you know the answer, the reason why you are the answer, is because you were born one of those people.

Courtesy of the miracle of your birth, you grew into one in a matter of months.

Predestined and pre-programmed with systems in place to let you know when you need sleep, and when you’ve had enough for now.

When you need water, and when you’ve had enough for now.

When you need food, and when you’ve had enough for now.

When you have to go to the bathroom, and when you’ve had enough of that, for now.

When you want to turn up the radio because you can’t hear it, or turn it down because it’s too loud for your ears, it’s because you were born attuned to your senses.

And to respond accordingly.

You were born able to efficiently “mind” your own business.

Designed to tune into you. Forever.

Until…

“We interrupt your originally scheduled programming to bring you this lifestyle change.”

Someone started minding your business for you.

Someone started turning the radio up, all the while you were saying, but wait, it’s loud enough, right now, for me.

You said, “I’m full, I don’t want anymore right now.”

Someone responded (for you).

“Well that doesn’t matter.  It doesn’t matter if it’s already loud enough in here for you.  Let’s turn it up louder.”

“Whether you are or are not hungry is not how to figure out if you’re going to keep eating.”

Someone said  ”This is a celebration.” or  ”Clean your plate, I’m done packing it up for the kids in Africa like we do after every meal, the least you can do is eat what they’re not going to get.” or “I made this especiallly for you.”

Someone let you know that what you wanted didn’t matter as much as what they wanted did.

Someone let you know that it was going to make them uncomfortable if you didn’t eat, and that their discomfort was your responsibility.

Someone told you that it was alright – preferred even – if you be uncomfortable, so that they could be comfortable.

You quickly found out that as soon as you did what Someone wanted you to do that would make them feel better, that they would then leave you alone about it.

And then you felt better.  Uncomfortable, but better.

Someone taught you that uncomfortable equals better.

(And of course, pay enough attention to that Someone, like they want you to,  and eventually that Someone changes their tune to, oh my,  you need to lose some weight, you need  to stop eating so much, you need to go on a diet.)

There was a time when the Someones couldn’t get to you.

Before they started trying to clip your wings, you developed enough so that the Someones could start teaching you their language, you were blissfully unaware of the impact that your eating or not eating had on them.

Whether you wanted to eat or not,  it was only in response to your body’s cues, and nothing they could say – since you couldn’t understand what they were saying – made any difference.

(No one says to a baby, “hey, finish your peas or I won’t put you in your bouncy” and expects that the baby will then get all over that.)

As an infant, operating under the benevolent influence and strength of your pre-programming, you communicated when you were hungry, uncomfortable, tired, wet, bored.

Unless and until you could be taught “food as a second language” of love and fulfillment… “you want to relax… you are restless… you are uncomfortable… you are bored… you feel great…you feel awful…you are physically full but there is more on your plate or in the box or in the bag or in the refrigerator = EAT” – there was no getting around your biologically driven lifestyle.

Like too many people, your learned inclination became to focus on a myriad of things that may not be designed to, but do serve to keep the real, pre-installed you off-center and out of focus.

The result is you not being able to see that you are already doing what you want to get done.

For example, it may have been suggested to you that you pay attention to how much you eat, not to how much you don’t eat.

Like most people, you’ve probably been encouraged to question why you start eating, rather than to note that every time, no matter what, you stop.

(Which to be clear – and is the only record that you should be keeping and playing over and over if what you want is the stopping – is just as often as you start.)

Isn’t the truth about you that no matter what the circumstances are, or what kind of food it is or how much there is of it, there is always a limit to what and how much you will eat?

That no matter how much you eat, you are a person who every single time leaves food, whether it’s on the plate or in the restaurant, in the bag or cupboard.

With what you’re already and routinely doing without being aware of it, what more can you imagine will happen when you are?

What I know about you is this, and it’s important.

If the radio is turned up too loudly for you, you’ll take care of it, and right away.

It’s just how you are.

You my dear Dear, can’t help yourself.

You are one of those “freaks of nature”, one of “those people” who was born designed to eat when you are hungry, and to stop when you are satisfied, and to happily and easily maintain your natural weight, all the while.

That is your default.

Come and get your freak on.

What say you, dear Dear Reader… what are the signs that you can see that you were born this way?

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