This blog post introduces the two extremes of my clients’ journey from food obsession to food freedom. The starting point for many of them is food obsession, constant dieting or yo-yo dieting. This state is represented by Dieting Diana.
The goal state is food freedom, which although can be defined in many ways, is simply the opposite of the above. This is what my clients reach after working with me and it’s represented by Balanced Bianca.
NOTE: I taught an entire class on Diana’s and Bianca’s case study (a.k.a. from food obsession to food freedom) and you can watch the replay HERE if you want to know how to become Balanced Bianka.
In this 1-hour class, I talked about 5 of the most common mistakes that dieters (e.g. Dieting Diana) make that drive them to overeat and how to fix these issues (what Balanced Bianca does). Change these and you are on your way to food freedom.
It’s not the same content that you can read here.
Let’s see how these ladies eat, exercise, think, what they believe and how they relate to food and themselves.
Let me introduce you to Dieting Diana
Diana really wants to have a better relationship with food. She would like to look at food as something just to feed her body and get some pleasure from. She doesn’t want it to be her main source of joy, comfort and reward.
She wants to be able to enjoy food and have fun with her friends and family without thinking about what she’s eating or shouldn’t be eating all the time.
She doesn’t want to think about food as something evil that makes her become out of control.
Sometimes it feels like a monster takes over her body, and she can’t stop eating. She doesn’t even enjoy the food anymore but she just keeps eating.
She knows it’s possible to have a healthy relationship with food while also being at a healthy weight, but it seems really far away.
Like she just can’t quite get there.
She probably hasn’t found the right diet and the right exercise regime yet.
Or maybe her body is broken or she has some illness and that’s why it’s impossible for her to eat normally.
Something must be wrong with her because she has tried everything under the sun and nothing has worked. Low-carb, low-fat, keto, fasting, calorie counting, raw food, green juices, detox teas, pills, etc.
She never sees any long-term results of her efforts.
Even though she is putting forth HUGE EFFORTS.
Diana obsesses about food and exercise day in and day out.
She’s always thinking about what she “should” or “shouldn’t” be eating. She tries all the “guilt-free foods and recipes that help her lose weight” and feels extremely guilty when she’s not following her current food rules.
Even if she’s on track and losing weight, back in her mind she knows that it won’t last. She’s been through this so many times.
Eventually, she will quit and eat all the foods she “shouldn’t”. And she will gain the weight back.
But Diana keeps trying because there must be a diet that is just perfect for her. There must be! She can’t live like this forever!
Changing as soon as possible
She wants to change as soon as possible because she hates the way she looks. She needs a quick solution. She hides at home so others won’t see that she gained weight again. She needs to lose it quickly.
She’s constantly buying new diet books and programs, spends hours searching the internet, following weight loss gurus on social media, asking questions or just lurking in free diets and weight loss groups.
She watches other people‘s “What I eat a day” Instagram posts or YouTube videos and she tells herself that she should eat the same. The result: deprivation, guilt, shame. Why can’t I eat like her? She feels so hopeless to change she eats to comfort herself.
When she sees her friends or colleagues losing weight with the latest fad diet, she tries that miracle diet too (ignoring the fact that her friends and colleagues always gain the weight back).
Diana’s exercise habits
…Not to mention how much she tortures herself with all the cardio exercises. She runs every single day. She’s determined. It doesn’t matter if it rains or it’s hot outside, she runs. For a while… But all this exercise just makes her hungry and tired, so sooner or later she quits.
Then she joins the gym, hires a private instructor and goes there every morning before work. But she hates going to the gym. She feels self-conscious, everyone looks amazing there except her. She feels like she doesn’t belong there.
After a while getting up early, getting all sweaty and hot, and needing to shower before work are just getting too much. Work is stressful, she has so much to do, who has time for this nonsense anyway.
She actually used to enjoy yoga and that helped her release stress too, but that doesn’t burn enough calories, she can’t waste her time doing that.
But then she sees people on social media with beautiful tight bodies doing these cool exercise routines. And she can do it at home. Amazing! So she buys the program and follows it for weeks. She’s suffering but she doesn’t care. It’s all worth it! Until she injures herself and can’t do it any longer.
She actually can’t do any exercise for a while and she is sad because she will never be able to lose weight. So she comforts herself with food.
Diana is working really hard but on all the wrong things.
She’s slowly but surely losing hope.
If she could just crack the code on how to lose weight first, THEN she could finally work on having a better relationship with food and stop overeating all the time. She’s longing for food freedom.
It feels like she might get there someday but not now. She hasn’t lost weight yet.
Success is just around the corner but always out of reach.
Diana is spinning her wheels and is keeping herself stuck because she doesn’t yet know what Bianca knows. Bianca is already on her journey from food obsession to food freedom.
(But don’t worry. There’s hope for Diana too.)
Now meet Balanced Bianca
Balanced Bianca is approaching her eating differently.
She’s going to reach food freedom this year because the process she’s following is going to help her figure out all the details as they come up with the most ease and simplicity possible.
Bianca has a “figure it out” and “it doesn’t need to be so hard” mentality.
She’s also very certain about the direction she’s headed and why she wants to go there.
Bianca isn’t looking for new diets all the time.
She is laser-focused on following the ONE process she’s invested in learning and reaching food freedom following that simple, sustainable format.
She doesn’t think there is a perfect diet out there that she needs to find.
Bianca doesn’t even follow a diet. She’s learning to listen to what her body needs. She is CREATING the perfect diet for herself based on her unique body’s needs.
And it’s working just fine.
Read that again. She’s creating the “perfect” diet (as in a way of eating) instead of trying to find the perfect diet that someone else created and she would just need to follow.
In the meantime, she works on building a better relationship with food and her body too.
She knows that first, she needs to get rid of her overeating habit. She developed this habit because dieting made her survival brain panic. Her brain thought there was a problem with food supply when she was on a restrictive diet and considered it as an emergency situation. This body needs food! Now! So her brain sent very intense hunger signals to eat.
Overeating made her feel good at the beginning because her body was starving. So later her primitive brain offered this solution to every problem she had. Just eat! You will feel better!
Overeating became a habit.
Bianca knows that she needs to follow a process to decouple food from her mood first and dieting would just trigger her primitive brain again.
She trusts the process and takes the necessary steps.
She set aside weight loss and stopped trying to manipulate her body for now. By stopping overeating her body will go back to its happy weight anyway.
It’s easy for Bianca to stick to her process and not be tempted to quit and try another method or diet because she focuses on feeling good in her body instead of torturing it.
She knows when, how much and what to eat to feel satiated and satisfied.
Bianca doesn’t need someone else to give her a meal plan to follow.
How could someone know how much food and what kind of food would make her feel satiated and satisfied?
She also listens to her body when she exercises. She’s learning to read her body’s signals so she knows when to rest and take a breather.
Bianca doesn’t want shortcuts and quick-fix solutions anymore. She had enough of those, as you can probably imagine.
She likes to take it slow.
She is patiently doing the steps that will take her from food obsession to food freedom and she has an unshakable belief that she will get there.
She loves the new skills that come with figuring out how to be in the driving seat and create her best eating, exercise, thinking and believing habits.
She’s not in a hurry. She knows that weight loss (if necessary at all) is coming when her body starts to trust her and she’s managed to decouple her emotional states from eating. By that time her skills are going to be even sharper and she’ll know exactly how to think, believe, eat and feel to reach her happy weight.
It’s easy for Bianca to feel calm and enjoy the success she’s having because she’s following a system that works.
She has access to coaching and Q&A from a real, live person.
Her coach is someone who has already done what she’s doing and can help her find the best strategy when she’s unsure of the best choice to make or what to do next.
She gets her coaching, and then she confidently takes action on that decision and doesn’t second guess herself.
And it’s working. She can have the most stressful day and she has no urge to eat. She can be sad, angry, lonely, anxious or have any emotions and she doesn’t turn to food to feel better. She can go to restaurants, and enjoy her holidays and family events without overeating.
She stopped obsessing and she won back time and her love for life.
She has so much free time (that she used to spend researching diets) that she needs to figure out what to do with it.
That’s why Bianca is calm and confident. She’s having so much fun because it’s working.
Bianca is giddy with excitement when she thinks about her life three years from now.
She cannot wait to meet the version of her that she is creating.
Bianca knows her success is inevitable. There is zero doubt whatsoever.
She will get there no matter what, and she’s enjoying the milestones and new skills she’s developing along the way.
What is the takeaway, here?
Diana spins in confusion, doubt and overwhelm. She feels hopeless and she’s so hard on herself that she makes herself feel bad all the time. And then she comforts herself with food.
Bianca is celebrating small successes relating to her eating habits and other areas of her life daily.
She’s so solid in her own ability to always “figure it out” and not quit that her confidence is spilling over into her marriage her parenting, and, of course, her own results.
Everyone in her life can feel her calm confidence.
It’s stressful to be Diana.
It’s fun and empowering to be Bianca.
I’m looking for 5 Dianas who want to become Biancas. My 1 on 1 Coaching Program is the exact process that turns Dianas into Biancas, i.e. the journey from food obsession to food freedom.
If you feel like you would be the perfect match book a free discovery call here or you can simply purchase the program here.
NOTE:
I taught an entire class on Diana’s and Bianca’s case study (a.k.a. from food obsession to food freedom) and you can watch the replay HERE if you want to know how to become Balanced Bianka.
In this 1-hour class, I talked about 5 of the most common mistakes that dieters (e.g. Dieting Diana) make that drive them to overeat and how to fix these issues (what Balanced Bianca does). Change these and you are on your way to food freedom.
It’s not the same content that you read here.
