Living a healthy lifestyle will only deprive you of poor health, lethargy, and fat. - Jill Johnson
I know yo-yo dieting like the back of my hand.
Unlike most people, I had a relatively healthy relationship with food for the majority of my teenage years. I was a competitive gymnast who spent over 20 hours in the gym each week; whatever I put into my body just turned into muscle. I was never the type to count calories or measure the nutrient density of the food I was eating.
Everything changed when I started college. I stopped doing gymnastics, and suddenly found out that what I was putting into my body did NOT make me feel good, and it showed inside and out. I ate chocolaty Cliff Bars for breakfast and stuffed myself at lunch. I ate grilled cheese sandwiches at 12 am. I drank vodka into the wee hours of the night. And that doesn't even cover all of my snacks in between! Needless to say, I gained the typical Freshman Fifteen and started to FREAK OUT about my body image. And so began the start of my yo-yo dieting.
From then on my weight fluctuated between 140 and 120. I tried everything that I knew how (and trust me, that wasn't a lot) - I tried began vegan, I tried not eating late at night, I even tried not eating at all. Each new diet would work for 3 months max, and then I would gain the weight back in half the time it took to lose it all. I was frustrated, exhausted, depressed and hopeless. I had the unhealthiest relationship with food, and it was all I could do to admit it to myself.
When I graduated in May of 2010 I weighed 142 pounds, and I felt disgusting. I was vegan, and had been for a year, but I was trapped by my diet. If I had a nibble of a vegan cookie, I felt so guilty that I would eat the whole box - I'd already screwed everything up with that one bite, right? And so this was how I found myself a few months after graduating from college - healthy on a basic nutritional level, but lost and directionless where it mattered most.
Then a friend recommended me to the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. I began to learn about Primary Food - the food that we don't actually eat, but that is sometimes more important than fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Primary Food feeds the soul; it is our relationships, our spirituality, our career, our exercise. Through the program, I began to focus on mending broken relationships, meditating more, and starting on a career path that I actually enjoyed and looked forward to doing each day. At the same time, I found the support to relax a little bit on my diet. I still eat lots of green leafy vegetables, whole grains, and fruits, but I no longer have a mental breakdown if I "slip up" and eat a chocolate chip cookie (vegan of course!).
It hasn't been an easy task. In fact, almost a year later, I'm still working on my emotional eating. The difference between now and a year ago, however, is that now I can recognize where my feelings are coming from and I can get the support I need to address them. I'm learning and growing every day, and I'm loving (nearly) every minute of it.
Does this sound like your story? If so, I can help you. I can be your support. I can teach you how to make the same small and simple changes to your diet and lifestyle that I made to mine that will help you lose weight, have more energy, and most importantly never have to diet again. Not only have I been trained in all of the traditional and modern nutritional theories, but I have personally experimented with a number of alternative healing techniques such as tapping, hydrocolonics, meditation, yoga, and supplements. If you're looking for a health guru, you've found her.
Are you curious about how health coaching can help you? Let’s talk. Schedule a FREE Ditch Your Diet Breakthrough Session with me today.
Stop Dieting. Start Living!
