Diet and Deprivation

Stop!!! Don't diet. Many of us will agree that when we think of dieting we think of deprivation. What does deprivation mean? Deprivation is basically feeling like we are not allowed to have the things that we desire. The truth is that all of us deserve to have the desires of our hearts. We just need to figure out what those desires are sometimes.

In this article I want to do a little analyzing with you about eating behaviors. What happens when someone tells you that you can't have something? We all know the answer to this one. We rebel and we take it. This is because we know that we are valuable and that no one should tell us no unless it is ourselves. What happens if we know that we are allowed to have something? One of two things can happen. We can enjoy the something or we can over-indulge in the something. It all depends on how we feel about eating the something. If we can get past the bad feelings and the guilt then we can start to enjoy and not over-indulge.

What happens when we enjoy something? For example, you enjoy an activity. So you want to do that activity often and you want to spend a lot of time doing it. With food we need to get to the point of enjoying it. What I mean by this is that we need to spend a lot of time eating it. We need to take our time and actually taste it. We can do this by taking smaller bites and moving it around in our mouths. We need to actually taste it. Two things can happen from this. The first one is that we can taste all of the flavors that are in the food. The second thing that might happen is that we might decide that we may not like that food like we thought we did. Also when a person takes time to eat their food they are less likely to overeat. (More than likely you will probably lose weight too.) The reason for this is because it takes work to eat. If you truly chew your food like you are supposed to it takes a long time to eat.

So what have we learned in this article? You should eat what you want. You should enjoy the food that you eat. You should taste the food that you eat. Do not eat anything that you do not like. Never feel guilty for what you eat. You are valuable and you can have anything that you want. You will be amazed at how your view of yourself will change if you decide to follow this way of eating. Also do not worry about malnutrition. Your body will tell you what it needs. You will crave certain foods. Listen to your body and you will be fine.