Don't Should on Yourself

Don't Should on Yourself
Many years ago, my wonderful friend Jan was explaining to
me how she counsels patients on making small changes in
their diets in order to lose weight. She told me that one
of the major stumbling blocks people experience with weight
loss is guilt. Not that they can't follow a specific plan
for eating, nor that they don't like to exercise. Well,
that's certainly part of it-but the main factor is that, as
a result of not being able to meet their goals, they feel
they have failed, because they didn't do what they "should"
have been doing.

Because her clients were constantly telling her "I should
eat better," I should exercise more," "I should not have
had those cookies, because now I am a bad person," she came
up with this wonderful phrase: don't SHOULD on yourself.

Isn't that a wonderful piece of advice? Of course, you need
to be careful how you say it and who's around when you are
saying it; but-when said correctly, it covers a lot of
feelings.

Think about it for a moment. How do you feel when you feel
you have done things you shouldn't have done? How do you
feel when you didn't meet your exercise goal? When you
didn't lose all the weight you thought you should lose in a
week? Probably not good. Why do you think this is the
case? Usually it's because you've set yourself a goal (run
5 miles every day OR never eat chocolate again) that is
impossible to meet. Then, when you don't meet that goal,
you feel lousy. For some reason, while we often say
"patience is a virtue", we are unable to apply it to very
personal situations, such as improving our health by losing
weight and beginning to exercise. We set amazingly
unrealistic goals (lose 25 pounds, run the marathon) and
expect to be able to accomplish these goals-yesterday. We
set high expectations for ourselves, goals that are
impossible to meet. Then, when we are unable to live up to
these expectations , we have failed-never understanding we
set ourselves up for failure in the first place.

Becoming "at peace with food" is a journey involving the
development of a new relationship with food. Instead of
being marked by frustration and disappointment, by fear and
competition between you and the food you eat, food
eventually takes its place as one of the many activities in
your life, along with family, friend, working and being
active.

When you are at peace with food, and at peace with
yourself, you find that the decisions you make about your
health are more realistic. You learn to move more slowly,
realizing that you are not in a race to become healthy.
Rather, you are developing a new relationship with
yourself, and new relationships, if they are to be good
ones, take time. You learn to set realistic goals,
starting off slowly and building up. For example, you start
by walking an extra five minutes three times/week, and
build it up to 25-30 minutes three times a week. You
realize that you are full after eating 2 cookies, so you
don't have to eat five. You learn to appreciate smaller
portions, because you know you are allowed to eat more if
you want.

Finally, you learn how to change behaviors because you
realize you want to, not because you should.

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If you would like more information on becoming At Peace
With Food™, as well as access to interesting articles and
links to nutritional resource websites, visit=>
http://www.AtPeaceWithFood.com/freetips.html