Skip to content

Dustin LindenSmith

writer • reviewer • musician

Menu
  • About
  • Bio
  • Music
  • Contact
Menu

How I finally learned that diets don’t work

Posted on Thu Feb 2nd 2017Thu Mar 4th 2021 by Dustin

On gratitude and self-acceptance

In retrospect, I now understand that I needed to cultivate some measure of self-acceptance and self-compassion before I could start moving into recovery. It was only after I first started to believe that I was “worth it,” that I could begin to question if I honestly needed to use food that way anymore. With time and perseverance, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I no longer felt such a pressing need to eat that way so often. I started to learn that I could stay calm and relaxed throughout the day without overeating or binge-eating, and this insight became one of the first tangible steps I took towards ED recovery.

These early efforts at reversing my failure-based mindset were also helped immensely by writing out a series of positive personal affirmations that I would read out loud to myself every morning. I moved my focus away from trying to control my diet and my weight, towards learning how to love and accept myself as I was, right in that minute, even if I’d just “failed myself” by hitting another drive-thru the night before. That was the first and only thing that actually got me to reduce those disordered eating behaviours that I had been battling for so long.

When I reflect on this now, I actually find myself feeling grateful that I developed a dependence on only food for my emotional comfort as a teen. I could have easily chosen alcohol, drugs, crime or sex as coping mechanisms instead. However, since my drug of choice happened to be food, I never needed to go anywhere other than my own kitchen or to the corner store to get my fix. If that step-parent had been just a bit more dangerous or harmful, then food might not have done the trick, which might have made me turn to something harder. Sometimes I laughingly wonder if I owe that person thanks for not having treated me badly enough to make me become a criminal. Today, I also celebrate other moments of gratitude, such as mindfulness of what I’m doing while I clean the house, do the dishes, prepare a meal, or take care of my kids. Successfully accomplishing those simple tasks actually makes me feel like a better person each day.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Categories

  • business
  • health
  • music
  • parenting
  • personal
  • philosophy
  • politics
  • science and technology

Tags

addiction amazon.com arturo sandoval atlantic jazz festival book review buddhism concert review contemporary cosmic inflation dave douglas donnie palmer dr arya sharma economy food addiction free will geneen roth habits jazz jeff bezos jerry granelli john scofield jon ballantyne kenny garrett lee konitz lewis lapham marianne trudel mindfulness nonduality obesity parenting Partners for Healthier Weight PfHW psychology rap recovery rémi panossian shambhala skip beckwith snoop dogg support the nature of time thomas enhco toddlers vlcd wealth gap

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org
©2021 Dustin LindenSmith | Built using WordPress and Responsive Blogily theme by Superb